Hi guys.
I've been working on increasing the overclock on my X3 720 BE over the past few days.
My old board was an Asus M3A78 Pro, with 4GB of OCZ DDR2-1066. I had my CPU running at 3.2GHz, while stock is 2.8. I have since replaced my board with a Gigabyte MA790XT-UD4P, and my clock is now up to 3.4, but I haven't done Prime95 for more than half an hour yet - I ran out of time in the day.
When I first set up this PC, I instantly boosted the RAM voltage to 1.8 from the 1.6v default. I was still getting a BSOD every so often, and prime would totally freeze my pc after about 3 minutes. I had reduced the vCore, vNB and vCPU-NB in an effort to fix it. I even reduced my core speed to 3.0GHz, but here is the problem:
OCZ PC3-10666C7 RAM has 1.95v EVP. To me, this translates to "set it to 1.95v or it won't work". This isn't true, but it works. A lot.
Once I'd increased the vDIMM to 1.95v, my crashes disappeared, and I now have my core at 3.4GHz, 1.38v. So here is my tip:
If your Overclock appears to be failing, check the spec at the manufacturers site for all components (memory mostly!) to see if you have space to increase the voltage. If you do, give that a try first. Second tip is to try a small FFT Prime95 torture test. If this passes, its the memory. Doesn't prove the memory to be perfect, but it points the blame away.
If anyone else has experience with this as well, please let me know if you agree!
I've been working on increasing the overclock on my X3 720 BE over the past few days.
My old board was an Asus M3A78 Pro, with 4GB of OCZ DDR2-1066. I had my CPU running at 3.2GHz, while stock is 2.8. I have since replaced my board with a Gigabyte MA790XT-UD4P, and my clock is now up to 3.4, but I haven't done Prime95 for more than half an hour yet - I ran out of time in the day.
When I first set up this PC, I instantly boosted the RAM voltage to 1.8 from the 1.6v default. I was still getting a BSOD every so often, and prime would totally freeze my pc after about 3 minutes. I had reduced the vCore, vNB and vCPU-NB in an effort to fix it. I even reduced my core speed to 3.0GHz, but here is the problem:
OCZ PC3-10666C7 RAM has 1.95v EVP. To me, this translates to "set it to 1.95v or it won't work". This isn't true, but it works. A lot.
Once I'd increased the vDIMM to 1.95v, my crashes disappeared, and I now have my core at 3.4GHz, 1.38v. So here is my tip:
If your Overclock appears to be failing, check the spec at the manufacturers site for all components (memory mostly!) to see if you have space to increase the voltage. If you do, give that a try first. Second tip is to try a small FFT Prime95 torture test. If this passes, its the memory. Doesn't prove the memory to be perfect, but it points the blame away.
If anyone else has experience with this as well, please let me know if you agree!