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x4 955 @ 3.6 Ghz Worse game performance

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DXM1

New Member
Joined
Jan 24, 2011
:-/Hey everyone, this is my first post here. This registration is way overdue anyway, ive been reading this site for a long time now. Finally got off my lazy butt and decided to join!

To start off, I have a few questions about oc'ing my brother's amd rig. Here are its specs (Shes only 3 days old!):

-Corsair 650W PSU
-2 x 6850 Sapphires in Crossfire
-Samsung 1 TB HDD
-ASRock 870 EXTREME3 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
-G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
-Rosewill Destroyer Case
- Gaming resolution is 1920x1080

Both Radeons are OC'ed to 850/1150 at stock voltage. These cards perform well.


We decided to OC the cpu to a safe 3.6 GHz since it has a stock heatsink (we just want a mild overclock on all parts to make computer run faster but with 0 risk).

Anyway, I set the multiplier to 18x in bios instead of the 16x which pushed the the cpu to 3.6 Ghz. I disabled Cool N quiet, and left everything else on Auto.

After that, I ran prime95 for 1 hour - no problems although the cpu temp was rising up to 59 degrees celcius.

At this point I had not touched any settings for the RAM at all. Ran the windows experience index and saw no change in score.

Ran the game STALKER call of pripyat. This is where things got weird. The game started having some major stuttering issues. I cannot understand why. At first i tried messing with the ram, but as im inexperienced i just ended up dropping everything back to stock for now so he can enjoy his new system while we figure this out.

We tried running the stalker COP benchmark. REALLY interesting to see that the overclock resulted in 10-15 FPS gains across the board (Min/avg/High) FPS. However, this induced lag really cancels the point.

How can a system that gets more FPS lag more than one with less FPS? Any idea what the cause is?

PS: One strange thing i noticed in SpeedFan (or some other HW monitor software) was that when running prime 95, the CPU Vcore voltage was changing. It went as high as 1.4. Just something i thought id mention.

PSS: the same stutter happens on the stock rig (except OC video cards) but rather rarely. We ran Fraps and it seems the stutter is caused by framerates dipping into the low 30s. Does this seem logical? Can a sudden FPS drop to 25-30 from 50 cause a lag like moment ? This is why we want that OC so bad, raising min FPS by 10-15 would possibly solve the problem, but it seems its making it worse? Ideas ?
 
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You'll need to take several things off of Auto and set them manually.

Disable C1E. Disable Cool&Quiet. Disable thermal protection (but you can leave the CPU fan speed on Auto, my Gigabyte motherboard refers to it as CPU Smartfan in BIOS).

Set CPU multi to x18.

Set HT-REF to 200 instead of Auto.
Set HT-Link multiplier to x10.
Set CPU-NB multiplier to x10 or x11.
Manually set your RAM speed and timings and voltage to whatever Gskill advertises for your particular kit.
Set CPU voltage to 1.400 or 1.425 for now. That should be plenty of voltage for 3.6.

Try that and see what happens. When you leave most of those settings on Auto then the processor decides for itself how fast it wants to run, which usually isn't as fast as you want it to run. With those settings on Auto it will lock everything in and the processor will stay at 3.6 without throttling down.
 
:welcome: to OCF!

Please check out Dolk's Guide to Phenom II overclocking glory. :D

Overclocking with the stock heatsink has proven to be a no-no. If at 3.6Ghz, and in only 1 hour its at 59*C, back it down to stock!! Then think about purchasing a nice aftermarket heatsink and some good aftermarket thermal paste.
You said you disabled CnQ, but did you disable C1E support? You'll want to disable that one too if you haven't, it's another power saving feature. So far, looking at your description.. I'd say you're overheating.. plain and simple. These chips really start to destabilize around 55*C, and 59 is definitely past that. 62*C is their recommended maximum safe temp. Drop speedfan as your monitor and pick up either Coretemp, or HWMonitor. Both will display the actual core temp from the internal temperature diode on the CPU, but HWMonitor will also display the CPU socket temperature, (as reported by the diode placed underneath the CPU bracket.) either as CPU or TMPIN1.. or something like that.

