Some anecdotal cpu and motherboard overclock experience.

[chrisjames61]

I have three cpu's I have been messing with lately. A 960T with fifth core unlocked. A 1055T early stepping. A 965BE C3 stepping. I have had all three in both ASUS and Gigabyte boards experimenting. A GA-890FXA-UD5, A revision 1.1 GA-990FXA-UD3. The ASUS boards are M4A785TD-V EVO and a M4A89GTD PRO. The Gigabyte boards I worked hard to get the 1055T to 3.3 GHz, the 960T to 3.6 GHz, the 965BE to 3.8 GHz. With the two ASUS boards I just upped the cpu core voltage a bit. Changed the multi for the 960T and the 965BE, upped the reference clock for the 1055T. With the ASUS boards I was able to get the 1055T to 3.75 GHz, the 960T to 4.05 GHz and the 965BE to 4.2 GHz. All Prime95 two hours stable. The Gigabyte boards I had to putz with memory timings. I as wondering what you more knowledgeable guys thought? I know I am dealing with some old tech here but I am behind the curve lol!

 

[trents]

Do all these boards have 4+1 power phase?

 

[chrisjames61]

Do all these boards have 4+1 power phase?

All 8+2.

 

[trents]

So your results confirm why Asus boards seem to be so popular among overclockers, correct? These motherboards would all seem to be in the same class but Asus comes out on top.

 

[chrisjames61]

So your results confirm why Asus boards seem to be so popular among overclockers, correct? These motherboards would all seem to be in the same class but Asus comes out on top.

I have been messing around for about a year now. The computers I use have the gigabyte boards. Because the GA-990FXA-UD3 is the newer chipset. The GA-890FXA-UD5 has a beta bios that allows me to put my 6300 or 8320 in it. The UD5 has huge heatsinks and is 8+2. It is in a very well ventilated case. Yet it still micro throttles the 8320. High priced garbage. But it could be plain old PEBKAC......

 

[trents]

PEBKAC . . .?

 

[ShrimpBrime]

M4A785TD-V EVO and a M4A89GTD PRO.

Which of these two boards it your favorite? The one you pick should be your extreme overclocking board.

I've got a M4A785-M that is DDR2 and I really like this one. Cheap, but has all the needed features, and clocks chips pretty easily.

Had a GigaByte 990FX UD7 at one point, was a very impressive looking and running board. I'd put it up against any of the Asus "best" boards for overclocking any day.

Now your UD3 has a ver revisions. Perhaps you ahve one of the early rev 1.0s? Perhaps there where known issues with some of these revisions and or bios revisions with the board revisions that just didn't fair well..... As a matter of factly, I don't like buying into "revisions" of a motherboard. It just tells me that there are issues past rev 1.0 and at that point it's not just bios problems it may also be physical problems. Different hardware on the board that could make a difference with this or that.....

Any how, all of your clock speeds on ALL the boards you've listed seem pretty normal to me. Not all your Phenom IIs like running 4ghz and beyond without some decent voltage jumpage to make stability.