Overclocking on an Asus P5E3 Work Station Professional

[jhine5588]

Hello all,

I have revived my old PC in hopes to get a bit back into online gaming. The build was new about 12 years ago and I know I'm a bit behind at this point, but I'm only $250 into the upgrades as of yet-

I have general knowledge of overclocking (multipliers, FSB speed and additional voltage necessary to support faster speeds) and had a Q6600 over 3.0 GHz years ago and it was stable.

With this setup however no matter what I adjust the FSB to the BIOS saves the setting however it seems nothing else recognizes it and it remains at 333, even if I set it lower. The highest clock I can get out of it according to the BIOS is 2.68, stock is 2.66.

I have changed to older BIOS revisions in an attempt to correct this with no luck. Even changing VCORE CPU-Z does not recognize the setting from the BIOS

Specs:
Q9450
Asus P5E3 WS Pro BIOS 0803- newest offered by Asus
Corsair Vengeance 1600 DDR3 (2X4GB installed in the black slots)
Cooler Master UCP700 Ultimate PSU
Radeon HD 4870X2
Win 7 Pro


Any help would be tremendously appreciated!



Jeremy

 

[jhine5588]

My problem was discovered to be RAM that was not compatible with the P5E3 motherboard I was trying to run...

I have since revised this build for my nephew and the specs are as follows if anyone is interested-

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 3910.37 MHz - CPU-Z VALIDATOR

[p01x31] Validated Dump by CHRIS-PC (2021-03-12 02:17:10) - MB: Asus P5E3-WS-Pro - RAM: 8192 MB

valid.x86.fr

BTW, just to clarify, I did upgrade to a Q9550 as I got a decent deal on it.



Jeremy

 

[EarthDog]

Thanks for the follow up!

 

[jhine5588]

I'm still hitting a road block with the RAM though. I'd like to get it running a bit faster than the 1226mhz as it won't load certain games, Warzone being one of them. I know the game won't run well on this setup, but YouTube shows it does run on a Q8300 and RX470 iirc, so in theory it should work.



Jeremy

 

[Mr.Scott]

I'm still hitting a road block with the RAM though. I'd like to get it running a bit faster than the 1226mhz as it won't load certain games, Warzone being one of them. I know the game won't run well on this setup, but YouTube shows it does run on a Q8300 and RX470 iirc, so in theory it should work.



Jeremy

Loosen the timings back up to stock. According to your CPUz you're running 7-9-9-x. You should be running 9-9-9-x @ 1600.

 

[jhine5588]

I believe I tightened it up just a little to try and get a bit more performance out if it, but I'll try that.

Might explain why I haven't been able to turn up the frequency.

I am happy I was able to get that ancient chip up to nearly 4ghz on air!!



Jeremy

 

[Mr.Scott]

It is a balance between speed and timings. Realistically, the difference between Cl7 and Cl9 would be unnoticeable in real world applications.
General rule of thumb. Intel prefers ram speed first over timings (within reason). AMD prefers timings over speed (again, within reason).

 

[jhine5588]

I don't believe I dug far enough into it to be adjust cas latency either, I think those numbers were finally where I ran into it would boot and it wouldn't lock up during a stress test or gaming and temps were reasonable.

I stopped fiddling with it at that point to get back to my computer.

His sits here next to mine as he doesn't have a desk yet at his mom's. It's a good little unit for less than $400 on a fresh build, thanks to some good deals and good friends!



Jeremy

 

[Mr.Scott]

Get back to 9-9-9 and as close to 1600 as you can and you'll be all good I'm thinking.

 

[jhine5588]

Well now I'm having odd issues where the display won't connect occasionally... Building computers is a lot of fun but these stupid little issues really suck sometimes.



Jeremy

 

[jhine5588]

Replaced DVI cable, cleared CMOS, reseated RAM and GPU, started fresh with the whole OC process...

Running back to 3.91 at 9-9-9-28 @ 1553

I'm not sure if reseating the RAM fixed the initial issue of not being able to get it to run over the 1226 or what, but it's fixed now!

Thanks for the help

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 3910.06 MHz - CPU-Z VALIDATOR

[2ssxtg] Validated Dump by CHRIS-PC (2022-01-16 20:18:55) - MB: Asus P5E3-WS-Pro - RAM: 8192 MB

valid.x86.fr

Jeremy

 

[PolRoger]

I'm not sure if the OP will be returning to this thread? But his final posted OC appears to be running on the "400" bus strap using the 3:5 memory ratio.

Intel LGA 775 motherboard chipsets apparently have a limitation or bug using that particular combination where the memory speed that is being shown is actually @ 2:3 ratio. All the other straps and their respective memory ratios will run correctly (200/266/333). It is just the 400 strap and the 3:5 memory ratio that is affected.

I have also used that particular combination in the past because with Intel 775 chipset DDR3 motherboards it is often a combination that will actually POST and "memory train" when running at higher FSB speeds.


Link:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...-P45-is-broken-is-2-3-in-reality-on-400-strap



400 strap 3:5 mem ratio (bugged):




333 strap 5:8 mem ratio:



333 strap 1:2 mem ratio:

 

[jhine5588]

Well I'm very confused...

I'm running 460 strap and 3:5

If I go off CPU-Z timing tables, mine says-
622 711 800 800

This does not match your findings on your top set of screenshots.

Am I missing something or am I not understanding what you are trying to show me?



Jeremy

 

[Mr.Scott]

Well I'm very confused...

I'm running 460 strap and 3:5

If I go off CPU-Z timing tables, mine says-
622 711 800 800

This does not match your findings on your top set of screenshots.

Am I missing something or am I not understanding what you are trying to show me?



Jeremy

You are running a bugged strap. Get off 400.........or stay on it but know that your memory speed is bugged abnormally high.

 

[PolRoger]

Well I'm very confused...

I'm running 460 strap and 3:5

If I go off CPU-Z timing tables, mine says-
622 711 800 800

This does not match your findings on your top set of screenshots.

Am I missing something or am I not understanding what you are trying to show me?



Jeremy

You are running @460 FSB (3:5) on your ASUS motherboard's NB/MCH 400 strap while I was running @450 FSB (also 400 strap 3:5 ratio) in my first screen shot.

Intel LGA 775 motherboard's have up to 4 straps to correspond with Intel's 4 default CPU bus speeds and each strap has its own specific memory ratios/dividers.

200 strap (quad pumped) = 800 default bus speed CPU.
266 strap (quad pumped) = 1066 default bus speed CPU.
333 strap (quad pumped) = 1333 default bus speed CPU.
400 strap (quad pumped) = 1600 default bus speed CPU.

Intel LGA 775 DDR2 motherboards don't have the bugged 3:5 mem ratio issue because the (DDR2) 400 strap has only two memory ratios... 1:1 and 3:4.

400 FSB using the 400 strap at 1:1 mem ratio = DDR2-800 speed and if using the 3:4 mem ratio = DDR2-1066 speed.




LGA 775 computer tech was predominately DDR2 based and only towards the end its life cycle did DDR3 begin to make an appearance.
The DDR3 motherboards often have speed claims of up to 1600, 1800(OC), 2000(OC), but it isn't particularly easy to overclock FSB and run high memory speeds across a NB memory controller hub. The early release higher speed DDR3 kits were higher voltage 2x1GB (1R) sticks as well as some higher voltage 2x2GB (2R) kits. The somewhat lower voltage high speed DDR3 kits ~1.65v came out with the later CORE series CPU: i7-9XX and i7-8XX (LGA 1366/X58 and LGA 1156/P55).


Q9550 460FSB DDR2-1104C5 333 strap 5:6 mem ratio: