Overclocking a Phenom, II 965 BE, How far can I go?

[poco242]

I managed to get it to run prime at 4.26 for an hour with no issues. I only stopped to go to bed. Max temp it hit was 45C. I am going to run prime again for 2 hours at that setting before moving on. This time I just increased the bus by 3 to 218. I left the NB voltage at 1.2 and the vcore I left at 1.44. The AIO has really helped the temps so I am feeling more confident to go a little farther.

I have been doing a lot of reading and watching youtube videos on OC'ing this chip. I have seen so many people running them at much higher vcore just to hit 4Ghz. One guy was at 1.55 to hit 4.1Ghz. Not sure why mine is doing it at such a lower voltage, but I'm not complaining. Not bad for a used $90 eBay chip

 

[trents]

Most people don't cool that chip with a double 120mm fan water loop. That's really helping you in this scenario. Keeping it cool lowers electrical resistance and allows for a lower voltage to be used.

 

[poco242]

I had it stable at 4.2ghz at 1.44 v on air. Granted my temps hit 60C, but it passed an 8 hour Prime95 blend test.


I was thinking I could put longer hoses on my cooler and run it out the window. (joking) It is supposed to hit -30 with -50 wind chills here tomorrow and Monday. Who needs LN2 when you live in MN

 

[Mandrake4565]

I was thinking I could put longer hoses on my cooler and run it out the window. (joking) It is supposed to hit -30 with -50 wind chills here tomorrow and Monday. Who needs LN2 when you live in MN

You can just stick the whole rig outside but if there isn't antifreeze in the lines of the cooler you will have problems when the lines freeze.

 

[poco242]

I am not that obsessed.....yet. I will just do it in the house

I am testing 4.28ghz now. I upped the bus to 219 and upped the vcore a little and the cpunb a little. I will post all of the screen shots if/when it makes it for 2 hours. I am running prime95 blend right now and watching Netflix

 

[Mandrake4565]

I am not that obsessed.....yet. I will just do it in the house

No yet! I once thought Air Cooling was enough, then thought I was nuts going to water, now my rig regularly visits my deck when it's below cold outside

 

[poco242]

OK. 3 hours on prime95. I am calling this one good and moving up. This is 4.28ghz. Here are the screen shots. I am starting to hate CPUZ. The readings fluctuate so bad, but the other 3 programs I have the readings hold steady.

I am going to try to up the bus speed again to get to 4.3 and test. Voltage I will let be for now.

 

[poco242]

Here is the final prime 95 screenshot. 3 hours zero errors.

 

[Mandrake4565]

good stuff poco, maybe now try getting the ram up or tighten the timings

 

[poco242]

I need to read up on RAM. I have not learned how, what, or why to change timings.

Here it is now. 4.32.......fingers crossed.........prime starting now

 

[Mandrake4565]

I need to read up on RAM. I have not learned how, what, or why to change timings.

Here it is now. 4.32.......fingers crossed.........prime starting now

Well, getting the ram up in speed or lowering the timings will in essence make the overclock just that much better tuned so to speak. For now find the sweet spot you want to overclock the Cpu to then start messing with the timings and ram speed. That way you'll know if you have stability issues what is causing it.

 

[poco242]

28 min on prime @4.32Ghz (fingers crossed HARD) Max temps will be 49C. I always get my max temp on the 8k length FFT's (starting to know this chip)

You say to change the ram speed. It looks like to do that my only choice is to go way over the 1600mhz. As for timings, I have them set to auto and it looks like the BIOS had changed them quite a bit. Stock is 11, 11, 31, and BIOS has them at 9, 9, 24. If I knew then what I know now I would have bought different memory. This model of GSkill has some high timings compared to others.

 

[Mandrake4565]

You say to change the ram speed. It looks like to do that my only choice is to go way over the 1600mhz. As for timings, I have them set to auto and it looks like the BIOS had changed them quite a bit. Stock is 11, 11, 31, and BIOS has them at 9, 9, 24. If I knew then what I know now I would have bought different memory. This model of GSkill has some high timings compared to others.

This is where playing around is going to come in, you may have to lower the FSB and raise the multi to see what it will do. The other option may be to set the Cpu at stock and mess with the Ram speed to see how high you can get it stable. That way you eliminate the Cpu causing the issue. Also you may be able to tighten the timings ie lower them, just because it's speced at certain timing doesn't mean it's set in stone.

 

[poco242]

Well she almost made it an hour. BSOD code 124. I think I will need to add a little VCore.

What are the peak voltages I should keep under for VCore and CPUNB? I think 1.55 and the other ??

 

[Mandrake4565]

Here is a tuning guide directly from amd It's a PDF, look at page 18, I usually say 1.55 on the Cpu V and 1.25-1.3 on the Cpu Nb more importantly keep the temps below 62 on the cores and you should be fine.

 

[poco242]

Once again Thank You!

I am running prime again with a little more Vcore. 1.48 now. I made it past an hour now so .....

Also have Netflix going this time. Seems to by my good luck charm. Wasn't running last test.

 

[RGone]

F3-17000CL11-4GBSR G Skill is DDR3-2133 ram. More than less intended for Intel rigs with those loose timings. However that said it is also rated at up to 1.60V so you can likely set ram to 1.60V and let the ram speed go over DDR3-1600 and do it with those 9, 9, 9, 24, 31 timings at 2T. Hopefully the IMC will hold together for such antics. Then you would be pretty well off for ram speed. You might also be able to run 8, 9, 9, 24, 31 2T and that would be even better.
RGone...

 

[poco242]

OK, we have 4.32Ghz stable on Prime for over 3 hours before I stopped to go to bed. Here are the shots.

 

[poco242]

Here is the next test. Temps are starting to come up for short periods during certain FFT lengths. This may be all I can get, if it does it. All I did is up the multi to 20. I am betting it will be unstable without more corev.

Update - I was correct. BSOD code 124 within 2 minutes on prime. Upped the corev to 1.5 now. It did run a 3dMark11 test OK at the lower voltage though. The physics score was over 4800. The highest I ever had.

 

[Mandrake4565]

You're going to get to a point where you're really going to have to feed the Cpu voltage to get to the next X mhz. You're going to have to weigh whether the increase in performance is worth the amount of voltage you need to run X Mhz. 4.3+ is not too shabby as a stable OC, not many that I've seen can run those clocks stable.