AMD® Phenom™ II Overclocking Thread

'Wes · 21 Jun 2010 at 08:15

Managed 4GHz on my new 965 cpu which was idling from 30c-32c and hitting 50c max when on load. Going to try for 4.1GHz and if it goes over 52c, i'll stick with 4GHz as i like a 10c gap between 62c which is the recommended max temp for the 965.

Angel_Rex · 21 Jun 2010 at 13:53

x4 940BE

I just picked myself up a 940BE from a mate who got a x6 3.2 amd chip.

Ive just fired it up on my ma770-UD3 rev 2.0 and stuck it at 17*200 - 3.4gig as thats all i need tbh, plus i cant be assed to push further etc. also I only have a 4850 ATI card which has to be the bottleneck atm.

The idle temp is currenly 33-35C and full load prime95 & 2x orthos running its 55C for 12 hours. I have the NB oc to 2000mhz from 1800mhz and left the HT link at 1800mhz as i cba to increase the FSB/HT speed.

The cooler I have is only a freezer 64 pr0 with mx3 thinly spread.

kingston hyper X DDR2 1066 ram at 800 4-4-4-12 as the UD3 & am2+ causes problems with 1066 ram modules both at 1066 and runing at 2.1V. CPU is default volts 1.35 (shows 1.344 in cpu-z) and all other NB volts etc are default. Oh and ACC is auto.

There is a lot more to tweak and has all been done through bios, I came from a x2 6000+ chip to this phenom II and very please as it only cost me £30

I dont think there is anything else I could tweak, shame on the memory but wont get stable under 1066, will boot to windows with 2.2V wont prime 95 stable, fails in minutes.

Oh and temps are via the AMD AOD program are they pretty accurate?

~>Dg<~ · 21 Jun 2010 at 19:25

just up the multi PapaLazaru should do upto 3.8 pretty easy maybe 4.0

after 3.6 should need volt increase i would aim for 3.7-3.8 for 24/7 use

3.8-4.0 is where the wall is for most of these phenoms. had mine upto 4.1 but i aint going over 1.5v. temps were high at that. see you have a good cooler aswell.3.9-4.0 seems to take a big jump in voltage thats why i dont think its worth it for what you gain.

quickest way ive found to test overclock is do twenty runs with ibt (not 4 x 5) 20 in a row. if it dont crash in that it normally wont at all.

'Wes · 22 Jun 2010 at 13:17

Can anyone give me an insight for the max CPU/NB voltage for the AMD Phenom II X4 965 CPU? My default voltage is 1.1v and i'm curious whether it's max is the same as as the AMD Phenom II X4 955 because the AMD Phenom II X4 955 voltage is 1.35v and it's max is 1.5v.

Angel_Rex · 22 Jun 2010 at 13:26

'Wes said:
Can anyone give me an insight for the max CPU/NB voltage for the AMD Phenom II X4 965 CPU? My default voltage is 1.1v and i'm curious whether it's max is the same as as the AMD Phenom II X4 955 because the AMD Phenom II X4 955 voltage is 1.35v and it's max is 1.5v.

ok CPU volts default is 1.35 on all i believe. The cpu/nb you mentioned i believe is the north bridge volts which is 1.175 i think? Correct me if im wrong but i think your mixing the two up?

'Wes · 22 Jun 2010 at 13:52

Angel_Rex said:
ok CPU volts default is 1.35 on all i believe. The cpu/nb you mentioned i believe is the north bridge volts which is 1.175 i think? Correct me if im wrong but i think your mixing the two up?

For the 965 it's 1.4v because it's 3.4GHz as the 955 is 3.2GHz and that sit's at 1.35v. Now, i'm curious whether the max setting for CPU/NB voltage within the article AMD did called 'Unleash the Dragon' is correct, because it's got that the max CPU/NB voltage is from 1.35v-1.5v, the same as the CPU voltage and the default voltage for CPU/NB is 1.1v, surely boosting the voltage from 1.1v-1.35/1.5v is going to do something funny to your system, let alone i couldn't get 3000MHz CPU/NB at 1.35v, just 2800MHz on 1.25v.

~>Dg<~ · 22 Jun 2010 at 14:45

most people consider 1.5v being the max safe everyday voltage thywould use i think if you getting up to 3.8 with a low voltage i would use that rather than go for four and use 1.5 v minimum. volts plus extra heat for not much difference

'Wes · 23 Jun 2010 at 08:04

Well, it doesn't matter anymore, i hit a wall with the voltage where increasing it more than twice doesn't actually let me hit 3000MHz for CPU/NB frequency, so my final overclock is 4GHz [1.45v] and 2800MHz [1.25v].

Angel_Rex · 23 Jun 2010 at 12:46

at 3.4 gig does the nb higher than 2000 really make a difference to performance?

Mainly in games.

'Wes · 24 Jun 2010 at 07:07

Angel_Rex said:
at 3.4 gig does the nb higher than 2000 really make a difference to performance?

