So I've just completed testing my Phenom II build and I am pretty happy with the results (I'll be happy to post a link to the videos if anyone wants to see them) but now I am moving on to "old reliable" (again I have some videos of the machine if anyone wants to see) and trying to get the machine to overclock to over 3 Ghz. Ideally I would want to run my Q8200 at 3.2 Ghz and leave it there but I'll take what I can get.
So here's the scoop. I had the machine overclocked to 2.91 Ghz and that was with adjusting the voltages to what intel says is safe. I believe 1.365 V. I got it running stable but the graphics card I had required about 3 or 4 amps more off of the 12 V rail then I had available (The 4890's LOVE the juice!) so I had to go and plunk down some cash and bought what I thought was a reasonable replacement power supply. An Antec TruePower 550W. Seemed to fit the bill. Plenty of 12V rails and high enough to satisfy my needs. 80 Amps total over 4 rails works for me. But the damn thing just would refuse to be stable with that power supply. No matter what I did it just wasn't going to happen. At all. I want to mention the power supply I had replaced was a coolermaster extreme (new) 460 watt PSU.
I tried throttling back the speeds and was willing to setting for 2.66 Ghz, but even that wasn't happening with the Antec PSU. So I did the "reasonable" thing and threw in the old PSU and swapped the video card for a less demanding model (An Nvidia GTS 250, or my spare ATI 4770... I can't recall) but the system was booting up and running stable again.
Now I want to ask also about my memory. I am running Patriot ELK 1333 Mhz DDR2 that I have over volted to 1.75 V. I am wondering what kind of limits will I get with my overclocking with this memory? I know when I had the machine running at 2.91 Ghz I had to underclock the memory to 1066 or it would be unstable. I haven't touched the northbridge voltages, or anything besides vcore. Oh and also disabled C1E (speedstep?)
Lastly I wanted to mention I was getting about 60 C with my 2.91 Ghz OC using a Zalman 9900 LED. I want to go on record as saying I think that thing was a HUGE waste of money. My coolermaster hyper 212+ I was using on my Phenom II was way cooler (average temp with a 3.4 Ghz OC was 32 C after 24 hours of P95) and at the moment my Corsair H50 on the same Phenom II is within about 3 or 4 degrees C. Oh and last question, on my Skyburg (DP45SG) motherboard do I HAVE to use the 4 pin molex (aux PCIE power) if my video card uses external power? I've tried my OC both ways and no difference has been noted.
So here's the scoop. I had the machine overclocked to 2.91 Ghz and that was with adjusting the voltages to what intel says is safe. I believe 1.365 V. I got it running stable but the graphics card I had required about 3 or 4 amps more off of the 12 V rail then I had available (The 4890's LOVE the juice!) so I had to go and plunk down some cash and bought what I thought was a reasonable replacement power supply. An Antec TruePower 550W. Seemed to fit the bill. Plenty of 12V rails and high enough to satisfy my needs. 80 Amps total over 4 rails works for me. But the damn thing just would refuse to be stable with that power supply. No matter what I did it just wasn't going to happen. At all. I want to mention the power supply I had replaced was a coolermaster extreme (new) 460 watt PSU.
I tried throttling back the speeds and was willing to setting for 2.66 Ghz, but even that wasn't happening with the Antec PSU. So I did the "reasonable" thing and threw in the old PSU and swapped the video card for a less demanding model (An Nvidia GTS 250, or my spare ATI 4770... I can't recall) but the system was booting up and running stable again.
Now I want to ask also about my memory. I am running Patriot ELK 1333 Mhz DDR2 that I have over volted to 1.75 V. I am wondering what kind of limits will I get with my overclocking with this memory? I know when I had the machine running at 2.91 Ghz I had to underclock the memory to 1066 or it would be unstable. I haven't touched the northbridge voltages, or anything besides vcore. Oh and also disabled C1E (speedstep?)
Lastly I wanted to mention I was getting about 60 C with my 2.91 Ghz OC using a Zalman 9900 LED. I want to go on record as saying I think that thing was a HUGE waste of money. My coolermaster hyper 212+ I was using on my Phenom II was way cooler (average temp with a 3.4 Ghz OC was 32 C after 24 hours of P95) and at the moment my Corsair H50 on the same Phenom II is within about 3 or 4 degrees C. Oh and last question, on my Skyburg (DP45SG) motherboard do I HAVE to use the 4 pin molex (aux PCIE power) if my video card uses external power? I've tried my OC both ways and no difference has been noted.
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