Athlon64 overclocking

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Hi guys,

Mate has an Athlon64 X2 system and he's been asking about overclocking it.

What do you reckon you can get out of a system like this? He's running a 4400 X2, Asus A8N Deluxe, SLI 7800's and 2Gb of OCZ Platinum.

I only really tend to do Intel now so I'm not sure if they are multi locked, what voltages he should try, etc etc.

Ideas? He's got watercooling.
 
I'd have thought someone with a rig running water cooling and sli would know how to oc their processor a bit !

Yes its multi locked at 11 i think, should be good to increase the fsb to about 280 with water cooling.


[TW]Fox;11204847 said:
Hi guys,

Mate has an Athlon64 X2 system and he's been asking about overclocking it.

What do you reckon you can get out of a system like this? He's running a 4400 X2, Asus A8N Deluxe, SLI 7800's and 2Gb of OCZ Platinum.

I only really tend to do Intel now so I'm not sure if they are multi locked, what voltages he should try, etc etc.

Ideas? He's got watercooling.
 
i have the 4400 x2 with ocz platinum 2gb on asus an8-sli
i got mine to about 3.6ghz but that was at max stable for about an hour, yes locked to 11x multi, i had to wack to max voltage which then made stable but was pretty hot, so watercooling might be an option.
got mine at default at the moment til i sort some things out with pc
 
It's a good motherboard, and the 4400 was popular clocker a while back.

I think 2.8GHz would be something good to aim at, possibly more with water cooling.
 
i have the 4400 x2 with ocz platinum 2gb on asus an8-sli
i got mine to about 3.6ghz but that was at max stable for about an hour, yes locked to 11x multi, i had to wack to max voltage which then made stable but was pretty hot, so watercooling might be an option.
got mine at default at the moment til i sort some things out with pc

I bet you didn't!!

the world record is only 3.4ghz, that'll probably be an LN2 cooled suicide shot.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=59753

With a highly tuned phase setup with a dfi expert mobo I got my X2 4400 to about 3ghz with silly vcore.

For water you'd be doing ok to get it past 2.6ghz stable tbh.

It all depends on the age of the chip, as AMD kept making them they kept getting better at clocking, my early one wasn't great but later ones seemed to get nearer to 3ghz easier but still not what I'd call commonplace.
 
I've been scouring my rubbish memory and I reckon if he goes for...

HTT 4
FSB 250
Move the ram divider to UNDER 200fsb or slacken the timings to 3-2-2-8 or similar

and for that to be stable he'll probably need about 1.45 vcore or maybe a touch more.

stumbling blocks will be if he doesn't change the ram divider, this isn't ddr2 and its mega sensitive to overclocking.. I doubt you'd get much past 205 CAS2, CAS3 might get him to 220/230 but I doubt it'd clock much further.

The HTT can cause instability if it goes past 1000mhz too and gives very little performance gain if clocked so its often better to run it way under for example if he gets to 260fsb then HTT of 4 will get him 1040mhz, I'd probably select 3 and go with 780mhz.

Past that I guess he ought to keep an eye on the pci-e frequency and make sure its locked, sometimes you have to set it to 101mhz to lock it.

Phew.. suprised I remembered all that!
 
I just got my x2 4800 to 2890Mhz running a x10.5 multiplier (also within the constraints of a 4400).

Using a Asus A8N-SLI Premium.
Bus Speed up from 200 to 275 (yep, seriously)
Hypertransport from x5 to x4
Memory from "400Mhz" to "333Mhz" (don't worry it still runs faster than standard given the bus speed change)
Multiplier from x12 to x10.5
Voltage is 1.375v

Wouldn't run at a x11 multiplier even when I upped the voltage. But been running 24x7 for the last few days, with no problems.
 
I just got my x2 4800 to 2890Mhz running a x10.5 multiplier (also within the constraints of a 4400).