Final note. You mentioned you just disabled Cnq, but left everything else on auto. Auto is a big no-no. You should directly key in certain numbers so the BIOS doesn't go changing things on a whim. It's voltage fluctuations--among other things--can really cause instability issues.

Some things you'll want to punch in manually:

CPU multiplier - 16x
HTref or Bus speed - 200
CPU vCore - 1.35v
CPU-NB speed - 2000Mhz or a 10x multi if you have that option
HT Link speed - 2000Mhz " " " " "
CPU-NB voltage - 1.15v-1.20v (Not to be confused with the NB voltage!)
CPUVDDA voltage - 2.50v is stock, most of the time a small bump to 2.55v or 2.60v tends to help
You should be fine leaving HT, NB, NB 1.8v, and the SB voltages on auto.. or you can set them to their stock values.

Make sure you have your DRAM voltage, timings, and speed set to manufacturer specifications. Unfortunately these I can't be sure of without seeing your CPUz memory and spd tabs or looking at the sticker on the RAM sticks... or by seeing the product link.

CPU and PCIE spread spectrum - disable while trying to determine stable OC

If you have the option for CPU LLC or Load Line Calibration, having it enabled can add a little more voltage to the CPU, but the reverse can happen. Disable it and you may see a drop in vCore. If you have it, and it's on auto or enabled.. you can try disabling it to see how much of a Vdroop you have. Which is the difference in CPU core voltage from idle to load.
 
thanks for the replies so far. I was able to find out that the game stuttering is actually the game's fault itself, and has nothing to do with hardware.

Still we are interested in the overclock. I am in boston right now, and will be getting back tomorrow morning, so thats the earliest i have until ill have acess to the system.

First thing first... Is OC'ing on stock cooler really a that bad even if it i go up to only 3.6 ghz? I know that the temps seem high at 59-60 top, but thats after 1 hour of prime 95 and the auto voltages. The computer was setting some REALLY high voltages (i want to try to oc on stock voltage first).

Also, is there no way to manually set fan profiles? The fan was definately not maxing out.... If temps got to 60, it would ramp up causing the temps to go down again. Cant i just manually set the fan higher to keep cpu cooler?

It offers very significant performance gains, but of course we do not want to risk the system. Thanks for the advice so far, i will take your suggestions as soon as i get back. But what do you guys think regarding what i wrote above?

Cheers. :shock:
 
In my Gigabyte BIOS there is something called "CPU Smartfan Control". It allows the motherboard to throttle the CPU fan speed even when Cool&Quiet and thermal protection are turned off.

If I disable CPU Smartfan then it sets the CPU fan to run at 100% all the time. I do not know of a way to set it at, say, 50%.

Overclocking with the stock cooler is not a danger per se. It depends on what kind of temperatures you're hitting and if you're running into any stability issues. Your Destroyer case should have plenty of airflow as is. Since you're using the stock heatsink I'm assuming you applied it with the little thermal pad that came on the heatsink. Try the settings I advised and run Prime95 on Blend or Small FTTs and monitor your temperatures with either Hardware Monitor or CoreTemp. At 1.4v and 3.6 ghz I'd expect you to hit about 48-50C on the stock cooler with your ambient temperature (room temp) around 19-21C.

What are your room temps like?
 
Okay im having some problems. First and foremost: I do not have the ability to set all of the voltages as you guys seem to. All i had access to regarding the cpu was "CPU Voltage option" (which was set to 1.375). I DO NOT have the option to change "VCORE".

Whats the worst is this: When i run prime95 and look at speedfan, It is obvious that not only does the computer still control the Vcore on a whim (and sets it ultra high!), it also does not ramp up the fan AT ALL, until the CPU is hitting critical temp of 60 degrees celcius.

