AMD Overclocking Guide

Discussion in 'Processors and motherboards AMD' started by Psychlone, Jul 18, 2008.

  1. pcnazz

    pcnazz Member

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    hello Psychlone , I really enjoyed this thread , Thank You , I'm waiting for January for the Deneb FX quad , I also need to find another MB co. to go with since abit is all done it seems with that part of the buisness , its to bad but I think Asus is who I'll go with , I'm studying now so I'll be ready when I make this upgrade , thanks again Psychlone I picked up a few good tips here , see ya around
     
  2. Psychlone

    Psychlone Ancient Guru

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    Glad you got something out of it!

    As for ASUS boards, I can say, without any doubt in my mind, that their boards are the best. I've owned several MSI boards (pulled the socket clean off of 4 of them using the same Tt Big-Typhoon that has been on 7 ASUS boards with no adjustments - you couldn't get me to run an MSI board if it came with controlling interest stock in the company!) - I've owned a couple DFI boards - nothing bad to say about them at all aside from picky on memory (spend a couple hundred on some really killer memory just to find out that DFI doesn't play well with it!) - I've owned an Abit, a Foxconn and a couple Gigabytes, and I'll just own ASUS from now on.

    Seriously, I've had in the neighborhood of 18 different motherboards from ASUS alone, and I have to say that they are the best boards that I've ever owned - every single one of them! Not a one has had to be RMA'ed (although I'm sure it has to happen to someone at some time) - not a one has ever arrived DOA, not a one has ever given me any troubles that was actually the motherboard's fault, and they ALL play well with pretty much any RAM you throw at them, and last but certainly not least, they ALL are loaded with more options than their competition's equivalent board for less money!!!

    Currently, I'm running an M3A79-T Deluxe - Deneb ready (140W CPU compliant) - this board really trumps the M3A32-MVP Deluxe in options. This board has everything - and the BIOS testers are really getting their BIOS down to a science - there's so many options, but everything is pretty clear...this BIOS isn't much different than the M3A32-MVP, but it does add some new functionality that the M3A32-MVP isn't even capable of.

    Anyway - good luck on your wait - I'll probably have upgraded another full time before then, and will be back to write yet another overclocking guide...

    Take care,
    Psychlone
     
  3. pcnazz

    pcnazz Member

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    hello Psychlone , its allways good to read some threads from a guru who has been oc'ing for 15 years or better , the experience you have has to be endless or close to , never owned an asus mb but I respect your opinion and asus is who I'm going with in the future unless abit steps up to the plate with high end gear , I'm waiting for 09 and the Deneb Platform Phenom FX quard core , mid 09 but I read somewhere else January 09 , gonna keep running my AMD 6400+BE until then , do you Psychlone have that AMD duel core oc guide you mentioned flying around the forums somewhere ? Thanks again for sharing your experiences with us Psychlone ! pcnazz
     
  4. Evasive

    Evasive Member

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    Been awhile since I was into the overclocking scene, Last time i was HARDCORE into it, was the old AMD mobile chips, I had a 2600+ that overclocked like a champ with low ass voltage.

    So Now I finally got my M3A79-T and a 6400+ BE, And yes i admit...the freakin bios is just INSANE with the amount of options it has...

    I don't even know if ACC will help my x2..It set to auto, but I still have no idea what/if its doing anything to help.

    Right now Im at 300fsb, at 3.3ghz (11x multi). I know I can run at 3.4ghz, but I was checking my FSB max (I have 1066 cosair 2x2gig sticks).

    I am curious as to where your X2 overclocking guide is. I REALLY want to see what this 6400 BE can do (i dont even mind going insane and trying for 3.5ghz lol)..So any info or anything would be awesome.

    And man your phenom guide rocks :) but im waiting for denab...my 6400 BE should tide me over tell then.

    Thanks
    Evasive
     

  5. urmysin

    urmysin Master Guru

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    Very good OC guide Psychlone. I was considering a Phenom processor. Unfortunately I did a little bit of research as to why I can not get a good overclock on my current motherboard (ASUS M2N-SLi) in my gaming computer. It turns out that the M2N-SLi is one of the motherboards that can't take the wattage demand of some processors. I can go to around 3.3Ghz on my 6400+ but it is not stable after a while so I just leave it default. I don't have any problems with it as long as I run it at default.

    Psychlone have you ran into any articles about motherboards having problems with the wattage demand of the Phenoms or 125 Watt X2? If so what's your take on it. Do you think the manufactures just used cheap caps that can't handle it or what?
     
