Overclocking a 1090T on a 990FXA-UD5

[Hellbilly]

Hey guys, I have been looking around the forums for a good month or so and finally decided to register.

I am doing my first build as soon as all my parts get here, so I am hoping to have my wits together.

How does the 1090T seem to overclock on the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5? This will be my first overclock as well, so I am going to go with a mild overclock, nothing too extreme.

 

[hokiealumnus]

It should clock relatively close to as well as it would on an 890FX board. I'd expect somewhere around 4.0GHz with a solid air cooler. Any higher and you'd need to go with water, which wouldn't get you too much higher anyway. Thubans scale with temperature and ambient is ambient - you'll only get so far. Almost all will do 4GHz with temps in-line.

You should know 990FX boards' new BIOSes may not exactly be coded for the most efficiency with Thubans (they moved on to focusing on Bulldozer). If you run into issues getting it to clock properly or find worse than expected performance, try an older BIOS.

Also with the Gigabyte 990FX boards, watch your Vcore. They can suffer from a pretty hefty Vdroop. If there is no LLC control in your BIOS, you might find yourself having to set a relatively high Vcore to get reasonable loaded voltages. This might limit your final overclock somewhat so that you can run reasonable idle voltages.

Lastly, welcome to OCF!

EDIT - Almost forgot; if you haven't already, read Dolk's excellent guide to overclocking your phenom while you're waiting for the parts to arrive.

 

[notJUSTguitar]

A friend of mine has the 990FXA-UD3 with the 1090T. I think he has it at 4ghz @ 1.44V. He hasnt had a problem with it. He could probably push it higher but he us using the stock cooler.

 

[Hellbilly]

Yeah that's what I had been seeing on quite a few forums hokie, people were having issues with Vdroop at higher overlocks. But I had not see too much information in the past month to know if there had been some minor tweaks in the revisions or if anyone had found a way around it for the Thubans.

I am not really interested in pushing mine past 4 Ghz, maybe not even 3.8, so hopefully I will not have many problems with it.

This is the case and cooler I have went with so cooling should not be an issue, right?

Case:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005E97ZUU/ref=ox_sc_act_title_5?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Cooler:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002G392ZI/ref=oh_o02_s00_i00_details

 

[hokiealumnus]

That cooler will probably get you to 3.8 without issue. 4.0 is likely but it depends on your chip and how much voltage it takes / how hot it runs.

The Vdroop is a Gigabyte problem. They addressed it with a new revision of the UD7 that added LLC control but that's not even available in the US yet. There's plenty of detail on that in our review of the UD7 if you're interested. I don't know if there is a new UD5 revision planned or not.

 

[Bobnova]

There is a new revision of the UD5 board, but I don't know if it is available retail in the US yet either.
It has its own issues, but if you're keeping an eyeball on the vcore it's a good board.

 

[Hellbilly]

I am pretty deadset on the 990FXA series, but I want to be sure I'm not gonna have much issue with Vroop.

Thanks for the link hokie, that's a good read. Do you all feel like I should wait on the revision for UD7 to hit the US and grab it or do you think I would be fine with the UD5, since I won't be overclocking too high?

 

[hokiealumnus]

It may not be hitting the US any time soon. They had no idea when it would. Chances are they want rid of the 1.0's first and the 990FX platform isn't exactly selling like hotcakes right now.

If you have the money to consider a UD7, I'd encourage you to at least look at the Crosshair V Formula. It's a superior board. What makes you dead set on the 990FXA series?

 

[Hellbilly]

I've always heard that Gigabyte made solid boards, and the reviews seem pretty good on this series, of course besides the Vdroop. Nearly every person I have talked to has recommended the 990FXA series.

Thanks for the link, I will read it and look around and see how I feel about it. Would you recommend that over the 990FXA series?

 

[hokiealumnus]

Yes, absolutely. Gigabyte did a lot of things right with that series; everything is great about them - except power delivery. For many people that's an acceptable fault. Technically it's not a fault and was designed to AMD's specification for Bulldozer. For overclockers....not so acceptable in my book. If they'd get the new revisions out and available I wouldn't suggest looking elsewhere. But if you can't physically see or be guaranteed you're getting rev. 1.1 product, I'd do just that.

 

[Hellbilly]

Maybe a stupid question hokie, but they are available overseas right? Could you not just buy one overseas and update the BIOS if need be?

 

[hokiealumnus]

Buy what...Rev. 1.1? If you can find them, based on Gigabyte's specific statement that they aren't available in the US, they should be available yes. I wouldn't have any clue in what countries though.

 

[Hellbilly]

Yes, sorry I was a bit vague there lol. I'll give it a few more days of researching before I make a decision. I don't wanna spend money on a motherboard just to change it again in a few months. Thanks for your time and help hokie!

 

[hokiealumnus]

No problem, happy to. Share pics and your thoughts when you get the system built!

 

[Hellbilly]

From what I understand and have researched, the UD7 1.1 revisions are available in Canada if anyone is interested. It's a bit more but may be worth it to some people, just figured I'd give an update.

I have found several on Ebay, but still debating on whether to pay the premium or just suck it up and go with the UD5. From what I've been able to tell there has been some good UD5's shipping lately.