Phenom II C3 4.1GHZ

Martini1991 · 25 Dec 2009 at 14:23

Well, my new C3 came yesterday, and it's much different than my last. I can get 3.8GHZ stable on stock volts.
Anyways, took a little effort, but here I go with 4.1GHZ stable, 2 hours stress test using AMD's over drive stress testing.
This is also to show people who were becoming annoyed at "claimed" but not proven overclocks.

And now I'm going for 4.2GHZ.

mmj_uk · 25 Dec 2009 at 14:25

Impressive, is it LinX stable though? I had a 965 that did over 4ghz but best I could get completely stable was only around 3.8.

gurusan · 25 Dec 2009 at 14:33

nice clock. good to see a phenom 2 above the 4ghz mark finally

Martini1991 · 25 Dec 2009 at 14:48

mmj_uk said:
Impressive, is it LinX stable though? I had a 965 that did over 4ghz but best I could get completely stable was only around 3.8.

This is what annoys me.
IBT etc really aren't any good for Phenom II's. If it doesn't BSOD, it's stable quite frankly.
But my C3 965 is 3.8GHZ at 1.375V IBT stable for the record.
I'd just rather use an AMD orientated stressing method.

gurusan · 25 Dec 2009 at 15:17

if it doesn't crash doing whatever you use your computer for then it's stable in my book.

Martini1991 · 25 Dec 2009 at 15:34

I'm going to run an 8 hour AOD stress test as some people on here seem to get annoyed by the lack of evidence lol

aaron333 · 25 Dec 2009 at 15:47

Play a game or two. You use it to play games, so you only really need it stable in games?

How's about some Prime 95?

Mul · 25 Dec 2009 at 16:01

Martini1991 said:
I'm going to run an 8 hour AOD stress test as some people on here seem to get annoyed by the lack of evidence lol

This is what I'd like to see. I too see a lot of claimed 4.0GHz+ with C3 Phenom II X4 965 but have yet to have seen a traditional screenshot of a 6+ hour uninterrupted Prime95/OCCT run. While I've been able to boot into Windows at 4.0GHz with both C2 and C3 Denebs, my max stable was 3.7GHz and 3.94GHz respectively.

mmj_uk · 25 Dec 2009 at 16:06

Martini1991 said:
This is also to show people who were becoming annoyed at "claimed" but not proven overclocks.

Most people are aware that Phenom's can do over 4Ghz, they've just seen little evidence to support that they're stable at such speeds on air (unlike their Intel counterparts).

gurusan said:
if it doesn't crash doing whatever you use your computer for then it's stable in my book.

That's fine nobody can force you to stress test your computer, the point is when you lower the bar and change the definition of "stable" it's much easier to claim a higher stable overclock.

BTW LinX is a reliable stress test for any x86/x64 CPU regardless of brand, just be sure to assign plenty of memory to keep it busy for a while.

Martini1991 · 25 Dec 2009 at 16:21

I don't reckon many people have true 4GHZ stable Phenom's tbh..
I've worked with around 5.
I've decided to just stick at 4GHZ.
Running 8 hours of AOD now.
4GHZ to 4.1GHZ is a difference of like 10C due to voltage change lol.

reiyushin · 25 Dec 2009 at 16:33

Nice going

ouchie on the vcore increase

Martini1991 · 25 Dec 2009 at 16:36

Yeh, I'm going to leave it at 4GHZ with 1.45V and 2.6GHZ HT and 2.6GHZ NB.
RAM's running at 1600MHZ 8-8-8-24.

Mul · 25 Dec 2009 at 17:03

I'd say you've got yourself a rather nice CPU to be testing away at just 1.45V

Martini1991 · 25 Dec 2009 at 17:06

Mul said:
I'd say you've got yourself a rather nice CPU to be testing away at just 1.45V

It goes 4GHZ at 1.425, but to add extra stability, and since my cooler can take it, I opted for 1.45.

R34pz · 26 Dec 2009 at 14:44

I would tend to believe this tbh, even my older revision X3 will boot at 3.85ghz (unstable). I'm sure if I had a much better cooled board with a newer chipset it would do close to 4ghz stable. C3's are supposed to be even better, so I reckon 4.1ghz stable is more than do-able. Good luck going for 4.2 matey, got to love these Phenom II's eh

Martini1991 · 26 Dec 2009 at 14:53

Won't even boot 4.2GHZ.
I'm half tempted to lock two cores and see what it'll go to.

R34pz · 26 Dec 2009 at 15:01

That's exactly how mine is past 3.9, it just won't even boot at any voltage past this. Even 3.9 fails as soon as it posts. Still 4.1 is awesome, the sheer speed and performance you've got there for the price against an equivalent Intel is incredible. Also your 5870 will go really nicely with that setup, very nice mate and great results on the overclocks.

mrfun1981 · 26 Dec 2009 at 15:04

Great OC an keep reading people say that you need to be doing in all in the bios & by the looks of it you done it all with AOD

Martini1991 · 26 Dec 2009 at 15:09

mrfun1981 said:
Great OC an keep reading people say that you need to be doing in all in the bios & by the looks of it you done it all with AOD

I did it all in BIOS.
For some bizzare reason AOD doesn't work correctly for clocking. I'm assuming its the fact my board's only been out a few weeks.
I locked 2 cores and I'm currently stressing at 4.2GHZ, just for experimentation only lol.
With the drop in temps I could probably take it 4.4GHZ with 1.6V.

mrfun1981 · 26 Dec 2009 at 15:17

Oh, either way if you lived local would get you to OC my system. Thats great going.

Even if you could take it to 4.4Ghz do you really need it? If i was you i think would stick to 4.2Ghz before you chance lady luck & ruin something