OC A64 3000+ 939 w/ ZALMAN

[pandemic]

hello, I just bought the ZALMAN (CNPS9500)

I was wondering were I would start to overclock. I've tried it before and I kinda sucks at it... My motherboard (msi k8 neo2 plat.) has a dynamic OCing feature built on to it, but I do not trust that =/

I've read several guides on OCing but I figure asking on this forum would be alot better so I can get feadback for my setup.

specs:

<---

AMD64 3000+ Winchester 939
1gb DDR RAM dual channel (2.5-3-3-8)
MSI k8 Neo2 Platinum (latest bois)

Any help would be nice =)

[trog100]

u have three basic things that can/will limit your overclock.. this assumes u have good case cooling to go with your zalman..

the speed your memory can go at.. yours for example will run faster (clock higher) at 3-3-3-8 than 2.5-3-3-8.. looser timings and a higher clock will produce better results than the other way around..

the speed your FSB/HTT will go up to.. u can lower your HTT speed by useing a lower divider.. HTT speed makes very little difference to performance so lowering it wont hurt..

the speed your CPU will go up to.. raising the core voltage from 1.4 to 1.5 will help this one..

u need to seperate the three things.. slow two down and take just one up at a time to find its limit..

for example if u can drop the muliplyer on your CPU and lower your memory speed from 400 down to 333 and lower the divider on your HTT speed to slow that down.. then u can test how high your FSB will go before problems set in..

u can do the same with all the other parts of the equation.. slow the other parts down and test one part at a time..

if u have memory that wont go very high even at cas 3 u can get around that by setting it at 333 and letting it go up from there as u take everything else up.. most of ypur performance gain will be gotten from pure CPU speed increases.. with your chip this is what matters most.. dont let tight memory timings or attempts at high memory speeds hold your actual CPU speed back.. CPU speed is what AMD 64 chips are all about..

aim for the highest cpu clock u can get at a 1.5 core voltage at first.. this is pretty safe and nothing will fry..

i dont have your motherboard so i cant be anymore specific..

trog

ps.. if u are not sure how good your case cooling is do it all with the case side off.. note the temps with the side off.. if when u put it back on things gets a lot hotter this will tell its own story..

[pandemic]

Ok man, thanks alot. You cleared alot of stuff up for me. I will try what you say about leaving the side off, though I should be fine with a 120mm in back, and a modded-in 120mm in front and a side / top 80mm. I will post results in a little while.

[pandemic]

Ok, i have raised the HTT from 200 to 250, lowered the HT multiplyer to 3x, and voltage to 1.6. This makes my CPU run at 2250MHz stable after burn-in. Now I am having problems with RAM stability. I raised my timings to 3-3-3-8 and upped the voltage just a bit, and its speed is now 220MHz. What do I do now?



"I've read somewhere they OCed 2 out of 3 Athlon64 3000+ Winchester to 2700MHz and the third to ~2600MHz.
They set the Ram down to 133MHz and changed the HT multiplier to 3x instead of 5x. Then they raised the FSB in small steps up to 300MHz.
In the benchmarks the 2700MHz clocked 3000+ beat the FX55 and the Pentium4 3,46 Extreme Edition!

But be careful, that's an extreme OC and they did it on a MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum!"

used Stock cooling, same proc. same ram. same mobo. I know I dont want to go as far as 2700MHz, but what would the RAM timings be, and the Voltages be on that OC?

[Poisonsnak]

Well to hit 2.7 with the 3000+'s maximum 9x multiplier you are looking at 300MHz HTT. If they set the RAM to 133MHz that must be referring to a 2/3 divider (133 being 2/3 of default 200) so at 300MHz HTT the RAM should be running its stock 200Mhz.

So you can run your RAM at its usual voltage and timings since it will only be doing 200MHz anyway. I would probably move the HTT up to 300Mhz, with the 3x multiplier the HT will be at 900Mhz which is good (you just have to shoot for as close to 1Ghz without going over basically), and then you can set your CPU multiplier as you see fit. If you think 2700 is too high you can use 8x to do 2400, if that is a bit low then maybe try 280x9 for about 2.5Ghz, etc.

One thing to keep in mind if you use the half CPU multiples (e.g. 8.5x) it will screw up your memory divider a little and your RAM will be running at a different speed than you want.

[pandemic]

Ok cool, thanks. But I was told that on the Winchester core, the multiplier is locked to 9x, is that not true?

