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trents

trents

Senior Member
​
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
You may remember I recently bought a 955 BE for $74.95 from Tiger Direct last week. Got it yesterday and plugged it into an old Gigabyte MA790X-UDP4 I AM2+ bought from a forum member selling it in the classifieds. I'm cooling it with a mid-range air cooler (Coolermaster Hyper N520 with push pull 92mm fans). I didn't really expect this but on the stock vcore of 1.4 I've been able to push it to 3.9 ghz and be stable for a 20 minute Prime95 blend test. Still going. Trying for 4.0 on stock voltage next. Of course, I'll run a longer Prime test before it's all over but I'm pleasantly pleased. Core temps are already in the mid 50s with CPU temps the same (kind of odd on aftermarket air) so probably not much if any room for more vcore. Using 4x1 gb DDR2 800 ram, a pair of Mushkins with a pair of ADATA. The mixed memory seems not to be a problem.
 
Sounds good 'trents'. It is almost most fun to play with pretty good stuff and have an unexpected good thing happen. Be well and have fun man. RGone...ster.
 
Well, 3.9 was the limit on stock voltage. 3 out of 4 workers dropped out pretty quick. I added .025 vcore. Let's see what that does for stability and for temps. Seems to me the core temps are typically about 10c cooler than CPU temps with good air. Not so on this one. They are equal. so I'm not sure what to go by in this case. 58c is a little high for core temp on a Deneb but 58 is just fine for a CPU temp. I'll try the extra vcore and see what happens. In any case I don't think its enough to put temps into the danger zone.
 
Okay, an update. Got it Prime95 stable at 4.0 on 1.475v. Core temps maxed out at 61c, a little higher than I normally like to go but not to the danger level so if it's stable I'll live with it. A lot of these PII 955s take more than 1.5v to be stable at 4.0 ghz so I'm pretty happy with it considering the limitations of the cooler.

I have not touched the CPUNB which is at the stock 2000 mhz. Do you think with DDR2 800 ram it's even worth overclocking the CPUNB?
 
By the way, I found out that Windows 8, at least the consumer preview release, doesn't like a lot of blue screens. I had to do a reinstall. Sometimes it also makes you do a complete power down before it will load after a BSOD.
 
trents said:
By the way, I found out that Windows 8, at least the consumer preview release, doesn't like a lot of blue screens. I had to do a reinstall. Sometimes it also makes you do a complete power down before it will load after a BSOD.
Click to expand...

That would suck. I have and extra hard drive kicking around and had been contemplating downloading a copy to try on my big system. hmmmm maybe next week.

Too bad you were so far away I have a few old coolers kicking around that will probably never get used again, most would be a good upgrade to what you are using now.
 
It would be wonderful just to meet you. I respect your deportment on the forum.

If do decide to try Windows 8, you indeed would be wise to install it on it's own hard drive instead of a dual boot setup. It uses some kind of graphical boot loader. I had problems with it and I can't remember exactly what it was but it seems like it wants to force you to make Windows 8 the default OS. I do remember it would not play with Ubuntu as a dual install.
 
Well thanks trents. I have played with dual boot before mostly with other versions of windows but linux also back about 10 years ago when I was doing a course on web design. Didnt like it much but from what I have heard it has come along ways since then .... I think it was mandrake 7.... I was using.

If you would like an upgrade to your cooling and can figure out a way to get it picked up drop me a pm and we can arange something theres an H70 and a cooler master V8 collecting dust here or in my storage locker. Just pay the shipping.
 
Thanks but I'll pass for now. It's my play rig, not my main machine anyway. How'd you're move turn out? All settled in?
 
So this sounds kind of exciting...

Performance wise, how does a 955BE at, say, 3.9 gig compare to an FX4100 at 4.5 gig?

Newegg has OEM 955BE's at $95 dollars (965BE boxed at $109, but i figure no better OC potential than a 955). Consensus seems to be Phenom II's are a better processor than FX's but I think that's true clock-for-clock and I'll never get a PhenomII to 4.5gig. But it would be kinda fun to do this if the reward is worth it at 3.9 gig or so.
 
Cool .... My move is on hold till I can sell my house here. Real estate is slow up here right now and I dont want to give this place away thats why I had decided to drywall part of the basment. I just re listed the house till Dec so the waiting game is on. We have been watching a propperty up on a lake outside of Kingston for a while now, though it is off the market for the time being while it changes hands from the bank to CMHC. The move will happen soon I hope as the place needs allot of work and some of it needs to be done before the snow fly's.
 
My case is similar to yours, trents. I can run mine @ 3.8Ghz 1.400v or 4.0GHz 1.450v.
I'm still not sure if the extra heat is on par with the performance gain.
 
tikithorsen said:
My case is similar to yours, trents. I can run mine @ 3.8Ghz 1.400v or 4.0GHz 1.450v.
I'm still not sure if the extra heat is on par with the performance gain.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't know either but it's my spare computer and I seldom use it so I'll "ride it hard and put it away wet" as the cowboys used to say.
 
Trents, get that lill puppy on water cooling and push it right up to 4.3.
if you figure out how to get it to 4.4 PLEASE let me know how as I am stuck at 4.3.......
 
I have one of these pups :p
Really good deal as a secondary pc.

Does 4ghz @ 1.4175v on the stock cooler, but I wouldn't push it on the m68mt-s2 board that I have (gf's pc), so it sits @ 3.4ghz, 1600mhz ddr3 cl9-10-9-24-1t 1.65v, cpunb @ stock. Plenty for 1366x768 gaming on a 5670 :p and we can play multiplayer on our lan with my rig now. :D
 
Actually, when I think about it my max temps were about what they would be on a stock cooler when running at stock voltage and frequency. If I'm going to invest in water, I'm not going to waste it on this toy, I'm going to put it on my main system withe the 960T.
 
Nice trents.... :clap:

The prices on the PHII's are hard to pass up right now if you have an older rig that needs an upgrade!

Here are a couple more tht are SUPER cheap:
http://www.microcenter.com/product/389133/Phenom_II_X3_B73_Processor_OEM ($29)
http://www.microcenter.com/product/389134/Phenom_II_X4_B93_Socket_AM3_Processor ($39)
Plus, if you live near a MicroCenter you can probably just run up to the store and pick one up... :D

I bought one of the X3 B73's (generic 720) a few weeks ago to replace the X2 in my HTPC, it unlocked to an X4 and OC'd to 3.6 on air.
It did that with a .10 undervolt too! :shock:
I get the feeling it has more in it, but it's a middling board and HTRef was getting squirlly ~ 260...

caddi daddi: If you've gotten your X4 stable @ 4.3 you got lucky in the chip lottery... :p
My best X4 topped out ~4.3 (965) and I have some pretty serious custom water.
 
No microcenter near me. Maybe 85 mi. away in Seattle. Yeah, those are some great buys!
 
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