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

[theMan]

oh, i just realised that you said they fail prime by themselves. thats strange. are the new sticks the same as the old, or are they different. what are the specs?

 

[yanman]

aah i had it set manually to 1T so thats probably why it sounds weird. ill try that

ram is same brand and model (Legend DDR400, Hynix chip) but the new ones dont seem to overclock as high. Still, according to that other post the speed isnt so important, so i might even use the 1:2 divider and have them work at 168!

 

[theMan]

whats the next highest divider? if you had 225 on there before, you might try something in the middle, if there is one. also, you should test the new sticks in memtest with no overclock, in the same banks that the original sticks were in. if they fail, they are defective.

 

[yanman]

well i havent done extensive tests but i know that windows boots fine at default speeds with all sticks in. the asus board seems to default to factroy settings after a boot failure and reboot.

my next lowest divider below 2:3 is 1:2! not many divider options on these boards

 

[bobbybullseye]

i have decided to forget trying to do anything with the memory. does it make sense that i get file corruptions exclusively when changing the timings? it's just not worth reformatting again. by the way, i still haven't gotten memtest (latest version) to work at all in x64. Not the floppy, not the iso, nothing. the iso (i've burned two with magic iso) don't even boot and the floopy won't write to the disk under x64 in the first place. it says it isn't designed for my os, basically. cheers!

EDIT: I finally calculated and changed the divider to 5:6 (333) and i actually seemed to lose a little memory performance with small packets, but larger packets benchmarked higher.

also, everest is saying my memory bus is at 218.38. Does this sound right for DDR400 with the cpu at 2.4GHz?

 

[theMan]

if your memory cant handle your timings, it will start sending incorrect, and corrupted info to the hd and cpu, which will cause crashes and hard drive corruption. use cpu-z to see your memory speed. thats pretty weird that memtest doesnt work.

 

[theMan]

Originally posted by: yanman
well i havent done extensive tests but i know that windows boots fine at default speeds with all sticks in. the asus board seems to default to factroy settings after a boot failure and reboot.

my next lowest divider below 2:3 is 1:2! not many divider options on these boards

see how low your timings will go at 168mhz

 

[colossus]

I'm using a MSI Neo2 Plat with the latest official BIOS (1.A from 08/16/05) and I can't seem to find the CPU Multiplier setting.

I heard somewhere that holding down SHIF+F2 and then ALT+F3 brings up a hidden menu, but I tried the keystrokes separately and nothing happened.

I'm using a Venice 3000 and can't do the first part of the testing (finding the max FSB because I can't lower the CPU Multiplier )

 

[yanman]

Originally posted by: theman

Originally posted by: yanman
well i havent done extensive tests but i know that windows boots fine at default speeds with all sticks in. the asus board seems to default to factroy settings after a boot failure and reboot.

my next lowest divider below 2:3 is 1:2! not many divider options on these boards

see how low your timings will go at 168mhz

i should have tried this just for interests sake earlier, but now i have 2x1GB sticks instead and it worked immediately at my previous overclock of 225MHz at 2.5-3-4-7-1T (my mate at the shop swapped the 4 sticks of 512 for these for me)

I'll have a go at pushing the ram to see how far it will go, bandwidth-wise and timing-wise. Last night I was more interested in finding out what the 7800GT could do

 

[theMan]

Originally posted by: colossus
I'm using a MSI Neo2 Plat with the latest official BIOS (1.A from 08/16/05) and I can't seem to find the CPU Multiplier setting.

I heard somewhere that holding down SHIF+F2 and then ALT+F3 brings up a hidden menu, but I tried the keystrokes separately and nothing happened.

I'm using a Venice 3000 and can't do the first part of the testing (finding the max FSB because I can't lower the CPU Multiplier )

hmm, im not really sure about that, but, one thing to make sure of is that you have your sata drives plugged into ports 3&4. you could run into some serious problems if you dont. try asking your question in the motherboard forum, or the General Hardware forum.

 

[colossus]

Originally posted by: theman

Originally posted by: colossus
I'm using a MSI Neo2 Plat with the latest official BIOS (1.A from 08/16/05) and I can't seem to find the CPU Multiplier setting.

I heard somewhere that holding down SHIF+F2 and then ALT+F3 brings up a hidden menu, but I tried the keystrokes separately and nothing happened.

I'm using a Venice 3000 and can't do the first part of the testing (finding the max FSB because I can't lower the CPU Multiplier )

hmm, im not really sure about that, but, one thing to make sure of is that you have your sata drives plugged into ports 3&4. you could run into some serious problems if you dont. try asking your question in the motherboard forum, or the General Hardware forum.

I figured out in another thread where the multiplier option was (guess being awake 39 hours post call was not a good time to pick overclocking for the first time in 5 years haha).

Yeah, if you use SATA ports 1 or 2 they don't stay locked with the AGP/PCI bus so data go bye-bye.

 

[colossus]

So after spending time with my Venice 3000+ E3 (Stock Retail cooling) and MSI Neo2 Plat (Newegg Refurb) this is what I got:

1) HTT can go up to 335-340MHz when memory is at 100 8-4-4-3 and multiplier 5
2) CPU can go up to 9x288FSB = 2592MHz under Prime95 for about 5 min (no problems with Folding @ Home up to about 9x300
3) Here's the decision part - I have 4 sticks of 512MB Kingston HyperX 3200 that can do 5-2-3-2 up to about 210MHz and 4 sticks of 512MB Kingston HyperX 4000 that is supposed to do 250MHz at 8-4-4-3.

