Improving memory timings

Kei · 21 Mar 2013 at 18:50

Had my phenom II x4 955 overclocked to 3.7GHz for nearly 4 years with little trouble. I believe I have hit the limit of my C2 stepping at this level, however, I've never really spent much time on the memory timings and FSB side of things. I have a pair of 4gb kingston hyperx genesis modules and a pair of 2GB corsair dominator modules. Here are the present settings that I run. (if BIOS shots are needed, I'll have to restart to get some) Memory voltage is set to 1.65V.

Full system spec is in my project thread. Any ideas on where potential improvements could be made?

Kei · 22 Mar 2013 at 15:23

If it helps at all, here are the bios settings. I've shifted over to SPD settings on the timings @ 1333MHz and CR back to 1T. (thought it had to be 2T when using more than 2 modules) It seems to be working ok so far though.

What i don't know is what settings will make the biggest differences and whether it is better to have a higher FSB and looser timings or slightly lower FSB and tighter timings.

Kei · 23 Mar 2013 at 16:27

Cheers for the information, very detailed and helpful. The days of unlocked multipliers has made me a bit lazy on the overclocking front. I'll give these settings a go when I get home.

Kei · 23 Mar 2013 at 19:42

It seemed to be going ok for a few minutes and then it hit a spontaneous restart during prime testing. I've gone back to my original settings and noticed that it still was stable during prime as i got a bluescreen again. I had been decreasing my Vcore and was down to +0.05V (from +0.125) in an effort to help lower my temperatures. It seems my "ye olde" C2 stepping likes some volts. I'm testing it at +0.100 now. Once i've got it stable I'll retry your settings.

Where do you get the free version of aida? (all i can find is the trial version)

Kei · 23 Mar 2013 at 21:09

I've upped the Vcore back to 1.45V (+0.1 offset) and that seems to have stabilised it. (obviously i'd lowered it too far) It seems to be ok with the settings now. I'm using the trial of AIDA but it covers a lot of the bench figures with "TRIAL VERSION".

Kei · 31 Mar 2013 at 19:37

Had some more time to fiddle about with it today and found that i can take the FSB all the way up to 275 and it's still stable. Question is, is it better to have the FSB higher and the memory slightly lower with tighter timings? I can't seem to get the NB frequency much higher, though it might be ok in the middle ground between 2500 & 2600. The system won't post at an FSB of 280 or an NB of 2750. (even with some extra volts)