Amd Overdrive "Auto Clock" just crashed my new box...

[DarkWhite]

Your stock core clock is 200
Your stock multiplier is 16
And I'm fairly sure your stock voltage is 1.4v
I'd just move the multiplier.
Bump to 16.5, stability test.
17, stability test (now you're a 965)
17.5, stability test
Repeat and find your highest stable multiplier (watch your temps)
then i'd start bumping the core clock a few MHz at a time, and running stability tests, try and find your Max.
Right down your clock, 205X18 or whatever it may be, and the voltage (1.4 or whatever)
then drop everything to stock, and bump your voltage one step (with voltage at 1.4v just press + on your number pad)
Repeat the whole thing, starting with multiplier, then core clock, always running stability tests. One you get as high as possible and still stable, write that value down along with your voltage.
Repeat that until you have 4 or 5 set, or until your processor is getting too hot.
If your processor is getting hot, there's no way around it other than a better heatsink (lots of recommendations in the cooling area)
Once your have 4-5 sets of data, plug it in to excel (or a graphing calculator) with one column being your total clock (the 3.2 out of 200X16=3200) and the other your voltage.
Use that software to find the pertaining non-linear relation, (may be quadratic, may be a little more complicated) then find out when your processor stops getting a useable boost per voltage step.
If you manage to get to that point without heating, it's not very useful to go much further, unless your gonna be doing some heavy-duty coooling (DICE LN2 etc.) and those won't get you a 24/7 OC anyways.

 

[ZealEngine]

Ok I just went into bios and set my core clock to 200, multiplier to 16.5, and cpu voltage to 1.4 (I left everything else as 'auto'). Sure enough windows shows a 3.3ghz processor now wohoo! I am running prime95 torture test now, and it looks like my temps are going a bit higher (to be expected), looks like they are capping right around 49-50c, is that ok?

And the temps should stay constant as I bump the multiplier right? Only when I increase the voltage should temps go up?

 

[DarkWhite]

In my case, the temps have gone up very little in increasing the multiplier, only about 2 or 3 degrees difference between running at 3.4 and 3.7
Your temps also may increase minutely as you bump the clock speeds, the real heat will come as you utilize whatever extra voltage you put into it.

 

[ZealEngine]

Cool so assuming I dont crash first, at what point should I stop from a pure temp standpoint? 52c, 53c ? And what is going to happen when I set the multiplier too high anyway? Does prime 95 warn me when there is an error?

(btw thanks for all your help!)

 

[DarkWhite]

As to the temperatures, that is up to debate, when I first installed my heatsink, I used a little (okay, WAY) too much TIM and My temperatures hit 65 before I turned it off and decided that wasn't normal. I'm not recomending that you let your processor get that hot, extended amount of time at high temperatures can cause serious damage, and your warranty dissappears when you start OCing.

As to Prime 95 there will be an error, of sorts.
There is only one way to fail a Stability test, and that is to crash, so don't be surprised when your PC bluescreens partway through your test. If it finishes ~8 hours without crashing, you're stable, and you can move up the next step.

no problem helping you out, we're all learning here, and I enjoy sharing what I know (and don't)

 

[ZealEngine]

I think Ill stop around 52ish. Hopefully when the as5 sets that will leave me around 50c. Ill bet I could even lower temps if I reveresed this top exhaust fan to blow DOWN onto my cpu (since its not exhausting hot air, its quite cool actually)...

Ok were at 17x (3.4ghz) and running another torture test! Havent gone past 49.5c!

In that article the guy said for this initial 'feeling it out' phase it was sufficient to just run prime 95 for 15min or so, is that long enough? Once I find a sweet spot I want to stay at ill let her run overnight, but for now is 15min ok?

*also I think my mb must have some kind of power saver feature, because its still doing that thing where it goes back to saying 800hz x4 when I idle, then it jumps up to my 200hz x17 when I run prime 95. I guess thats a cool feature...

 

[DarkWhite]

Different people have different ideas of stable, some people consider something stable if it can handle a longish gaming session, others want 12-24+ hours of prime95 torture test.
I personally run Prime95 overnight, wake up, if it passed go up a step, and start it up before I go to school, come home, and if it passed, use that OC, if it didn't drop to whatever I was last stable at. Rinse, and repeat.

