1055T Overclocking (first timer)

[Razaroth]

With a GTX 680 and three monitors in the mail, I just had the "oh crap" moment of realizing that my 1055T CPU is most likely going to be a bottleneck. After three attempts of following guides with the computer failing to boot, I come here for some quick noobie advice as to how to do it perfectly, and painlessly. I've seen some people push their processors to over 4.0 ghz, but I don't think that's a realistic stable goal.

My Rig:

MSI 870A-G54 Motherboard
AMD 1055T Processor (currently stock) /w Coolermaster V8
2x2 GB "2000 mhz" ddr3 ram
950 Watt PSU (was very overkill at the time, glad I have it now)
Soon to be GTX 680 graphics

-----------------------

One more worry of mine:

I've read some horror stories about people using my motherboard. I've had my computer on (stock) for weeks at a time with zero issues, but I still wouldn't like overclocking very much if it meant a melted motherboard.

Thanks in advance.

 

[RGone]

for some quick noobie advice = I have been around this overclocking hobby for at least 15 years and I have yet to visually or physically experience quick overclocking advice. Overclocking is pretty painless to me today be it Intel or AMD since the principle is the same for either. UP cpu speed, then up the voltage to cpu to stabilize that cpu speed. Test under load and move the speed uupwards again if stability is in evidence.

I still wouldn't like overclocking very much if it meant a melted motherboard = If you are pretty sure that the stories are true about your board then I would not be trying to overclock at all.
RGone...

 

[trents]

3.7-3.8 ghz is a more realistic goal for that CPU with a good supporting cast of hardware, i.e. good PSU and motherboard, mainly. Your motherboard is questionable for what you want to do. It has no heatsink on the VRM area. And it only has two PCI-e slots and if you use both of them they will only give you 4x lane width which will be a video bottleneck if you are a gamer. How are you going to do 3 monitors with two PCI-e slots? What are you using this system to do?

 

[Razaroth]

Thanks for the quick responses.

I was hoping there was some sort of rule of thumb, like increase FSB by X, if unstable, increase voltage by Y. Unfortunately, sounds like those hopes were a bit too high. I increased the FSB to 240 and it seems stable (250 caused a blue screen or two when I left the computer for a while).

Trents: I had just read about the lack of cooling on the motherboard. It's visibly pathetic. My plan is to run a single GPU config for now (with the gtx 680 coming), as there are various setbacks (motherboard doesn't have native SLI support for example). I do have a GTX 465 potentially for PHYSX, but I don't plan a second video card for this setup.

In a couple months I can most likely afford an upgrade for my motherboard/cpu/ram. The overall goal is to get a Surround Gaming experience with my 1055T as high quality as I can until the upgrades. I was lead to the conclusion that a stock 1055T processor would end up an irritating bottleneck, and I was trying to alleviate that issue as much as possible with a decent, safe overclock.

 

[trents]

Oh, okay. I'm glad you clarified that the three monitors were not going to be used on the present system. I just couldn't bend my mind around that. You will need a board of the caliber of the Asus CHV 5 to run thee video cards in SLI.

However, we would be glad to help you with your present overclock effort. What we need you to do now is to download and install these three programs: CPU-z, HWMonitor and Prime95.

After you have done that, please run CPU-z and post back with attached images of these three tabs: CPU, Memory and SPD. That will give us lots of info about your system and your current bios settings.

When you start raising the FSB the processor isn't the only thing that speeds up. Along with it, the RAM, the HT Link and the CPUNB also speed up because those buses are linked to the FSB. Each one of them will need some adjustment as you go because if anyone of them reaches a frequency that is too high, instability will result. So when you overclock with the FSB there is more to it than just bumping up the CPU core voltage now and then. CPU-z will help us help you monitor those parameters.

There is also the issue of heat-related instability as you increase the CPU core voltage or "vcore" as we like to call it. As you are overclocking you need to stress test (that's where Prime95 comes in) and monitor for temps during the stress tests (that's where HWMonitor comes in) in order to safely arrive at a stable overclock.

So, please attach those pics of the three CPU-z tabs I referred to above. There is a built-in forum tool for attaching pics. Please don't put the pics on a web site and link us to them. Please attach them directly to your posts by doing this:

First crop and then save the pic to disc. Cropping is important if the image includes a lot of irrelevant surrounding desktop territory. In other words, we don’t want to see your whole desktop. That just shrinks down the important stuff we need to see so that it may not be legible. Snipping Tool in Windows Accessories is great for this if you have Vista or later. If not, you can use the built-in Windows keyboard stokes or download a freeware cropper/capture tool. Then click on Go Advanced at the bottom of any new post window. When the advanced post window appears, click on the little paperclip tool at the top. This will load the file browser/up-link tool and the rest will be obvious. You can attach up to three pics per post but you can go back later and add more if necessary.

 

[trents]

Who his the manufacturer of your PSU?

 

[Mandrake4565]

870A-G54 (FX) 4+1 125W? Avoid for OC High VRM fail rate

I took this from the OCN AMD motherboard VRM data base. Id be careful with that board, if it's anything like the 970a-g45 I had, which went snap crackle pop on me 2x.

 

[RGone]

I took this from the OCN AMD motherboard VRM data base. Id be careful with that board, if it's anything like the 970a-g45 I had, which went snap crackle pop on me 2x.

Yeah, Drake that data base has a lot of good information in it. Most of it sent in by real users and then added to the data base. It surely would be a good place to look before buying a motherboard today with any thought of ever going to an FX processor.

What really got me the other day was when C_D wrote that his FX-4170 just would not work on his new M5A97 R2.0 board after I heard for months he was going to try it and his first reports were that it in fact seemed okay and 'then' he wrote that 4 core FX-4170 in fact was a complete fail when he did anymore than just surf the web. Real work would bring the mobo to its' knees.

I suppose I am spoiled. I only used a few non-DFI boards during the time I worked for them. Most of their boards were if nothing else, generally built to overclock. Built pretty darn stout. I pushed the everloving crap out of them when I used to benchmark daily and never a board failure like we can see today. Now that my horizons have been broadened by looking at other boards as well, I find that some of these cheaper boards from a couple of years ago were just not built as robust as I have been used to when I beat the crap out of the DFI boards.

Yes, times have truly changed. No more Consumer DFI and no more job for me that way and now the 2 and 3 year old boards are beginning to be overclocked due to newer video card demands and the picture is not so bright as it might be.

On the one had I am of a mind to just tell "Razaroth" to overclock that 1055T to at least 230 or 240 FSB and watch the temps. If it blows up it just blows up. But the sad part of that is that failing VRMs can take more than just the board to its' death. They often get the cpu as well and maybe a little more. But if he accepts the overclocking risk then he should be able to get a little cpu speed increase to help with that newer HiPo video card.

It is just a freeken toss-up.
RGone...

 

[Razaroth]

I ponied up and bought a Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 and a FX-8320. Should be a decent upgrade, and it also adds the ability for crossfire later on.

Thanks again for all of the help. And this way, I have a decent secondary computer as well!

 

[Johan45]

Hate to say this but people have been having some issues with the rev.3 UD3

 

[manu2b]

Talking about cpu throttling?

 

[Johan45]

Talking about cpu throttling?

Here check this post #27 gives a list.