Overclocking AMD 955BE

[Turambar1337]

Hello. I'm new at the forum, though I've known it for many long years

I want to OC my CPU, I want to see how far I can go, and achieving maximum performance! Say, If I manage to reach the 3.9 / 4.0 Ghz, it will be more than enough.

I tried the Asrock Auto OC feature, and I managed to reach 3.7Ghz without touching voltages or any other setting my myself.

My specs:

CPU: AMD X4 955BE
MB: Asrock 870 Extreme3
RAM: 2x2GB 1333Mhz Kingston
PSU: Corsair 600W
Cooling: Stock cooler, but I have 3 fans on the case. I have 23ºC IDLE and 47ºC at full load, with prime95.

So, any advice in what settings I should be messing with to achieve at least 3.8Ghz?

I guess my RAM is not the best. I think I will buy a 2x4GB 1600Mhz, they're pretty cheap now.

Thanks in advance, let's see if you guys make of me a good OCker!

 

[keny]

You're more than likely going to need to bump you're vcore to get that clock and that means more heat, which is going to be the limiting factor in you're specific overclock, due to you using the stock cooler, but that's ok we can work with that


What you need to do is bump up you're CPU multiplier in you're bios by .5 , after every bump you need to stress test the system using prime for roughly 20 mins, if it passes and you're core temps stay below 55c repeat the process and bump it up again re testing after the changes, do this until it fails and then you need to bump the vcore up a notch from stock and retest with prime (this will create heat) keep doing this process until you hit 55c under load then post screens of the CPU, mem, and spd tabs of CPUz and we will help you more from there

 

[Khan]

Welcome to OC forums, what keny said, also check out this link http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=596023

It has a lot of information on overclocking the phenom II if you're interested in learning more about what you need to do to squeeze every bit of performance out of your cpu.

 

[fandroid]

I have my 955 running at 3.9Ghz, I have had it up to 4.2GHz though with fine voltages and temps but didn't see much a performance increase.

All I did was raise my volts up to about 1.425 (I'm almost positive thats what it was, if not it may have been 1.4 even. I am speaking in past tense because my new mobo kinda controls the volts on its own and disregards everything I tell it lol) and raised my multiplier in the bios.

Another nice improvement (after overclocking) was I raised my NB up to 2400mhz. Your NB frequency should be directly linked with your ram frequency, the ideal NB freq for 1600mhz is 2400mhz, I don't know what it would be with your current setup but there is some equation somewhere to calculate what you should set it at.

 

[Turambar1337]

Hello, thank you all! So, I managed to achieve the 3.71Ghz and it's doing pretty fine actually: With prime95 it didn't give me any bluescreen, and max temperature was again 47ºC. My main problem was the NB freq, it was at 2400, I lowered it to ~ 2100 , and it got stabilized .

I don't know why, but I raised the vcore to 1.425, and the max was 1.344, maybe this is due to the Cool & Quiet feature? I also have powersaving features enabled, I hope I don't need to disable them in order to OC my cpu more?

Here are some prints of CPUZ:
CPU:
http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/1756/cpuqu.jpg

MEMORY:
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/8243/ramam.jpg

RAM SPD:
http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/4408/ramspd.jpg

EDIT: I need to find a way to get my ram speed to at least 1333mhz (original)... I lowered it, because with the default value, it would be 1553 mhz or something... I am getting bad values on the RAM performance

 

[trents]

EDIT: I need to find a way to get my ram speed to at least 1333mhz (original)... I lowered it, because with the default value, it would be 1553 mhz or something... I am getting bad values on the RAM performance

N problem. Just keep increasing the FSB while lowering the CPU multiplier in order to keep the CPU from becoming unstable.

Please directly attach images with your posts rather than linking them as directly viewable attachments are easier for those helping you.

To attach a pic with a post, first crop and save the pic to disc. Snipping Tool in Windows Accessories is great for this. 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.

 

[Turambar1337]

So, which values should I put in CPU frequency and CPU multiplier? The FSB is the 1st one right? My bios isn't that clear about it. I really need to buy that 2x4GB 1600mhz kit ...

 

[trents]

If you have a camera phone or a digital camera you could take pics of the relevant sections of the bios and then attach them with posts, that would be the easiest way to help you since we would be seeing what you are seeing instead of using generic labels.