The system boots fine on 1.55V 9x288MHz with stock memory (I set the memory to 133MHz so it comes out to 0.666 x 288 which is like 185MHz). It runs Folding @ Home fine at this speed but fails Prime95 almost instantly. I'm testing Prime95 right now at 280MHz and it's stable for 20 minutes. CPU temps hitting about 50C on stock AMD HSF.


Question is how much of a performance hit am I going to be taking by running 2T (I need the 2GB of memory since Newsbin is going 24/7 and I often have 5-10 windows running). If it's not that much I'll just keep 4 of the HyperX sticks and sell the extra. If it is a big drop going to 2T - I'll be selling 8 sticks of HyperX

I don't game too often (maybe a game of CS and C&C Zero Hour every now and then - I'm still stuck on a Ti 4600). Is it better on most systems to have more bandwidth or lower latencies. Newsbin seems to really lag sometimes and it really eats up my memory - don't know if bandwidth or access time is better.

I was thinking of dropping the multiplier to 8, jumping the FSB to 315 (since 280MHz is stable under Prime95 at 20 minutes so [9x280]/8 = 315 and the HTT max was 335 or so in the first stage of testing, and then keeping the memory 133MHz so it effectively run 210MHz (a speed at which I could run CAS 2 5-3-2 using the 4 HyperX 3200s).

Any suggestions?

 

[werty316]

http://img104.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc82I=527_OC1.JPG

This is the max overclock I can get. I am using Patriot XBL memory and loosening the timings to 3-3-3-8 didn't help. Does everyone think this is the max overclock I can get while using stock voltages? I prefer using stock voltages. Also is it better to set the timings to 1T or 2T? I never really knew what these timings meant.

 

[theMan]

your link is bad. anyway, 1t is better than 2t. you shouldnt be affraid to increase voltage a bit.

 

[kleinwl]

Question:

Venice 3000+ E3 core with XP90 (Panflow)
Max OC: 9x260 (2340MHz) @ 1.55V (Epox 9NPA+ Ultra) (+0.075V)
HTT Multi= 3x
DDR133 = 170MHz
42C under load
8hr Prime Stable
11.08V (on 12V rail according to Everest)
2x1GB OCZ value Ram (3-4-4-8 timing) (auto voltage)

When trying 9x270 the cpu fails prime immedately. Is it worth it to up the cpu voltage to 1.6V and raising ram to 2.8V to try to improve the overclock? The board is stable with significantly more FSB if the cpu multi is lowered.

 

[argoldst]

I was wondering if anyone has oc'd a 4400 with asus sli premium mb and ocz platinum ram (2 pieces 1 gig each).

If you have please post what you changed in the bios. I am hoping to get around a 4800's speed but I want it cool and stable.

Thanks for any help.

 

[aurelius97]

Originally posted by: argoldst
I was wondering if anyone has oc'd a 4400 with asus sli premium mb and ocz platinum ram (2 pieces 1 gig each).

If you have please post what you changed in the bios. I am hoping to get around a 4800's speed but I want it cool and stable.

Thanks for any help.

Same here. I'm interesting in this response as well.

 

[FiLeZz]

Cool

 

[drsafety]

Ok, I am planning to get the Epox nforce4 ultra mobo with the amd x2 3800. Theoretically, if i can get CPU freq. to 2.5 GHz, and HTT at 250 MHz, LDT at 4x,

would I need to change any memory settings if I have a gig of DDR 500 ram at 2.5-4-4-7 ? (since that would operate at 250 MHz)

 

[theMan]

nope. just leave the divider on auto, or 1:1 and you will be set.

 

[imported_wyrmrider]

Anand Overclocks the A-64
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2548
Investigations into Socket 939 Athlon 64 Overclocking

 

[Thorsson]

Anyone done any comparison on 2x1Gb vs 4x512Mb RAM with dual core in a NF4 mobo?

 

[theMan]

all a64 systems will force you to run 2t command with 4 sticks. the older chips actually downclock the ram to ddr333. 4 sticks is never good. NF4 has nothing to do with it. 2t command can hurt performance up to like 8% depending on the program. however, if the 4 sticks are ddr500 @ 2t, and the others are ddr400 @ 1t, 4 would be better. but it would be a waste of money.

 

[yomafire]

Hi, Im pretty much a noob and thanks for the great guide.

I got the mobo Asus A8n sli-premium and now im considering getting x2 3800. Would that be a wise choice for this mobo to overclock? Also, what ram should I get to maximize oc? I was looking at the Corsair ballistic but I am still confused about the 1t vs 2t (something to do with ram?!?) Im going to buy 7800 gtx and wondering if I should get rapor hardrive (could only afford 36 gig) or should i get 2 drives and run them in raid?

Help a guy make the right choice

Thanks,

PS Keep pushing those max speeds!

 

[theMan]

yes, the motherboard will be good. for ram, get 2x1gbvalue ram. any brand. you dont needexpensive ram, and 2gb is good for gaming now. always set your ram on 1t. if you have 4 sticks of ram in there, it requires 2t. so, dont use 4 sticks. just 2. also, raptors are a waste. especially the 36gb. they suck. get a seagate 7200.9 or samsung spinpoint. they have almost equal performance, but are cheaper, and higher capacity. also, RAID is a waste of money. little performance increase for the price.