AMD Overclocking Club

[truegenius]

Asus M4A77TD pro 8+1
http://asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3/M4A77TD_PRO/

Asus M4A77TD 4+1
http://usa.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3/M4A77TD/

i checked it in pictures of boards, in asus website, in reviews, and then i made the comment

your 965 is c3

 

[king smp]

okay
newegg item description
8+1 Phase Power Design
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131397&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-RSSDailyDeals-_-na-_-na&AID=10521304&PID=4176827&SID=1r98rpxl893hr


"To fully unleash the AM3 CPU's potential, the ASUS M4 series motherboards have adopted an 8-phase VRM power design"

http://reviews.cnet.com/motherboards/asus-m4a77td-pro-motherboard/1707-3049_7-33737226.html


now the TD pro is described as a 8+1
but also Cnet states that manafacturer specs out ALL M4 as 8+1
your link to newegg and asus website didnt specify anything

why would they make a M4A77TD and a Pro version with completley different setups?
that would be more expensive to produce

I will admit that this deserves more research and I will admit to the possibility that I could be wrong
I have to go now but later i will research it
IF you are right TrueGenius then I will apologise
but your sources DONT support your statement while currently mine do

but lets play friendly okay?

 

[truegenius]

its simple
count the choke near cpu power cable
i am friendly

 

[truegenius]

oh another method

the simplest method is

" Oh God ( saint19 ), our almighty tell us the truth "

(to change answer, in pm) here is your green

 

[saint19]

After take a look of both models, I found this:

1) ASUS M4A77TD was built using a 4+1 power design
2) ASUS M4A77TD Pro was built using a 8+1 power design

 

[Motopsychojdn]

And I concur
Moto

 

[bardacuda]

Been reading about the 4 power phase design - not going to lie it's worrying me! Apparently this stresses the mosfets, and in MSI boards they can burst into flames. Is it worth looking at buying some heat spreaders to stick on? Already had to RMA my board once! Not sure I can OC my processor much more, even if it is just with turbo core
Does OC'ing the nb make a noticeable difference to performance?

I have an MSI NF980-G65 and I popped my VRMs just a couple months ago trying to OC above 4.1GHz. I am stable at 4.0 with only 1.47V but any higher and it doesn't seem to matter how much voltage I give it. I had set the voltage to 1.5 in the BIOS, but when stress testing the voltage will go much higher. I stopped paying attention for a sec, then looked at the screen, saw HW Monitor reporting 1.58V, thought to myself "Oh no, I have to shut-...." and before I could finish the thought my PC just died lol.

MSI took the RMA no questions asked but now I got a refurbished one and it randomly quits on me sometimes during boot up. I'm gonna have to RMA it again but I just can't be bothered at the moment. It only cost $12 in shipping and took less than a week, but it's a big hassle to tear everything out of the case and an even bigger hassle to put everything back together. (plus having no computer for a week 'cause I gave away my old backup one to a friend)

So I guess the moral of the story is, yes, MSI boards will pop (or even catch fire), but probably won't unless you really abuse it like I did. Also, MSI did address the issue with their boards after the 890FXA-GD65 and started using higher quality MOSFETs, but since your board is older than that the risk is there. Just don't allow the voltage to get above 1.5 and you should be fine. Mine was undergoing stress tests for several hours at 1.52V+, and had to get all the way to 1.58 before it popped, so even if it does creep a little higher than 1.5V I wouldn't worry, but I wouldn't let it stay there for too long is all.

Oh yeah and upping the NB will give you a small but noticeable boost. You should be able to go to 2400MHz no problem. 2600 or 2800 should be do-able with a small increase to your CPU-NB to 1.25ish.

 

[bardacuda]

Dayumn! That's a lot of voltage!

Hmm I'm lookin' at that board and it does seem to have a nice beefy heatsink on the VRMs. Mine has a heatsink too (and I even removed the crappy rubber thermal pad and replaced it with some Arctic MX-2) but it still popped. Maybe all the x90FX boards have good MOSFETs? I dunno, but I wouldn't risk anything too high with an 870a board though. It doesn't even have a heatsink.

