Overclocking a Phenom II x6

[saint7269]

I have a Phenom II x6 1600T (an unlocked 960T). What is the best way to over clock a BE x6. I've seen ppl just raising the multiplier and voltage. And others say I need to raise the northbridge and HTT as well. I have C&Q and turbercore off. The multiplier set to x18. The voltage is set to 1.325v. the northbridge and HTT are on auto. So any ideas on the best way?

 

[xtreme5]

those are the best ideas for OC'ing.

 

[buzznut]

I have a Phenom II x6 1600T (an unlocked 960T). What is the best way to over clock a BE x6. I've seen ppl just raising the multiplier and voltage. And others say I need to raise the northbridge and HTT as well. I have C&Q and turbercore off. The multiplier set to x18. The voltage is set to 1.325v. the northbridge and HTT are on auto. So any ideas on the best way?

Yes, the overclock should start with the raising of the multiplier. Unfortunately for many of the CPUs I've seen with unlocked cores, the overclocking is limited by core unlocking.
An example would be a dual core X2 being unlocked to a X4 B50 or whatever its called. Before the unlocking of cores it could OC to 3.8 Ghz. Afterward, it is now limited to a 3.5Ghz OC which is fine because the two extra cores are worth it.

In your case I think a 3.6 Ghz OC is pretty good for an unlocked CPU. I don't want to dicourage you as you may be able to hit higher, but just FYI about the limitations.

There are plenty of guides you can ggogle on the internet for OC so I'm not going to repeat that info here, but if you are serious about getting the highest clock then consider putting the cores back as they were. At the very least it will lead to better stability of your overclock.

In your case, the extra cores will not be as beneficial as a higher clocked quad core for most applications.

 

[saint7269]

I know if I leave it a 960T I could go higher and more stable. Having 6 cores is nice though. But i'm a gamer so 4 is more then enough. if 3.6ghz give me any problems I can lower it. I had it up to 3.8ghz. But I also set the NB to 2400 with 1,25v amd HTT to 2400 with 1.25v.

 

[saint7269]

Best answer selected by saint7269.

 

[hankjrfan]

I'm running a TA77oe3 Biostar board with a 960T. I had a lot of fun seeing what this chip will do. I was able to unlock this chip by disabling "C1E" support in the bios and then using the ACC feature. (The auto unlocking feature included in the bios worked, but rendered Win7 x64 unstable) After prime 95 and OCCT, I found the 6th core to be faulty. Having this core enabled, though not unstable, rendered errors in testing, and caused the cpu to run excessively warm. Running now at 5 cores rock solid stable, and lightly overclocked (see screen shot) It is now recognized as a 1600T. Plenty of head room here, even at stock voltages. Motherboard currently defaults voltage at 1.375 At 1.425 volts, I was able to reach 4.32ghz (I believe that was 18X240). I saw no need to test beyond this point, however, cpu never exceeded 35c even under OCCT and prime95 loads. This particular setup did not like any overclocking of the HT, even when overvolted. Bare in mind the TA77oe3 northbridge runs warm (this seems to be common with these boards). I removed heatsink and pasted with arctic silver, dropping temps a bit. Due to this being a budget board, overclocking via the reference clock was not as stable, and, I was not comfortable with northbridge temps. I currently run at 208X18.5=3848. (I noticed that the higher I went with the FSB, I had more limitations with raising the multiplier, which also seems to be a normal trend). Bare in mind there is lots of head room here, and I am back to stock voltage. With the exception of benchmarks, I just did not see any real world performance gains going any further. I don't usually post on forums,however, over the years I have learned so much from this community I just wanted to share a little info from my own experience. I have seen this cpu under $100 on amazon, and they are an excellent enthusiast chip. Not to compare apples to oranges, but benchmarks at my current O/C are right there with a i5 2500, beating it in certain instances. Also, disabling "C1E" support on my particular board was essential, Win7 would not boot with the unlocked cores any other way. I should also mention I have not even started tightening ram settings, which is elite team 1333 DDR3 4gX2. Not that I put much stock in Win7 performance indexing, but the mem score is already at 7.6, I may just leave it alone. As a light gamer and basic audio/video editing pc, I am happy with this chip. Going from a 720 phenom II X3 (also unlocked and clocked at 3.5ghz) this was a noticeable improvement. Now lets just wait and see what next generation bulldozer can do for the AMD world.

Thanks for all the knowledge over the years;

 

[hankjrfan]

 

[Err0rC0deX]

My unlocked 960t runs at 3.7 Ghz on 6 cores with multi of 18.5 and 1.35v.
I can't go any higher atm cause it will reach 60 degrees celsius under benchmark because my spinq cannot handle so much power.
With watercooling I hope to reach the 4 Ghz mark but 3.7 Ghz is fine aswell got 6,25 cinebench score with it.