ok. long story short. i've been reading numerous guides as to oveclocking A64 cpu so I decide to give it a shot.
Basically, the 6400x2 BE cpu is 3200mhz stock with 16x multiplier.
I decide to run 219 fsb x 16 to acheive 3500. I was able to do so @ 1.488volts and a slight bump in the NB and HT. I decided to slow the ram down to 5-5-5-15 @ 2.075v but still keeping it at 800mhz.
Basically the computer boots fine and I am even able to play cod4 for a bit until it freezes. Basically there will be some screen glitch and than the game will close. I tried running orthos and was only able to run for 4minutes before theres an error. I cant seem to put my finger on why I cant get it stable.
In terms of cooling, I have a coolermaster 212 (which ranks very well). My CPU OC@3.5 will hit 60C on full load. It will hit 52C on full load at 3.2 (stock) (using Coretemp to monitor temp - dfi's temp monitor will report 3-5C lower). I have sufficient fans and ventilation is very good.
I have a very reputable OCer MOBO which is from DFI LP 790fx M2RS. Now it only came with a passive NB heatsink so I added a 40mm fan to it.
My ram are crucial ballistix 800mhz ddr2 which are very good according to reviews.
Any suggestions? I can take pictures of my bios settings since theres a million things in there (thanks to DFI great OC support).
Well the term bad chip is relative. As far as i was aware 3.5ghz is very nearly, if not at the limit at which the x2 can run at. It might just be that you don't have a truely great chip that can run stable at those speeds.
However i would try slowing your ram down. When OCing my 4200 i found that it was never stable above 215mhz bus with ram @6400 mode. That was actualy about 798mhz on ram. 1 mhz higher on fsb and it took it over 800 and wasnt stable.
I have good ram, but no option to increase the dimm voltage so that is holding it back....just it might be the same for you.
hmm. i can possibly try that but i dont think its the ram since orthos will have an erorr on the CPU only test. I am tempted to feed the cpu a bit more power but i want to make sure there it will be the last resort. I noticed a lot people using 12x multiplier which will require very high fsb. I have yet to try that and may give it a shot when I get home. 12x multiplier means 291 FSB...eek.
ok I came across a guy name Durch from overlcock.net i believe. he's written a great article on X2 overclocking an I am going to start from scratch follow that guideline. Hope fully I can get this running stable.
ok. long story short. i've been reading numerous guides as to oveclocking A64 cpu so I decide to give it a shot.
Basically, the 6400x2 BE cpu is 3200mhz stock with 16x multiplier.
I decide to run 219 fsb x 16 to acheive 3500. I was able to do so @ 1.488volts and a slight bump in the NB and HT. I decided to slow the ram down to 5-5-5-15 @ 2.075v but still keeping it at 800mhz.
Basically the computer boots fine and I am even able to play cod4 for a bit until it freezes. Basically there will be some screen glitch and than the game will close. I tried running orthos and was only able to run for 4minutes before theres an error. I cant seem to put my finger on why I cant get it stable.
In terms of cooling, I have a coolermaster 212 (which ranks very well). My CPU OC@3.5 will hit 60C on full load. It will hit 52C on full load at 3.2 (stock) (using Coretemp to monitor temp - dfi's temp monitor will report 3-5C lower). I have sufficient fans and ventilation is very good.
I have a very reputable OCer MOBO which is from DFI LP 790fx M2RS. Now it only came with a passive NB heatsink so I added a 40mm fan to it.
My ram are crucial ballistix 800mhz ddr2 which are very good according to reviews.
Any suggestions? I can take pictures of my bios settings since theres a million things in there (thanks to DFI great OC support).
For the risk involved for 300mhz its not worth it - the stock speed is already right near the max...
For the risk involved for 300mhz its not worth it - the stock speed is already right near the max...
I didnt ask if it was worth the risk or not, I am just curious to know how far I can get to without being unstable. Doesnt mean I will or will not run it OC 24/7. Hvnt decided that yet.
The Hyper Transport buss AMD uses can be troublesome I have found if you raise your main buss to more than about 214~215. Try lowering the multiplier on the HT (normal is 200x5=1000mhz HT speed, on my processor anyway, not sure what yours is, I think it is probably the same) and you should be able to go a lot further, if the CPU can handle it. I can crank my 4600 X2 up to around 240 on the main buss by dropping the HT buss multiplier to 4. However without some severe cooling, the processor just gets to darn hot to leave it there.
