Help Overclock Phenom II X6 1600T (Unlocked 960T)

[Jofi]

Hello, I have been using this CPU for almost year now it's amazing! Unlocked 2 extra cores without problems

So I just finished installing new cooler (Scythe Mugen 3 rev. B) and it does very well in this pretty small case (Antec Sonata II), CPU temp about 35°C idle and ~50°C max.
Now I would like overclock this monster to get better FPS in games. What I have tested so far is only raising multiplier and let other settings be on Auto, disabled CnQ, C1E & CoreTurbo.
With 6 cores unlocked, x17 (3400MHz) is far as I can go without getting bluescreen. With 4 cores x18, but I found out 6 cores gave better FPS on Battlefield 3.
I'm kinda new with overcloking so I didn't touch other settings yet, scared I will fry my mobo or break cpu..

Specs:
Asus M5A78L-M/USB3
AMD Phenom II x4 960T 3.4GHz @ x6 Unlocked
Scythe Mugen 3 rev. B
Kingston HyperX 2x4GB, DDR3 1600MHz, CL9
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560Ti

My RAM is running currently at 669.7 MHz instead of 800 which it should be (?) because this mobo supports "2000(O.C.)/1866(O.C.)/1800(O.C.)/1600(O.C.)/1333/1066 MHz".
I enabled 1600Mhz from bios but after 3h playing BF3 I got bluescreen so I set it back to normal. Not sure if it was because of RAM..

BIOS Settings:

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CPU-Z & HWMonitor: (TMPIN0 = CPU)

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So I would like to overclock this CPU but what settings I should change next and how far is safe to go with this board?

Also BIOS says CPU Over Voltage is VCore but does this mean I can set here my vcore or is this how much will be added to stock voltages?
When i press + once, CPU Over Voltage changes to 1.050000 from AUTO next press changes it to 1.053125 and so on.

Sorry my newb questions, hope you understand!

 

[Jofi]

Ohh, think I figured answer for my last question. BIOS Says:
Standard = By CPU
Min = Standard-0.3000V
Max = By CPU
Increment = 0.003125V

So this is where I set my core voltages, not how much will be added.
Standard = 1.35 & 1.05 is Min..

 

[Hicksimus]

So long as you are just overclocking with the multiplier you won't be bothering much else. As in you aren't affecting HTLink or CPU/NB frequency or RAM frequency so at the moment things are simple.

What you'll want to be the most careful with here is your motherboard. That stuff immediately left of your processor is the VRM. It's not a board built with overclocking in mind so that VRM is not going to react well or live long if you get too demanding. You'll run that VRM into the ground before you start getting warm processor temps with that heatsink. Right now your voltage is ~1.35V and in general terms those processors can handle up to about 1.55V "safely" but the less voltage you can use the better off you are and any voltage increase can have consequences(rare, but still possible).

If the BF3 bluescreen was with 6 cores running then you may need a bit more voltage to make the other 2 cores stable. Not all cores/processors are of equal quality even within the same processor or processor model. I have 2 cores that will need unsafe voltage to run at 3.8Ghz(and not stable) while I have 4 cores that can do 3.8 quite safely and stable.

Can you post a picture of the SPD section in CPU-Z? This can tell us a bit more about your RAM. For example it may do 1333mhz at 1.5V and support 1600mhz at 1.65V. Stuff like that....

 

[Jofi]

I was thinking if I could get to 3.6GHz safely & stable,
but if that VRM is going to blow think i'll stay at 3.4GHz :]
Should I set my RAM to 1600MHz?

 

[Hicksimus]

As you can see there the 1600Mhz is an XMP profile. You can set it to 1600mhz, but it'll want 1.65V and you may have to manually enter the timings from that column of CPU-Z in the BIOS.

3.6Ghz with that processor and a reasonable voltage will be right around 140W(maybe a bit over). Your mobo is designed to handle normal computing for at least the duration of its warranty with a 140W CPU so I'd feel fine there. Just be cautious because it may not be wise to do something like Folding@Home 16 hours per day with it(especially if you go beyond 3.6Ghz), alternatively it may do just fine it's up to you how safe you want to be.

 

[trents]

You probably won't see much or any difference in gaming performance if you unlock the fifth and sixth cores. There aren't many games yet that can take advantage of more than four cores.