The Official OC (OverClocking) Thread!

if amds was fulyl working itd be up for retail buy.

 

Russ: The Phenom IIs are more efficient than the original Phenoms. That's all you have to back that statement up. Phenom Is used more power than X2s. X2s used more power than Athlon XPs. Apart from the new gen, the overall trend is a power increase. With intel, it's been a power decrease from the Pentium D 8 steadily down to the Core 2 Quad 45nm. The CPU that bucks the trend (and in a big way) is the i7 as we know. The i7s typically use so much power as they integrate the full triple-channel DDR3 memory controller that would have been in the X58 chipset inside, and on top of that are far more complex than the chips they replace. They're built on the same process size as the 45nm Yorkfields, so there's simply more power usage because there's more to use power. A bigger engine uses more fuel...

Technological progress is defined by being in the hands of the consumer. nVidia were well known to adjust their release dates to the same as ATI's for graphics for example, even if they didn't have a single one to sell, just so they could appear not to be behind. Thus, if AMD really had any CPUs that worked, they would have sold them and sold them sharpish. Doesn't matter how small the batch size would be, if some people could buy them, that's the start.

 

Most of the reason that it wasn't was some very bad decision making on the part of AMD's management. It was given to certain reviewers and you might still be able to come up with benchmarks for it. As I said, it was probably a very small batch, where the wafer yields were very low, and the costs very high because of that. It was also a server chip, socket F if I remember rightly! AMD's management was really poor back then, and there was surely some bad decisions made by them that led to many problems that showed up with the Phenom coming out very late and very slow (2.2GHz instead of 2.8GHz), compared to what Intel had to offer. Then when it did finally arrive, people were getting this error:
"Machine Check Event reported is a Fatal TLB error
Transaction Type:2
Memory Hierarchy Level 3
Address: 151744"
The cure for that, further crippled the performance, by negating most of the advantage of the memory Cache, slowing it down even more, a problem that wasn't completely fixed until about a year ago. Thankfully that's all behind them! LOL!!

In the last year the performance has been going up and the power consumption has been going down, making them more competive!

Russ

 

AFAIK the latest batch of Phenom I X4s still available has had a lot of bugs fixed, OC a little better, and perform decently. I think for the right price they can still be a somewhat good purchase. Sure they suck power, but if that doesn't matter to you then by all means consider one.

EDIT: Also consider how decent the 7750BE is. Just think of that in quad core.

 

Anyone know how to overclock the GPU in win7? I've been using RivaTuner but it doesn't work (or I haven't configured it properly).

Thanks in advance,

Red Maw

 

Try Nvidia nTune

 

Thats probably because Rivatuner isn't digitally signed. I had to bootup disregarding digital sigs in windows 7.

Is Ntune Digitally signed?

 

Nvidia nTune is directly from Nvidia and it integrates into the driver control panel.

 

Thanks Estuansis, nTune works. The reason I couldn't use RivaTuner was because it didn't recognize my driver. I don't know if that was what you meant by digitally signed oman7, all that stuff went right by me lol.

 

It is somewhat tricky to install/run on windows 7

 

Estuansis,
Basically, all the Phenoms except possibly a few older triples should all be B3 stepping by now. All the ones numbered xx50 have B3 stepping, so that makes it a bit easier too!

My 7750-BE has been in 4 different motherboards now, and it just won't run reliably past 3.2GHz in any of them, and I'm not about to overvolt the chip to see if that helps. It runs very good and I'm reluctant to mess that up. I do have some fiddling around to do with the NB Frequency yet, and I'll let you know if that improves anything. Here's a bit more information on the HT link frequency and the CPU NB frequency. You may want to read it and play with your adjustments accordingly!
http://www.thetechrepository.com/showthread.php?t=258

Best Regards,
Russ

 

hello all. i have been searching the net for months now and i can not find the specific information i am looking for anywhere. there is a mind numbing amount of general information but i need very specific instructions.

i have a Foxconn K8M890M2Mb-RS2H motherboard, with Phoenix Award Workstation BIOS 6.0 PG (flashed to latest update from Foxconn, 6A4F1P31) and AMD Athlon64 3200+ CPU. i want to overclock the CPU and to whatever extent it becomes necessary also set memory timings but i want to start with just what i can do to the CPU without messing with anything else. but i can not find anything anywhere that tells me specifically what setting(s) to change in this specific BIOS to do that. i cannot find anywhere in any screen of this to change either CPU Host Frequency or FSB or any of a couple other similar settings i've seen mentioned in all the hundreds of places i look, all i can find are memory timings.


Foxconn's own FOX ONE utility lets me overclock within Windows but there are two drawbacks to that. One is that the settings don't stick by themselves, the FOX ONE must be ran at startup and i don't want something running all the time that i don't need. the other is that if i clock it up too much, due to it doing its thing when Windows starts it puts me in a state where Windows wouldn't start forcing a reinstall to get my system back.

 

Realistically, the triple core Phenom IIs beat out pretty much all the Phenom I Quad cores even in multi-threaded applications, they're worthless, leave them behind. You can't buy many of them in the UK any more, and the 9950BE at one site is practically the same price as a Q8200 at another...
The 7750BE is a decent dual core, but a Quad core, again it would be outclassed. Most of the reviews can't get the 7750s to overclock at all well, and Russ has had his fair share of problems with that, so they're really judged on stock merits alone, which isn't great, since even with the cache advantage of having the quad's full amount as a dual core, they're at the low end value sector of the market. Great if you paid the £45 for one and got it working as a quad core, but for those who didn't, it's just a dual core. One worth having, but I still disagree with Shaff that these are the world's best CPUs just because a small proportion of people can get quads out of them.

