550 BE Core Unlock and OC Question

Snax

Snax

Snax

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I have just built my new machine around an AMD 550 BE and have unlocked the two extra cores at stock voltage. I have run prime for 12 hours with no errors to check.

I now want to go onto actually overclocking the chip. I would appreciate a little advice on which method to use given I now have to accommodate extra cores being unlocked.

I can leave the cores unlocked and try to overclock the chip with 4 cores. the downside of this is that I would not be able to monitor the tempartures properly.

If I went back to using only 2 cores to overclock and then unlocking the 4 extra cores after achieving a stable overclock, would reverting back to 4 cores at the overclock affect system stability compared to overclocking only 2 cores?

Also, should I be looking at the Northbridge voltage when overclocking or would that only affect cores?

Any help is appreciated and also thank you to Big Wayne for his excellent AMD posts on the forums


Edit: I am using an Akasa Nero for cooling
 
There is a correlation between the temp sensor on your mobo and the core temp when running a dual.Once you find this it should scale the same for a quad.

You have a choice with an unlocked multiplyer; just keep raising it until its unstable and raise core voltage a little and then raise the multiplyer again etc. On stock voltage you should be able to get to about 3.6ghz. You have an excellent cooler so temps will probably not limit your overclock. I would not go over 1.5V; The 550 is rating to 1.45V from memory. Also interestingly the 955 is only rated to 62C where as the 550 is rated to 70C. Sticking at 62C or below seems sensible to me. (disclaimer; you'll need to check these yourself).

The other way of course is ia the FSB. this will require you to play aroun dwith ram timings etc.

Search for Dolk's guide on the web. it is much better at explaining overclocking than I can.

interested in your temps if you could share!
 
Hi there, any idea on your batch number (not that it apparantly makes much diff) i got one the other day but was only able to unlock one of the extra cores, ive now got a 2nd 550 but think its the same batch as before CACYC AC 0940FPLW so am not in high hopes.
 
Snax said:
I have just built my new machine around an AMD 550 BE and have unlocked the two extra cores at stock voltage. I have run prime for 12 hours with no errors to check.
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That's excellent news! :) . . . lol you jammy so and so, would be great to see a screenshot! :D

Snax said:
I now want to go onto actually overclocking the chip
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Wow your moving fast, in your boots I would have tested the unlock quicky (just to know!) then gone back to a dual core and overclocked that . . . you have lots to learn about but take your time and you should get a great result. The Black Edition chips allow quite simple processor overclocking where you can just increase the CPU multiplier until you crash, when you crash you can just increase the vCore, keep doing this until your chip has maxed out or your cooling has maxed out. Beyond that there is lots of overclocking you can do with the Ht-Ref, HTT link, CPU-NB etc but you can get to that later!

Once the simple processor clocking is done I would then unlock the processor to a quad-core and begin the overclocking testing again, you may or may not make it as far as you did when you clocked it as a dual core, obviously the temps should be higher when the chip is a quad core . . .

What motherboard did you get by the way and what is the rest of your spec? :cool:
 
Wow, such awesome replies. Thank you

Here is a screenshot I just posted in the memory forum, I am currently trying to get my memory set up correctly, but it should show you the current set up:

4193083116_a42e0d5fea_b.jpg


I have Asus M4A79XTD Evo running on a 0605 bios and the RAM is in the screenshot.

I cant remember the batch number and I would rather not take off the heatsink to get it, apologies.

I do feel exceedingly lucky; I was really hoping it would unlock but not expecting it to.

The last time I overclocked was with a p4 2.4ghz 7 years ago, the BIOS is a little more complicated now!

Would the general consensus be to go back to a dual core to find out the best stable overclock and then switch it back to a quad core?

NB: is the speed of the cpu showing 800mhz because I have cool and quiet enabled?
 
I would get some stability testing done, either as a regular dual core or as the quad core . . . it may have unlocked but its no certain the cores are stable, check it out!

Yeah your right about the 800MHz, that's AMD Cool 'n' Quiet kicking in, I leave mine on but disable it in BIOS when I'm doing some overclock tests.

You have a lot of things to play with and test, don't rush it or you will become frustrated. I'd even suggest running the system in Fully Automatic mode for a few days to see how she handles, I wouldn't be unlocking and clocking and adjusting the memory and stuff all at the same time heh! ;)

Take it easy with Cadburys Caramel! . . . .
 
