Phenom II x4: New to overclocking, where do I start?

Daichin · 1 May 2012 at 13:24

So, I've been considering getting my system overclocked (hopefully it'll speed up encoding and gaming a little bit) for a while and I'm pretty certain I'm ready to jump in. I don't really know where to begin however. I've read a few guides, and I have a couple of questions:

I'm kinda concerned about the 4+1 VRM on my motherboard. I've stuck a massive Antec Spotcool 100 fan in front of them, but I want to make sure that it's safe enough before I begin.

Secondly, do I need to worry about overclocking the NB? The guides I read claimed that the NB is important to getting the most out of the CPU. Do I need to get the NB stable before worrying about the multiplier?

My specs are in my signature. I have a Coolermaster Hyper 212+ on the CPU and a bunch of cooling fans in the case. No rear exhaust fan, can't fit it in alongside the Antec Spotcool, so it's in the top instead. My current temperatures under Prime 95 are about 45c.

Thanks in advance.

JJimmyJ · 1 May 2012 at 13:53

Hello

Fortunately you have a BE chip so increasing the multiplier is easy enough. How much of an overclock are you looking for? It may just be a case of upping the multi and adding some vcore. All chips vary, but the 965 is probably good up to 1.45-1.5 volts.
I'm no expert, but 45c without an overclock seems slightly high (as I say, I'm no expert). Maybe the lack of exhaust fan is adding to the temps?
The chips are good up to 55c, but I would stay below 50c for a 24/7
The DDR2 may also limit you slightly.

Daichin · 1 May 2012 at 14:03

JJimmyJ said:
Hello

Fortunately you have a BE chip so increasing the multiplier is easy enough. How much of an overclock are you looking for? It may just be a case of upping the multi and adding some vcore. All chips vary, but the 965 is probably good up to 1.45-1.5 volts.
I'm no expert, but 45c without an overclock seems slightly high (as I say, I'm no expert). Maybe the lack of exhaust fan is adding to the temps?
The chips are good up to 55c, but I would stay below 50c for a 24/7
The DDR2 may also limit you slightly.

Yeah, I've always been kinda suspicious of the temps. They seem a bit high. It's currently running at 45c at this very moment, encoding some videos with handbrake. CPU-Z says it's at 1.376v. I really don't know what to expect from the cooler though, it was pretty cheap. Fitting it was a nightmare too, so something could have gone wrong there. I'll try reseating it if others think the temperature is abnormal.

I do have an exhaust fan, but it's on the top of the case. The antec spotcool covers the rear vent for the exhaust fan. The case has two vents on the top, and I attached a fan to the one furthest to the back of the case. The case also has two intake fans modded into the front and a side intake fan. Not sure if anything can be improved there.

I'm going to try upping the multiplier a little later on today and see what happens.

JJimmyJ · 1 May 2012 at 14:19

Regarding the VRM - http://www.overclock.net/t/943109/about-vrms-mosfets-motherboard-safety-with-125w-tdp-processors
Found that linked in another post on the forum.

1.37 volts shouldn't push the temp that high. I have my Phenom 945 at 1.42 and it peaks at 42c.
I think the cooler you have is an ok one, so it could just be the way it's seated. What way does the fan blow on your cooler? Does it blow upwards or towards the rear?
It's a bit of a minefiled, and it took me a while to get my overclock stable. Turns out it was my memory holding me back.
I found lots of useful guides on these forums that I wish I had the links for.
Here's a good one though - http://slappablog.com/2009/05/28/phenom-ii-am3-overclocking-essentials-guide/

Daichin · 1 May 2012 at 14:29

The fan is blowing towards the rear. Thanks for that guide, pretty helpful. I'm gonna reseat the cooler before I start and see if that helps the temperatures at all.

I had a look at that list and it seems all of the failures are MSI boards. My board is listed on there as having "Sturdy VRMs" so I guess I shouldn't be too concerned about that. Apparently it's ok up to 200w.

Daichin · 1 May 2012 at 15:41

Reseated the HSF:

Not sure where to go from here.

EDIT: Oh, and this is about what I was getting before. The 45c was from the middle of winter, it's reasonably warm at the moment.

EDIT 2: Reseated again, using much much less thermal paste this time. Cleaned out some dust and things. I'm down to 45c now and that, I feel, is the best I'm going to get. Unfortunately I guess that I must just have a chip that runs pretty hot.

Gonna try bumping the multiplier a little later on.