 

[bardacuda]

I've done a bunch of reading on this already and found it's mostly limited to MSI boards. I even mentioned/asked about it in this thread about a year ago but never got a response.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/page-261868_29_300.html#t1915827

There's a couple great threads over at overclockers.net about this issue which started by xd_1771 warning people about it. Some ppl had their boards die just by upgrading from a 95W CPU to a 125W CPU without even OCing:

http://www.overclock.net/t/943109/about-vrms-mosfets-motherboard-safety-with-125w-tdp-processors

And another guy put together a pretty comprehensive list of AMD boards and their overclocking potential/failure rates:

http://www.overclock.net/t/946407/amd-motherboard-vrm-information-list

I'm going to go ahead and say this is highly suggested reading for anybody worried about blowing up their AMD PC. *cough* Rrruby *cough*

 

[king smp]

oh another method

the simplest method is

" Oh God ( saint19 ), our almighty tell us the truth "

(to change answer, in pm) here is your green http://usdollaretf.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/dollar.jpg

My apologies to you Sir
I bow to your infinite knowledge
I am not worthy


never trust Cnet I guess LOL

I have alot to learn

 

[rrruby]

Interesting read bardacuda, thank you!

I don't plan to go any higher than 3.8GHz, but I fold a lot, therefore the CPU is at 100% a lot... Still, think next time I get paid, it'll be worth investing in some cooling for the mosfets and the nb.

Currently at NB 2400 and HT link 2400, and everything seems to be okay.

 

[bardacuda]

No problem. I set mine to 3840 (240x16) for a 24/7 OC and it is stable at 1.36V. HT link is at 2160. From what I understand overclocking the HT link does not help performance any and it can actually cause it to decrease and give you instabilities so I try to keep it as close to 2000 as possible.

 

[rrruby]

Might reduce the HT link then. Can't honestly say I changed it, must've done it automatically when I changed CPU-NB freq.

I have noticed something else too. In my bios, the CPU voltage is something like 1.36. But in every monitoring program I've looked at (cept overdrive, which is always wrong), they say I'm at 1.44V, and worryingly. control centre said 1.61. Now, I'm assuming that I am at 1.44V, but I thought the bios was always right?

 

[bardacuda]

Hardware monitor or CPU-Z will give you an accurate reading. The setting in the BIOS is the minimum voltage but it will go up while the CPU is under load.

 

[rrruby]

Ok thanks, CPUID is showing 1.44V, and my current fluctuation is 1.43-1.44V is HW monitor, they sound ok to me. Just wanted to double check.

 

[bardacuda]

that's some serious fluctuation..
(difference in readings)

Yeah I've seen mine go 80mV above my bios setting. I think it's these damn MSI AMD boards.

 

[rrruby]

Sounds like I picked a peach of a board then

Also, Idk if you guys do any folding, but even after OC'ing, my time per frame hasn't changed. This would lead me to believe it isn't the limiting factor.
Could this be ram related? Because i can't get my vengeance stable at 1600MHz, so i've left them at 1333. Tbh, I just don't know enough about ram timings. If you think this could be a problem, I'll try harder!

Btw, thank you for all the help!

 

[bardacuda]

I've never folded but I think it mostly depends on your video card's compute performance.

@Mal - Yeah I like to play poker but haven't been playing too much lately

http://www.bluffmagazine.com/thepokerdb/dewd420/PokerStars/1614055/player-profile.asp

 

[rrruby]

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/515/ramxmp.png/

So i should set these timings on 1:4?

 

[rrruby]

Okay, so I set the above timings, 9-9-9-24-41 the 1T and 1:4, then leave all the other timings on auto?

 

[bardacuda]

In my BIOS I can look at the XMP timings and it gives all of them....TWR, TWTR, TRRD, TRTP....a few of them are given in nanoseconds instead of clocks but that's also how they are entered in the BIOS so it works out. At 200 FSB you will need to set the ratio to 1:4 to get 1600MHz.

@ Mal - Not sure what you mean by municipal. I don't have a steam account. I'm pretty cheap these days lol. Only games I play lately are World of Tanks and Skyrim.

 

[bardacuda]

Oh lol...no I gave that up almost 4 years ago. Once in a blue moon maybe (like maybe once a year if that) I made that pokerstars account before that though lol.

 

[rrruby]

Currently running them at the bios xmp info. About to stat up linX. Shall report back soon

 

[bardacuda]

Hahaha I was hogging all the good stuff too. Super dense with lots of crystals.

 

[rrruby]

Right. At 1T, using 512mb linx loads, pc froze. had to hold in power button. At 2T, 512 passes, but at 768Mb it stops on error. Argh! Shall I 'loosen' the timing? Like 10-10-10-24?