AMD Opteron 170 overclocking

[secretanchitman]

im going to be using an Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe and the ram/components listed in my sig (btw, im getting the stuff on friday). i know its up to the chip and possibly stepping to give me the oc, but i want to know what you guys have gotten with your opteron 170s and also 165s...i will also be using a thermalright xp90 instead of the stock heatsink.

also, ive read that newegg's latest shipments of opterons are just rebadged X2s since they are toledo cores and have the X2 memory controller, also the fact that they dont overclock as high as they used to. i dont know if those things are true or not...i believe the stepping newegg is currently shipping is LCB9E.

thanks for your time, as im a newbie to amd (used an intel p4 2.4C @ 2.95 for years, so i didnt need to mess with any ht speeds, speedstep/cool-quiet or dividers at all) and have no idea how this works.

 

[aigomorla]

ummm mines not a 165 or a 170. Its a 175 i bought at newegg for 169.99

Steppings: I kid not, its THE BEST steppings ive seen on an opty yet.

CCBBE 0617 EPWM <--- legendary!!

Pwnage Look at voltage please


heh.. cross your fingers and pray for a good stepping.


Anyhow, a good place to start is what kind of cooling are you using?

If you got one of those big tower coolers,
then start at 1.42V, then set a mem divider down to 333mhz, or 5/6 divider to start with.

EDIT: I also forgot to mention, your HTT x LTD should never be > 1000mhz. meaning, your FSB = HTT ~ 200 should be using a multi of 5x on stock. You want to drop this to 4x if your running 201-250mhz. And should your chip clock higher, like at 270mhz HTT, then you want to drop that multi down to 3x, to keep it under 1000mhz.

then push your fsb <-- (forgot whats its called on an AMD. Been messing with QX too long) but set that at 240 for now to see if she will do that. Then raise it in incriments of 5 after a 30 min run of orthos for stability.

If she pulls it off then for 30 min, raise it again 5, and repeat, until one of your cores die. Once one of your cores die, and trust me one will always die b4 both fails, lower the value by 1 and repeat until both cores are stable for 30min +

After you pulled that off leave orthos on for at least 2 hours. I realized a core will usually fail from heat buildup in about 1 hour 15 min. If she goes longer then 2 hours, chances are she'll go even longer, so its up to you to go longer. This would be good in evaluating how much heat she will dish out.


AFTER all that, then you need to see where your FSB is at. And your quality of RAM. If your running your FSB at 260mhz, no ram i can think of can pull off DDR520 unless its SERIOUSLY EXPENSIVE!! so you want to use the divider. Object is trying to get your memory as tight to the CPU fsb raito as possible without losing stability.

I wouldnt go higher then 1.45V on air. And if you do go higher, then you better have super air flow, and perfect wire management. 1.5V and higher should only be done on water or sub ambient cooling. Even then im not really comfortable at 1.5+ on my high performance h2o setup.

anyhow GL~! if i missed something, please addon, lets let the op have some fun with his toy

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
ummm mines not a 165 or a 170. Its a 175 i bought at newegg for 169.99

Steppings: I kid not, its THE BEST steppings ive seen on an opty yet.

CCBBE 0617 EPWM <--- legendary!!

Pwnage Look at voltage please


heh.. cross your fingers and pray for a good stepping.


Anyhow, a good place to start is what kind of cooling are you using?

If you got one of those big tower coolers,
then start at 1.42V, then set a mem divider down to 333mhz, or 5/6 divider to start with.

EDIT: I also forgot to mention, your HTT x LTD should never be > 1000mhz. meaning, your FSB = HTT ~ 200 should be using a multi of 5x on stock. You want to drop this to 4x if your running 201-250mhz. And should your chip clock higher, like at 270mhz HTT, then you want to drop that multi down to 3x, to keep it under 1000mhz.

then push your fsb <-- (forgot whats its called on an AMD. Been messing with QX too long) but set that at 240 for now to see if she will do that. Then raise it in incriments of 5 after a 30 min run of orthos for stability.