 

[ZealEngine]

I have been reading those articles again while I run my x17 stress test and I am still a tad confused about just how high I want the clock to be...

...You could raise the multiplier to 20 and lower the FSB to 100MHz, or you could raise the FSB to 250MHz and lower the multiplier to 8. Both of those combinations would give you the same 2.0GHz that you started out with. So both of those combinations should give you the same system performance, right?

Wrong. Since the FSB is the channel through which your system communicates with your processor, you want it to be as high as possible. So if you lowered the FSB to 100MHz and raised the multiplier to 20, you would still have a clock speed of 2.0GHz, but the rest of the system would be communicating with your processor much slower than before resulting in a loss in system performance.

So for ram, a 200mhz core (which is the LOWEST bios would even let me select) you mentioned would NOT create any kind of bottleneck for 1600hz ram? Can you explain how that math is calculated again?

But also dont I need to worry about things OTHER than ram? Like what about communication to my gfx card? Isnt that being bottlenecked by having my core only at 200mhz? Like I said when my cpu idles, it seems to go into a 800mhz x4 mode... whats up with that?

*edit

That article goes on to say...

This solution, however, isn't ideal. Running the FSB and RAM with a ratio causes gaps in between the time that the FSB can communicate with the RAM. This causes slowdowns that wouldn't be there if the RAM and the FSB were running at the same speed. If you want the most speed out of your system, using an FSB:RAM ratio wouldn't be the best solution.

So since I have DDR3 1600 ram...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...-Memory+(Desktop+Memory)-_-G.SKILL-_-20231193

Dont I want my cpu core clock at EXACTLY 800mhz? So it is in sync with the ram?

 

[DarkWhite]

Okay 800X4 is just a glitch, your processor isn't actually switching like that.

The RAM runs at a speed relative to to your FSB (what I've called core clock), I still don't remember the exact ratios.
With the FSB at 200, your RAM will be running at it's stock speed, no problems.
If you start lowering your FSB (not advisable with a Black edition CPU) your RAM will begin undeclocking, and you'll have to change the ratio to make it run at it's stock speed, and you'd essentially be overclocking the RAM just to make it run at a standard speed.
If you raise the FSB, then you're RAM will also clock in faster, and you'll immediately be overclocking the RAM. Depending on your RAM, you can either raise your DRAM voltage to keep it stable (OC'ed) or you can lower the ratio, underclocking it to keep it at stock.

The same premises also applies to a couple other clocks whose names currently escape me.

 

[ZealEngine]

With the FSB at 200, your RAM will be running at it's stock speed, no problems.

According to that article 200mhz fsb would bottleneck the ram at 200mhz (or 400mhz since its double). My ram should be able to run at 800 / 1600hz right?

But yeah that article was a little confusing when it came to fsb / cpu core clock / HT, ect... apparently on a amd the fsb is a part of the cpu (no way to manipulate/overclock it I assume), instead we have this HTT which he says is synonymous with fsb? So are you saying I need to overclock the HTT to 800mhz in order to sync with my ram?

 

[DarkWhite]

Your RAM doesn't bottleneck at your proscessors FSB unless your have your RAM set to 1:1, which is only useful if your FSB is up near 400MHz
If your RAM is set at 1:4 (4 being RAM) your RAM will bottleneck out at 400*2, so 800MHz
If you have it set to 1:8 your RAM will bottleneck at 800*2, so 1600MHz

 

[ZealEngine]

Been reading through vegetas article again for a third time heh (I really want to understand this stuff). I am still a little fuzzy on the whole FSB / HTT thing... So he says...

*On AMD Athlon 64 CPUs, the term FSB is really a misnomer. There is no FSB, per se. The FSB is integrated into the chip. This allows the FSB to communicate with the CPU much faster than Intel's standard FSB method. It also can cause some confusion, since the FSB on an Athlon 64 can sometimes be referred to as the HTT. If you see somebody talking about raising the HTT on an Athlon 64 CPU and is talking about speeds that you recognize as common FSB speeds, then just think of the HTT as the FSB. For the most part, they function in the same way and can be treated the same and thinking of the HTT as the FSB can eliminate some possible confusion.