Daichin · 1 May 2012 at 18:35

Ok, so I've bumped up the multiplier and run 20 runs of IBT:

Is everything normal here? Where should I go from here? My main concern is the temperatures still. I'm not sure exactly how abnormal they really are but they do seem quite high.

I'm going to run Prime 95 overnight to check this is stable.

simbady · 1 May 2012 at 23:45

Those temperatures are good for 20runs, the max temp you want to go to is 62C.

Jayster · 2 May 2012 at 00:18

Yep 62 max with a recommended 55 for 24/7 overclock, when I researched clocking my 965 most people recommended disregarding the core temps and looking at the cpu temp from the board. This was fairly easy for me to do as the board temp was just a few degrees below the core temps but with yours being so far out maybe not as easy to decide which one to go by. Another thing with those vrm's I wouldnt be pushing too hard maybe set a max voltage of 1.4 or 1.425 and see where that gets you.

Daichin · 2 May 2012 at 00:59

Jayster said:
Yep 62 max with a recommended 55 for 24/7 overclock, when I researched clocking my 965 most people recommended disregarding the core temps and looking at the cpu temp from the board. This was fairly easy for me to do as the board temp was just a few degrees below the core temps but with yours being so far out maybe not as easy to decide which one to go by. Another thing with those vrm's I wouldnt be pushing too hard maybe set a max voltage of 1.4 or 1.425 and see where that gets you.

Yeah, the board temps are a long way out. I'm going by the core temps, just to be sure. From what I'm aware there are a lot of inaccuracies with them, but there are clearly inaccuracies with the board temps as well.

I'm reasonably confident about the VRMs having read up about this board but nonetheless my plan was indeed to go no higher than 1.425v. I'm not intent on pushing the CPU THAT much, mostly aiming for around 3.8ghz I think. According to my research, most 965s should do that quite easily at stock voltage, which is 1.4v.

Jayster · 2 May 2012 at 09:34

Daichin said:
Yeah, the board temps are a long way out. I'm going by the core temps, just to be sure. From what I'm aware there are a lot of inaccuracies with them, but there are clearly inaccuracies with the board temps as well.

I'm reasonably confident about the VRMs having read up about this board but nonetheless my plan was indeed to go no higher than 1.425v. I'm not intent on pushing the CPU THAT much, mostly aiming for around 3.8ghz I think. According to my research, most 965s should do that quite easily at stock voltage, which is 1.4v.

Should do 3.8 at 1.4v ok, mine took 1.4 for 3.8 then 1.45 for 4.0 and then 1.5 for 4.2. Although for that 4.2 I got a more stable overclock by upping the base clock a bit and lowering the multi.

Daichin · 2 May 2012 at 11:36

Priming at 3.6ghz now. Been going for about 2 hours, so about to put it up to 3.7.

Another question:
Is it worth overclocking the CPU-NB? Will it put futher load on the VRM's and finally how do I adjust the voltage for it? I've found the voltage control but it doesn't accept, say, 1.2 as a value.

This is the CPU-NB voltage control in the bios:

It appears to only accept 2 digit numerical values but I have no clue how they represent voltage and can't find any information about it on the internet.

Jayster · 2 May 2012 at 12:36

It will put extra load on the +1 vrm which is not used for the cores. I am not sure how much overclocking it will help in your senario with ddr2 ram.

kevbiss1 · 2 May 2012 at 12:58

my 955 is running at 3.9 with 1.42v,also i set my northbridge to 2.6,google dolks phenom guide it helped me

Daichin · 2 May 2012 at 13:59

@Kevbiss Yep, that one seems to be the most helpful. It's the one I keep referring to, anyway.

@Jayster Okay, I guess that's kind of safe enough then? Your right though, I hadn't thought about that. The DDR2 800 is pretty slow.

I'm not sure about it anyway, just due to the voltage control. I found something that claims it goes down from 24ish to adjust the voltage, but I can't see any way to actually find out what voltage it's feeding it, and obviously I don't want to type random numbers into the bios without knowing precisely what they are doing. From what I can tell, DFI claim the best way to do it is via AOD. Apparently they added the BIOS control in an update due to people complaining about it, using their trademark confusing numerical system.

I know you can change this stuff with AOD, but last time I launched AOD on this rig it crashed, reset the machine and tried to boot it again with 0.9v on the CPU so I won't be risking that again.

Jayster · 2 May 2012 at 14:02

Daichin said:
@Kevbiss Yep, that one seems to be the most helpful. It's the one I keep referring to, anyway.

@Jayster Okay, I guess that's kind of safe enough then? Your right though, I hadn't thought about that. The DDR2 800 is pretty slow.