If she pulls it off then for 30 min, raise it again 5, and repeat, until one of your cores die. Once one of your cores die, and trust me one will always die b4 both fails, lower the value by 1 and repeat until both cores are stable for 30min +

After you pulled that off leave orthos on for at least 2 hours. I realized a core will usually fail from heat buildup in about 1 hour 15 min. If she goes longer then 2 hours, chances are she'll go even longer, so its up to you to go longer. This would be good in evaluating how much heat she will dish out.


AFTER all that, then you need to see where your FSB is at. And your quality of RAM. If your running your FSB at 260mhz, no ram i can think of can pull off DDR520 unless its SERIOUSLY EXPENSIVE!! so you want to use the divider. Object is trying to get your memory as tight to the CPU fsb raito as possible without losing stability.

I wouldnt go higher then 1.45V on air. And if you do go higher, then you better have super air flow, and perfect wire management. 1.5V and higher should only be done on water or sub ambient cooling. Even then im not really comfortable at 1.5+ on my high performance h2o setup.

anyhow GL~! if i missed something, please addon, lets let the op have some fun with his toy

opteron 175 on newegg for $169.99???? i feel ripped off.

WTF? how did you get that high of an oc? lucky......

air cooling, but i would go as far as to say high end because i have a lot of case fans (8 to be exact - my case has room for 6 though). heatsink-wise, im using a thermalright xp90 with a vantec fan.

even though i have DDR-500 memory, i should put the divider to 333mhz?

wow all that is immensely useful. thanks a lot!

 

[SlowSpyder]

My Opty 165 does 2.7 @ 1.375. To tell you the truth, I haven't tried to overclock it more really, and I haven't tried to run it with less voltage. Those are the settings I used as soon as I popped the chip in the socket. Maybe I'll go for more one day.

 

[aigomorla]

well it was on sale for 1 day. It went OOS in a matter of 1 day.

And to my knowledge they were all EPMW's me and another fellow over at xs has the same stepping same source vendor.


i would set the memory divider low to start off. Because you dont want the memory to hold you back. If you want a set clock however, your ram is DDR500. that would mean a 250 fsb.

on a 170 the stock multi is 10x 250 fsb = 2.5ghz if your happy with 2.5ghz, you can leave the ram 1:1

However its an opty! i wouldnt be happy with it unless it did 2.6+ on near stock voltage.

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
well it was on sale for 1 day. It went OOS in a matter of 1 day.

And to my knowledge they were all EPMW's me and another fellow over at xs has the same stepping same source vendor.


i would set the memory divider low to start off. Because you dont want the memory to hold you back. If you want a set clock however, your ram is DDR500. that would mean a 250 fsb.

on a 170 the stock multi is 10x 250 fsb = 2.5ghz if your happy with 2.5ghz, you can leave the ram 1:1

However its an opty! i wouldnt be happy with it unless it did 2.6+ on near stock voltage.

ah i see. lucky...set memory divider off low, check. of course i wont be happy with 2.5Ghz, i want the maximum oc i can get out of it! haha...

 

[myocardia]

My Opteron 170 does slightly over 2.8 Ghz (IIRC, it was 2.84) on stock voltage. Here's a screenshot of it doing a 30.6 sec. SuperPi run @ stock voltage, and that's using the 166 Mhz divider.

edit: In other words, if I had your RAM, I could have used the 180 Mhz divider, and done it in less time.
edit #2: My 170's stepping-- LCB9E 0652WPMW, from newegg

 

[NatePo717]

I can't do over 2.4 Ghz on my 170 Core 0 fails immediately (Core 1 is good for over 2.6, haven't been able to test limit due to core 0) in Orthos. Raising voltage doesn't help stability.

 

[secretanchitman]

ah thanks guys. keep em coming! thank you especially to myocardia...since you have that stepping (crap from what ive read but it doesnt look like it) it makes me feel a bit better about how my chip is going to overclock.

btw, the dividers still get to me...

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: secretanchitman
ah thanks guys. keep em coming! thank you especially to myocardia...since you have that stepping (crap from what ive read but it doesnt look like it) it makes me feel a bit better about how my chip is going to overclock.

btw, the dividers still get to me...

Memory dividers are easy. There's an actual formula that you have to use, to be able to tell exactly how fast your RAM will be running, at any given overclock. But, it's easier to let someone else do it for you (Gogar, in this instance): Gogar's A64 OC Optimizer.

Also, realize that with any stepping, there are going to be both good and bad processors, OC-wise. For instance, with the legendary CCBWE 0650UPMW stepping, there were some crappy OCers, supposedly. A good stepping merely means that your chances of a good overclock are higher; it still isn't guaranteed.

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: secretanchitman
ah thanks guys. keep em coming! thank you especially to myocardia...since you have that stepping (crap from what ive read but it doesnt look like it) it makes me feel a bit better about how my chip is going to overclock.

btw, the dividers still get to me...

Memory dividers are easy. There's an actual formula that you have to use, to be able to tell exactly how fast your RAM will be running, at any given overclock. But, it's easier to let someone else do it for you (Gogar, in this instance): Gogar's A64 OC Optimizer.

Also, realize that with any stepping, there are going to be both good and bad processors, OC-wise. For instance, with the legendary CCBWE 0650UPMW stepping, there were some crappy OCers, supposedly. A good stepping merely means that your chances of a good overclock are higher; it still isn't guaranteed.

hey wow! thanks for that optimizer...really helped me.

haha, hopefully i wont get a "bad" processor.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: secretanchitman
hey wow! thanks for that optimizer...really helped me.

haha, hopefully i wont get a "bad" processor.

I thought you already had it? If so, what are you waiting for? Running an Opteron at stock speed is like owning a Viper, and buying 6 inch wide tires for it-- it doesn't make any sense.

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: secretanchitman
hey wow! thanks for that optimizer...really helped me.

haha, hopefully i wont get a "bad" processor.

I thought you already had it? If so, what are you waiting for? Running an Opteron at stock speed is like owning a Viper, and buying 6 inch wide tires for it-- it doesn't make any sense.

its ordered and it was supposed to come yesterday, but then i found out on thursday that its coming on monday...yeah, stupid ups.

this way, at least i know what to do.

 

[secretanchitman]

just installed everything and holy mother of christ...this thing is FAST. i cant even imagine what core 2 duo feels like...

time to overclock later on!

 

[cubeless]

snicker snicker... thinks 2.0 is fast... how cute... snicker snicker... can't wait to see droolage once oc'd... snicker snicker...

 

[catalysts17az]

i bought some PC 4000 so i dont use dividers (gSkill) and i am happy at 2.5 on my 170. i will OC some more sometime during summer, but im happy. i am also using a X1900 AIW which can no longer be found. what a shame it was one hell of a card. also get rid of your IDE HDD and turn it into an external HDD. look at vantec's casings on the egg. your computer is only as fast as your slowest part........your IDE hdd has to go. Have fun a keep us posted on your success!!!!!!

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: catalysts17az
i bought some PC 4000 so i dont use dividers (gSkill) and i am happy at 2.5 on my 170. i will OC some more sometime during summer, but im happy. i am also using a X1900 AIW which can no longer be found. what a shame it was one hell of a card. also get rid of your IDE HDD and turn it into an external HDD. look at vantec's casings on the egg. your computer is only as fast as your slowest part........your IDE hdd has to go. Have fun a keep us posted on your success!!!!!!

lol my god i was thinking the same thing. everytime i login to windows, it sits at my desktop background for like 5 seconds while its waiting for the hard drive...

and even moreso...i just oced my 170 to 2.5Ghz using 1:1. i put it to 270FSB, 3x multi, 166 divider, 1.42vcore and it didnt boot...oh well, im happy running 1:1!

i bet its those darn memory dividers. i still dont understand them.

 

[11427]

My 170 is a CCBBE 0615EPMW, it'll do 3.0 with 1.472V. screen shot - http://www.xmission.com/~nova/hb/dtdfi.jpg
I've since backed it down to 2.93 and 1.40V, runs much cooler and the extra .07 really didn't make that much of a difference.

 

[secretanchitman]

ah...what am i doing wrong? it wont boot into windows if i set it to 270FSB, 166 divider, 1.47 vcore, 2.75vmem...

2.5Ghz using 1:1 is still fine, even with 1.30vcore.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: secretanchitman
just installed everything and holy mother of christ...this thing is FAST. i cant even imagine what core 2 duo feels like...

time to overclock later on!

hehe.. my baby did 3.08 on 1.31V


To answer your question, my C2D at 3.6, blows my 3.08 opty out of the sky.

SuperPi 1M in 15 sec.


To be exact, it feels almost like when i went from P4 Willamat core -> X2 3800+ my first run. When im encoding, or doing CPU intensive tasks.

However, in IRA, like windows, and stuff, i hardly notice any difference. I think theres a lot more impact on my RAID in windows performance then it is on CPU.

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Originally posted by: secretanchitman
just installed everything and holy mother of christ...this thing is FAST. i cant even imagine what core 2 duo feels like...

time to overclock later on!

hehe.. my baby did 3.08 on 1.31V


To answer your question, my C2D at 3.6, blows my 3.08 opty out of the sky.

SuperPi 1M in 15 sec.


To be exact, it feels almost like when i went from P4. Willamat core -> X2 3800+ my first run.

i felt like that but 10000x more when i went from a p2 266Mhz to a p4 2.4Ghz.

btw, im idling around 43-44C overclocked at 2.5Ghz at 1.30v (asus ai booster is showing 1.33v, but i set the bios at 1.30v). im also using a thermalright xp90 with a 80mm vantec fan blowing downwards towards the cpu. are those temps too high?

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: secretanchitman
btw, im idling around 43-44C overclocked at 2.5Ghz at 1.30v (asus ai booster is showing 1.33v, but i set the bios at 1.30v). im also using a thermalright xp90 with a 80mm vantec fan blowing downwards towards the cpu. are those temps too high?

You're undervolting your Opteron? No wonder you've topped out at 2.5 Ghz. And yeah, those temps are fairly high, for only 2.5 Ghz @ 1.3v. My X2 4400 only ran 47°C core temps @ 2.4 Ghz, with 1.45v BIOS vcore, and 1.39v CPU-Z indicated, and Orthos running. I'm not sure why, but I didn't have SpeedFan running in that screenshot, so I'm not sure of the socket temp. At 2.5 Ghz, it was running 53° & 54°C core temps with 1.525v BIOS vcore and 48°C socket temp while running Orthos. And this was with just an Arctic Cooling Freezer 64, in a 76°F room.

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: secretanchitman
btw, im idling around 43-44C overclocked at 2.5Ghz at 1.30v (asus ai booster is showing 1.33v, but i set the bios at 1.30v). im also using a thermalright xp90 with a 80mm vantec fan blowing downwards towards the cpu. are those temps too high?

You're undervolting your Opteron? No wonder you've topped out at 2.5 Ghz. And yeah, those temps are fairly high, for only 2.5 Ghz @ 1.3v. My X2 4400 only ran 47°C core temps @ 2.4 Ghz, with 1.45v BIOS vcore, and 1.39v CPU-Z indicated, and Orthos running. I'm not sure why, but I didn't have SpeedFan running in that screenshot, so I'm not sure of the socket temp. At 2.5 Ghz, it was running 53° & 54°C core temps with 1.525v BIOS vcore and 48°C socket temp while running Orthos. And this was with just an Arctic Cooling Freezer 64, in a 76°F room.

im undervolting because even when i put the vcore to 1.48 and higher, it still wont go to 2.7Ghz. dropped the multi to 3x.

my thermalright xp90 is attached properly...and i used the thermal paste that came with it. should i reapply the paste and the heatsink?

 

[secretanchitman]

update so far...its up to 2.65Ghz using the 11:12 ratio and still 1.30vcore and 2.65vmem! tested and stable. anything higher and windows wont boot.

temps are lowered down to 40C. turned the 80mm fan on the thermalright blowing OUTWARDS/AWAY from the cpu. yeah, that was my bad. oges up to 47-48C in games.

 

[11427]

I think what myocardia meant by undervolting is you are at 1.30V, the stock vcore is 1.35 not 1.48 or higher. My Opteron does it's best at 1.38V - 1.41V.
Have you tried something between 1.30 and 1.48 ?