What do i do?

EDIT: I also cant CPU-NB Voltage.

EDIT2: I used coretemp to record temperatures. The temperatures start rising quickly... They got to 59 degrees and i aborted the test. It is obvious the fan when set on auto makes no effort whatsoever to protect the cpu any earlier than hitting 62 degrees.

One more thing i may mention is that VID readong on coretemp asays 1.3750 which is what i set it to. Not sure if its the same as vcore, but if its not that then i guess i cant set vcore voltage manually with my mobo?

Yes my case is well ventilated. Also, we used arctic silver 5 for the cpu cooler.



What annoying most is that fan stays at 3200 RPM. Doesnt budge higher at all. CPU FAN on my mobo has 2 options: "Full On" (which was its default) and "Automatic" which lets u set different levels of fan speed after 50 celsius. I set level 9 after 50 celsius and cpu fan performed like usual, waiting till low 60s to even consider going to 4k rpm.

what the heck is going on??


EDIT 3 :

After doing some research i have found other threads and other x4 955 owners complaining about the same thing: The cpu fan is only interested in keeping the cpu at 60 degrees celcius or below/ (58-60) if under full load.

Now i havent done this, but im pretty sure that if i downclock it to stock i will have the same exact results... So my questions is... Considering that the temps that fan spins to keep are 58-60, no matter what the clocks, can i just keep it at 3.6 ghz?

Also, thats only if all 4 cores are active at 100%. When gaming, the cpu runs at 46 degrees celcius.
 
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that VID that says 1.375 is the vcore, if you can change that set it to 1.35, most AMD boards seem to set it a bit higher and makes it run hotter at stock.

you can set that to 1.35 and get 3.6ghz before you have to up the voltage normally.
 
okay i thought that might be so. at 1.35v and 3.6 ghz its stable.

My only problem is this and if anyone can help id really appreciate it (i have pretty much worked everything else out)...

how to set x4 955 fan to higher rpms than 3200?

Its keeping my heat dangerously high, but fan is so quiet i cant even hear it. I want to make it louder and faster, but cooler.

Any ideas? Bios doesnt work.
 
one more thing, check the NB voltage in the OC tweaker section and if its higher than 1.20 bring it down to that, I think you might be able to get away with 1.8 as well, might bring your temps down a bit more.

I looked at screenies of the bios for that board, and just don't see a solid fan control for the cpu, so you'll have to play around with it a bit.

my board had my cpu/nb voltage set at 1.375 at stock which was pretty damn high.
 
If you can't figure out how to run your CPU can at 100% through the BIOS then plug it into a different motherboard fan header (one that says "sys fan" or "chassis" next to the header instead of "cpu"). If that doesn't work then plug it directly into a spare molex on your power supply with the use of a three-to-four pin adapter.

What kind of room temperature are you looking at?
 
If you can't figure out how to run your CPU can at 100% through the BIOS then plug it into a different motherboard fan header (one that says "sys fan" or "chassis" next to the header instead of "cpu"). If that doesn't work then plug it directly into a spare molex on your power supply with the use of a three-to-four pin adapter.
+1
 
If you can't figure out how to run your CPU can at 100% through the BIOS then plug it into a different motherboard fan header (one that says "sys fan" or "chassis" next to the header instead of "cpu"). If that doesn't work then plug it directly into a spare molex on your power supply with the use of a three-to-four pin adapter.

What kind of room temperature are you looking at?

That will work, but also note.. there will most likely be some kind of alarm or notification that your CPU fan isn't spinning. Go into BIOS fan controls and set the CPU fan from being monitored to Ignore.
Is there any way for you to select level 9 or the full speed mode on the lowest temp? Waiting till it hits 50 is a pretty lame option. :rolleyes:
Or is there a way to disable fan control? This may allow it to fun at full speed all the time.

Sounds like it's either picture time for your BIOS screenshots, or I'll try to look up the model and find the options that way. ;)
 
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