Quick and dirty A64 clocking guide **UPDATE** X2 OC information!

[theMan]

i saw a review of that ram. they couldnt get it to go past 252mhz. i would go for some OCZ EL DDR PC-4000 Gold Series. http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2386
You should also get a DFi ultra-d. it is one of the best athlon64 overclockers, and is able to supply the memory with its 3.3v. otherwise, you will probably have to end up using a memory divider, unless you cant get over 2500mhz, which would really suck. have fun with your new rig!

 

[imported_eGoCeNTRoNiX]

Great Guide, I'll be conferring with it about the middle of next week if all goes well.

eGo

 

[imported_BUNGL3]

I would go for that DFI board but my card is AGP and I plan on keeping it. Anyone know were I can find a list or something on A64 Venice Cores and their overclocking speeds. Even though this ram is only good to 250 maybe I can find a matching CPU so I can run 1:1 like I have been with my P4.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: BUNGL3
OK Im a newb when it comes to AMD. I have been running Intel up until now. I plan on getting a MSI K8N NEO2 Platinum and a A64 3200+ Venice core. My question is I have a 1 Gig set of Dual Channel Kingston HyperX PC4000 im using with my current intel rig. The timings are 3-4-4-8-1 and I will be using a 74 Gig Raptor and well as my BFG 6800 Ultra. Do you guys think I will have a problem trying to OC with this ram ? Do you know if there is a SATA lock on the mob I plan to get. I have been reading this thread and it sounds like OCing an AMD is a lot more difficult than the Intel. Please help thanks in advance

No problem at all with that ram you can use dividers you know. Low Latency ram is prefered but you got what you got.


I hope you wait for venice chip. Don't buy a winchester so close to venice coming. Venice = 2800Mhz average.

SATA port 3 and 4 are locked on that board not 1 and 2.

Here is a great resource for that board:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=46730

Best of luck.

 

[imported_BUNGL3]

I am definetly waiting for the Venice Core. I had a few friends suggest the ABIT AV8 3rd Eye board and it looks like a good one. As far as the memory I could trade a freind of mine for some brand new Corsair Value Ram PC3200 that been on sale everywhere for the ram I have. My question is "Would it be better to run at 1:1 cpu/ram ratio at 250 FSB than overclock and run a divider ? I have read that using a divider there really isnt a performance hit but Im not sure. Thanks for the advice

 

[austin316]

Originally posted by: Zebo

When you say make sure the computer boots, how far do you mean? Gets past the POST, gets to logon screen, or gets to desktop? If POST, then should it be a quick POST or a full POST? The difference in time between these checks really adds up as I keep bumping MHz.
------------------------
Post means being able to get into bios. You only do this with chipsets test. with a8n i'd start high like 280 and go 10Mhz increments... should see 315HTT w/o issue

I don't understand, so if I don't post to the bios, how can I go and switch the settings?

BTW, I have a Athlon 64 3000+, Corsair XMS Platinum PC3200 RAM, and the DFI LanParty 250gb MOBO, which seems to be common throughout this thread. anyone who managed to overclock with this or a similar set up, if you could help me out, it would be greatly appreciated. I'm unsure what to do even after reading all of these threads.

Thanks in advance.

 

[theMan]

when the computer cannot get into the bios, you can set a jumper on the board called clear CMOS. you put the jumper in the possition, and it will set the bios to default. if this doesnt work, you may have to pull out the bios battery for 10 minutes. hopefully it will clear my then. my motherboard has a feature allows you to turn off the computer with the power button after a no post, and it will set defaults automatically. your board may have this. look in your manual for the clear cmos jumper, and battery location. also, look for the thing i have, it is so much easier and takes way less time.

sorry i cant help you with dfi boards, me never had one before. but i do have that ram. i was sort of dissapointed, i only got it up to 222mhz. but, my mobo only allows 2.8v vdimm. count on using a mem divider. but, some of their sticks might have different chips in them, so you never know. that would be a mean trick though.

 

[austin316]

Here are my current bios settings. I have no idea which ones I need to change according to this guide. Any help would be appreciated.

Current Settings for a DFI LanParty 250gb N-Force 3:

FSB Bus Frequency = 200
AGP Bus Frequency = 66
Clock Spread Spectrum = Disable
LDT Downstream Width = Auto
LDT Upstream Width = Auto
K8 Coll 'N' Quiet Support = Disable

CPU Core Voltage = 1.51V
Chip Set Voltage = 1.59V
AGP Slot Voltage = 1.52V
DRAM 2.5V Voltage = 2.61V

CPU VID Control - Auto
CPU VID Special Control = Auto
Chip Set Voltage Control = 1.60V
AGP Voltage Control = 1.50V
DRAM Voltage Control = 2.60V

SATA 1/SATA2 Control = Enabled
SATA 3/SATA4 Control = Enabled

DRAM Frequency Set (MHZ) = Auto
Command Per Clock Cycle = Auto
CAS Latency Control = Auto
RAS# to CAS# Delay = Auto
(Many more ram options, but I don't think I need to mess with them).



++Also, my AGP Aperture Size is currently at 256MB, yet I only have a 128MB video card. Does this need to be changed?

Thanks in advance.

 

[theMan]

dont know much about the settings on the board. i set my graphics aperature on 64mb with my 128mb card. i think thats the best. you can try 128mb though.

 

[Gogar]

I made a lil tool that will make some suggestions for best multipliers and dividers to use for your maximum cpu, ram, htt and cpu multiplier values.

http://math.gogar.com/athlon64.cgi

Hope it works

 

[theMan]

nice job gogar. that was a nice tool

 

[chilled]

just thought I'd add my feedback....
I have a crappy week 50 CBBID 3200+, with not so crappy 2x 512mb ballstix ram and pretty nice MSI K8N Diamond (n4SLI) mobo.
So I thought I'd push it to see what i could get.

ISOLATE...
Max HTT/FSB = 370Mhz @ 3x - got bored here so didn't try 2x
Max chip = 2.5GHz
Max Memory = 444 @ 2-2-2-6 1T and 500+ @ 2.5-2-2-7 1T

CONSOLIDATE...
250 x 10 = 2.5GHz Prime stable
mem @ 500

This is a pretty good guide. in my short experience, the A64 is a different animal to any other CPU out there and OCing it is more about to it working when you try. Sometimes you get stuck at a particular speed but if you try it after again it may work fine! This guide does help incredibly well to dial in to safe limits.

I got to 2.6GHz but it was not stable. 2.5 is still a 25% increase which I'm happy with.

 

[austin316]

Originally posted by: austin316
Here are my current bios settings. I have no idea which ones I need to change according to this guide. Any help would be appreciated.

Current Settings for a DFI LanParty 250gb N-Force 3:

FSB Bus Frequency = 200
AGP Bus Frequency = 66
Clock Spread Spectrum = Disable
LDT Downstream Width = Auto
LDT Upstream Width = Auto
K8 Coll 'N' Quiet Support = Disable

CPU Core Voltage = 1.51V
Chip Set Voltage = 1.59V
AGP Slot Voltage = 1.52V
DRAM 2.5V Voltage = 2.61V

CPU VID Control - Auto
CPU VID Special Control = Auto
Chip Set Voltage Control = 1.60V
AGP Voltage Control = 1.50V
DRAM Voltage Control = 2.60V

SATA 1/SATA2 Control = Enabled
SATA 3/SATA4 Control = Enabled

DRAM Frequency Set (MHZ) = Auto
Command Per Clock Cycle = Auto
CAS Latency Control = Auto
RAS# to CAS# Delay = Auto
(Many more ram options, but I don't think I need to mess with them).



++Also, my AGP Aperture Size is currently at 256MB, yet I only have a 128MB video card. Does this need to be changed?

Thanks in advance.

Instead of maybe doing a max O/C, what are some settings I can bump up to get say up to 2.4ghz, a modest increase.

 

[theMan]

well, you would need to find your max memory speed to see what fsb/multi configuration you want to use. use gogar's little program to do this. it is really easy to use. just set the cpu speed to 2400 and enter in your max memory speed.

 

[pinkfloydhomer]

I have an ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe and an A64 3000+ that I am trying to overclock. I am following the guide posted first in this thread, but I have problems. It seems that whenever I try to push HTT (FSB), it also pushes my memory timings. My memory isn't very good so it can't be pushed very far. But maybe HTT (FSB) in itself can go a lot further. Do I have to disable some sort of lock between memory timings and HTT (FSB)? I do set the memory timings manually in the BIOS, but CPUZ still reports that the memory speed is equal to HTT (FSB) no matter what I do.

Help!

/David

 

[Zebo]

Yeah! Set memory to 100 like I said. It's found under advanced chipset features in BIOS. called mem setting or something.. options will be 100, 133, 166 or 200.

 

[pinkfloydhomer]

Okay, I figured it out, and things are now behaving sort of how I expected.

I am using AI Booster since it seems to disagree with the BIOS on certain settings, and in these cases CPUZ agrees with AI Booster.

Anyway, I have now factored out the CPU using a low multiplier and the RAM using a divider. But HTT/FSB/CPU external frequency (whatever you call it) will only go from 200 to 225 MHz. So even if my CPU was able to do 2.4 GHz I would never know

Isn't 225 MHz terribly low? What affects how high this can go? Can I influence it somehow? Did I just get a crap motherboard? I guess better memory isn't the issue, since I am using a multiplier and running the memory at 187 MHz.

/David

 

[pinkfloydhomer]

Anyone? Is 225 normal?

/David

 

[theMan]

what happens when you cant go any further? does the system not post? make sure your sata lock is on. what kind of psu do you have? i dont think that would limit you that much though. dont set your memory to the lowest setting because it will set your latency to like 2-2-2-4 like it did for me. just try to keep it at 200. then your latency will not hurt you.

 

[pinkfloydhomer]

It hangs after a short while or it doesn't post.

What is the sata lock? I don't use any sata disks, only one pata disk. My PSU is a very decent Antec SmartPower 2.0 SP400. I don't think memory latency is the problem. Checking in CPUZ, memory settings are very relaxed when I do this. CPU clock is also not that high, 2025 MHz. It doesn't help if I up the CPU voltage to 1.5V or more. So I can only assume that the FSB/HTT is the problem. But what makes the FSB be limited to 225? Is in a bad (in terms of overclocking) northbridge or chipset? Or what?

/David

 

[theMan]

well, even if you dont have sata, i would still use locks, some hardware besides sata controllers are sensitive to high pci frequency. it should be under the overclocking settings, and agp/pci frequecy. set it to 66.66/33.33
it should have that option. i would set everything to stock, and run memtest86 for like, 12 hours. then run prime for that long. see if you get errors. make sure your chipset fan is spinning, and use asus probe to see what temps your motherboard is running at stock speeds.

 

[pinkfloydhomer]

PCI is locked. I checked that with several programs.

Chipset fan is spinning at appx 8000 rpm(!).

Motherboard is about 37C/98F. So is CPU.

/David

 

[MurdarMachene]

this guide doesn't make any sense. How do I do it?

 

[theMan]

you'll need to be more specific. what dont you understand. you will first need to read some info on basic bios overclocking settings to understand. i would do some googling. thats how i learned. if you have anything more specific to ask, this is the place.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: pinkfloydhomer
Anyone? Is 225 normal?

/David

I would guess it was because your HTT is running 4x 225 try lowering it to 3x.