Russ: Read any reviews lately? You're not alone in not being able to get past 3.2Ghz with your 7x50.

 

i was talking about the 550be not the 7750

 

Sam,
From what I have read, the majority will run 3.2GHz. I've seen a few that ran as high as 3.7-3.8GHz, but very few. Temps don't seem to be an issue! In fact the ones that do report idling in the low 50C range, I suspect can be attributed to the case or cooler they chose! As far as getting Quads out of them, it seems to be about 50% or less do. I can see the 4 cores in the setup, but if I try to activate them by turning on the ACC, it won't post, and you have to reset the CMOS to get back in the setup. So far, mine has been installed in MSI, BioStar and a DFI motherboards, and 3.2GHz is about it in all of them. The DFI was a 790FX/DDR2 1066 without OBG, and it made absolutely no difference at all! It's not the choice of MB, it's the CPU itself where the limitations are. It's still the best dual core at encoding video I've ever seen, by a good margin!

The 720-BE triple is far better, and from what I have read, most that can unlock the 4th core are getting 3.5-3.6GHz out of them as Quads! It remains to be seen if AMD will continue to allow unlocking sub standard cores on duals or triples.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

@Russ

Actually they did, now you provide a link where AMD demonstrated an early working unit.

http://blog.pcnews.ro/2006/01/26/intel-first-to-demonstrate-working-45nm-chips/

http://www.bestsyndication.com/Arti.../WhatsNew/01/013006-intel_45nm_technology.htm

http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?ArticleID=RWT012707024759


They had one in the market by January 07.

Don't get me wrong I'm still a big supporter of AMD. Remember when you were rooting for Intel and I recommended that you consider AMD? Back when I had three AMD rigs with two that had dual core Opterons?

 

Russ: Agreed, 3.2Ghz but no further (often only 3.1 for the 7850 which is higher clocked, that doesn't make much sense).
I think you should try a stock E8400, or heck, even run some comparisons with Rob or Will's overclocked E8 series chips. You'd see some impressive numbers from dual cores then. That's why they cost so much, they're completely unrivalled.
The 720BE is better because it's a Phenom II chip, which have much more reliable overclocking.

 

Sophocles,
With your above examples, the first two pertain to memory chips (SRAM), not microprocessors. I was able to find a working demonstration of an AMD 45nm Quad Core from Dec, 2006. There are so many dead links these days, it's getting more difficult to find information on anything anymore. The number of "hijacked" links is growing by leaps and bounds especially with the economic downturn! What's happening more and more is you click on a link for things and get an advertisement. I was reading an article from Anandteck the other day, and when I clicked on page 2, it took me to a site selling Real Estate. Sometimes, you can copy the actual URL and get what you were looking for, other times, you can't. I discovered that if I changed the page number in the URL, I could read the whole Anandtech article!

Here's a link from Dec. 2006 on the Barcelona Quad.

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2006/12/8363.ars

There are older links, but I'm not going to spend a lot of time driving myself crazy, to find them! LOL!! It's just not that important to me!

As far as my rooting for Intel, they were all I knew back then. I had quit computers completely for a few years and had absolutely no real experience at overclocking! The Prescot I had was OK, and it was cheap. Thanks to you and others here at AD, I was able to successfully overclock it to almost 4gHz. The Pentium D was cheap, but I did have to buy a new MB. I considered it a successful overclock as well! After that the C2D was here, and I bought an E4300 for the GigaByte 965P-DS3R Doc linked me to. That was replaced with an E6750, first on the 965P and then with the P35-DS3R, which was replaced by my curent AMD 790GX/7750-BE Platform! I'm happy with it's performance, and it's an absolute animal running DVDRB/CCE. The Intel may be better in benchmarks, but for what I do with a computer, it suits my needs to a tea! I've come to understand the plus's that AMD offers, and why people who are AMD fans, always talk about real world performance! It's also much less of a competition building one, so I'm having fun in a more relaxed atmosphere. I had my problems with this build, thanks to having a couple of pieces of major hardware with problems, but I never let it get to me. I took my time sorting it all out and my reward is a fine running, high quality machine that does everything I expected and more. It took a bit to get past the benchmark thing, but once I started judging performance by what it can actually do in everyday use, I came to appreciate it for what it is, a damn good computer!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

The point

The point was demonstrate Intel's move to 45nm silicon. You know I did read the article? It was the precursor to all that followed including processors.

The Barcelona was a 65nm Quad! How is that relevant?

Here's AMD's release date which was actually just a few months ago.

http://forum.mwave.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=530

Intel was way ahead of that too.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2007/10/29/intel_core_2_extreme_qx9650/1

 

Well I asked this question in the PC building thread, but sam told me to try again here, so I'll just post exactly what I did in the other thread:

I got a PC here w/ an i7 920 (running on a Gigabyte X58-UD3R w/ 1600Mhz Patriot Memory), and I was wondering if my settings are ok:

CPU Multi: 20x
QPI link speed: 36x
Uncore: 20x
Mem. Multi: 10x
Base Clock: 160
Core clock: 3.20GHz
Vcore: 1.203V
Mem. Voltage: 1.500
Mem. speed: 1600MHz, 9-9-9-24 timings

I ran prime95 for about 14 hours, temps stayed stable at around 62C the whole way w/ no errors. But do you guys think there are any settings I can change to improve the OC (other than the core clock speed which I just want @ 3.2 GHz)?