[trog100]

no need to drop the cpu multiplyer leaving it as high as it will go just means u have to overclock everything else less.. it is locked at a max and wont go any higher.. iin your case its locked a little too low.. it has been pretty well proven elsewhere on the net that high memory timings dont give much of gain to the amd 64 chips.. also u can lower your htt speed without any noticable difference take it down to 600 and it will not hit perfomance..

as an example running my memory at 333 instead of 400 makes a difference of 19 points in 3d2005.. not exactly a lot and totally unnoticable in real world things.. the amd 64 bit chip with its onboard memory controler seems to change the accepted rules.. u dont need a high fsb speed relative to cpu multiplyer and u dont need to use super fast memory tiimings.. everthing seems to come down to pure cpu clock speed.. other things will provide small gains. but the real performace gains come from just cranking up the cpu speed.. which in your case maens getting the fsb up as high as it will go.. mainly cos your 9x cpu multiply is a bit low.. lowering your htt and memory speeds will help this.. getting a higher multiplyer to start with is good reason for buying a faster out of the box chip.. for example my 11 x 200 3.700 chip only needs to run the fsb at about 270 not 320 to make 3 gigs.. your overclock wil be limitted by how fast your fsb will go.. not how fast your cpu will go.. all cos u are starting of with too low a cpu multiplyer and there aint no way of raising it ..

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=1590273

trog

[pandemic]

So in my case, it would be possible to hit high speeds by setting the Ram down and lowering the HT, then they raising the FSB in small steps up to the speed I want? Not even messing with any of the RAM timings or RAM voltages?

Another thing, what would the possibilities be that the HDD would become corrupt by doing that?


...OK, lets just say I wanted to hit 2700MHz, what exactly would I have to do/worry about?

Only reason why I am confused is because trog is saying that some of the things Poisonsnak said, I dont have to do.

[trog100]

u used to have to do these things.. it was always common practise to lower your cpu multiplyer and boost your fsb speed to obtain the same cpu clock speed for example.. 10 x 200 = 2000 would not be as good as say 8 x 250 - 2000.. if u ran fast memory this boosted both the fsb and memory speeds and gave performance increase even without raising the actual cpu clock speed..

this was because raising the fsb speeds also raised the speed at which the memory could talk to the cpu.. the fsb speed governed the speed of the memory controler which used to be on the motherboard..

cos the amd 64 bit chip has its memory controler on chip and not on the motherboard simply raising the speed of the cpu also does the same thing as used to be done by raising the speed of the fsb.. putting that memory controler on chip was really rather clever of amd.. in practise it just means that the faster the chip goes the more the memory bandwidth goes up and the fsb is no longer the bottleneck it used to be..

with the amd 64 unlike other systems simply rasing the fsb or memory speeds and leaving the cpu speed alone will not give u any meaningfull perfromance increase..

u will gain the most by simply lowering your htt and memory speeds if u have to and just cranking up that cpu clock as far as it will go.. if your memory will run faster (500 plus) let it by all means but it is no longer the be all and end all that it used to be.. and lowering that htt mutiplyer wont make the slightest difference to performance.. but it.. just like your memory might halt your (all important) cpu clocking progress prematurely if u dont.. he he..

trog

ps.. course if there is any truth at all in what i have just written it might put a big dent in the over-priced aftermarket memory sales... he he he

[pandemic]

Alright trog. You've seem to have cleared everything up for me. Thanks again! :rockout:

[Poisonsnak]

yeah good point trog, I guess the limiting factor is more likely to be the motherboard than the CPU so you can probably just leave the multiplier at 9x.

As far as hard drive corruption, I don't think the hard drives would be corrupted directly from the overclock, but if your CPU or memory is unstable and you use it to read data from the disk and write it back then the data could definitely be corrupted.

Back on dfi-street.com there was a thing about SATA drives on the nForce3 board, apparrently only 2 SATA ports were "locked" and the other 2 would cause problems as you increased the HTT but I think that only applied to that board.

Oh also you're using stock cooling looking for 2700MHz @ 1.6V, right? I would watch your CPU temp a little, the 3000+ usually runs pretty cool but those settings are pretty high.

[pandemic]

Nope, using the ZALMAN with the heatpipes, its a monstor!

In the past hour or so, i've read alot about OCing. I found alot of 3000+ Winchester cores OCed past 2500MHz with the same RAM and mobo.