  6. Aura89

    Aura89 Ancient Guru

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    Actually i wouldn't exactly say that.... your 6400+ at 3.2Ghz is pushing it even there at stock, 3.3Ghz was all i was able to get my 6000+ to except when i got this latest board, but this board is 240 dollars, so i would say that you OCing to 3.3Ghz is just fine and is very normal
     
  7. Psychlone

    Psychlone Ancient Guru

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    First of all, thanks for the props - it took a long time and a lot of CMOS clears to get to the point of writing up the guide, but in the end, it's already helped lots of people with their overclocks.

    The M3A79-T BIOS is identical to the latest M3A32-MVP BIOS - with the addition of ACC - (which will answer your first question) - ACC is the communication between the Southbridge and the 6 previously unused pins on the bottom of the Phenom CPUs - so to my knowledge, it's not actually doing anything for you.

    The X2 overclocking guide was written specifically for the A8R32-MVP motherboard, and you'll find that it's almost identically written to this M3A32-MVP guide with the math changed to reflect the different architecture.
    Here's that A8R32-MVP Guide that you'll want to pay specific attention to the math to...it's only a little bit different. Where you don't have a Phenom in the socket - you're going to want to keep your HT as close to 1000MHz as you can (the older architecture can't handle the 5200MHz that the Phenoms can) - and when you're doing the math for the Divisor Ratio, you're going to have to remember to ROUND UP to the next higher whole number - something that's changed in the new architecture...this means that even if you land on a decimal that's lower than .5, you still round up to the next higher number (i.e. 12.1 = 13, 12.2 = 13, 12.3 = 13 and so forth)

    Be patient and keep an eye on your temps - as soon as you begin playing with voltages, all the excess heat generated by raising them has to go somewhere, and that somewhere is usually your CPU HS/f assembly and your motherboard's chipset, and with the M3A32-MVP and the M3A79-T, it's also going to heatsoak the VREGs (voltage regulators on the far side of the board right under where your exhaust fan probably is - it has a copper heatsink on it that may need some extra cooling - the M3A32-MVP came with a little specialized fan that mounts directly on the copper fins, but they left it out of the M3A79-T box for some reason. - Nothing that a small fan pointing right down on them won't fix...and you can (and should) monitor their temps in Everest.

    Good luck to you! If you've got any questions after giving that A8R32-MVP thread a thorough read, please feel free to create a new thread and pm me the details of where it's at and I'll come pop in and see what I can do for you.

    Thanks for the props on the guide!
    As for the decreased overclocking ability on your current M2N board - it's not really about the caps on the board so much as that board was made before the Phenom architecture was revealed (if I remember right) - it probably took a BIOS update to become Phenom compliant, but there's really nothing that they can do in the way of voltages and wattages for the newer architecture CPUs since the board wasn't built with the newer architecture in mind in the first place.
    If you're in the market for a really good overclocking board for your Phenom, the M3A79-T can be had for less than the M3A32-MVP right now (just under ******** if I'm not mistaken) - and it *will* take your CPU to it's max...just remember that it's only going to do as much as your CPU's stepping is going to allow - stepping has been an all-important variable in overclockability since AMD was founded, and still has the largest impact on how high the CPU is going to overclock...it has very little to do with anything else (since the RAM, HT, NB can all be taken out of the equation by lowering them or putting them on dividers)

    Anyway, good luck in your quest for an overclock on your Phenom - I'd suggest the M3A79-T board since it's already Deneb compliant (140W CPU)...but if you want to wait for a few months, the new AM3 boards will come out (personally I wouldn't wait since the new architecture is bound to have some growing pains right out of the box when it's released - better to wait till some BIOS updates are available to alleviate the problems that are inherent to new hardware)

    Psychlone
     
  8. Iarwain

    Iarwain Banned

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    As far as I can see, my board doesn't turn phenom cores off. So I've instead used AOD to downclock a core to 1ghz, using a 5x multiplier, for better temps. Anyone know if this is going to affect me at all? I know Vista will try to spread things across all the cores, obviously one of them will be significantly slower.
     
  9. XF_Golden

    XF_Golden Member

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    I am from the days of yore when an Overclock was done with a jumper or some well placed solder. The extreme overclocks were done with temporarily with jumpers and bags of ice, almost always ended up in disaster.

    I have done some overclocking on newer AMD stuff and here is what I have gotten.
    Gigabyte ga-m57sli-s4R2 and 5200+ x2 at 3.003 Ghz with 4GB DDR 800 (G.skill)at 920mhz 4-4-4-12 timings 231 FSB and 13x multiplier. M3N-HT Deluxe and phenom 9950BE at 3.003 Ghz with 8GB DDR 800 (G.skill) at 920mhz 4-4-4-12, same FSB and Multiplier. I have gone up to 240FSB but it just locks up.

    do you think I can get more out of either one of those with a CM690 case and all 120mm case fans and stock coolers? Would it be worthwhile? I just don't understand the whole FSb*HT=DDRspeed/cpumult^htMult stuff.

