- Feb 8, 2013
- 18
- 0
- 10,520
So I finally got a Thermaltake CLW0217, and hooked it up to my system.
Specs:
660 ti
Fx 6300
Asus M5A99FX Pro R2.0
2x4GB Corsair Vengeanve 1600 MHz
Windows 7 64 Bit
So, I hooked it up, opened up AMD overdrive, and spent a few hours gradually increasing voltage and clock multipliers, with 10-15 minute Stability Tests in between, until I finally got to about 4.8 and 4.9 GHz, with CPU VID maxed at 1.55V, and NB VID sitting at around 1.3V since putting it any higher didn't seem to improve stability for me.
4.8 GHZ is perfectly stable in Prime95 over a quick 15 minute test, 4.9 has occasional errors in P95 while running but is fine in AOD's Stability Test.
Temps are perfectly fine, barely toeing 54 degrees Celsius at 4.9 GHz, and stabilizes at around 50 at 4.8 GHz. I'm pretty sure Voltage is the main issue, although I'm a bit afraid of overvolting my motherboard.
And finally, using Passmark's performance test, I get around 6400 with basic settings, but with a 4.8 GHz overclock, I only get around 7400. Single-threaded performance also drops by at least 100 points, down to around 1300 for that category.
So, I have a few questions as a novice overclocker that I was hoping some kind soul could help clarify for me.
1. How much do I need to mess with NB VID, how should it scale with CPU VID, and how does it affect stability?
2. Is there a way to increase the Voltage, and could I safely do so with my motherboard?
3. Why isn't a straight-up frequency increase scaling very well?
4. Finally, why the hell is single-threaded performance actually going down? I had to disable Turbo Boost, sure, but that only Overclocks to 3.8 GHz and around 1.335V by default.
5. Even though temps never went over 54 degrees Celsius, I still BSOD'd a few times. What might be causing this?
Any replies are greatly appreciated.
Edit: Oh dear. It seems like I did something wrong, as my CPU seems to be performing worse than ever. Benchmarks and stability tests are fine, but running benchmarks and playing games just doesn't seem to work very well. Metro 2033 benchmark has some hangs/stutters, and when I overclock, it literally skips through the thing at lightspeed, only playing a couple of frames.
Playing Starcraft II, I'm suddenly getting much more stutters, no matter the clock rate. It's still mostly playable, but I had no issues before, and all of a sudden it's like I'm playing on an Intel E2160, whether overclocked or at base clock. Framerates easily go in hundreds on low settings so I know the CPU isn't just running super slow or else it couldn't send the frames to the GPU, but videos play weird, stuff loads funny, and everything just feels sluggish for some reason.
And while AOD's stability test runs fine, Prime 95 keeps getting errors right away, even back on default settings.
Specs:
660 ti
Fx 6300
Asus M5A99FX Pro R2.0
2x4GB Corsair Vengeanve 1600 MHz
Windows 7 64 Bit
So, I hooked it up, opened up AMD overdrive, and spent a few hours gradually increasing voltage and clock multipliers, with 10-15 minute Stability Tests in between, until I finally got to about 4.8 and 4.9 GHz, with CPU VID maxed at 1.55V, and NB VID sitting at around 1.3V since putting it any higher didn't seem to improve stability for me.
4.8 GHZ is perfectly stable in Prime95 over a quick 15 minute test, 4.9 has occasional errors in P95 while running but is fine in AOD's Stability Test.
Temps are perfectly fine, barely toeing 54 degrees Celsius at 4.9 GHz, and stabilizes at around 50 at 4.8 GHz. I'm pretty sure Voltage is the main issue, although I'm a bit afraid of overvolting my motherboard.
And finally, using Passmark's performance test, I get around 6400 with basic settings, but with a 4.8 GHz overclock, I only get around 7400. Single-threaded performance also drops by at least 100 points, down to around 1300 for that category.
So, I have a few questions as a novice overclocker that I was hoping some kind soul could help clarify for me.
1. How much do I need to mess with NB VID, how should it scale with CPU VID, and how does it affect stability?
2. Is there a way to increase the Voltage, and could I safely do so with my motherboard?
3. Why isn't a straight-up frequency increase scaling very well?
4. Finally, why the hell is single-threaded performance actually going down? I had to disable Turbo Boost, sure, but that only Overclocks to 3.8 GHz and around 1.335V by default.
5. Even though temps never went over 54 degrees Celsius, I still BSOD'd a few times. What might be causing this?
Any replies are greatly appreciated.
Edit: Oh dear. It seems like I did something wrong, as my CPU seems to be performing worse than ever. Benchmarks and stability tests are fine, but running benchmarks and playing games just doesn't seem to work very well. Metro 2033 benchmark has some hangs/stutters, and when I overclock, it literally skips through the thing at lightspeed, only playing a couple of frames.
Playing Starcraft II, I'm suddenly getting much more stutters, no matter the clock rate. It's still mostly playable, but I had no issues before, and all of a sudden it's like I'm playing on an Intel E2160, whether overclocked or at base clock. Framerates easily go in hundreds on low settings so I know the CPU isn't just running super slow or else it couldn't send the frames to the GPU, but videos play weird, stuff loads funny, and everything just feels sluggish for some reason.
And while AOD's stability test runs fine, Prime 95 keeps getting errors right away, even back on default settings.
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