So there IS a fsb on the cpu itself, but there is also this thing called a HT which behaves just like the fsb? What is the difference between the two? And all this time we have been modifying a multiplier, has it been effecting the fsb clock, or the HT clock? Do BOTH the fsb AND HT clock need to be at 800mhz base (before any multiplier) in order to be in sync with my 800mhz ddr1600 ram?

Also can anyone give a brief synopsis of the Northbridge, southbridge and PCIexpress link? They seem like they will care what my fsb/ht clock is at, so dont we need to be careful to stay in sync with them as well?

Your RAM doesn't bottleneck at your proscessors FSB unless your have your RAM set to 1:1, which is only useful if your FSB is up near 400MHz

But dont I WANT to be running at 1:1 ratio. ssprncvegeta said not running 1:1 was bad...

 

[Gopher Love]

Been reading through vegetas article again for a third time heh (I really want to understand this stuff). I am still a little fuzzy on the whole FSB / HTT thing... So he says...



So there IS a fsb on the cpu itself, but there is also this thing called a HT which behaves just like the fsb? What is the difference between the two? And all this time we have been modifying a multiplier, has it been effecting the fsb clock, or the HT clock? Do BOTH the fsb AND HT clock need to be at 800mhz base (before any multiplier) in order to be in sync with my 800mhz ddr1600 ram?

Also can anyone give a brief synopsis of the Northbridge, southbridge and PCIexpress link? They seem like they will care what my fsb/ht clock is at, so dont we need to be careful to stay in sync with them as well?



But dont I WANT to be running at 1:1 ratio. ssprncvegeta said not running 1:1 was bad...

The CPU Multiplier you have been changing will not affect the HT clock or the NB clock... They have their own multipliers. But the base clock (know as FSB clock) will affect it because the NB and HT use that base clock with their own multipliers.

And by the way, if you stop using the auto tune and do everything manually you can get ALOT more out that CPU (I have the same one.. Phenom II X4 955BE). You may not get exactely the same cuz of the other hardware but right now I have mine stable (Cinebench, Prime95, and 3DMark Vantage benchmarks...) at 3895 MHz with these settings...
CPU:
Base Clock - 205
Multiplier - 19X
CPU Voltage - 1.4500 V
Operating Frequency - 3895 MHz
NB/HTT:
Base Clock - 205 (cuz it uses the CPUs clock)
Multiplier - 12X (The HTTs clock must be equal to or less than the NB Clock so mine are both set to 12X to be equal)
NB Voltage - 1.2250 V
Operating Frequency - 2460 MHz

You probably wont be able to get these results exactly but at least you know that you can get it up higher if you do it manually.

 

[DarkWhite]

Been reading through vegetas article again for a third time heh (I really want to understand this stuff). I am still a little fuzzy on the whole FSB / HTT thing... So he says...



So there IS a fsb on the cpu itself, but there is also this thing called a HT which behaves just like the fsb? What is the difference between the two? And all this time we have been modifying a multiplier, has it been effecting the fsb clock, or the HT clock? Do BOTH the fsb AND HT clock need to be at 800mhz base (before any multiplier) in order to be in sync with my 800mhz ddr1600 ram?

Also can anyone give a brief synopsis of the Northbridge, southbridge and PCIexpress link? They seem like they will care what my fsb/ht clock is at, so dont we need to be careful to stay in sync with them as well?



But dont I WANT to be running at 1:1 ratio. ssprncvegeta said not running 1:1 was bad...

The only thing the core multiplier changes is the speed of the processor as a whole. You do not want your RAM to be at 1:1 unless you FSB (or HTT or core clock) is 400 or 800 or half of your RAMs stock clock speed. Your Core clock should not be at 400, as you should be primarily using the multiplier as I detailed in an above post.
If you follow the method I outline in said post, then you will only be bumping the Core Clock (FSB, HTT) by small amounts (since the majority of overclocking is done by your multiplier), and this will not strongly affect your RAM etc.

