When OC'ing, HT Link multiplier drops to x4

Yesterday I bought a new board to replace the old one. The board is AsRock 960GC-GS which supports DDR2 @ 1066 and DDR3 & 1866, HT 3.0 and the latest AM3+ cpu's. I've coupled this board with an Athlon II x4 620 and 2 x 2 DDRII @ 800.

The board has OC features which allows me to change the HT, NB and DDR multiplier so I thought is great for some light overclocking. I wanted to push the CPU to around 3GHz

When running at stock speeds, everything on auto, HT and NB speeds are default at 2000MHz.

I've switched to manual, set the bus speed to 250, CPU multiplier to x12, NB to x8, HT to x8. I've noticed in CPU-z that the HT Link drops to 1000MHz or x4 multiplier, but the NB stays at 2000MHz (x8 multiplier).




I've played around with the frequencies, but whenever I want to set the HT multiplier in the BIOS to get it around 2000MHz, it always shows up in CPU-z at around 1000MHz.

For example, if I set the bus speed to 220, the NB will stay at 2200 with a x10 multiplier, but the HT will drop to 880 (x4), no matter what multiplier option I choose in the BIOS.

I've tried every possible combination with no luck. Is this something got to do with the MB or the CPU?

Note: ACC is disabled, Spread Spectrum is set to Auto.

Thanks.

 

Hmm, from what I remember back in the day, that issue only happened when the motherboard was gimped. Some AM3+ boards only support HT @1000. It's easy to overlook. Thankfully, it doesn't affect the performance that badly. Only a few %.

 

I'm currently running the bus speed at 218. HT Link is 1962 and NB Freq is 2180. Anything above this speed and the HT multiplier drops to x4. I can live with that

 

Yeah, sounds like a motherboard bug. Any BIOS updates on AsRock's support site for it?

 

I've updated to the latest bios, and even contacted technical support. Anyways, I don't expected much from a cheap board like this, but it works at least