2500+ Watercool OC: Still has potential!!

[Junglebizz]

Well when I get some more time, I'll ahve to see what I can do about the memory timings.. I did try 8-4-4-2.5 at 224 but that didn't cut it, i guess i could try lower and see how that goes, but much lower and that's really going to suck for memory performance.

 

[okayfine]

If I get a barton, how high of a multiplier can I set if I want to stick with a FSB of 133 ?

 

[Junglebizz]

Why would you want only 133? The stock fsb for any Barton is 166 for starters.

The 2500+ has a default mult of 11. I have seen people take it up to 12.5 no problems, but you'll probably have to give it more power and have good cooling.

Just take it one step at a time, run lots of tests to see how stable it is, and see how high you can go.

 

[Mizzery]

If you hitting a wall with your fsb, what kind of cooling are you putting on the north / southbridges?

What kind of PSU are you using and what are you voltage levels when you crash a program?
Also, have you tried dropping the fsb and going to the 12.5?

 

[Pake]

If you hitting a wall with your fsb, what kind of cooling are you putting on the north / southbridges?

I got the same question I need answered. All I need to know is what to stick on the NB and how to remove the NB without sticking it inside a freezer or something....

As for SB, just find a small heatsink and get some Artic Silver Adhesive. I've also seen ppl recommend putting HS' on the mosfits, since those are part of the FSB circuit.

 

[Junglebizz]

I don't know if it's because of the mountains of programming homework I have already, or just an everyday brain-fart, but i totally forgot to try increasing my Multiplier once I hit the fsb wall. (<-- might be that too.)

With 1.75Vcore (I went to this setting immediately from 1.65. I haven't tested below this yet), my system is running stable at 11.5x210 for 2415 MHz now. Temps are up slightly (42C after benchmarking), but my fan is also turned way down for noise sake.

I believe that the actual FSB wall hit closer to 215MHz so I might give it a try later and see just how close to the limit i can take my rig!

 

[Junglebizz]

The only board mod i have done is adding a small 40mm evercool fan to my round epox northbridge heatsink. Doing that dropped my system temps by approx 4C after that.

I haven't checked to see if my southbridge is really warm yet.

Is doing a southbridge mod or mosfet mod with heatsinks really worth it? I know many people have modded their gfx cards by adding ramsinks and from what i have generally read, they do nothing but make the card look better.

 

[Mizzery]

A mofset mod may help to stabilize your voltages, which by the way, what are they at when your under load? I can up the cpu voltage all i want, but my psu can't handle it and my voltage rails become unstable resulting in instability.

As for northbridge cooling, what thermal paste are you using? The northbridges are convex i've heard, resulting in poor contact. Possibly putting new thermal paste would help (something thick, not as3 if you notice the curve). There are all copper aftermarket coolers that would probabally work good on the northbridge, although i tend to chop up a stock athlon heatsink and then epoxy the old nb sink on the sb.

 

[Junglebizz]

My power supply is rated at 420W. The rail voltages are as follows:

+3.3V @ 28A = 92.4W
+5V @ 40A = 200W
+12V @ 18A = 216W

according to MBM5, my voltages show as follows:

+3.3 @ 2.78V
+5 @ 4.81V
+12 @ 12.89V
-12 @ -13.18V
-5 @ -5.69V

under load running Prime torture test I had these voltages:

+3.3 @ 2.80V
+5 @ 4.68V
+12 @ 13.32V
-12 @ -13.83V
-5 @ -6.00V

I watched MBM and recorded the maximum peak values, though some of these were not the most common numbers shown (-5 for example)

I haven't experienced any instabilities so far (freezing, rebooting, crashing of all sorts).

 

[Mizzery]

cooling the mofsets and or doing a 5 volt mod may help to increase your stability at higher speeds under load. That 5v is around where mine gets when i start to loose it.

 

[Junglebizz]

You mention stability. Now if the system is stable that would mean there's no instabilities, so should i really worry about it then? I would prefer to keep away from volt mods to the board in the event i ever by some chance have to have it fixed in the future.

 

[okayfine]

computer stuff is getting so cheap everytime, if it ever needs to get fixed, its' proabbly less headache and more bang for your buck to get a new one.

 

[Junglebizz]

True.. but not when you are going to university..

 

[Mustanley]

For comparison's sake, I could go 2300MHz at default voltage on my Barton and currently run it at about 2500MHz on 1.825V.

 

[Mizzery]

The only reason I would have a pice of computer hardware repaired is if i knew it was still under warrenty. The labor rates for electronics repair are insane. Since you're overclocking, you have no warrenty.

If you want to stay away from volt mods, you could still glue some sinks to the mofsets.

 

[Mizzery]

For comparison's sake, I could go 2300MHz at default voltage on my Barton and currently run it at about 2500MHz on 1.825V.

Yeah, but you're using sub ambient water.

 

[Junglebizz]

Do you mean glue them on with actual glue? Like crazy glue? Wouldn't that be more of an insulator for heat instead of transferring it? I do have a heatsink that I could probably chop up, but is that really what you can use to stick them on?

 

[Pake]

Do you mean glue them on with actual glue? Like crazy glue? Wouldn't that be more of an insulator for heat instead of transferring it? I do have a heatsink that I could probably chop up, but is that really what you can use to stick them on?

He means something like "Artic Silver Adhesive" or so.

 

[Junglebizz]

Just checking. I believe I have heard of people on the forums literally gluing them on though...

 

[Pake]

Just checking. I believe I have heard of people on the forums literally gluing them on though...

People do... but its not the safetest... or smartest way to go about it.