Nice overclock there at a nice low voltage. My opty needs quite a bit more to run at present 330x9. ...1.52v

Have you tried dropping the multy down lower and seeing if the bus will go any higher? Also drop the htt to 3x as at 4x you are running at 1100 which may cause problems.

How high did you try the voltages at and what are your load temps?

Sorry op for hijacking your post :)
 
Might give that a whirl. Tried going as high as 1.475. Didn't dare go higher.

But right now with the overclock I mentioned above I'm running 57 degrees. This is when the CPU is flat out (I run BOINC continuously in the background). But I also run Q-Fan set to keep it below 60 degree.
 
Its ok to go to 1.55v for 24/7 use as long as temps are under control at around the 55c mark.

Temps are quiet high for that voltage. I get around the low 50s using a TR Ultra with 2 120mm fans on. Thats under stress using occt/prime but its quiet a bit less when just gaming stress.

A better cooler and better airflow would help your temps but cant see your overclock improving much but it would be nice to break 3g wouldnt it :) Tried hard myself but just cant get it 24/7 stable tho can bench at over 3G.

What cooler do you use by the way? Upgrading to something like a TR Ultra would be an idea as it could be used in future build as compatable with other sockets :) (needs a special bracket for 939 though)
 
I have a Zalman flower cooler. Nothing special. With Q-Fan the fan slows down unless the temp starts to reach a certain figure (I've set it to 60 in my case). So it'll naturally find a balnce near 60 degrees. Will have a go at turning it off and seeing how high I can go. But trying to run a quiet maching too. However, now I'm overclocking my 8800GTS and playing with new fan speeds, this graphics card is by far the noisiest thing in the case when playing games now.

Thanks for the advice.
 
No problem mate :) Hope your enjoying the card? Just got mine last week and its all good :)

Maybe best to set the cpu fan to kick up at a lower temp as 60c is at the top end of what you want to be trying to keep it at

Just remember that 3d mark 06 isnt a game and the intel chips wipe the floor with ours in that benchmark.

Just out of curiousity what are you getting in 05 and 06? I get about 16K in 05 and 11k in 06 would be a lot more on a C2D rig i know but it plays games well and thats whats important at the end of the day :)
 
I bet you didn't!!

the world record is only 3.4ghz, that'll probably be an LN2 cooled suicide shot.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=59753

With a highly tuned phase setup with a dfi expert mobo I got my X2 4400 to about 3ghz with silly vcore.

For water you'd be doing ok to get it past 2.6ghz stable tbh.

It all depends on the age of the chip, as AMD kept making them they kept getting better at clocking, my early one wasn't great but later ones seemed to get nearer to 3ghz easier but still not what I'd call commonplace.

sorrry totally my bad, yes typo i was meant to say 2.6ghz
2.6ghs stable for an hour and 2.5 for as long i wanted
sorry for confusing everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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I'm running my 4600+ at 2635MHz with some of the low latency orange geil ram stuff I've had for ages, haven't bothered changing the voltage on ram or cpu though. the fsb should go straight to 225 at least I'd guess

edit: my cpu is unlocked and it's running at 11.5x231
 
Actually I have a question to add on, I have a 1 1gb stick of the geil orange ram (other is corrupt and has been for a long time, need to actually rma that some time) and it normally runs at the cpu speed/6 when set to ddr800, however, when I try this:
Memory from "400Mhz" to "333Mhz" (don't worry it still runs faster than standard given the bus speed change)
It just won't seem to go past 400mhz on cpu-z, as in the ram just clocks down slower at the point where it would go over 400. I messed around and got my cpu at 2750 and the ram at 458 with it set to ddr800 but it just won't go quicker than 400 when set to ddr667 in the bios. I have a kn9-ultra if that helps, latest bios

edit: won't go past 2800 MHz (without going higher on the voltage than I would want to) :( got it to 2794 and the ram to 930 (that geil ram is surprisingly good)
 
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