AMD Overclocking Guide

Not that stepping, the actual stepping on the chip (i.e. JAAHB AA 0816 GPMW
)....

Is there any way to shop by this stepping?

cupper24

 

Link to guide:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=252299

Also on my M3A78-T, the SB PLL spread spectrum seems to help stability a bit, mostly because I can't boot up at 263x11.5 on my 9600 unless its turned on.

 

Hey cupper!

Unless you physically hand-pick one, you'll get whatever they send you. I've found that Newegg usually has the best steppings on hand, but that doesn't mean that you'll get one - I went through 4 from Newegg...1 of them was a decent overclocker, 2 of them were *horrible* (2.8GHz was their highest!), and 1 of them was excellent at overclocking (the one I'm still using, and it's reached 3.675GHz on this board)
I've found that Fry's Electronics has an excellent selection that you can 'cherry-pick'...that's how I got the RAM I have in my rig...they just happened to have revision 1.3 Dominator 8500C5D's on their shelf (about 4 packages back) - these sticks are stable at well over 1200MHz, but Corsair quit making them a year ago...so only places that have the old stock in their warehouses are actually going to even have access to something like that.

so, hypothetically, if you purchased a 98 or 9950 BE along with an M3A79-T Deluxe and 4GB of Corsair Dominator 8500C5D sticks that just happened to be version 1.3 to 1.4...then you'd be happy as all nine planes of Hell with your setup! I know you just, and I mean *just* got your rig overclocked nicely and are happy with it. You know that you'll never get out of it what you've got in it unless you use it up, so my suggestion to you would be to hang tight until the Deneb architecture comes around the corner, then make the purchase...it should be just above $200, the M3A79-T should be just below $180, and the RAM you can find for pennies these days...
The Deneb architecture isn't only a die-shrink, it also packs a 15% performance boost, and a couple testers have already taken it up to 4.5GHZ + ...just something to think about.

My OS has been Vista Home Premium x64 for about 6 months now, was Vista Home Premium x86 for the 6 months before that, and XP Home x86 for the 2 years prior...so when I was helping you with your A8R32-MVP, I was on VHP x86.

@Iarwain (and anyone else that's confused about steppings)
You can break down the stepping numbers/letters on the top of the IHS so that it shows the date the actual chip rolled off the manufacturing line. This is how important it is to know what you're getting; very few Phenoms with a stepping of 0810 or before have shown to overclock higher than 2.8GHz. Most good overclocking Phenoms (3.1GHz or above) come from weeks 16, 18, 19, 21, 22 and the weeks that I have skipped are Phenoms that have extreme difficulty reaching 3GHz even with extreme voltage increases. Also, the steppings of AW, GW, and MW have shown to be in the top of the best overclocking CPUs. (highest MHz with the lowest voltage increase)


What we call the 'Stepping' is really quite a lot more than that...we usually can group it into 5 categories from those numbers:

* Core
* Week
* Stepping
* Color (of PCB)
* Revision

The 2 that are imperative for the Phenom are the Week and the Stepping, the Week that it was created, probably due to the manufacturing process itself (like a 'Wednesday's Car' - a car built on Wednesday used to be the better car because during the middle of the week, no one was looking forward to the party at the end of the week and they had already nursed their hangover from the weekend before )

In any case, if there's a way to physically hand-pick your CPU from a dealer, that's what you should do, even if it's more money - because there's no way to tell what you'll get from any online retailer.

Psychlone

 

My processor: AMD Phenom 9850
OPN: HD985ZXAGHBOX
SN: 9502314C80134
You can find out through the SN or OPN of the processor for this step?

 

Hey Psychlone, I have my phenom 9950 running at 3333GHz (202 x 16.5) and it just feels like a great sweet spot to me but it will crash during the second 3DMARK06 CPU test and the AOD stability test.

I was just wondering if you could give me some tips or suggestions as to try and stablize what I have so far with my settings, as it runs much cooler at 3333MHz@ 42-45C idle than the default settings @ 2600MHz which is 48C idle (both of which are when ambient temps are about 26C) I am idling at 39C right now however which I think is really good.

Other overclocks I have tried were very toasty and just plain didn't feel very zippy

I really like this overclock if I could get it stable.

Done so far:

Changed the CPU multiplier, FSB and CPU voltage to (1.375v in BIOS) which shows up as 1.39 on Everest and other programs.

Set NB voltage to 1.21v

Changed 2xLCLK Mode to [Enabled]

Everything else is pretty much defaults.

