AM3 Advice

paradisiac · 14 Jun 2011 at 21:22

ok not sure if this is a general thing or an ASRock thing, but i have an option in the bios to set the multiplier per core. so, my question is, how does that work if say i set core 0 to 4GHz and core 1 to 3.5GHz would that make it really unstable, how would you rate the overall speed etc?

paradisiac · 15 Jun 2011 at 09:47

anyone

i have managed to get core 0 and 1 to run at 4GHz overnight prime testing. but core 2 just wont have it, max out of that is 3.8GHz. so would it be possible to run 0/1 @ 4GHz and 2 @ 3.8GHz or would that cause even more instability.

kevbiss1 · 15 Jun 2011 at 10:11

To get my 720 to run as a quad,i went into acc in the bios and upped one of my cores to +2% keeping the rest at 0%,i no its not quite what your after but my O/c is stable 24/7 at3.6ghz now

paradisiac · 15 Jun 2011 at 10:27

alas my core 3 does not work so tri is all i can get

but im not sure if 3.8GHz tri-core would be better than 4-4.2GHz dual core. also im not sure how it works if the cores run at different speeds, surely thats just asking for trouble?

kevbiss1 · 15 Jun 2011 at 11:13

i ve always been told that more cores are always better,i prefer to run my set up with 4 cores lower than with 3 cores, i can only get 3.7ghz stable with 3!also i would have all the cores running the same speed,not heard anyone do this in all the overclocking guides ive read

paradisiac · 15 Jun 2011 at 11:20

kevbiss1 said:
i ve always been told that more cores are always better,i prefer to run my set up with 4 cores lower than with 3 cores, i can only get 3.7ghz stable with 3!also i would have all the cores running the same speed,not heard anyone do this in all the overclocking guides ive read

so if i can get my tri-core 3.8GHz stable again then that would be the best overall setup?
i just wish i knew what was stopping it from going to 4GHz with the extra core. maybe worth testing with just that core enabled on 4GHz and see if thats stable? might just be it doesnt like 3 running at that, or could be that core is not as good as the other 2?
i have left prime running with a dual core 4.1GHz setting, will see when i get home if that failed or not. couldnt even get it to post on 4.2GHz

kevbiss1 · 15 Jun 2011 at 11:35

There might be 2 weaker cores, have you tried running all cores at stock?

Hagar · 15 Jun 2011 at 11:39

The cores can run at independant speeds. All that means is that more or fewer instructions per second are carried out in each core. there may be some latency between the cores depending on the program flow and how each core is working, multi or single threaded applications. This should not affect stability Benchmarking will show the best or fastest throughput but may not be real in terms of everyday usage.

EDIT it appears that bulldozer may be going to do this by controlling core frequencies independantly, not confirmed yet though.

andy.

paradisiac · 15 Jun 2011 at 11:39

kevbiss1 said:
There might be 2 weaker cores, have you tried running all cores at stock?

cores 0,1,2 all work fine, and always used to work up to 3.8GHz, but core 3 doesnt work at all on any setting, as soon as i start prime it says workers stopped on that core

paradisiac · 15 Jun 2011 at 11:41

nkata said:
The cores can run at independant speeds. All that means is that more or fewer instructions per second are carried out in each core. there may be some latency between the cores depending on the program flow and how each core is working, multi or single threaded applications. This should not affect stability Benchmarking will show the best or fastest throughput but may not be real in terms of everyday usage.

andy.

so a multithreaded game would only ever run at the lowest cores speed?

Hagar · 15 Jun 2011 at 11:43

paradisiac said:
so a multithreaded game would only ever run at the lowest cores speed?

No, it would use all the cores, but throughput or 'work' would vary across the cores

paradisiac · 15 Jun 2011 at 11:44

so, say i went for cores 0,1 @4.1GHz and core 2 @3.8GHz would that perform better than say all 3 cores @3.8GHz or cores 0,1 @4.1GHz?

kevbiss1 · 15 Jun 2011 at 11:45

if you can get 3 cores running stable at 3.8ghz i would stick with that thats a high o/c with an unlocked core,also as i said if you have acc try setting that to +2%as its ment to aid high o/c s

paradisiac · 15 Jun 2011 at 12:02

in my bios i have :
Turbo
Load Optimized CPU OC Setting

CPU Configuration -
Overclock Mode
CPU Frequency (MHz)
PCIE Frequency (MHz)
Spread Spectrum
Boot Failure Guard
Boot Failure Guard Count

ASRock UCC
CPU Active Core Control

Multiplier/Voltage Change -
CPU Frequency Multiplier
CPU Voltage
NB Frequency Multiplier
NB Voltage
HT Bus Speed
HT Bus Width

mGPU Voltage
HT Voltage
CPU VDDA Voltage
PCIE VDDA Voltage

some of them are worded a bit differently, but that was taken from the manual so probably a different regions wording. im sure i had some other options too, but will have to wait til i get home to check.