Well ive just got my second 550 this one unlocks to x4 so far so good, will do some more testings etc, was the same batch as my first one so goes to show its not down to batch numbers
 
I got mine from a competitor

The other thing to note is that asus mobos used to be shocking at unlocking the extra cores by all accounts. However late BIOS updates have really improved things (certainly judging on my experience)
 
Snax said:
asus mobos used to be shocking at unlocking the extra cores by all accounts. However late BIOS updates have really improved things
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Heh it was me that said that, I guess you heard the same thing from lots of other people or? :p

Have fun with your new chip, that's a great system you have there for not a lot of £££ :cool:
 
Snax said:
I got mine from a competitor

The other thing to note is that asus mobos used to be shocking at unlocking the extra cores by all accounts. However late BIOS updates have really improved things (certainly judging on my experience)
Click to expand...

Yeah i almost went with a gigabyte one until i read about the new bios, seems to have worked and can only get better?
 
Big.Wayne said:
Heh it was me that said that, I guess you heard the same thing from lots of other people or? :p

Have fun with your new chip, that's a great system you have there for not a lot of £££ :cool:
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There is a 3 part you tube video where a guy demonstrated he had a chip capable of having the cores being unlocked but the asus being completely incapable of reliably booting up with them being unlocked. I had just ordered my pc when i saw that and it filled me with dread until I read about the later bios releases.

The jump from that video to my experience with the mobo is astonishing.

Thanks BW and keep up with the super posts they were very helpful at showing highlighting the difference between synthetic results and user experience.
 
ive had a few graphical glitches since unlocking them seems odd that it would do that? im actually in the process of reinstalling win7 as ive had nothing but bother since trying to install cat 9.12's.....
 
When I installed the new system I literally ran with full bios defaults [Auto] and standard CD-ROM drivers and rolled with that for a week or so, I was keen to get clocking and all that but as it was a completley new system I wanted to give myself time to become familiar with the basics, how the system felt etc, if during this break-in period there had been any problems with faulty hardware or bad driver it would be quite easy to track down the glitch. Once a day (or two or three) had passed without one single error or glitch that was a good indicator that my base system was ready to rock!

As soon as I started overclocking weird things began to happen, it was obvious because I had just run the system flat out at stock for a few days without incident . . . . what I am trying to say is if you give yourself more time and just ease into things you will find it allot easier . . . . if you unlock the chip, fiddle with drivers, overclock all at the same time your gonna be doing some head scratching heh . . .on the other hand you guys might just be brilliant and able to do everything at once but theres no way I will be able to help you if you go to fast! :o

Get a nice stable system that has all the drivers installed (you won't have any issue with the CD-ROM drivers btw!) and get some gaming and benching and stability testing done and then you will be ready to rock, apart from that have fun and I look forward to any stability screenies you get time to share! :cool:
 
Thought Id chime in :)

Bought a PII 550 BE a week ago, arrived on monday, built the system and all went well, ran it for a while . . . got the itch so tried unlocking it and whola, had myself a quad core. Stability tested it and have now real-world tested it and got no issues, except nothing now knows the temperature of the CPU. I have touch felt the heatsink when load testing and it is still cold to the touch so have no worries about it.
This does however make overclocking interesting.

I set everything back to dual and gave it a mild multiplier OC up a notch, checked temps and stability as a dual and it was fine, went up a few more and all was good. At this point it wasnt really a massive overclock but I was wondering quite how unlocking the cores effected things so went ahead and unlocked them and things started going wrong.

I then tried overclocking it as a quad (taking temperatures for granted somewhat), so started from stock settings with cores unlocked and then uped the multi a notch - everything was fine. I repeated and got to the same level as I had previously without issues. Had me a little confused, but now Im going to work on the overclock as a quad straight off as the dual settings seem to mean squat when you change it over.

I would still say it is a good idea to get overclocking experience on it as a dual first.
 
There are reports of unlocked chips overclocking worse than the 'real' x4s. If you need extra voltage to stabilise your unlock this is a good indicator that it will not overclock well at all.
 
Mine didnt require any extra voltage, but I would still value an extra 2 cores over an extra 400mhz.
 
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