 

[ZealEngine]

I still dont understand why we dont want our core clock and ram to be 1:1. Other people ( ssprncvegeta specifically) said not runnign 1:1 was bad. Why is he wrong?

Also can anyone please explain the difference between the fsb and ht? Do we need to keep them 1:1 like fsb and ram? Also I imagine the OTHER components are going to start coming into play here soon (sb, nb, pciexpress link, ect...) can anyone please give a quick rundown on how they factor into all this?

And just to recap where I am at - 200hz core clock with 17x multiplier, capped out around 50-51c during prime95. I idle around 32c, but I still think that my mb (maybe cool n quiet feature?) is underclocking my cpu when it idles (that would explain the change in values I am seeing from amd overdrive).

@Gopher - what are your temps with those settings?

* found this in another thread...

A ratio of 1:1 provides the best level of stability, since the memory controller, which is an integral part of the northbridge chipset for Intel Core 2 processors, does not need to translate data flow across the FSB between the memory modules and the processor(s). Also, since memory and processor FSB clocks are synchronous at 1:1, (400:400 or DDR 800), there is no additional latency introduced.

If a minimal ratio of 4:5 (400:500 or DDR 1000) is used, then the resulting increase in memory frequency is effectivey cancelled out by the latency introduced in translation across the FSB between memory and processor clocks, and no increase in memory performance can be noticably detected in benchmarks. Also, asynchronous or mismatched clocks create an element of potential instability within the memory controller, so depending on the chipset, an increase in northbridge and memory voltage is required for stability, which results in more heat, and less FSB overclock ceiling.

If a more aggressive ratio of 2:3 (400:600 or DDR 1200) is used, then the increase in memory frequency can marginally overcome the latency introduced in translation across the FSB between memory and processor clocks, resulting in a marginal increase in memory performance, which typically yields an increase in memory benchmarks of 2 to 3%, and is relatively negligible in terms of overall system performance.

Which leave me just as confused as ever... he starts out saying why 1:1 is good (makes sense), but then seems to indicate you can compensate for the overhead by running memory at a higher ration (say 2:3). But of course in the end he never concludes WHICH is better overall... And I still dont even see how a 2:3 ratio could avoid a bottleneck. Who cares if the memory can run at 300hz if the fsb can only transfer data at 200hz?

 

[DarkWhite]

You do not want your RAM to be at 1:1, I've explained it in my previous posts and I'm not sure how to make it any more straightforward, read over those a couple more times, along with the guides I've posted on the first page

 

[ZealEngine]

I have read that first article a couple times, and he clearly states 1:1 is optimal. You say its not, but you have yet to explain why he is worng.

Earlier you said...

Your RAM doesn't bottleneck at your proscessors FSB unless your have your RAM set to 1:1

I just dont understand that at all... like I said earlier, who cares if youre running 200hz fsb with 2:3 ram ratio. Data cant travel from the ram to the cpu faster than the fsb can carry it (200hz in this case) right? Please correct me if I am wrong, but - raising the cpu miltiplier DOES make sense because a cpu calculation might not need to go through the fsb (in the case of a cache hit), so using a non 1:1 ratio there makes sense. But in the case of ram, since its ONLY job is to feed data to the cpu, how does running faster than the fsb make a damn bit of difference?

You then went on to say...

If your RAM is set at 1:4 (4 being RAM) your RAM will bottleneck out at 400*2, so 800MHz
If you have it set to 1:8 your RAM will bottleneck at 800*2, so 1600MHz

Again when I talk about a bottleneck, I am assuming that the ram can only feed data to the cpu at the fsb rate (200hz in my current case), so what is the point of EVER having anything but a 1:1 ratio?

And where does the HT factor into all this? Is the 'highway' from the cpu to the memory controlled exclusively by the fsb? Or does HT/Nb/Sb play some role as well?

