Making Lemonade: Overclocking Your Locked AMD Processor

[Guest]

We're spoiled. We know we are. Most of our AMD-oriented overclocking efforts center on unlocked Black Edition CPUs. But what if you're running a standard Phenom II? Today we show you how to get just as much performance from it using three techniques.

Making Lemonade: Overclocking Your Locked AMD Processor : Read more

 

[stray_gator]

What's the point of using a high-end mobo to overclock a mainstream/value cpu?

 

[sohei]

it's about how to squeeze all performance from an locked cpu .
this is a pro' article (head shot)

 

[nzprogamer]

im a big amd fans, good stuff here, look forward to go back to amd

 

[amdfangirl]

Good article! Too bad I killed my AMD CPU

 

[brisingamen]

great article, should be more like it,
and a few more gaming benches wouldnt hurt either guys!
speaking of headshots yes unreal tournament is probably the most important game to exemplify the value of overclocking and added framerates due to "headshots" and shtuff.

keep up the good work!

 

[Onus]

[citation][nom]stray_gator[/nom]What's the point of using a high-end mobo to overclock a mainstream/value cpu?[/citation]
Fair question; no one would likely do this IRL, but I think the point here was to see how high the locked CPU could go, so they used a premium mobo.
Paul, now that we know what this specific CPU can do, would it be useful to now put it on a more typical mainstream mobo and see what one might get from the same chip under more typical conditions?
The point would be to answer the following: if my budget just grew by $25, does it make more sense to buy a BE CPU or to get a more premium mobo?

 

[haplo602]

[citation][nom]stray_gator[/nom]What's the point of using a high-end mobo to overclock a mainstream/value cpu?[/citation]

because value mobos vary in stability much more than premium mobos. this article was just about the CPU limit, not the mobo limit.

 

[Guest]

Tom's should do a shoot-out between an i7 920 and a 965BE that's had the multiplier taken down to 13x(2.6ghz), then both OCed to the max on the northbridge alone. I'm sure that would close the gap atleast somewhat, but I'm interested to see exactly how much. Maybe they could screw around with the HyperTransport multiplier as well, it might turn out that AMD has been shooting itself in the foot with the unlocked multiplier, when more performance would be had if they were forcing people to use the northbridge.

 

[Shadow703793]

Good write up; but PLEASE do NOT recommend OCing via Windows. Most pro's here will tell you that same thing. BIOS > Windows for OCing.

 

[Shadow703793]

Also how about putting this under WCing or DIce/LN2?

 

[Ryun]

In the performance gains and the cpu tweaking page the graphs for world in conflict are switched.

 

[dirtmountain]

Excellent article! Thank you for the work.

 

[DarkMantle]

Very good article!. Ryun is right, those 2 graphs for World in Conflict are switched.

 

[Upendra09]

I was planning on OCing but this article has made me afraid to OC, it seems there are a lot more factors involved in this than i thought.

 

[saint19]

Really good article, in the pass I has a X2 6400+, and only can overclok 100MHz....now with the 955 I have 600MHz more that the stock frecuency....

 

[cybot_x1024]

nice article.
Amd has really improved overclockability with the dragons.

 

[Guest]

Who cares how high an AMD cpu hz will go when an i7 cpu with half the speed does more on every level.

 

[bustapr]

wow great increases fom a triple core. 2.6 to 3.7 is great!

 

[Guest]

Shreder: You are a perfect example of a brainwashed sheep. Core i7 has been shown to have a definite advantage in:

Video Rendering(I don't care, maybe you do)
Synthetic Benchmarks(yawn)
Specific games that have been "optimized"(rigged) to perform better on an i7

Other than that, the advantage ranges from neglible to non-existant. Unfortunately, there are people like you who swallow every bit of the fanboy articles with cherry-picked benchmarks...

 

[Boxa786]

Like Shadow said, its obviously a really good cpu, for overcloking from amd,

lets see how high it can go ;D

 

[tkgclimb]

been waiting for this article for a while, I actually OC my black edition proccesor like this so I can have CnQ enabled.

I do have one question though
If I OC by changing the reference clock and the CPU Voltage (board cpu voltage like in article because CnQ is enabled)
But I don't touch the Ram settings, HT multiplier, NB multi, or any of their voltages. Their speed does go up do to the raising of the reference clock. IS this OK, (I know I might be able to reach A higher CPU overclock if I lower their settings, but I can't do to CPU temps right now).

 

[cinergy]

[citation][nom]Shreder[/nom]Who cares how high an AMD cpu hz will go when an i7 cpu with half the speed does more on every level.[/citation]

Non-Intel fanbois? Just guessing...

 

[pauldh]

[citation][nom]jtt283[/nom]Fair question; no one would likely do this IRL, but I think the point here was to see how high the locked CPU could go, so they used a premium mobo.Paul, now that we know what this specific CPU can do, would it be useful to now put it on a more typical mainstream mobo and see what one might get from the same chip under more typical conditions?The point would be to answer the following: if my budget just grew by $25, does it make more sense to buy a BE CPU or to get a more premium mobo?[/citation]
Yup, in this one we wanted to demonstrate how to do it, and avoid the mobo being the limiting factor. But I like your suggestion and think it could be an interesting story.

 

[pauldh]

[citation][nom]Ryun[/nom]In the performance gains and the cpu tweaking page the graphs for world in conflict are switched.[/citation]
Thanks. I saw that too and put in a request to have them swapped. Took a few hours though since it was still early on the West coast.