Is my overclock safe?

[steelninja]

Hi
I have been trying to O.C my 1100t for a while but only seriously since i got my hyper 212 ans zalman z11 plus case (great airflow btw) I have finally found a 4.0 ghz O.C that will run prime for 1 hr then 2hrs no problems and just finished a 3 hour 40 minute test with no failiures. here's my setup

CPU/HT 202
CPU RATIO x20
CPU/NB 2626
CPU/Overvoltage 1.453125
VDDNB/ Overvoltage 1.250000
LLC 0%
MEMORY Overvoltage 1.51 ( my ram is 2 sticks of 4 gb DDR3 1333 mhz, Thinks it says it's running at 728 mhz ish Dual channel)
I have a ASUS m5A78L mobo
a evo labs 700 watt PSU
a HD 6770 GPU

Now the O'c shows a great improvement in gaming really smooth compared to stock 3.3 ghz. However even tho i set the voltage for CPU/OV as above it seems to fluctuate between 1.37 volts and 1.57 volts!!!!! when on full load in prime 95
Is this normal my temps are great btw28 degrees idle to 46 -47 degrees max when running prime for 3 hours 40 minutes.

So with these temps should i worry about it hitting 1.57 volts when fully loaded in prime as it would probably, surely never reach that intensity during normal use right?

Any Ideas on what i can do, or if it is just fine as it is will be greatly apprecciated

I am very pleased to be at 4.04 Ghz but don't wanna break my system i'm so proud of building with little knowledge about computers Yes I'm a noob b4 u say lol, but a noob who built a badass gaming rig lol

Thanks for any help, or advise leave a reply even if you just want to share your rig info and O'C settings

PS I had a little fiddle to try get 4.2 or get my temps down but had nothing but unstability whatever i tried this is my first overclock I have found that has even just ran prime for more than 5 minutes lol.
I think it was co's i hadn't touched the NB before. But when i did I found this O'C or it could have been when i set LLC to 0 % from auto? I really don't know but something seems to have worked. now just need clarification if my temps and voltages are good for 24/7 O.C or any other help

 

[Rockdpm]

4ghz is stable. Sounds like you go your stuff right. Your temps are fine. Your voltage gets a little lethal but... i don't think there is anything you can do about that. The Phenom II X6 black editions were in my opinion the best CPU's AMD sold, that and my Phenom II 980 that now resides in a box waiting to be used again... I just noticed your motherboard... I hope you got great power phases...Usually people use the 890X and Up chipsets to overclock.

 

[steelninja]

Yeah not the best mother board I think it's got quite a few overclocking features on it and surge protection & realtime over voltage detection, And active protection against damage to your mother board (just reading off the box) I do want to get a better Motherboard eventually but it's one thing at a time I'm afraid.

btw what are power phases and will my board have it with all the protection it boasts it may right?

I just finished a four hour small fft prime test and a half hour Blend test no failiures. If it's stable then will the power phases matter. I'm basically working with the motherboard i got for now so would like to know if it's safe for O'C

 

[steelninja]

besides will it reach that voltage when gaming? One way to find out. but if it only reaches 1.57 volts while in prime testing then I am probably ok, what do you think? I will play some dishonored and see what voltages i'm getting in a bit.

update still gets up to 1.54 volts gaming but with safe temps still. like 42 - 44 degrees max when gaming sometimes less. Isn't it just heat that can damage a chip co's i heard with right cooling these chips can get to 5.0ghz (with liquid nitrogen further lol) but it's possible, imagine how manu cpu volts that would take? more than 1.54 i bet. I've read of others having these high cpu,voltages as well

 

[Rockdpm]

Ok let me answer those 1 at a time. First question about power phases:
Power Phases are kinda like the power line to your house.. The more power phases on your computer, the more safe your overclock is. Though if your board has enough power phases anyways your overclock should be fine. And second question will it reach that voltage in gaming? maybe maybe not. It depends.. But for the most part your temps for your CPU won't reach that high because Prime95 is a 100% system max out program. Your system is usually only running at maybe 70%. So therefor not as much power is used to keep the clock speed at that rate for the time during gaming vs Running a Prime95 test. So temps should be lower. I'm not sure if your voltage will be lower because every CPU chip and mobo combo is different. Now the Phenom II X6 1090t and 1100T's need that voltage because they are 6 cores.. more cores may need extra power to run.