I have a DFI board as well, and yes it can be a nightmare to figure out everything in the endless BIOS settings. But once you do find the right combinations, holy cow you can really crank things up.
As lameness wrote, this isn't a case of a bad CPU, but its just that you found a limit that isn't as high as you'd like. The 6400+ BE is a 90nm CPU, therefore it heats up and more than a 5000+ BE and usually won't take as high an overclock. Besides that, there never is any guarantee concerning how high you can overclock these chips. The "BE" only means that you can change the multiplier, but little else. It could be your chip hits a max speed that's lower than you'd like, such as 3400mhz instead of 3500mhz. You should also keep in mind that other than the knowledge of having a CPU clocked that high, it will do little or no good when it comes to gaming, much less the more mundane everyday tasks for which we use computers.
You can continue to try, of course, but you risk a burnt processor, as rodney wrote.
Yeah, AMD coupled with a DFI board can do some pretty amazing overclocks if you understand and know how to use the mega-bios's these boards have. But you do have to have good cooling, or the ol' AMD CPU's will get pretty darn hot.
Thants for the input jitpublisher. But I am a bit surprised at the lack of support for OC on the green team @ tomshardware. Anyways, I think I may have solved my problem with a bit of fiddling and tweaking.
As of now my current settings are: Core: 3493mhz
Multi: 13x
Bus: 269Mhz
HT link: 1074.8Mhz
Dimm: 5-5-5-15-24 2T @ 436Mhz
As lameness wrote, this isn't a case of a bad CPU, but its just that you found a limit that isn't as high as you'd like. The 6400+ BE is a 90nm CPU, therefore it heats up and more than a 5000+ BE and usually won't take as high an overclock. Besides that, there never is any guarantee concerning how high you can overclock these chips. The "BE" only means that you can change the multiplier, but little else. It could be your chip hits a max speed that's lower than you'd like, such as 3400mhz instead of 3500mhz. You should also keep in mind that other than the knowledge of having a CPU clocked that high, it will do little or no good when it comes to gaming, much less the more mundane everyday tasks for which we use computers.
You can continue to try, of course, but you risk a burnt processor, as rodney wrote.
Well, I have to disagree a little here. You can get some great gains by overclocking AMD processors, as they are slower than their Intel counterparts. If you know how to use the BIOS settings, and have good cooling, you can get some great results. The HT buss I explained to the OP is the critical piece to overclocking AMD CPU's to their full potential, as it is pretty sensitive to overclocking.
But one thing you are right about, you have to monitor your temps closely. But what the heck, AMD CPU's are so cheap, they are almost like disposible. You fry one, just grab another!
Thants for the input jitpublisher. But I am a bit surprised at the lack of support for OC on the green team @ tomshardware. Anyways, I think I may have solved my problem with a bit of fiddling and tweaking.
As of now my current settings are: Core: 3493mhz Multi: 13x Bus: 269Mhz HT link: 1074.8Mhz Dimm: 5-5-5-15-24 2T @ 436Mhz
Orthos locked up @ HT 1074.8 after 8minutes so now its down to 806mhz. I dont think this decrease affects performance very much. I am running orthos as I currently post. If it does lock again, I think I will try and give the NB some more juice.
You shouldn't need to lower your HT down that much my old 6000+ ran at 3.5Ghz fine with HT of 1250 on an old MSI K9A Plat. Your voltage is very low compared to what i had to get mine to stay stable @ 3.5Ghz.
I only had to bump up NB 0.2 volts for that stable HT. CPU was another thing, check out the voltage on my old screenie. It took a lot of ine tuning to get it 24/7 stable withouts temps going through the roof i.e over 55 C
You shouldn't really need to raise your RAM timings, but you might aswell till you've reached 3.5Ghz stable.
Message edited by closed_deal on 05-02-2008 at 05:23:40 PM
a vcore of 1.624? That is pretty darn high. I upped my set up to 1.536volts and im getting 63C\57C load. Dfi's meter shows 58C. The Orthos' CPU test fails but the stressCPU has been running for 20minutes.
Yeah, AMD coupled with a DFI board can do some pretty amazing overclocks if you understand and know how to use the mega-bios's these boards have. But you do have to have good cooling, or the ol' AMD CPU's will get pretty darn hot.