 

[Turambar1337]

I will do that, I will upload the files as soon as I can. Meanwhile, I have been running some benchmarks, it seems that if I raise the FSB to 230 and the clock is at 3.6Ghz, I get much more RAM performance that 200 and 3.8Ghz. I will try to raise the FSB now!

 

[Turambar1337]

Hello. So, If I raise only the multiplier to x19 and achieve the 3.8Ghz, my benchmark programm "Nuclearus", states that my CPU processing performance is indeed higher, but the cpu cache and memory are lower, comparing to the Auto OC Asrock feature, which increased me the CPU to 3.6GHz and FSB. First image is the multiplier OC, the second is with auto feature:

And followed by the BIOS settings (I noticed now that I have uploaded one with 3.95Ghz, ignore it, the other settings were the same!)

 

[keny]

There's a glitch with that benchmarking software as its only reading 4096kb as the L2 cache on the first screenshot when it should be 512kb like the second screenshot, I have never heard of this software before and I would not trust it to give a good result based on the errors its thrown out after just one test.

 

[trents]

CPU Frequency Multiplier is the "multiplier' I was speaking of in post #8. The FSB (Front Side Bus, an older term we still use but, technically it's the HT Reference now) will also speed up the CPU in small increments but to use it for overclocking makes things more complicated because it's the master system bus and the other frequencies change with it, namely RAM, HT Bus and NB. You can overclock the system very simply by leaving the FSB on the stock 200 and just increasing the CPU Frequency Multiplier and adding a little CPU voltage once in a while. The FSB is the "CPU Frequency" in your bios. The terminology can be confusing because it's not consistent from one manufacturer to another or one board to another. You get used to it with experience.

 

[Turambar1337]

So, what programm should I use to benchmark my system? 3DMark or something?

I really thought that I was loosing ram performance by increasing just the multiplier and leaving the ram default... I really need to test this out tonight.

 

[RGone]

Prime95 by the bit version of windows you are using. Torture Test in Blend mode for 2 hours for a pretty fair indicator of stability. Use CPUID's HWmonitor (free version) to open on desktop and monitor Min/Max Voltages and temps during the entire run of P95 Blend mode. Then you can capture just the image of HWMonitor and upload the capture to the forum.

It is greatly advised to upload the CPUz captures of the CPU Tab, the Memory Tab and the SPD Tab. CPUz can be run more than once to get the three captures of it.

You may need to start the P95 Blend mode test for only mins if you have a worker fail or drop out or BSOD occurs. Max CPU temp not to exceed about 70c and the Package Temp not to exceed approximately 60c. That is the how and what of most everyone testing their system for semblance of stability.
RGone...

 

[Turambar1337]

About prime95, that's what I did duzens of time's yesterday, got a few BSOD's

But I was refering about benchmarking, to test if the performance actually increased or not! 3DMark11 will do?

 

[Mandrake4565]

3dmark will do if you compare your cpu scores. Here is a list of Processor benchmarks you can use. Also if you are still getting BSOD's your not stable.

 

[Johan45]

I'd worry more about stability at this point than benching. If you're not passing prime then you're not stable.
That aside increasing your fsb and NB frequencies will give you better performance over using the multi only. As an example I have my 965 at 250fsb 2500NB and 1666 ram

 

[Turambar1337]

No, I meant I got a few BSOD's while testing OC. If I OC the cpu to 3.8Ghz and Vcore at 1.4V. I think it's a good overclock for the beggining. When I get to my computer, should we start to configure the RAM timings? The cpu max temp was 47ºC yesterday!

 

[Mandrake4565]

A good overclock in my eyes is one that doesn't crash. What do you have your ram set at? According to the cpu-z shots above you are using the FSB to overclock, in the BIOS ss your not. If you use FSB then you need to set the RAM timing according to the JEDEC profiles in the CPU-Z spd tab. It looked as if your timings were tighter then the profile for the spd you are running. You should concentrate on one thing at a time. Overclock the CPU 1st, get it stable, then start messing with the Ram/Ram timings.

 

[Johan45]

You should concentrate on one thing at a time. Overclock the CPU 1st, get it stable, then start messing with the Ram/Ram timings.