ALSO, I would like to know what you meant when you were talking about Microcode Updation.......I guess my BIOS just simply doesn't have that option or something.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

System Specs:

AMD Phenom 9950 (not sure of the steppings as I didn't look at them)
I unfortunately have a mix of 4GB RAM : CORSAIR XMS2 DDR2 800 2GB (2 x 1GB)/OCZ
Cooling (Stock)
Platinum 2GB (2 x 1GB)
Asus M3A79-T Mobo
Radeon HD 4870
Sony DVD
Corsair 750 TX PSU
Antec Nine Hundred Case

 

Hi, my phenom 9850 processor has step number:
JAAFB AA 0809EPDW
It´s possible overclock with it?
Because I'm not getting more than 100MHz from OverClock.
The maximum value that computer stay stable is 2650MHz with this PHENOM 9850.

 

@magah: Lowest 9850BE on the charts with that stepping is at 2.8GHz, so perhaps you need to raise your CPU voltage?
My first question to you would be: Have you tried to find each individual components MAXIMUM value as per the guide? If not, thats where you need to start - because without knowing just how far anything will go, you wont know how far you can take anything!
Go back to page 1 and re-read the section called "Finding your Maximum Values" - you're sure to have better results when you know a little more about what you're doing.

@goitalone: DISABLE 2xLCLK mode...thats not doing anything without the other options that go with it, and even then, all of them hinder a decent overclock.
If you know what stepping Phenom youve got there, nows the time to tell me, because you may be capped at 3.3GHz at 1.375V. Once you start going above 1.4V, Ive found that it really gets to the diminishing returns point quickly...and youre almost there.

Microcode Updation requires you to press F4 under the "CPU CONFIGURATION" area...its a hidden option.

Aside from all that, the only things that I can tell you to do (since I really have no idea what youve already done) is to raise your CPU voltage a notch, set your RAM timings manually just as theyre supposed to be, and test again. Get back with me with more of your settings...you could just copy and paste your BIOS settings using my template on page one.

Psychlone

 

I just now got my CPU back in.

Sure is hard to take a good pic with a crappy web cam and poor lighting, but I really wanted to take a picture instead of just typing it out, so I did

Well, anyway, here is my Phenom while I go write down all my bios settings:

http://realm22.com/9950.html

 

I'm worried about you saying that, because it is so unbelievably unlikely that your computer idles lower at 3.33ghz than at 2.6, and even if it does, load temps are what matter. Unless of course you've found the only CPU that gets cooler the more it is OCed.

EDIT: Is there any way to get all the stepping information in a software based way? I really don't wanna pull it out again. First time I bent the pins somehow.

 

Oops, double post, apologies.

 

I undestand that load is what matters but, yes, that is the only overclock I tried that had good idle temps.

With a bit of load it would be unstable and crash at about 54-56C so I had to bump it up vcore to 1.4 something and it kept getting more stable, was getting into the 60's.

Anyway, I just gave up and ordered a Noctua UH-12P, a Panaflo 120 x 38mm Ultra fan and a Rheobus fan controller from Coolerguys.

Newegg didn't have any Noctua's.
The price was better at Coolerguys for the fan and combined shipping anyway.

I can know I can at least get to 3.28 stable stock at 55C load.

I'll see if I can get it any higher with all the above. If not, I still need better cooling so either way I'll be happy.

 

Oh, and using AOD, I was at 3.4GHz for a few minutes, but I didn't know what voltages were best.

 

Well now you're worrying me even more. You were idling in the 50s, and then you increased the voltage, and put it under load? That sounds like a good way to burn up your processor, man.

 

NOOOOOOOOO, I was idling at low to mid 40's the whole time even after the 1.4 voltage bump.

Before the voltage bump I was idling as low as 38C

Both @3.33GHz, just slight vcore differences.

It was only after I tried to run 3DMARK06 that it couldn't take it and crashed at the second cpu test.

 

Hi Psychlone
I found the maximum of my whole M3A32-MVP and the PHENOM 9850 BE processor
FSB max = 262
CPU Multi max = 14.5x
NB Multi max = 12.0x

What now?

 

For good reason, I doubt highly that your CPU Multi's max is 14.5 - I believe even the horrible overclocking stepping CPUs can hit 17 or more...you just need to remember to raise the CPU Voltage accordingly - BUT PAY ATTENTION TO THE TEMPS! (I seriously can't stress that enough - once you begin raising voltages, you *will* be raising the temperatures as well!)
I'd bet you're good up to at least 16 if not to 17 or higher...

Now it's time to start tweaking!