    I could do some digging and give you specs an all the hardware if you wouldn't mind making some suggestions on the other items. Like how to set the cpu multiplier so that I don't over do my ram and make that freak out etc.
     
  10. Iarwain

    Iarwain Banned

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    2.9 might be your max, without a Black edition processor. My 9850BE only hits 3.1 stable, and 3.2 if I can get better cooling.

    If you don't have a Black edition, you can't change the CPU multiplier upward, only down.
     

  11. OldGuy932

    OldGuy932 Master Guru

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    No offense meant by my post, but I find it quite odd that my original thread when Phenoms came out was not stickied when it had all of the information in it minus the stuff specific to the M3A32-MVP, and it had a bit of information about what kinds of cooling were better for your phenom. But since this one is stickied I'd recommend finding it and adding the information about specific kinds of cooling.
     
  12. Psychlone

    Psychlone Ancient Guru

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    @ OldGuy: First, I'd like to thank you for your input in the early days of my Phenom testing.
    Since I can't sticky anything, and it's up to the mods, I most certainly can add your information to my original post as an addendum with due credit...if you want to find that post of yours (I've searched, but there are a lot of posts that contain Phenom in them!)
    ...let me know.

    @ XFGolden: Your CPU's stepping is going to be the first limiting factor, followed by your board's overclockability, then by your RAM. Lots of the Phenom 9950's can't even hit 3GHz at all, so don't feel as though you've gotten screwed - remember the first rule of overclocking: Don't expect more than what you've paid for. This obviously means that you're not guaranteed anything more than the component was designed to do stable.

    Another thing, with the Phenom architecture, I've found that it's easier and more proficient to overclock using the unlocked upper multipliers on the Black Edition CPUs rather than the older architecture's overclocking of upping the HTT (FSB) with a lower multiplier. Since all the individual components are now linked but have multipliers, you can set them almost anywhere you want them without having to rely on the FSB to raise them to a certain level (or to drop them lower to compensate for the raise in FSB) - simply set the multi for whatever component you're currently overclocking (HT/NB/SB, etc.) and there you go.

    With the new M3A79-T Deluxe motherboard, I've achieved a 3.675GHz overclock, but it wasn't stable at the voltages I preferred to run (it would be at higher voltages, but then the heat would have been catastrophic) - I did an AOD hack to allow higher voltages but even though I believe that I could have been stable at that speed with more juice, I backed off after I saw the load temps in the mid 60*C range.

    Anyway, again, it's all about stepping - as it's always been. I, too, have been around since the 'olden days', and not much has changed...the math, the architecture, the ability to overclock via BIOS and now via Windows apps all make the venture into overclocking much easier than it used to be.

    Good luck!

    Psychlone
     
  13. Iarwain

    Iarwain Banned

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    I noticed you and others have the ability to disable cores in your bios. I'd like to give this a try...is the setting hidden somewhere, or is my board without it?
     
  14. WolfzheaD

    WolfzheaD New Member

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    Hey Psychlone. Just bought a foxconn destroyer nForce 780a SLi as an upgrade to go hand in hand with my phenom 9850BE. I read in one of your posts that you have previously used a foxconn mobo. so i was wondering if there anything more specific to that brand i should know before following your guide? sorry if it comes across as a dumb question, i've only just started looking into overclocking so im a bit wary of what i should and should not do, aswell as what i do and don't have to know.

    thanks in advance.

    Edit:

    i forgot to mention/ask. the new motherboard arrives tomorrow and the one i am using atm is the Gigabyte GA-M750SLI-DS4 along with 4x 1Gb dual channel ddr2 pc2-8500 mem sticks (http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/memory/ocz_ddr2_pc2_8500_sli_ready_edition) which, according to their specs, can run at 1066Mhz.

    However i have run cpu-z and get some very different results - i have not bothered with overclocking this board or any of the hardware attached to it atm. Here are the memory results using CPU-Z v1.47:

    Memory = http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c97/WolfzheaD/Memory.jpg

    SPD = http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c97/WolfzheaD/SPD.jpg - All 4 slots are showing the exact same feedback from cpu-z (running at pc2-5300)

    As mentioned before the system is completely standard, theres been no overclocking done and although i am getting my new mobo tomorrow i will be using this Gigabyte one as the foundation for my gf's new computer in a few weeks time and ideally i would like all the hardware to be running as it says "on the box"

    I'm not really sure if it matters but im running 64-bit Vista? perhaps cpu-z doesnt work too well with 64-bit software - i dunno.

    again thanks in advance for any info :-]
     
    Last edited: Oct 9, 2008
  15. magah

    magah New Member

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    I can overclock ?????