Now my point is, the quality of your board and the chipset you have can determine what kind of a Overclock range you can achieve. Now I don't recommend you putting your chip under liquid nitrogen just to overclock it (unless you have another chip you plan to use later on) because once a CPU been injected with that much voltage, Its Lethal to the chip so it basically is worthless other than to say "I got my chip to ****" Which now adays every does it so its no longer a amazing thing its just a Hobbie. Hope that answered your questions. If you have another question about your board or such let me know!!

 

[steelninja]

Ok let me answer those 1 at a time. First question about power phases:
Power Phases are kinda like the power line to your house.. The more power phases on your computer, the more safe your overclock is. Though if your board has enough power phases anyways your overclock should be fine. And second question will it reach that voltage in gaming? maybe maybe not. It depends.. But for the most part your temps for your CPU won't reach that high because Prime95 is a 100% system max out program. Your system is usually only running at maybe 70%. So therefor not as much power is used to keep the clock speed at that rate for the time during gaming vs Running a Prime95 test. So temps should be lower. I'm not sure if your voltage will be lower because every CPU chip and mobo combo is different. Now the Phenom II X6 1090t and 1100T's need that voltage because they are 6 cores.. more cores may need extra power to run.

Now my point is, the quality of your board and the chipset you have can determine what kind of a Overclock range you can achieve. Now I don't recommend you putting your chip under liquid nitrogen just to overclock it (unless you have another chip you plan to use later on) because once a CPU been injected with that much voltage, Its Lethal to the chip so it basically is worthless other than to say "I got my chip to ****" Which now adays every does it so its no longer a amazing thing its just a Hobbie. Hope that answered your questions. If you have another question about your board or such let me know!!

So it should be fine at those voltages as long as the temps stay low (below 55 degrees) well gaming reaches about 40 - 42 -44 depending what game so my overclock should be ok right? When i bought the chip it used to reach 55 -56 just playing games at stock settings with stock cooler and i had to run it like that for months!! Now I'm getting way lower temps at 4.1 ghz even when running prime (was 4.0 ghz I bumped it up, not tested properly yet tho) So I'm in a lot safer position than I was at stock speeds with the stock cooler right co's 55 -56 degrees was normal just playing a game. My new case made a huge difference the hyper 212 was still running hot in my old case but this Zalman z11 cae has awesome cooling 6 fans front, and bottom front intake and rear and top rear exhaust as well as 2 80 mm HDD coolers. It literally blows out cool air lol. old case was like a heater

 

[steelninja]

Ok let me answer those 1 at a time. First question about power phases:
Power Phases are kinda like the power line to your house.. The more power phases on your computer, the more safe your overclock is. Though if your board has enough power phases anyways your overclock should be fine. And second question will it reach that voltage in gaming? maybe maybe not. It depends.. But for the most part your temps for your CPU won't reach that high because Prime95 is a 100% system max out program. Your system is usually only running at maybe 70%. So therefor not as much power is used to keep the clock speed at that rate for the time during gaming vs Running a Prime95 test. So temps should be lower. I'm not sure if your voltage will be lower because every CPU chip and mobo combo is different. Now the Phenom II X6 1090t and 1100T's need that voltage because they are 6 cores.. more cores may need extra power to run.

Now my point is, the quality of your board and the chipset you have can determine what kind of a Overclock range you can achieve. Now I don't recommend you putting your chip under liquid nitrogen just to overclock it (unless you have another chip you plan to use later on) because once a CPU been injected with that much voltage, Its Lethal to the chip so it basically is worthless other than to say "I got my chip to ****" Which now adays every does it so its no longer a amazing thing its just a Hobbie. Hope that answered your questions. If you have another question about your board or such let me know!!

And mate this system rarely gets to 40 % even when gaming!! this cpu never gets really stressed at all other than when prime testing it's an awesome chip I had 4 games loaded up Max payne 3 ghost recon futre soldier and 2 others i forget but I could alt tab between them and play them as I wished and they all ran great, Only did it for testing purposes btw but was well impressed. I love this chip those I7's must do something very impressive to out perform these phenom ii x6 1100t's imo

 

[Rockdpm]

Well unless you start having blue screens I'd say your in the clear. Just don't blow up your motherboard.. Capacitors can swell if injected with too much power, when that happens time to get a new motherboard

 

[Rockdpm]