Mainly in games.

It will probably go up to about 2.4GHz with a voltage tweak but no higher.

Angel_Rex · 24 Jun 2010 at 13:04

'Wes said:
It will probably go up to about 2.4GHz with a voltage tweak but no higher.

I know it will prob go higher, i asked if i would notice it in games

I susspect not so ill not bother and more volts = more heat and at 53C-55C at full load it rather not warm her up any more

'Wes · 24 Jun 2010 at 13:18

You at default settings?

The CPU NorthBridge (CPU NB) clock speed determines the efficiency and bandwidth capacity of the Memory
controller. L3 cache runs at this frequency as well. CPU NB performance tuning gives a measurable boost for
overall system performance. In particular it can reduce the Memory latency and improve L3 cache bandwidth
and latency. In some scenarios the CPU NB should be tuned in order to take the full advantage of overclocked
Memory frequency and bandwidth. In general the CPU NB clock should be at least three times the Memory
clock (example in case of DDR3-1600: 3 x 800MHz = 2400MHz NB clock).

PapaLazaru · 24 Jun 2010 at 19:42

My first tweak though I did cheat a little. Look ok? Running sweet.

mjones1 · 25 Jun 2010 at 07:03

Brought a Phenom x2 550 and unlocked it straight to a 4 core on my asus m477d, really impressed so far since the chip is stable at low voltage.
Will get some overclocking done on sunday when it's back under water.

Angel_Rex · 27 Jun 2010 at 09:54

'Wes said:
You at default settings?

The CPU NorthBridge (CPU NB) clock speed determines the efficiency and bandwidth capacity of the Memory
controller. L3 cache runs at this frequency as well. CPU NB performance tuning gives a measurable boost for
overall system performance. In particular it can reduce the Memory latency and improve L3 cache bandwidth
and latency. In some scenarios the CPU NB should be tuned in order to take the full advantage of overclocked
Memory frequency and bandwidth. In general the CPU NB clock should be at least three times the Memory
clock (example in case of DDR3-1600: 3 x 800MHz = 2400MHz NB clock).

My 940be spec is listed in detail above (previous page) but in short 940be stock volts for everything but ram (2.2V) ddr1066 ram but as 940be is only am2+ it has the problems with running boh sticks stable at 1066 in my ma770-ud3 rev 2.0 so ive left it at 4-4-4-12 @ 800 & CBA to overclock the HTT/FSB.

940be running at 3.4, 1800mhz HT & NB oc to 2000mhz. I think ill leave it at that, what i was asking about the NB was would i notice a bit improvement over 2000 to 2200 or 2400.

It runs 53-55C full load with 12hrs prime & 2x orthos running. (temps are from the amd overclocking utility) really dont need more than that so cba to push further, atm my 4850 is the bottleneck.

Muel · 27 Jun 2010 at 13:14

Hello to you all, I return.

Had a lot of trouble with my 790X board recently, and I've deduced that it's dead. Cost me £28 to find out the warranty on it is void which was nice, so I've treated myself to this.

Anyone using one? What's the verdict?

Also, any news on the rumored 8/12 core CPUs? It just strikes me that this would be an ideal board to upgrade from my 965 next year. It could easily have 8gb of ram and a SATA3 SSD, with a pair of 5830s in crossfire.

Anyone heard/read anything?

3do · 27 Jun 2010 at 23:04

So i finally decided it was time for me to do a quick/basic benchmark of my Phenom II X2 545 when at stock as it came out the box which was a x2 dual core and when unlocked to an x4 quad core at stock speeds.

I will be overclocking (slightly untill i get decent cooler) as well at some point with my CPU as an x2 and x4 so i wanted to get a base benchmark done in order to see how much of an increase i get when unlocked vs locked and then see what overclocking does again when locked and unlocked.

So here as some results:

Passmark Performance test CPU test only- CPU at x2 - CPU Mark: 1720.6
Passmark Performance test CPU test only- CPU at x4 - CPU Mark: 3136.4
Cinebench - CPU at x2 - 1.54pts
Cinebench - CPU at x4 - 2.97pts

I don't know how well those 2 programs i used are for benchmarking but its mainly for my benefit to gauge how much performance increase i can eek out of this CPU.

thingemajib · 27 Jun 2010 at 23:32

If you're using the stock cooler id be wary of overclocking when unlocked. whilst it could cope with mine at stock voltage, once id increased it by one notch (25mv) and stuck prime on, the temp hit about 70.c. Never tried any serious overclocking as a dual on the stock cooler though.

thingemajib · 27 Jun 2010 at 23:33

edit: double post

3do · 28 Jun 2010 at 15:05

Hmm.. maybe i'll wait till i get a decent cooler before overclocking plus i can do some research since i've not done any overclocking in a while.

I'm interested to see how much of a difference in performance i see when unlocked and overclocked because as above i get a good increase just by having my CPU unlocked so adding an overclock to that could give me an even better increase.