Phenom II x4 955 Voltage Issues

[kheckler]

This is my first time overclocking outside of stock voltage settings. I can OC to a stable 3.8Ghz without touching voltage. 3.9Ghz at stock voltage causes a blue screen after about 4 mins with prime95. I was able to get a stable test for 10 mins at 3.9Ghz at 1.39V. I decided to increase to 4.0Ghz and I'm almost stable for 10 mins at 1.45V. My temps haven't exceeded 46C at 4.0Ghz and 1.45V. I didn't even get a temp increase until around 1.43V (39C min / 44C max; on all previous tests). My BIOS increases voltage at 0.00625 per notch. I have been increasing one notch at a time, testing, and increasing again if the test fails.

I understand that this processor can reach a much higher potential so I'm scratching my head at why I have to get so close to the 1.5V mark just to go up another 0.2Ghz. The only things that I have tweaked in BIOS are CPU Frequency Multiplier and CPU Over Voltage. Am I missing something here or is this the best that I can do?

Specs are listed below

 

[kiezz]

1.45v at 4ghz seems pretty good to me, as the clock speed gets higher it will take more and more voltage to keep stable with every increase, I don't know what potential you think the processor has but 4.2ghz would be the absolute maximum, instead of pushing for the higher clock speed you should try getting a higher cpu/nb speed as this will increase performance better than the extra 200mhz you might be able to squeeze out of it on core speed, check out this thread if you haven't already http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/261868-29-overclocking-club