Thank you for all these advises. I settled for an LLC setting of High (50%) and an increased of Vcore setting by 25 mV. I concluded with my researches (and based on what I already know about integrated circuits) that the harm in using too high a voltage gets worse under a heavier load. Eg.: 1.5 V at 1 % CPU usage =/= 1.5 V at 100 % CPU usage.
A higher Vdroop also means a wider stability margin between the stability testing conditions (LinpackXtreme) and the more realistic heavy usage I will need this overclock for so I think I prefer it this way; with not too much LLC even if it is very convenient to pass stability tests. After all, passing these tests is NOT the end goal, rock solid stability in real life usage is.
In the meanwhile, I've accumulated many more questions (all related to my CPU overclock so far) that I would ask all in this one thread rather than assign a different thread to each. They are mainly geared toward understanding what part of my system will be at fault if my system fails a test, freezes, BSODs, etc. Because, for example, changing the base clock affects everything and I don't want to end up raising the voltage of a component a whole lot only to discover much later that it wasn't the cause of my system failing. Hopefully you understand that asking questions directly is a lot more time efficient than spending an entire day or more stability-testing for each one given how rigorous my stability standard is.
1. Can a CPU-only overclock be pushed further by using the base clock + CPU ratio instead of just the CPU ratio
other than just for fine-tuning the frequency beyond the level of precision accessible with just the CPU ratio ? For example, can it make any difference at all on stability to have 20x225 MHz (or 25x180 MHz) instead of 22.5x200 MHz even thought it leads to the exact same frequency ? (I've even seen
an article implying a CPU runs less hot with a higher base clock and lower ratio for the same frequency)
2. Does the base clock affect anything other than the frequencies of CPU, DRAM, HT speed and North Bridge ? (you know, all the crap that already have an adjustable multiplier in the BIOS.) Do I have to worry about anything other than these four frequencies if I increase the base clock by even a crazy amount ? For example, can I
hypothetically get it to 400 MHz if I halve all ratios and be sure it'll be stable or is there (I presume) something else that'll prevent that from happening and if it does, around what frequency is that likely to happen ? In other words, up to which base clock frequency can I be
sure that any form of instability is caused by the overclocked component(s) with a ratio and not anything else ?
2b. Also, throw back to question 1. Could I encounter any problem by bringing
down the base clock a whole lot and compensate by raising up the ratios ?
3. Can this base clock on 990FX motherboards affect or hurt graphics cards through the PCI-E frequency or does it remain independent ? (I've seen in a few places that it doesn't even bring any gain to the table to increase the PCI-E clock speed and that it can even damage components, is that true ?
4. Is there a way for me and my FX-6300 in my M5A99FX PRO R2 to overclock different pair of cores to different frequencies so that I don't have to shut down core pair(s) to reach a higher frequency ? I'm asking since I know that "turbo core" thingy can do that to my CPU when using its default BIOS settings and I noticed all throughout my past stability testing that the core pair #4-#5 is always the one producing errors. I don't expect to be able to do it through BIOS necessarily so maybe there is an overclocking software ? I've been avoiding those so far but if you recommend one... I would try it.
5. Speaking of BIOS, I never updated its firmware because as far as I recall, we're never supposed to update it unless we need to. Am I wrong about this one ? The BIOS version of my mobo is 2201 (
M5A99FX PRO R2.0 - Support). Is there a way to know all of what the two newer versions do ? I know it says something in one line under each entry but is that really the only change made ?
That will be all for now. I will ask the rest later if my future web searches don't end up giving me the answers I need.
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