NB Voltage and overclocking to 3.8ghz

[zealengine]

I have the following setup...

Asus M4A79XTD MB
AMD PH II X4 955 3.2ghz BE
Sunbeam freezer with AS5
Saphire Radeon 4890
4gb Gskill PC 1600 DDR3
2x 1 TB Seagate HD (Raid 1)
Antec 300 case with extra fans (all air exiting the case is cool)
500w Thermaltake psu

After much research, I have been able to get a stable overclock of 200 x17 (2200 HT, 2200 NB) at 1.4v cpu, 1.175 cpu/nb (stable prime 95 for hours, max load 52c). However, if I push much beyond that, I prime95 usually wont last longer than a few minutes.

My question is - I have read that I should be running between 1.175-1.25v for my cpu/nb, but the problem is my bios has THREE "NB voltage settings", they are...

CPU/NB Volt
NB Volt
NB 1.8 Volt

Assuming I am aiming for a 3.8ghz overclock, can anyone tell me what THOSE THREE voltages should be? I also imagine I might need to bump up my cpu voltage higher than 1.4v, but I have heard people say they get to 3.8 stable at 1.4 by only bumping their NB voltage...

*BTW do my ram settings matter when overclocking? I am currently 1600hz at 1.5v 9-9-9-24 timings.

Thanks in advance!

 

[OvrClkr]

First off, if you are doing ANY overclocking at all you need to leave the Cool n Quite disabled, the only time you use CnQ is when you are running your CPU at 3.2Ghz (STOCK), for power-saving reasons. Remember that you can raise your VCORE as high as you want as long as your CPU's temp is at a tolerable level. You do not want your CPU to exceed 60c, so as long as your CPU stays cool you can keep raising the voltage. 1.5v is what most users use for a 4Ghz overclock so you can go ahead and try that as well. From what I see your temps are too high if you have a Core Contact Freezer.. I have a buddy that has a 965 overclocked to 4.2Ghz and his max temps are 55c at load. So you might want to check your overall case airflow and cable management to get optimal results....

 

[zealengine]

Well I havent been having any luck getting to 200x19, here is the highest stable settings I have found thus far...

cpu bus freq - 200
pcie freq 100

cpu ratio - 18.5
cpu/nb freq - 2400hz
cpu voltage - 1.4875v
cpu/nb voltage - 1.175v
cpu vdda volt - 2.7v

HT linkspeed - 2000hz
HT linkwidth - AUTO
HT Volt - AUTO

DRAM freq - 1333hz
DRAM Volt - 1.5v
(under timings there were dozens of settings, however I set the traditional CL, tRCD, tRP and tRAS to 9-9-9-24)

NB Volt - AUTO (amd overdrive shows 1.1v)
NB 1.8v - AUTO
SB Volt - AUTO (amd overdrive shows 1.35v, which is max... odd)

The above runs prim95 for hours on end, maxing out around 55c. If I bump to 200x19 I crash within 2 minutes.

Another intersting thing I noticed - the above settings are stable, but if I bump the HT freq to 2000hz I crash in a matter of minutes. I wonder if I should try increasing the ht voltage? Or are we sure a 2000hz ht is 'fast enough' and wont be a bottleneck?

 

[OvrClkr]

Have you tried raising the cpu/nb to 1.3v with the cpu/nb frequency at 2400?