Remember this part?
AMD Overclocking Equation:
(CPU Multi) * (FSB) = (CPU Freq)
(CPU Multi) / (Memory Divider) = (Divisor Ratio)
(CPU Freq) / (Divisor Ratio) = (RAM MHz) (* 2 = DDR MHz)
(NB Multi) * (FSB) = (NB Freq)
(HT Multi) * (FSB) = (HT Freq) **
**note: the HT Multi is usually shown as a MHz option rather than a multiplier of the FSB, but in fact, it is a default of 10X the FSB
Also of note is that your HT *MUST* be < or = the resulting NB Frequency or you will not be stable.

Memory Dividers for use in the equation above
I have included every conceivable way that these dividers can be displayed for every AM2/AM2+ BIOS. Use the DECIMAL value in the equation above and use one of the corresponding values for your specific BIOS. I've only included the 800MHz and the 1066MHz values, as this is what the majority of us are using.

533 = 1066 = 16:6 = 8:3 = (8 / 3 = 2.6666666) = 2.6666666
400 = 800 = 12:6 = 6:3 = (6 / 3 = 2) = 2

You're going to use the maximum values that you've found for the components in the equation and try to figure out how to get as close to those maximums as you can - this is where it all becomes a juggling act...

First thing that I need to mention here is that the Phenoms do better with raising the CPU Multiplier vs. the older architecture by raising the FSB.
Begin by raising your CPU Multiplier to 15, reboot, if that hangs or doesn't POST, then increase your CPU Voltage by .2V (1.3V to 1.32V) and try again - raising it in small increments until it will pass POST all the way into Windows.

Reboot to BIOS and raise the CPU Multi another notch (15.5) - reboot to see if it'll pass POST - if not, raise the CPU Voltage again. Keep doing this until you either see your idle temps in the mid 40*C range, or until it just will not pass POST and boot all the way to Windows - You've just found your CPU's actual maximum from which to work with...

Nowthen, using that value with the math, you can clearly see what's going to crap out on you before you even try it in the BIOS - then comes the fine-tuning...we'll save that for later.

Use the math equation to see where each component is going to be using any given CPU Multi - and remember that you can raise or lower each individual multi to adjust something that just went too high.

With your component's maximum values, you now know where they're going to cap. So, it's going to be clear when you do the math what is going to happen.

Here's an example:

15 * 200 = 3000 (this is the CPU frequency)
15 / 2.66666 = 5.62 (this is the divisor ratio)
3000 / 5.62 = 533.81 * 2 = 1067.62MHz DDR (this is your RAM)
200 * 12 = 2400MHz (this is the HT and/or NB speed)
Remember that your HT *must* be less than or equal to the NB speeds!

So, using the above math, your CPU Multi at 15, the FSB at 200, your RAM at 1067 and your HT and NB both at 12X, you're running at 3.0GHz, RAM at 1067MHz, and HT and NB both at 2400MHz.

Simple, right? The fine-tuning is really nothing more than small-increment increases and/or decreases in each direction to make up for increases/decreases in other areas. (example, raising the FSB to 212 will probably force you to DEcrease your RAM to an 800MHz divider, along with decreasing your HT and NB to 11X or even 10X - but the lowering of each of those other components makes it so you can INcrease your FSB much higher - this is a reboot/test/reboot/test/reboot/test process and is pretty time-consuming...but well worth it!)

Good luck!

Psychlone

 

Psychlone, to discover this values I used this settings:
ADVANCED
.JumperFree Configuration
..Processor Voltage [1.325]
..Processor-NB Voltage [1.35]
..CPU VDDA Voltage [2.6v] (CPU voltage regulation circuits)
..DDR Voltage [2.10]
..Northbridge Voltage [Manual]
..Hyper Transport Volatge [1.50v]
..Core/PCIe Voltage [1.20] - Voltage supplied to the NB chip itself
..NB PCIE PLL [1.9v]
..Southbridge Voltage [1.24]


When I use this values my CPU temp is 44*C.
Any value is wrong?

 

Hyper Transport Volatge @ 1.50v?

Now I am the one who's worried lol.

I am too afraid to put my v's in the red...let alone maxed out in the red.

 

Same here, wondering about the RED HTT Voltages. And also where does A.C.C. come into play with the M3A79-T Deluxe board


Freak

 

Wish I knew.

I have not yet been able to see anything of benefit from using ACC. It just seems like it ruins my OC no matter what the settings/voltages.

Seems to work best at Auto or just plain disabled for me.

And what is the CPU tweak for? That thing seems to make me run hotter than I already am.

Does it have something to do with the TLB from the 9x00's?