AMD Phenom II x4 960T (6 Cores)

[caddi daddi]

I run a ga 880gm-d2h with a fx8120 pulling 192 watts and no 'poof' if it's of any help to you.
and i agree it is a weenie board, but i have run the beast at temps way above 60c

 

[trents]

These are the mosfets (circled in red). High end oveclocking motherboards come with heat sinks on them. They are them most likely component on the board to fry.

 

[[AKC]Odin]

Way above 60 C* is begging for trouble eventually Caddi... LOL no offense..
.
I guess I just like being on the side of safer versus razors edge when it comes to TDP..
Also, every board and CPU I have had since 2007 is still up and running..
My poor little Athlon 64 x2 5600+ still sits at 3.2 GHZ... I remember when I thought that was a bad little OC... I can't say the same for Hard Drives, I have lost "1" since 2007..
R.I.P Seagate 640gb 32mb cache 7200 RPM....
.
I really wish AM3+ Bulldozer wasn't such a fail in single threaded apps, kinda makes my 990FX mobo look unnecessary...

 

[Chester326]

Can someone provide me a list with Socket am3 Board that have the ACC feature, can support dual Grapphic cards and can support an unlocked x4 procceror overclocked?

4 sticks of ram, IDE if possible i got a 2 crucial IDE HDDs and 5-6 SATA slots?
Some space between the GPU slots so i can install a freaking card

 

[trents]

Can someone provide me a list with Socket am3 Board that have the ACC feature, can support dual Grapphic cards and can support an unlocked x4 procceror overclocked? . . .

Chester, if you have specific questions about certain products then we would be glad to help you but this is something you can research yourself since you know the features you are looking for. We are not here to do do the pick and shovel work for you.

Having said that, I would provide these guidelines to help you make a choice:

1. Look for a 140 watt TDP board
2. Look for a board that will support both graphic cards in 16-bit PCI-e band width.
3. Look for a board that has an 810 or 850 South Bridge chip ("SB") for unlocking cores.
4. Look for a board that has heat sinks on the mosfets (which most high end boards do).

 

[ssjwizard]

Your current board just needs heatsinks on the mosfets if you want to be sure its fine. Other than that if your not planning on going to the AM3+ socket look for something with the 890fx chipset most likely.

 

[Neuromancer]

You can always finger test your fets too too make sure they are not overheating.

If your cooler is small enough, run your stress test with your OC for 15 minutes then reach in and touch the items that trents circled in red.

I cant be positive without closer scrutiny, but the two on the very right should be for your CPUNB, and the first pair next to it in the straight line would be the ones that will get the hottest. Start at the other end in case they really are hot you do not want to get burned (And yes they can get that hot, which is why they come with sinks on them on most motherboards now.)

I used an old socket A heatsink I cut down with a hacksaw to make one long strip and applied with seiksui thermal tape. Once it heats up good, apply some pressure then let it cool off it wont fall off after that

 

[ssjwizard]

Modding a stock HS works great for these kinds of things. Or you could try a pack of ramsinks they are just small copper/aluminum heatsinks with an adhesive bottom. Youd be amazed how much difference a small HS can make when a part is running as hot as fets can get.

 

[Chester326]

I really apologise, i just sometimes get really frustrated, i try to use the most safe things for my PC, and when doing anything unstable i tend to get "unstable" my self, my pc is builded over the course of many years and i have spended a great deal of time in it. I think you can understand.

Alrighty back to action, i founded myself a List of the things to buy so far:

Mosfets Heatsinks.
Ram Heatsinks.
CPU Cooler.
Ram Stick 4GB.
Maybe a New Mobo i already got one in mind.

So back to Overclocking now. So far my System is as the last Screenie posted.
What do i do to continiu, from my little knoledge i should not touch any more the cpu due to getting up to heatwall.
So Overclock the rams and GPU?

 

[ssjwizard]

If your already at a comfortable CPU speed that would be the next logical step. Clocking your RAM is going to be finicky because of the odd configuration. Just make sure you have both 2gb stick are in one channel and the 4gb in the other to help balance the uneven ram.

First step would be to bring your ram timings up(make the numbers bigger, IE from 9-9-9 up to 11-11-11, ect) and then try to move up to 1600mhz. You might need to bump the ram voltage some. Id suggest going straight to 1.65v most likely. Once you get there you start tuning the ram timings back down.

Grab MSI afterburner or Saphire TrixXx to overclock your GPU. Thats pretty simple bump the core a bit and run a 3dmark test. If its stable bump GPU some more and repeat. Once you hit your instability drop down a notch or two and make a note of the speed. Then you want to start bringing up your GPU ram speed the same way.

GL.

 

[Chester326]

Thank you for the steps, but i have a problem due to me being not so comfortable inside the BIOS yet, can you please give me the steps with a bit more clarification, what you said might be very easy for someone experienced to follow but to me is overwhelming.

Sorry bout it, i am still trying to get used it it's a whole new level of excitingment for me

 

[Chester326]

You can always finger test your fets too too make sure they are not overheating.

If your cooler is small enough, run your stress test with your OC for 15 minutes then reach in and touch the items that trents circled in red.

I cant be positive without closer scrutiny, but the two on the very right should be for your CPUNB, and the first pair next to it in the straight line would be the ones that will get the hottest. Start at the other end in case they really are hot you do not want to get burned (And yes they can get that hot, which is why they come with sinks on them on most motherboards now.)

I used an old socket A heatsink I cut down with a hacksaw to make one long strip and applied with seiksui thermal tape. Once it heats up good, apply some pressure then let it cool off it wont fall off after that

I have some Big HS from old PSUS they are in small lines and are very dense very big and also very light weighted, they are slim enough to fit in the mosfet think i can attach them there? and if yes how? i dont think the thermal paste will hold them there and there is no way to screw them down

 

[ssjwizard]

You can use a thermal epoxy artic makes a few different ones. That should do exactly what you want to do for your VRM.

As for overclocking your RAM well you need to go into dram configuration and set manual timings, and speed. You should have an 8x multiplier for the ram which will run them at 1600mhz.

 

[Chester326]

Its something like:

Raise Timing to 11.
Change Multi to 8
Increase volts
stress test
Decrase Timings ?

 

[ssjwizard]

Thats the ticket. RAM timings are one of those things that we have to deal with to fully tune a system that nobody(almost no body) likes dealing with. If you open up CPU-Z SPD tab and write down the abbreviations for the main memory timings and there order. What you should probably start with is something along the lines of 11-11-11-33-40 2T. IF your ram cooperates with any luck you should hopefully end up around 9-10-9-27-36 2T.

 

[trents]

Chester, when you go into bios you will find about 20 different timings. Leave all on auto that are not found in CPU-z Memory tab. The others are not important and not worth your time fooling with. There's only about six that matter.

 

[ong]

AMD Phenom II x4 960T with Motherboard ASUS M5A97

Hi Trents,

I am running AMD Phenom II x4 960T with Motherboard ASUS M5A97.
It seems exactly the same like your CPU and Board.
I am now be able OC to 3.4Ghz & system hangs for any GHZ apart from that.

I noticed you are running 4.1 GHZ with CPU Cooler.
I do not have any Cooler at the moment. But plan to get one.

Would you be able to show me how exactly the option you select to make the system stable running at 4.1 GHZ.

Thank you very much for your sharing.

Ong