[pandemic]

Ok..still need help. Nothing seems to be working -.-


Say I want to OC to 2.5ghz, tell me exactly what I will have to change or keep the same in these pics:

http://www.tt-hardware.com/img/news4/news190105_2dujour.gif
http://www.tt-hardware.com/img/news4/news190105_3dujour.gif


I know I am doing something wrong, but I dont know what.

PS: those arent my pictures, just the same BIOS as me.



My current:

http://impulse100.net/current-amd64.GIF

[trog100]

i will have go.. cpu speed.. the one that says ht frequency x5.. alter that to x4... that will slow your htt speed down..

the one that says adjust cpu fsb frequency 200... that one needs to go up in gentle steps.. basically as high as it will go.. your example would need something like 260.. it might not get that far thow..

your memory clock needs dropping to 333.. this will keep the memory going at not too fast a speed as u take your cpu/fsb clock up.. whatever gets added to that clock will get added to your 333 memory speed.. at least on my mobo it does.. the way yours reads u might be able to lock it at 200.. if so u dont need to slow it down in the first place..

trog

[pandemic]

This is the part that I get confused on... when you say "your memory clock needs dropping to 333.." do you mean in the DRAM Config, change the max mem clock to 166? If so, will I have to worry about setting up a proportion with the FSB that I step up?

[trog100]

i dont have your motherboard my ax8 abit bios is different.. i dont have expensive superfast memory.. having to bin my pair of 512 sticks and fork out over £200 for 2 gigs of fast memory put me off so i settled for normal stuff.. my memory wont go much past its 400 speed so i have to start of slower.. 333.. i cant lock mine.. it goes up as i put the fsb up.. at about 264 fsb my memory is at 420 or so..

with your board u might be able to lock your memory.. my board dosnt say max memory speed.. yours does so it might lock at whatver u set it at.. mine says auto.. spd and manual.. there is no max option..

give it a small increase in the fsb speed and see if the memory speed actually goes up.. as i say mine does.. yours might not.. if u can lock your memory at 400 there is no need to lower it to 333 to start with.. use CPU-Z to see whats happening after u tweak things..

my bios also dosnt seem to quite do what i think it should.. he he.. i cant lower my cpu multiplyer for example.. its in the bios but when i get to windows it just stick at X11 irespective of how i set the bios.. also i recon auto or spd should lock my memory but it dosnt..

trog

ps.. the confusing thing here is that with the amd 64 chip.. the FSB frontside/bus gets called different things.. if u think of it as just the thing or speed that everything else is either a multiple or divider of it makes more sense..

it just alters the speed of your HTT which is your real fsb.. your htt bus should go at 1000 or 5 x the 200 fsb thing.. by lowering the multiplyer to 4 x this stops your htt bus from running too fast as u put up the fsb thing..

your memory is 1 x 1.. by default.. when u lower your memory to 333 u are altering the divider to something less than 1 x 1.. again this stops your memory from going too fast as u put up the fsb thing

your cpu speed is governed by the fsb figure.. everything is governed by the fsb figure.. some things u can lock.. some things u cant.. if u cant lock them u have to lower the multiplyer too stop them going too fast as u put the fsb speed thing up.. in truth its your htt bus thats your real fsb.. whats now called the fsb isnt really.. its just this basline thing that everything gets controled by speed-wise..

the fact it dosnt do anything is the main reason u can take it so high.. at one time the fsb speed really did control the fsb speed.. now it only does it indirectly.. confusing aint it.. he he he

trog

[pandemic]

I got my CPU running at 2.2ghz. Cant seem to get it higher..

current:

clock: 2205mhz
HTT: 245mhz
HT: 4x
RAM: 166mhz (200mhz w/ OC) 2.5-3-3-7
voltage: 1.5v


trying (not working):

HTT: 250-255mhz
HT: 3x
RAM: 133mhz 2.5-3-3-7
voltage: 1.5v

[Poisonsnak]

That's surprising, seems like either your motherboard is limited to 245 HTT or your CPU is limited to 2.2.

Maybe try first changing the HT to 3x and the RAM to 133, then save the settings and reboot, then try increasing the HTT.

Or you could always go to 1.55, that's as high as I ever went on my 3000+ on air.

edit: perhaps you could bump your chipset voltage by 0.1V?

