The Official OC (OverClocking) Thread!

No 2000rpm fan is quiet. At all. Unfortunately you get a lot of people who call something quiet just because it was quieter than their old system, which may have been horribly loud.
The Tuniq Extreme is bad because it's lethal to install (the edges are sharp and will cut you), difficult, more expensive, and the original actually cools better.

 

Appreciate your thoughts I was leaning more toward the original tuniq anyway

 

Oman7,
I prefer MX-2. So far I've found it seems to work the best. 100% non-conductive and very easy to use. about a 3/16" ball of it right in the middle of the CPU, and attach the cooler. Couldn't be easier!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Oh cool. That's what I bought!

 

Oman7,
I have a copy of the temps and the EasyTune6 settings on the building thread.

Russ

 

I saw them. Thanks!

 

Oman7,
For sure, you're not going to get better temps unless it suddenly get's colder outside. I'm happy with them!

Russ

 

I have to step up and praise for ThgermalRight Ultra 120 of any variety and Artic Silver No. 5 compound. It is to date teh best on air and has been since its release in early 2006. In fact it is so efficient on air with good fans it has easily out performed some or many low end water cooling units.

So if both quiet and lots of overclocking headroom are your goal strongly concider the ThermalRight Ultra 120 series. If any of you were pleasured to have baught it since new you already know its value has paid off and has taken you all the way to the current LGA1156/1366 sockes (some requiring only a new retention bracket).

They can often be had on any major holiday sales for as little as $56.00 but not more then $66.00. Now the great option, you get to choose the combonation of single or dual fan configuration in a push pull style. I use and recomend Sythe S-Flex ultra quiet but I'm sure there are others since the last 4 yrs to compete. 2 of thes in push/pull at as low as 800 can be much quieter and effitient as 1 single basic brand at 1500RPM. But crank dual 85~100 CFM through this bad boy and the temps drop like flys. Quiet is not always our concerns when benchmarking, lol Return to idle for ultra quiet on air. Get a fan controller on this and you got the best of both cooling worlds.

Now I stand by these because I buy sell and use them but I can also add Noctua as my 2nd favorite in build quality. I do recomend their chipset collers highly as they are currently some of the biggest available for us cooling X58 and others.

"My Two Cents"

 

Hehe, I own three Ultra-120s Nuck, and intend to soon buy a fourth. They're superb coolers

 

Thanks for your opinion NuckNFuts. I'm afraid I already bought the Tuniq 120 tower though. I'm sure it'll do fine. Looks like Mwave has it for 65$ too. They usually do have comparable pricing

 

Not too impressed by the Extreme but I love both of my originals Cools about the same as the Thermalright as well IIRC.

 

Well, I finally did some hunting because I was tired of not knowing what to do with the Spread Spectrum and the CPU NB VID Control. I don't know if this applies to Intel's or not, but The Spread Spectrum should be disabled on an AMD! It's tied to electronic interference with other electronic equipment, and is very rare these days. Modern computers usually have no effect on modern electronics, so the default is Disabled.

Here's the winner of the day though! The CPU NB VID control is different from the NorthBridge Volt Control. Basically, the NB Volt control communicates with the motherboard, and the CPU NB VID Control is the communication between the CPU and the NorthBridge! You can't get as stable an overclock without it, especially the higher you go with the CPU Frequency or multiplier. It's used to speed up the flow of data between the NB and CPU, to keep up with the CPU. Keep a close watch on your temperatures, and let them be your guide.

Example? I've been going crazy trying to get my Quad to a stable anything over 3.4GHz. It would run at 3.5 and 3.6GHZ and all of a sudden crash. No Rhyme, No Reason! I kept raising the CPU voltage till I reached the max for my CPU, and it still didn't work. Now I have the CPU undervolted to 1.39v, well short of the 1.424v maximum, the NB Volt Control is set to normal and the CPU NB VID Control set to +.050v, and not a one of my temps went up! It's 23C/74F in here and I'm idling at 26C. My motherboard is at 34C. I've been working this thing to death for most of the day at 3.5GHz, and not a single glitch. I found 98% of my lost memory speed, so I'm going to live with it for a few days, just like it is and see how it does!