 

[DarkWhite]

Okay, when set to 1:1 your RAM will only feed data at FSB speed, so 200MHz, doubled to 400MHz.
If its set 1:4, your RAM will feed data at FSBX4, so 800MHz, double to 1600 MHz.
Your FSB is not your actual processing speed. You actual speed (FSB*multi) is the speed at which your processor can handle data. So your RAM will not be bottlenecked until it exceeds 3.4 GHz (3400MHz) which is unlikely to happen.

Another thing I'm picking up off your post is that you may be thinking that your multiplier is used for theoretical cores. What it seems you believe is that you have one mini-core running at 200MHz, and 16 or 18 of those in a physical. This is not so. Your processor works at 3.4 GHz, the FSB is just a reference frequency so other compononents know at which speed to operate.

I'm not sure exactly which lanes are controlled by which bridges, you should probably google that.

 

[ZealEngine]

Okay, when set to 1:1 your RAM will only feed data at FSB speed, so 200MHz, doubled to 400MHz.
If its set 1:4, your RAM will feed data at FSBX4, so 800MHz, double to 1600 MHz.

But isnt the cpu-to-memory communication a two way street? I mean if the cpu is limited to a 200mhz fsb when REQUESTING memory read/writes, arent you seriously hurting your performance?

And in anycase, my bios doesnt have a fsb to memory ratio setting. The onlything I can do is manually set my dram freq (800 - 1600) or leave it at 'auto'.

Earlier today I came across this article...

Athlon 64 Overclocking. Although previous steps of this guide was not processor-specific, the procedures detailed above apply more to Socket A overclocking than the latest A64 chips. There are some significant differences which are worth mentioning to help you get the most out of your Socket 754 or 939 processor. First off, the A64 does not really have a FSB or front side bus speed per se. The term FSB refers to the frequency of the connection between the CPU and Memory Controller. On an Athlon XP chip this could be 133, 166 or 200 (effective 266, 333 or 400 DDR) depending on the model. But the Memory Controller is integrated into the processor on an A64 chip and therefore runs at the same speed as the CPU. There is a connection to the Northbridge on the motherboard however, called the Hypertransport Link, which can be either 800 Mhz (effective 1600) on Socket 754 or 1000 Mhz (effective 2000) on Socket 939. Now the Hypertransport Link speed is determined from the base HTT speed of 200 (referred to as CPU Frequency in this BIOS above) times the HT Multiplier (shown as HT Frequency below) which is by default, 4x on S754 and 5x on S939. It is very important to remember to lower the HT Multi as you increase HTT. Ideally you want to try to keep the overall link speed close to the default 800 or 1000 as going much above these will result in instability. There are cases where someone complains they can't get more than 220-230 HTT on their overclock and think they've topped out the memory or CPU. Had they reduced the HT Multiplier by one step more they likely would have found they could keep going higher on the HTT. Anyway, back to this. The principle behind the CPU Multiplier is the same for A64, only now they refer to it as the FID, or Frequency ID. If you take the base HTT frequency and multiply it by the FID you end up with the speed that the CPU runs at

So from what I understand, these processors dont have a 'fsb'. They have a dedicated on chip memory controller that talks directly to ram, then the HT handles everything else (by talking to the nb). So my question is, is it safe to say that playing with the CPU Bus Freq (thats what my bios calls it) will ONLY effect the cpu and memory?

Thats would make sense, since my bios has a seperate option for "HT linkspeed" (ranges from 200mhz to 2600mhz).

So, to settle this whole 'what is the best bus freq to cpu multipler ratio' debate, isnt it safe to try different bus freq (up to 800hz, which is the max my memory supprts) and compare some benchmark with a lower bus freq? I mean all this time you have said 'overclocing the bus freq also overclocks other things', but that doesnt seem to be true according to the above article. The bus freq seems to effect memory, and thats it.

 

[DarkWhite]

1st, your BIOS doesn't show ratios because it shows the speed achieved by those ratios.
At a stock of 200MHz FSB your RAM will say 800, etc.
If you bump to 250 your 800 option will become 1000.
2nd The whole FSB thing (for our purposes) is just terminology, and means little to the actual process.
Playing with your core frequency will also affect HTLink speed, along with another setting that should be right next to it in your BIOS, I'm not remembering the name.