[trog100]

try setting your memory to 3-3-3-8.. if its your memory that is at its limit it should enable things to go a little faster.. if its not the memory it wont help.. u could try a lttle more voltage on the cpu.. say 1.55..

apart from playing benches pushing things too far wont give much of noticable performance increase in real life.. keep an eye on your cpu temps..

u can also try a little more volyage on the memory.. say 2.8...

trog

[pandemic]

in this picture

http://www.tt-hardware.com/img/news4/news190105_2dujour.gif

When I "Adjust CPU VID" to 1.5, in CPU-Z it says its still 1.4

then when i mess with the "CPU Voltage" it goes around in percents. Do I have to change the CPU VID to 1.4 then the CPU Voltage to a percentage to make it 1.5? What should the percentage be?

[trog100]

aint got the fainest idea.. he he.. but it used to be common practise to disable tha spread spectrum setting.. i meant to mention that the other day but forgot..

trog

[Poisonsnak]

Yeah at higher voltages you should use the % setting I know on the DFI D-series boards this is pretty standard. So if you want 1.5V you could set 110% that would get you close because 1.4V * 110% = 1.54V

[matisamd]

putting that memory controler on chip was really rather clever of amd.. in practise it just means that the faster the chip goes the more the memory bandwidth goes up and the fsb is no longer the bottleneck it used to be..

trog



Hi googling all over the net to try and see if running an a64 with 333 vs 400 makes much difference, not had much luck but this was an interesting point so thought i'd ask ( its amazing how many forums i member of without remembering :P )

So a 3000+ at default and a 3700 at default have the same memory BW ?

So OC'ing a 3000+ to 3700 would mean although the CPU were the same speed the OC's 3000+ would have a higher memory bandwidth ?

if he Ram BW is a result of CPU FSB then to make the 3700 run with same BW as an OC'd 3000+ i'd have to lower multiplier to same as 3000+ then clock FSB back up ?

So if i run Ram @ 333 i can still get same bandwidth as 400 if i up clock the FSB but use ram multi's too keep at that speed?

any good links on this ?

Man i like my XP athlons when things were simple :P

Thanks :D

[trog100]

my ram starting off at 333 at 200 fsb ends up at round about 400-ish at say an fsb of 250-ish..

the main point here is that with the amd 64 chip ram speeds dont make as much diference to overall performance as used to be the case with memory controlers on the mother board..

the bottom line is do we need to spend a fortune on 2 gig of expensive superfast ram to overclock the amd 64 system and i think the answer is no we dont.. the very small gain isnt worth the hefty additional expense bang for buck wise..

here is good read on the basics..

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Guides/athlon64oc/6.html

trog

[matisamd]

That is a very interesting point, i was reading that when the a64 was designed it was on the specifications of running 333 which if not benching shouldnt make too much of a difference to things. It also explains the weird readings i was getting off sisoftware sandra when orginally running mem bw test while OC ram.


Thanks trog.

[umeras]

hi.. i followed u're instructions whith my a64 venice 3000+,mb asus a8ne.my settings were htt mult x3, ram freq from 400 to 266, cpu mult x9, cpu speed(fsb right?) 300 and cpu voltage to 1,5. I don' know how to find out if my sistem is stable. i obtained 2710mhz cpu ... no apperent problems.prime95 torture test stoped after 1 min-1 error. how can i test my sistem for stability? i ran cpu test from 3dmark 2005 (5360 pct) and my cpu temp raised to 66C, idle was 47 with stock cooling. The truth is that in my room there are about 28-30C. i didn't change any memory timings.. can someone give me some hints ?? 10x:rockout:

[trog100]

u are lucky it goes at all.. he he he.. it isnt stable at those speeds.. lower the "300" to something a little more sensible.. if your system dosnt work as it should its not stable.. running prime is just the first step.. thow making windows at all is praps the first step.. he he

u are on the right track.. just leapt a little tooo far ahead in one jump.. he he he

being as it boots at 300 try 280 then go up gradually..

and with rooms tempts at 28-30c u really need to use a better cooler.. thow short term running hotter than u intend to long term can be considered a stability test..

this one is good value for money.. or the zalman 9500 aero flower led but it costs more..

http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=26&page=1

trog

ps.. u cant get the x10.. period.. not unless u fork out for an FX chip.. only joking.. he he

[umeras]

that's funny because i wanted to buy that cooler :). So u say that if i lower the fsb from 300 to 280 it will make my sistem more stable. the problem is that the memory with the fsb at 300 runs at 194mhz... if i lower to 280 the mems will run at 182~. How can i bring the back at 200 with fsb of 280?..