And mate this system rarely gets to 40 % even when gaming!! this cpu never gets really stressed at all other than when prime testing it's an awesome chip I had 4 games loaded up Max payne 3 ghost recon futre soldier and 2 others i forget but I could alt tab between them and play them as I wished and they all ran great, Only did it for testing purposes btw but was well impressed. I love this chip those I7's must do something very impressive to out perform these phenom ii x6 1100t's imo

I7's have Well developed thing called "Hyper-threading". Which depending on the I7 if its a 1155 you have 4 cores and 8 total threads. But its basically a 8 core... since you get the performance of it. But not all games support hyper threading so.. The Phenom II X6 isn't far behind a Sandy Bridge I7... not saying its exactly like it but to go from your chip to a 1155 socket I7 would be kinda pointless.. to jump from a Phenom II x6 to a 2011 socket I7 would be a HUGE leap though

 

[steelninja]

Well unless you start having blue screens I'd say your in the clear. Just don't blow up your motherboard.. Capacitors can swell if injected with too much power, when that happens time to get a new motherboard

Nah i just ran prime for an hour at 4.1 ghz i dropped the memory OV back from 1.51 to auto and dropped the cpu OV to one above from where it wouldn't restart from the bios without cutting out when i clicked save settings and it booted and ran prime for an hour still reaching 1.57 volts during prime or gaming tho but still only 46 degress max No BSOD or instability tho. I forget where i set the CPU OV to but it was less than mentioned in my OP I also dropped the NB to 2400 odd mhz from the 2626 i had it on before and seem to have 4.1 ghz stable could i go higher?

 

[steelninja]

well i dont wanna blow my mobo lol. It seems ok but don't like the high voltages but also don't really know how normal or abnormal they are. It took me a lot to get stable over 4.0 ghz so am very pleased just hope it's safe. The new case and cooler combo really payed off

*PAID off lol my english is great btw dunno why i misspell words i know

Oh and thanks a lot for your help mate

Oh could i overclock my 1333 mhz ram to 1600? i see you have your 1600's @ 1800 odd.... I'm not sure what my rams at now it was 700 odd but may be lower after i changed stuff would getting it to 800 ie 1600 hurt?

 

[Rockdpm]

I actually set it back to 1600. Memory defaults at 1333. You have to set ti to its rated frequency. So my rated frequency is 1600. I had OC to 1866 but someone told me that i needed to lower voltage of my ram cuz 1.65v is high so i couldn't undervolt so i went back to the factory standards of the ram to keep it well within thermal standards incase it messed up. So u might be able to set ur ram higher in the BIOS

 

[steelninja]

I actually set it back to 1600. Memory defaults at 1333. You have to set ti to its rated frequency. So my rated frequency is 1600. I had OC to 1866 but someone told me that i needed to lower voltage of my ram cuz 1.65v is high so i couldn't undervolt so i went back to the factory standards of the ram to keep it well within thermal standards incase it messed up. So u might be able to set ur ram higher in the BIOS

There is a setting in bios but didn't want to just set it to 800 and have it blow up my ram, but is it safe to do that and what voltage would mine need do you think? if I set it to 800?. I think it's 670 ish mhz at stock & 1.5 volts standard but not too sure about the volts though.

My cpu volts are now between 1.48 and 1.55 during normal use btw and have 4.1 ghz stable as far as i can tell without doing another prime test. co's only stress tested it for just under an hour and it seemed fine. How would a newer chipset benefit if I got this stable? Are the higher numbered chipset's better and in what way? I do want to get a crossfire compatible motherboard soon as I can afford a better gpu (or two of em) But not sure whether to just have one good gpu. I also want an SSD but it's getting the money spare lol

 

[Rockdpm]

What RAM do you have and i can tell you what your good for lol

 

[steelninja]

What RAM do you have and i can tell you what your good for lol

well they are nothing special one 4 gig stick is 1333mhz DDR3 and the other is kingston 1333mhz
Speccy says 8.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 738MHz (9-9-9-24)
So it's already overclocked a little they both say Max bandwidth PC3 -10700 667 MHz in speccy & 1.5 volts.....Does that help lol


Oh btw there's no heatsinks or any cooling on the memory , just bare chips lol

Damn according to speccy all my cores are going at 4432.5 MHz? Could this be true lol
I doubt it when everywhere else it says 4.1 GHz

 

[Rockdpm]

1333 mhz is fine.. but ignore the windows program telling you your frequency because it will be your BIOS that tells you your real freqencys. I think the frequency you see in Windows Programs are just a like bus speed x whatever the BIOS multipler is for the ram

 

[steelninja]

