Phenom II 955 overvolting question

iDevil

iDevil

iDevil

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Hi guys, got my 955 today, and was wondering about over volting.


The CPU will run nicely at it's max rated voltage of 1.4v @ 3.8GHz at about 50°C under full load from prime95 with an arctic cooling 64 freezer pro, but I can't get it any higher clocks stable on this voltage.

I've breifly had it at 4.0GHz at ~1.54v, which is a 10% voltage increase, but I'm concerned as to whether and how much this may shorten the life of the CPU running with this voltage/clock speed permanently.

I use the machine for gaming. It doesn't stay on 24/7, it's shut down overnight but spends most of the day running. I have a 5870 on the way for it aswell so I'd like to make the most of it's performance with a fast CPU, not sure whether it might bottleneck the 5870 or not.

Let me know your thoughts :) cheers
 
Not too sure about the voltage, The shorten of life is pretty BS as the chips are designed to last for a long long time and you would most probably of upgraded by then (some guy stated on the forum somewhere), I don't no how bad it does affect the chip at that voltage as long as your pushing a high clock through it should be ok.

Most people suggest that you don't go over the 1.5 threshold if your computer is left on all the time.

A 3.8Ghz is good overclock anyways. I don't think you get a lot (if any) with a Phenom II, bottlenecking only really happens if your running a 5870 at x8 speed instead of x16 as some cheaper motherboards do. Motherboards bottleneck your computer as well.

Theres a bit of performance to be gained by overclocking but if your serouisly trying to get the most out of it for gaming why don't you add another 5870? If you worried about bottlenecking get a high end motherboard if you don't have one already?
 
rumble291 said:
Not too sure about the voltage, The shorten of life is pretty BS as the chips are designed to last for a long long time and you would most probably of upgraded by then (some guy stated on the forum somewhere), I don't no how bad it does affect the chip at that voltage as long as your pushing a high clock through it should be ok.

Most people suggest that you don't go over the 1.5 threshold if your computer is left on all the time.

A 3.8Ghz is good overclock anyways. I don't think you get a lot (if any) with a Phenom II, bottlenecking only really happens if your running a 5870 at x8 speed instead of x16 as some cheaper motherboards do. Motherboards bottleneck your computer as well.

Theres a bit of performance to be gained by overclocking but if your serouisly trying to get the most out of it for gaming why don't you add another 5870? If you worried about bottlenecking get a high end motherboard if you don't have one already?
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I have the same motherboard as you :D Im not that worried about bottlenecking, I just like to try and squeeze all I can out of the CPU. I'm sure Ive read in places that the i7 gets better framerates with the 5870 but I guess there's other factors like their architecture and tri chan memory etc
 
Oh right ha. There alright boards, would not be good for dual 5870s though! 5770s should be ok on them.

Yeh but by how much? There are many factors depending on how high the framerates are. The only real difference is graphics cards, you can upgrade your CPU, mainboard all you want but its not going to give you as much as an increase as a new GFX card will give you and considering you have a 5870 its a bloody good card already you won't need to upgrade that. Another factor maybe that the game is badly coded and will always give you low FPS in certain places. The ATI drivers keep getting better atm with the new DX11 games coming out you should see some nice increases in FPS especially with that card. I heard it went up about 10fps on some games with the latest 10.3 driver!

Considering consoles run at 60fps and below due to framerate locks, the question is do you really need higher than that on a pc? Aslong as you get above say 40 with everything on high theres no need too.
 
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rumble291 said:
Oh right ha. There alright boards, would not be good for dual 5870s though! 5770s should be ok on them.

Yeh but by how much? There are many factors depending on how high the framerates are. The only real difference is graphics cards, you can upgrade your CPU, mainboard all you want but its not going to give you as much as an increase as a new GFX card will give you and considering you have a 5870 its a bloody good card already you won't need to upgrade that. Another factor maybe that the game is badly coded and will always give you low FPS in certain places. The ATI drivers keep getting better atm with the new DX11 games coming out you should see some nice increases in FPS especially with that card. I heard it went up about 10fps on some games with the latest 10.3 driver!

Considering consoles run at 60fps and below due to framerate locks, the question is do you really need higher than that on a pc? Aslong as you get above say 40 with everything on high theres no need too.
Click to expand...

I guess you're right there.
 
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