Just remember, the one that says CPU NB, is the one you need to raise to get a better overclock!

OOPs! Forgot the link. Recommended reading for AMD builders!
http://www.techreaction.net/forums/showthread.php?t=367

Stay Tuned,
Russ

 

Russ, thank you VERY much for the read. I found it extremely informative! I just ran a dvd shrink transcode(85% usage) and it briefly exceeded 50C° which caused the CPU fan to wake up rapidly LOL! It quickly increased to 1700Rpms, and remained at 48C° throughout the entire transcode. Everest, like I suspected automatically adapted, and the CPU fan appeared in the window. Now I'm gonna play a little bit more with the OC'ing side of things. I'm resting at 3.8, but its not stable. I have the voltage stock, and the NB stock. And according to your link, the Stock NB more than likely is not gonna be stable at 3.8!

 

Generally, for speeds over 3.4GHz you should bump your NB speed up a notch and the NBVID voltage up a notch or two. Also bump the CPU VID up a few increments. You can't expect a stable OC without raising voltages and adjusting other stuff to match.

 

Oh yah. I realize that. I was simply seeing how it would run. I rarely see the CPU hit 100%, so I knew it was stable enough for certain types of tests Obviously Prime 95, Orthos, etc are not gonna even come close to stable LOL!

 

Estuansis. I'm impressed by the Tuniq 120! 54-55C after 5Min. It rapidly decreased back to 41C when I stopped the test. 3.8Ghz appears to be stable @ 1.375V, 2200Mhz NB/HTL. I only gave the NB a .02V increase. I tried running the NB/HTL at 2400Mhz, but one of the cores would not engage during torture test. That's when I backed it off to 2200, and now its stable Though I lost .2seconds in super pi. It seems to idle at 45-47C, but thats with zero fan Rpms. When it hits 48-49, it engages and cools. I would prefer that it continuously ran at say 600-800Rpms all the time. Not sure how I'm gonna get it to do that yet.
From the looks of things, this cooler CAN cool the Phenom 965 beyond 4Ghz

 

Oman7,
I have mine at 3.5GHz, NB volts up 1 click, CPU NB VID up 2 clicks. CPU voltage set to normal with the memory in UnGanged Mode. It's pretty warm in here at 81F/26C and I'm idling at 28C for the CPU and 36C for the motherboard. Seems to run good!

Russ

 

Yah, I was also reading the sensors wrong LOL! Or should I say EVEREST is reading them wrong!

 

You should be running cooler than that. I idle at 28-30*C with 1.45v. Load it never passes 47. I seem to remember you mentioning too much thermal paste before. You really need a small dab the size of a BB. Even pea size is ultra overkill. Try reapplying with just a small glop of it in the middle. Set the cooler down straight and let the pressure spread it out.

I'll also mention I used to load that hot, but because there was too much turbulence in my case and it wasn't exhausting properly at times. A few months ago I set all my fans to auto and it's been fine since. Remember if you leave your CPU cooler fan on auto use PWM. My Tuniqs stay spinning 24/7 and just vary speed.

 

I used about the size of a pea. Looks like it got full coverage. Only a tiny tiny bit eh? Maybe I should reapply then.
Currently, my CPU averages 41C idle with ZERO Rpms. That seems good to me. However, due to zero RPMs, the fan will startup every now and again. Which is somewhat irritating. I would rather it constantly ran at 6-800 Rpms, and if it needed more, it simply speeds up. Much like the Freezer would. I had it down to 32C earlier, but the Rpms were around 1700, which is somewhat obnoxious for light use. If I'm gaming no big deal. My attention is on the game I'll play more with it later