1333 mhz is fine.. but ignore the windows program telling you your frequency because it will be your BIOS that tells you your real freqencys. I think the frequency you see in Windows Programs are just a like bus speed x whatever the BIOS multipler is for the ram

Even though my temps are down and seems stable still would like a better board but bit 'strapped for cash' I found this board on ebay and tempted to get my friend to order it for me but thought I'd run it by you first. It says it supports up to quad crossfire so i could get another 6770 relatively cheap and Xfire it. ( would that be worthwhile?)

but mainly it seems to have the better chipset you mentioned and better power phases I think i read mine are lower than what this one says. here it is anyway

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Asrock-970-Pro-3-AMD-Socket-AM3-ATX-Motherboard-/121001766182?pt=UK_Computing_LaptopMotherboards_CPUs_CA&hash=item1c2c446d26

Would that be a better board for me?, It's in my price range and about what i paid for this asus crap which i can't even find on the internet anymore (bad sign) lol
Would prefer a sabertooth 990x but hey ho 970 sounds good for £55

Also would this bord be upgradeable to a newer cpu maybe better than FX cpu's (when released,should be happy with 1100t for few years I hope) screw trinity APU's btw

 

[Rockdpm]

Yea dude shoot you would see a HUGE improvement with that board. And you will thank me for the Mouse UI with the UEFI BIOS. no more keyboard manuevers to navigate the BIOS (you can still do it that way if prefered). And yes you can upgrade your CPU to the newest chips even the new ones about to come out this fall. You should be set. Ah crossfire 6770? well.. idk man i might would shoot for a 7850 or grab a 6970 when you get the chance... Crossfire scales better than SLI but i don't recommend people gimping on two low end cards to attempt at performance of one high end.. But Yes that board would be a perfect upgrade for you. and you might can get your 1100T to 4ghz on maybe stock voltage. With my 990FX sabertooth i was able to get a Phenom II 980 to 4GHZ with stock voltage and ran it for several months without a hickup

 

[steelninja]

Yea dude shoot you would see a HUGE improvement with that board. And you will thank me for the Mouse UI with the UEFI BIOS. no more keyboard manuevers to navigate the BIOS (you can still do it that way if prefered). And yes you can upgrade your CPU to the newest chips even the new ones about to come out this fall. You should be set. Ah crossfire 6770? well.. idk man i might would shoot for a 7850 or grab a 6970 when you get the chance... Crossfire scales better than SLI but i don't recommend people gimping on two low end cards to attempt at performance of one high end.. But Yes that board would be a perfect upgrade for you. and you might can get your 1100T to 4ghz on maybe stock voltage. With my 990FX sabertooth i was able to get a Phenom II 980 to 4GHZ with stock voltage and ran it for several months without a hickup

Yeah i was thinking a better gpu would probably benefit me more than 2 x 6770's but say 2 x 7850's

I thought that looked like a great board for the price. (and cheap) I'm still paying my mate off the last bit for when he ordered me the Zalman case but when thats paid next week I will get him to order me that board. Would that board and chipset make any difference to my gaming performance?????

Damn woulda ordered a board like that before if I'd known a bit more about what to look for like i do now... Nevermind we live and learn

btw this 6770 has done me proud for £85 and hasn't let me down yet Best card i ever had. but last one was a 5570 lol... but would love to see what a 7850 or better would be like but most monitors can only handle 60 fps anyway right?

Oh do you think this overclock would be safe to run for a month at the most till i can sort out that new board? it's satble 4.1 ghz max temp 46 (needs a lenghthy prime test to be sure but no errors after an hour. Just worried about that 1.57 volts it reached and 1.55 it reaches gaming. will the chip and memory be ok and should the motherboard last a while at least?

Sorry one more thing it says
ErP/EuP Ready (ErP/EuP ready power supply is required)
will my evo labs 700watt PSU be ok?