I'm not sure about it anyway, just due to the voltage control. I found something that claims it goes down from 24ish to adjust the voltage, but I can't see any way to actually find out what voltage it's feeding it, and obviously I don't want to type random numbers into the bios without knowing precisely what they are doing.

I know you can change this stuff with AOD, but last time I launched AOD on this rig it crashed, reset the machine and tried to boot it again with 0.9v on the CPU so I won't be risking that again.

Yep its safe and you can give it the same voltage as the cpu so 1.5v max, just keep in mind it will also add a bit more heat for your cooler to deal with.

Daichin · 2 May 2012 at 15:17

Jayster said:
Yep its safe and you can give it the same voltage as the cpu so 1.5v max, just keep in mind it will also add a bit more heat for your cooler to deal with.

Okay, definitely going to have a look at that later.

As a side note, is it possible the CPU NB-VID control is in hexadecimal? 24 in hexadecimal would work out as 36 in decimal, meaning my CPU NB-VID is at 1.36v. Plausible/not plausible? May also explain the fact that the temperatures still seem a little high for the 18c room temperature here. Is there any possible way I could see the NB-VID from within Windows as a more normal value?

According to Dolk's Guide, 12 multi on the NB should be fine with 1.25v, and 2400mhz is the sweet spot for 3.8ghz.

EDIT: Apparently my primitive understanding of hexadecimal was holding me back there. I found a table, 24 being 1.1000 v and 18 being 1.25. Will try bumping the CPU NB VID and Multi up a little when I get everything else stable. I've posted the table below, because I hate it when people don't post solutions to problems such as this and I find their thread on google 5 years later:

HEX = Volts HEX = Volts
00 = 1.5500 14 = 1.3000
01 = 1.5375 15 = 1.2875
02 = 1.5250 16 = 1.2750
03 = 1.5125 17 = 1.2625
04 = 1.5000 18 = 1.2500
05 = 1.4875 19 = 1.2375
06 = 1.4750 1A = 1.2250
07 = 1.4625 1B = 1.2125
08 = 1.4500 1C = 1.2000
09 = 1.4375 1D = 1.1875
0A = 1.4250 1E = 1.1750
0B = 1.4125 1F = 1.1625
0C = 1.4000 20 = 1.1500
0D = 1.3875 21 = 1.1375
0E = 1.3750 22 = 1.1250
0F = 1.3625 23 = 1.1125
10 = 1.3500 24 = 1.1000
11 = 1.3375 25 = 1.0875
12 = 1.3250 26 = 1.0750
13 = 1.3125 27 = 1.0625

Daichin · 2 May 2012 at 19:28

Progress!

At 3.8ghz now, temperatures are a lot better today too.

Some questions:

1. Cool and quiet has officially turned itself off. Is this likely to put any stress on the VRMs of note or is it completely irrelevant? I assume it's irrelevant since, afterall, the processor is going to be stable maxed out but I'd just like to make sure.

2. There seems to be a bit of variation in the actual frequency of the processor, it drops up and down by a very small amount (half a mhz, sometimes a few mhz) whilst it is running. Do I need to be concerned about this or is it also irrelevant?

Jayster · 3 May 2012 at 09:01

Daichin said:
Progress!

At 3.8ghz now, temperatures are a lot better today too.

Some questions:

1. Cool and quiet has officially turned itself off. Is this likely to put any stress on the VRMs of note or is it completely irrelevant? I assume it's irrelevant since, afterall, the processor is going to be stable maxed out but I'd just like to make sure.

2. There seems to be a bit of variation in the actual frequency of the processor, it drops up and down by a very small amount (half a mhz, sometimes a few mhz) whilst it is running. Do I need to be concerned about this or is it also irrelevant?

1. It will put a bit more load than there would have been before on the vrm's but the load that is put onto the vrms at load will be no different.

2. No need to worry about it its normal, if you want to stop it from going below a certain clock like 3.8 you can bump up the base clock by a little amount to stop it going below the 3.8 but it will still move a bit.

Daichin · 3 May 2012 at 14:46

Ok, so I am now out 3.8ghz with 2400mhz NB. 3.8ghz was stable for 12 hours of prime.

I'm not sure where to go from here. The bonus gained by ocing the CPU-NB was literally nothing. The Cinebench score increased by 0.07, and it's probably not worth the extra heat from having the CPU-NB at 1.235v So yeah. I'm wondering if I'd be better off trying to go for 4ghz or if I'd be better off just calling it a day at 3.8 considering the temperatures and VRM's (added voltage)?