Windows 7: Amd x6 1090t further overclocking adventures

Did some posts on here regarding my overclocking of my computer.

Previously I have had an Athlon X4 and a Phenom X4.

Just purchased an AMD Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 Ghz, I am very happy with it indeed.

In no time I have found a nice overclock that I am happy with and that has tested as being IBT stable on very high settings.

FSB: 206
Multi: 18
CPU: 3712Mhz
Turbo: 20
CPU: 4125Mhz

Decided that i wanted to leave cool and quiet and the turbo feature on as they make perfect sense, no reason to have the processor eating power that it doesnt require.

Anyway the CPU voltage is set to 1.425V, the CPU/NB voltage is set to 1.275V

The RAM is running at 825Mhz at 5-5-5-18 with a 1:2 ratio.

The turbo works well, the cpu downclocks when required and is fully stable.

Nice Processor for £133!!

Nice OC Nomad, hows the temps Idle and load?

Idle is 46C, After intense IBT burn max was 60C.

I know that is getting high but within the limits and gaming shouldnt get me that high to be honest, IBT does stress hard...

60 is not high at 4,1ghz! Sounds great, Idle seems a bit high, what is the clock speed at idle? I am not clued up on AMD, with my Intel it idles at 1.6ghz then kicks in when needed.

Hi, I have configured the advanced power saving options in Windows 7 so that when on performance mode, the CPU has at least 60% available, this means that at idle it drops to a multiplier of 12 and a core speed of 2475Mhz, This ensures that for things like general surfing and playing my music that I can still have good performance with the boost kicking in when required. The 3712Mhz operates across all six cores when threaded stuff is going on where as the boost of 4125Mhz operates across three cores with the other three cores dropping down their multiplier to ease the heat and power consumption.

I believe that with boost and cool and quiet turned off, that people are getting 4200mhz quite easilly out of these chips across all six cores, but it sounds like overkill at present as nothing much utilises those cores as yet.

The maximum operating temperature for most AMD 45nm is 62C, hence me saying its getting a bit high, I believe the new generation of intels are capable of reaching above 70C without issue.

Had to amend my overclock slightly, due to Prime95 failure, have now got it fully stable at

220 FSB
2420 HT link
2420 NB
3.85Ghz on all 6 cores, 17.5X multi
4.07Ghz on Turbo 18.5X multi

Voltages

CPU Vcore: 1.5125, this equates to 1.5v after vdroop
CPU/NB : 1.25V
RAM is now at 880Mhz 5-5-5-16-22 at 2.2V
Bump in voltage on cpuvdda, HT and NB voltages

So the six core clock is higher and the turbo slightly lower, max load temps under prime95 are 58C, could get the higher turbo but would need more voltage, if i get a water cooler, which i am thinking about, may try again.

On air though, not a bad clock at all.

Here are the screenshots of the new overclock, showing the 3.85ghz and the 4.07ghz boost

6 hour prime 95 run.

The 3.85ghz with 4.070ghz turbo, dropped vcore down to 1.5125v, dropped cpu/nb down to 1.2V and increased NB to 2640, Stable as anything. I think i may have been giving too much voltage to the cpu/nb if it can be stable at just 1.2 with a higher setting, keep an eye on this with your attempts, it has been noted elsewhere that too high cpu/nb volts can cause instabilities and dropped my HT link to 1980Mhz.

This clock is still running well.

The 1.2V cpu/nb at 2640Mhz is stable, have seen allsorts about having this higher and indeed on my Phenom II X4 955BE, i did indeed seem to have this higher at 1.325V and it simply wouldn't stabilise above 2440Mhz.

The turbo core and cool and quiet features work well.

2420Mhz on the CPU at 12X when quiet.
3850Mhz on the CPU (6 cores) at 17.5X
4070Mhz on the CPU (boost) at 18.5X

HT link is at 2200Mhz

HT or FSB is at 220Mhz

My CPU benchmark with Performance test 64 was around 7500 with the average for the chip being more like 6200 so am happy with that.

My overclocked GTX 470 score was second on the high end graphics card list with its score, punching more than 1000 points above its weight also.

My GTX 470 is at 770Mhz core, 1540Mhz shader, 1790Mhz memory. 1.037V

In all my attempts with these overclocks, I have struggled more than I think should be neccesary, I think this is partly due to my ageing motherboard and the fact that I have been trying to get 8GB of RAM stable and at a decent speed.

Since my previous posts, I have upgraded my memory once more, I opted for 4x2GB of Gskill F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK which are rated at 5-5-5-15-24 for 1066Mhz at just 2.1V.

I have to say that I am amazed at how expensive DDR2 RAM still is, I was looking at some DDR3 laptop RAM for a VAIO and to upgrade to 2x4GB would only cost £40 at crucial!

Fast DDR2 at decent speeds with 4GB modules seem thin on the ground, it seems DDR3 offers the 4GB single module much more readilly.

As i say, its ponderous as to why an "outdated" technology as DDR2 is is still so expensive, A kit of 2 x 4GB black dragons is around £160!

The memory i have just purchased cost me £125 for 4 sticks DDR2 PC2-8500.

To get a new motherboard and DDR3 ram would still be more expensive however but I dont rule the option out, I have seen a nice ASUS sabertooth 990FX chipset board for £150 which now supports SLI which i would require, oh well maybe one day.

Anyway this RAM is on my QVL, something which i wanted to make absolutely sure of and it seems to have good reviews and to be reasonable memory.

The ram simply will not boot when the bios is set to 1066 setting, there is some blurb on the asus site about AMD limitation and only 2 sticks of 1066 being supported but I had heard that was all sorted out, I mean I have an AMD X6 1090T, surely the IMC is capable, anyway constant BSOD with the memory running at 1066 setting with all other settings at default.

Searched various forums and Gskill provide some advice in terms of getting it to work like the usual dropping the TRFC down and raising CPU-NB voltages and NB voltages, but the funny thing is it says that TRC needs to be 48 in the EPP of the ram, something which my board cannot do, it only goes up to 41!

Anyway long story short, the RAM is now stable and I am happy with it, its running at 5-5-5-15-24 at 2.1V, I dropped the TRFC down to 195ns from 127.5 and also increased the DRAM drive strength to 1.25X, all the other drive strengths were being raised by the bios but not that one so I raised it to match the DQS drive strength, the other 2 Drive strengths are on 1.5X.

I managed to get the RAM to 1000Mhz at these settings with all 4 DIMM slots occupied which isnt too bad, I should say that i did have some OCZ reapers which were fine at 1072Mhz in this board with all DIMMs occupied but the heatsinks were too big for my cooler and I had to sacrifice them! Shame, they really were good DIMMs, as their obvious ability showed, they needed the TRFC dropping to 195ns too but after that everything was on auto and fine.

New overclock then is as follows:

CPU: 4000Mhz on all 6 cores (Turbo Off) X16 multi
CPU-NB: 2750Mhz at 1.45V (set this high on advice of Gskill running 8GB) X11 multi
HT link: 2250Mhz at 1.3V (bumped this voltage on advice of Gskill Forum) X9 multi
RAM: 500MHz DDR2 or 1000Mhz at 5-5-5-15-24
HT: 250Mhz base clock

Everything running ok. Here is a screenshot of the settings: