My second OC'ing project. FX 8350

This will be the second chip I have overclocked. The first being a Phanom II 965. That one I got lucky and got a good chip. I had it stable on Prime95 at 4.3ghz and stable enough to bench at 4.47ghz.

After listening to the wealth of the good advise offered here I upgraded my board to a Sabertooth 990fx R2.0 paired with an FX 8350. It may not be the top dog, but it is closer than I have ever had before.

I learned a lot from the 965 ans this time I am taking better notes to document everything. Here is a spread sheet I made up to track my progress. I do not have HW monitor or CPU-Z pics for this one. This is my base line so I didn't feel the need. I will after this.

I chose 4 bench checks to use every step of the way to track progress.

If anyone sees anything out of wack, feel free to let me have it

OK. Here is a test at 4.1ghz. All I changed is raise the bus to 205. The only other thing I did is change the memory voltage from auto to 1.55. I didn't touch anything else. You will notice my temps are better because I opened the case and have a floor fan blowing into it. Also, unlike the last test, I remembered to turn my CPU radiator fans up to full speed.

I can already see improvements on the benches.

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please show us the spd tab for cpu-z, the timmings for 1600 ram are loose.

oh, your useing 2133 ram, downclocked.

Cpu NB voltage 1.65? Hope thats a typo, way too high for ambient cooling!

You scared the crap out of me. I read that and immediately shut down my computer. It was a typo. 1.1625. Good catch though

Caddy, that is the suggested timing at 1600. I entered it manually. The memory has pretty loose timing.

poco242 said:

You scared the crap out of me. I read that and immediately shut down my computer. It was a typo. 1.1625. Good catch though

Caddy, that is the suggested timing at 1600. I entered it manually. The memory has pretty loose timing.

Click to expand...

Yeah I did a double take as well. The highest Ive heard was 1.45 volts for ridiculous high FSB overclocks and high Ram speeds.

We need the SPD Tab from CPUz since I know it should be pretty accurate.
RGone...

OK. Just got done with 1 hour on Prime at 4.2ghz. Again all I changed was the bus to 210. Still the same voltage. Temps are fine. Benches were all improved except 3D Mark. It dropped a ways, but it did that with my 965 at certain speeds. It will jump back up next round I suspect.

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Just for you R gone

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Two things Poco, if you're going to continue to use the fsb to OC drop the Ht link speed 1x just to eliminate that causing instability further down the road. Second you can give the Cpu NB voltage a bump to 1.2/1.25 just to try and keep it stable as you raise the NB Freq and ram speed.

Additionally those sticks should be able to do 1600 @ 9-9-9-24 or something close to that but I'd leave that for after you tune the Cpu.

Thanks Mandrake. I was actually going to do that next round. I thought about it this round, but decided to try it as is and see. I knew I would probably have to for 215.

I will try Multi as well, but had the best luck on the 965 with the bus so I was going to hit it that way first.

I am also going to give it a 6-8 hour test on prime to make sure I am truly stable. I don't trust just an hour. I had my 965 go unstable at just over 2 hours on prime once.

FX processor a little different...KISS is easier.

Okay "manny" was correct in saying to drop the HT Link Speed multiplier by one. I was going to suggest same while reading down thru the posts to find him already saying so.

He also mentions raising CPU_NB voltage to about 1.25V and that should really be the standard since
it is a voltage that really helps CPU_NB stability as the speed is raised. Especially when you get ram
speed up.

Now that brings us to that super loosey goosey ram. I have not seen that kit since I bought my GSkill
middle of last year and was buying for as tight as I could get without spending a fortune.
1.) Bump your ram speed up to the 1866 setting so that overclocking your ram will push it further toward
the DDR3-2133 that it is rated for. MOST especially since you are running it so loose and the SPD does not say it can run tighter if slower as you are running it now.

2.) Bump ram voltage to 1.6V as that is what the ram is spec'd to use at higher speeds and once you set the 1866 ram speed and use some FSB, your ram speed is going to rise.

3.) While I am writing this I see that "manny" says that ram should run 9, 9, 9, 24, 37 or so and it might. It might not hurt to see if it will tighten any before going for the cpu max mhz. Get the ram doing its' job, since loose as it is...it surely is not giving you all the performance you can get. I know badly adjusted ram to cpu and cpu_nb speed can give P95 Blend failures.

4.) There are many ways to look at and proceed with an overclock process. Me I know AMD needs tight ram timings. I get them tightened to begin with. I then use a combination of FSB and multiplier to keep the ram speed at the best it will do. In the the end that means my FSB is mostly between 235 and 239 with the mutliplier raised or lowered to give me more CPU MHZ. Having aleady adjusted the HT Link Speed multiplier and CPU_NB multiplier to give me about 2550Mhz speed for the two of those speeds. And going this route I can run 4.0Ghz to 4.8Ghz with only a multiplier and slight bump in Vcore. Saves on having to remember to make many changes just to run the various cpu speeds. I can boot into bios and make two changes and off to the races with whatever cpu speed I want between 4.0Ghz and 4.8Ghz.

I do it that way for keeping it simple since I surf as slow speeds and video edit at 4.8Ghz.
RGone...ster.

I don't know if that ram is the same as my Snipers but the XMP looks eerily familiar. I would think that in the 1800 range it should run at 8-10-9 with stock volts. My problem is I very seldom run anything at stock anymore so my memory is getting a bit fuzzy. But even 9-10-9-27 should be fine and a bit easier on things.

Johan45 said:

I don't know if that ram is the same as my Snipers but the XMP looks eerily familiar. I would think that in the 1800 range it should run at 8-10-9 with stock volts. My problem is I very seldom run anything at stock anymore so my memory is getting a bit fuzzy. But even 9-10-9-27 should be fine and a bit easier on things.

Click to expand...

So your memory is getting alittle fuzzy huh?

Maybe you should tighten up the timings or OC it alittle bit.

Priller said:

So your memory is getting alittle fuzzy huh?

Maybe you should tighten up the timings or OC it alittle bit.

Click to expand...

I do every night it's the only thing that helps me sleep.

Johan45 said:

I do every night it's the only thing that helps me sleep.

Click to expand...

I see the problem. With high voltage and clock speeds it's starting to deteriorate so I guess it's time for more voltage.

It's not a voltage problem it's just youngtimers.

My problem is I very seldom run anything at stock anymore so my memory is getting a bit fuzzy. But even 9-10-9-27 should be fine and a bit easier on things.

Click to expand...

QFT!!!

Before I quit last night I went back in and raised the bus to 215. I then changed the ram timing to 10-10-10-27. I never ran prime, but did run all of the benches and it worked fine. Super pi even did better. Tonight I will play some more and try to tighten them up even more.

I want to get a good 6 to 8 hour test on prime at 4.3ghz before I move past that.