 

[Rockdpm]

yea a 7850 should give you decent settings with 60 fps on most games.. Well youve primed it. I'd imagine you don't game anymore than maybe 4-5 hours at most.. and your actual overclock freqency doesn't kick in until your CPU is at 100% or under high load playing a game. So you should be fine for a month. And Yes a chipset can make all the difference. my first AMD mobo i had or still have in a box was a M4-A88td-evo
and when i got my 990FX and put my 955 in it.. may fps increased on Battlefield 3 by 15. so instead of 40 avg fps i was getting around 50-55 avg in most maps. Once i got my 980 after scrapping the FX 6100.. I started to get Even better FPS thanks to the newer chipset

 

[steelninja]

well playing borderlands 2 i was getting 45 - 55 fps and sometimes dropping below 30 when in heavy firefights. Since overclock I'm getting between 75 & 95 and rarely drops below 60 during the heavy firefights. This is using fraps as a guide. I know my monitor is 60 hz so 60 fps refresh rate but it is ultra smooth now and really nice to play. So even though the processor isn't reaching 4.1 ghz it still has made a world of difference. Gonna try some bf3 in the next few days and bet it will be awesome compared to before. Dishonored is silky smooth since overclock also and so is transformers fall of cybertron. I suspect all my games will be greatly improved if they are. very happy indeed. Just hope it's safe. But will definetly get that board just to be safe. If anything does get damaged it will just be my asus board right? chip should be ok co's low temps I guess.

will the 970 chipset be far off the 990fx in performance? damn sur it will be far better than 760 G for gay
Appreciate your time and advice mate will get off your back now lol co's you've helped me out loads

Just want to make sure that 700 watt evo labs is ErP/EuP Ready co's it said (ErP/EuP ready power supply is required) on that motherboards description

 

[Rockdpm]

Oh your no trouble. I sortta feel this turned into more of a pm conversation than anything. But yea 970 is a little less than the 990x or 990fx but the 970 will be a huge improve over your current motherboard.

 

[steelninja]

Oh your no trouble. I sortta feel this turned into more of a pm conversation than anything. But yea 970 is a little less than the 990x or 990fx but the 970 will be a huge improve over your current motherboard.

my mate's gonna order that mobo when he gets back from holiday so about 2 weeks. I think i had a liitle thermal paste leftover from installing the hyper 212 so should have enough. In Boderlands 2 & other games i get a lot of pop in textures where u'll open a box and the contents will be untextured for a second or same when it loads up the mission. I heard getting an SSD for your OS and favourite games will alleviate these issues co's it can load up the graphics faster, So might save for a decent SSD.
My mate is also trying to find a supplier of pc parts (he's good at sourcing cheap stuff) to start a side business to his usual one where I'll build the PC's and we'll start on ebay and see how many we sell. he was impressed with my pc building skills and wants to invest in at least trying to see if we can make a few hundered quid on a decent spec pc. Even if we just sell a few a month to start it could be worth it. what do you think?
I'll start with AMD co's I know AMD. So that may be the chance i need to sort my life out as haven't done very well up to now.
I know there's lots of people doing the same but like my mate said. Provided we find a good supplier we may just need to sell a few to make a decent profit. And I'll be able to hopefully get my parts at cost price
Gonna take a look later for some suppliers myself, but he knows more about how they work so probably best for him to find one, wont hurt looking tho.

 

[Rockdpm]

if you do AMD builds for your business. Give the customer a diversity of options. Like make some low end builds with the new Pile Driver APU's and a 7750 in them. And then the gaming rigs build those with 8150/8120 or wait until pile driver chips come out this month or the next. Honestly you could make a mid spec build with a 965 and a 990X mobo. and the high ends run the 990FX boards

 

[steelninja]

if you do AMD builds for your business. Give the customer a diversity of options. Like make some low end builds with the new Pile Driver APU's and a 7750 in them. And then the gaming rigs build those with 8150/8120 or wait until pile driver chips come out this month or the next. Honestly you could make a mid spec build with a 965 and a 990X mobo. and the high ends run the 990FX boards

yeah sounds good. my mate said we'd use the latest chips but he said we won't start till after christmas when he can put some time and money aside, So by then it probably will be piledriver chips but will need to do some research about them first. Really need to see the suppliers catalogue to know if it will be worthwhile which I'm sure it will. My mates an ace at ebay (he has his own website also) and he sells £1000's of pounds worth of fashion wear and other stuff he gets dirt cheap. So I'm sure if he can find a supplier he will. but he knows nothing about computers I just know they are not hard to build and enough to get them ready quickly for any potential customers. My friend seems to have faith in me lol
He could get a site built if it takes off. I'm keeping my fingers croosed we find a good supplier, will start looking although I wouldn't know where to start other than google. My mate knows companies that help find the best suppliers. Will put to him what you said about doing high, mid and low end builds co's if you do it right you should just build to order. So you only order what you need ssort of thing. He also is interested in selling just PC parts under a different company name. But just depends on how cheap he canget them.