    Hello Psychlone, I recently bought a set M3A32-MVP DELUXE + AMD PHENOM 9850 BE + 2x 1GB Corsair Dominator 5-5-5-15 + COOLER Zalman 9700 LED and Power Supply Satellite Model : SL-8600EPS-Modular 600W.
    Only that I am very disappointed with the OverClock that attained so far, only 2610GHz, this is too little for what I see here, but actually increase the clock if I do not have stability. I'm using Vista 32bit.

    Any idea?
     

  16. Iarwain

    Iarwain Banned

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    I would say that the phenoms really don't take to having their fsb increased. You'll want to do all your overclocking, or most of it anyway, through the multiplier.
     
  17. Psychlone

    Psychlone Ancient Guru

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    @Iarwain: I have no experience with the DFI version boards, so I can't say one way or another if the option to disable cores is in your BIOS or not, but what I can say is that it seems to be a fairly standard feature in most BIOS revisions nowadays that are the AM2/AM2+ boards, so there's a good chance it's in there somewhere...(sorry I couldn't help more on that, but I won't speak unless I have first hand experience with it.)

    @WolfzheaD: Your first screenshot shows your RAM at 533MHz, which equals 1066MHz DDR (you have to remember to multiply it by 2 when you see that)
    The second screenshot shows PC2 5300 because the 1066 sticks don't follow the standard JEDEC compliance standards, so don't worry about that...it's really running at DDR2 1066 speeds.

    As for the Foxconn board, I don't like Foxconn's BIOS, nor their BIOS updates...mostly why I've stuck with ASUS almost exclusively. The Foxconn BIOS is lacking many of the feature that the ASUS has, so finding the same variables in your BIOS may get confusing...and I don't know if I still have the notes for Foxconn boards or not.

    About specifics: DO NOT raise any voltages very high...I wouldn't go more than a half volt (.5V) higher for any single voltage than I have in this guide...and I mean that! If you raise your voltages (any of them) too high, you're bound to burn something up. Other than that, you're pretty much safe to do anything. If you raise the FSB up too high, you'll bluescreen or just not POST, in which case you'll reset the CMOS and start over (and not make that mistake again) - if you raise your multipliers (any of them ) up too high, you'll bluescreen or just not POST, and you'll be clearing your CMOS again (and won't make that mistake again) - all in all, everything can be cleared by wiping the CMOS and starting from scratch, but raising any voltage too high can and will cause component damage that clearing the CMOS won't fix...so you're free to do what you want as long as you keep those voltages in check. ;)

    @magah: Don't get too frustrated this early on...you haven't tried much yet (I presume)
    But, please do keep in mind that not every CPU will overclock to 3.5GHz. You paid for 2.5GHz, and that's what you've got - a CPU that's guaranteed to be stable at 2.5GHz (never forget the first rule that you shouldn't expect more than you paid for!)

    But, I believe that we can get you more. Just how much more depends on the stepping of the CPU you have there. Stepping is all-important, and determines just how far you're going to be able to go. A horrible stepping will still do 2.65 - 2.7GHz, where a good one (like mine) will do 3.675GHz if tweaked properly. It's all about when it rolled off the manufacturer line, and that's what's marked on the IHS on the top of the CPU.

    Psychlone
     
  18. cupper24

    cupper24 Guest

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    So, let's say "hypothetically" I want to get a 9850 or 9950 BE from a site like newegg or zipzoomfly. Is it a grab bag of processors laying around in their warehouse or can you actually request a certain stepping?

    *If the answer is "random", where could one go about shopping for the chips with the best stepping? I'm talking NIB, not used.

    I see you've already moved on to the m3a79, which is what I currently have in my sights (I mean "hypothetically" in my sights ;)) as of now. How's that board treating you (and your overclock)?

    Finally, is that Vista you have 64-bit? Can't believe I never asked you that in any previous exchanges....

    cupper24
     
  19. Iarwain

    Iarwain Banned

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    The 50 in 9850 or 9950 indicates B3 Stepping.
     
  20. WolfzheaD

    WolfzheaD New Member

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    cheers psychlone :-] i had a little run through your guide up on the laptop whilst trying some of the overclocking on the gigabyte board, i couldnt get the 9850 above 2.8Ghz stable but im not sure if that due to the limitations of that gigabyte board, anyways new one just arrived so time to go rebuild this rig :/

    thanks again mate
     

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