[trog100]

thats part of the problem.. u dont have that much fine control over memory speeds.. its basically what u start of with plus the added fsb speeds..

the priority is cpu speed.. if u have to drop memory speeds a little to get more "stable" cpu speeds so be it.. the difference tween 200 and 182 is very minor as regards overall system performance..

have u tried starting your memory off at 333 this will put it at over 400 but it still might be stable.. either way.. at first leave your memory down where it is and find the actual limit your cpu will go to..

u need to find two things.. how fast your memory will go at.. to do this start it off at 200 and take up the fsb.. your memory will crash before your cpu does.. but u will know how fast it will go..

to find how fast your cpu will go.. well u are doing that already with your memory starting off where u have it in this case your cpu will crash first..

find your fastest stable cpu speed first..

trog

ps.. my comments are based on u not having some super expensive ddr500 type memory by the way

[umeras]

for the moment there's not much to do with this stock cooler. the setup is htt mult x4, mem 333, 1,45v core, fsb 240... memories 196.4. i obtained a stable cpu speed of 2160 with a maximum temp of 60C on full load.When my new cpu cooler will arrive i'll crank it up :).

btw what are the maximum temps allowed for the a64 3000+ core? so i know when to stop.

in my first config at 2710mhz on full load the temp exceeded 70C... it reached 73-75... I STOPED IT :)

One last q: I don't have a lot of money on my hands for case cooling... if i install 2 arctic cooling 80x80x45... one in lower front that blows air in.. one top rear that blows out.... i was thinkin about a 3rd one on the side that blows out as well Is that good?

[trog100]

u need to arrange the fans not to work against each other.. my case has two rear 80mm fans blowing in.. they are at about cpu height they are volted down to run quietly so they are not shifting masses of air..

one one 80mm fan volted right down blowing in the case side at cpu height..

an empty fan hole in the top of the case.. just the grill on it...

power supply with big slow moving fan blowing out the top rear of the case..

cpu zalman 9500 cooled again running slow for quietness..

grx card fitted with an artic vga cooler exhausting the card heat out the back of the case..

in all just five fans including the cpu and grfx card ones.. there is no more than gentle flow of air passing thru the case.. no tornados..

the case temp is about 1.5c over room ambient so it must be enough..

i think mid fifties is okay for an overclocked cpu.. mid sixties would be on the hot side but not dangerously so..

run with your case side off if u think things are a bit warm.. if when u put it back on the cpu temps jump up too much your case cooling could be improved..

my fan arrangement seems to work.. better than i would have thought to be honest.. 1.5c over room seems very good.. especially being as it dosnt have masses of fans and they are all running slowed down for quietness..

trog

[bim27142]

in my first config at 2710mhz on full load the temp exceeded 70C... it reached 73-75... I STOPED IT :)


men that's extremely hot?! i even plan to lower my OC coz my temps are hitting 61C @ full load (12hours of prime95)...

on my 3200+, i have the following settings:

HTT - 250
LDT - 4x
multiplier @ default 10x
ram running @ 166mhz (8-4-4-2.5 - 1T)
vcore @ 1.57 (1.53 under load / default @ 1.45)
vdimm @ 2.8 (default @ 2.7)
vchip @ default

temps:
idle - 34~38 C
load - 55~61 C

i'm stable on these settings with prime95 for 12hours (which is enough for me)... vcore was increased to 0.1v and also for the vdimm... would this not fry my components in the long run??? what i'm worrying about is that i'm touching the "voltages" part already...

[trog100]

i think u need to worry about real life temps not unreal prime for 12 hours situations.. unless u do that on a regular basis.. u have to take your room ambient temperatures into the equation as well.. if your room ambient temps go up and down your case and cpu temps go up and down with it..

room ambient is the baseline.. it governs everything..

i think your temps are okay.. not perfect but okay.. my cpu is set to sound an alarm at 65c and shut down at 75c.. the thing to note is the alarm settings will not go any lower.. 75c is the lowest shutdown point and 65c the lowest alarm point.. by default i had an alarm at 75c and a shut down at 85c..

in the heat of summer (i dont have aircon) i might have problems.. he he he

trog

ps.. and if intel toasty chips can survive at all i dont recon an amd one has any problems..