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

[meelk]

I thought there was a rather extensive thread which ran about how 2T wasnt the performance hit that people actually made it out to be in anything other than benching.

 

[imported_wyrmrider]

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...did=1475190&STARTPAGE=23&enterthread=y
scroll down to my post
click on link for 2t vs 1t

 

[TheGingerbreadGenius]

Just out of curiosity, how much does OCing shorten the life span of your chip by? Does it do so at all even? I'm not talking about huge OCs, just the sort of thing that people are doing with their 3200+s and 3800x2s.

 

[kontrabass]

Originally posted by: theman
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.

Sorry don't mean to be OT, but would love to see some numbers to back this up. A 74GB raptor is unparalleled, unless you're going with SCSI, no?

 

[imported_wyrmrider]

Iran kontrabass by any chance?
very technically you are correct- if money did not matter
however for the price of a raptor you can get a couple of fast 7,200 rpm drives and set them up in raid 0 or 1 depending on your needs
If you are thinking of two raptors you can get 5 7,200 rpm drives and have a faster AND more reliable system
you know the drill os on one drive swap file on another channel etc
however if you do not need more than 36gb or 74 gb then get your pencil out and do the math

also figure on the trade off of more memory vs the raptor
depending on your application mix memory can be a big win

tracker backer

ps my son went with the raptor way back when
now he has to add a larger drive...

 

[ahxnguyen]

You may want to try overclocking in a room with temperature around 25C (typical office environment) to see how much you can push.

 

[Diogenes2]

Originally posted by: TheGingerbreadGenius
Just out of curiosity, how much does OCing shorten the life span of your chip by? Does it do so at all even? I'm not talking about huge OCs, just the sort of thing that people are doing with their 3200+s and 3800x2s.

If you don't raise vcore, it is doubtfull it will shorten life at all.. Certainly not within 2 - 3 years..

Even bumping vcore 20%, I doubt it would kill a CPU within the average upgrade cycle..

I've never lost an overclocked CPU, but I probably haven't kept one over a year..

Theoretically, higher volts causes more wear and tear at a molecular and atomic level, mainly because of more heat ..

Just like a light will burn brighter ( and hotter ) if you up the volts, but it will burn out faster.

I think as long as a voltage bump is producing a stable higher overclock, you should feel comfortable doing it... However, bumping the volts to get another 10 -25 mhz, seems pretty pointless to me.

 

[jenny9580]

I hope I don't get yelled at for this post.. I've searched the forums and didn't come up with what I was looking for.

Here is the rundown of my current OC: 275*9=2475, RAM is 225mhz 2.5-3-3-6 on the 333 divider, 2.65v (at work so I can't check the BIOS right now). HTT is 3x. PCI-E and PCI are both locked (100/33.3 respectively). Processor is chilling at around 30c right now, air cooled. I think the volts are at 1.525 right now (will verify later).

Here's the first question:
Is there an explicit guide to working with RAM timings and voltages somewhere on the net? I'm currently at 2.5-3-3-6. Newegg claims this ram is 2-3-2-5, but the BIOS says it's 2.5-3-2-5. Either way, it was stable at 400mhz 2-3-2-5. When I look at the bios there are a bunch of other numbers that I don't want to touch. I also don't know which ones you're supposed to tighten up or loosen first. I'm also not sure if I should up the voltages first and loosen the timings later, or the other way around when trying to find what's stable. I know the guide says to just put in max volts and leave it at that, but if I can lower them and tweak the timings I'd love to know a good method for that.

And the second:
Is there any downside to running my HTT at 825mhz? Are there any motherboards with more HTT multiplier options (3.5, 3.7, whatever)?

I'm sorry for all the n00b questions - this is so much more complicated than my old XP. I'm having alot more fun with it, though.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: jenny9580
I hope I don't get yelled at for this post.. I've searched the forums and didn't come up with what I was looking for.

Here is the rundown of my current OC: 275*9=2475, RAM is 225mhz 2.5-3-3-6 on the 333 divider, 2.65v (at work so I can't check the BIOS right now). HTT is 3x. PCI-E and PCI are both locked (100/33.3 respectively). Processor is chilling at around 30c right now, air cooled. I think the volts are at 1.525 right now (will verify later).

Here's the first question:
Is there an explicit guide to working with RAM timings and voltages somewhere on the net? I'm currently at 2.5-3-3-6. Newegg claims this ram is 2-3-2-5, but the BIOS says it's 2.5-3-2-5. Either way, it was stable at 400mhz 2-3-2-5. When I look at the bios there are a bunch of other numbers that I don't want to touch. I also don't know which ones you're supposed to tighten up or loosen first. I'm also not sure if I should up the voltages first and loosen the timings later, or the other way around when trying to find what's stable. I know the guide says to just put in max volts and leave it at that, but if I can lower them and tweak the timings I'd love to know a good method for that.

Is there any downside to running my HTT at 825mhz? Are there any motherboards with more HTT multiplier options (3.5, 3.7, whatever)?

I'm sorry for all the n00b questions - this is so much more complicated than my old XP. I'm having alot more fun with it, though.

Absolutly. Welcome to forums. That seems like an excellent OC!

1. When RAM timings are mentioned, convention is CAS / RAS to CAS / RAS / TRAS / CMD (or command rate)

In order of importance in so far as performance is.
CMD (should be 1T)
CAS (Optimal is 2)
RAS (optimal is 2)
RAS to CAS (optimal is 2)
TRAS ( for 939 optimal is 7 or 8)

Your are currently at 2.5-3-3-6 1T ( neweggs claim for stable is a 200Mhz you are at 255Mhz which may be maximum!!!), But you can consider consider tightening up the memory timings slowly, say 2-3-2-7 1T, if stable then 2-2-2-7 1T. If the original settings are not stable, you may have to use a little more Volts (up to 2.9) to start off. Use memtest86 to check stability. Couple three passes.



Other good points for performance:

If you don't use IR, then disable it.
If you don't use SATA, then disable it.
If you don't use the Parallel Port, then disable it.
If you dont use MIDI, then disable it.
If you dont use the embedded LAN card, then disable it.
If you don't use the embedded Audio, then disable it.




2. No and no.

 

[jenny9580]

Thanks so much for the info. I'm going to have to play with it sometime this week. More questions!

I'm not sure what IR is, but I did disable alot of things awhile ago. My drives are SATA so I'm stuck with that. Originally, the unlocked ports on 1/2 were preventing me from OC'ing at all until I figured it out. I had a very slight OC going (205*9 or something) and even that 5 extra MHz was causing Windows to scan every time I rebooted. I finally got my drives in 3/4, scan went away, and I was free to OC. I'm going to disable 1/2 completely, and probably kill my 2nd IDE as well (I only have one optical drive).

I do use the onboard LAN - is there much of a performance/OC potential boost if I were to get a PCI network card so I can disable onboard? I don't know much about how the onboard stuff behaves when being OC'd.

 

[kwarkers]

I have an A64 3500, should i bother overclocking with Ai Booster or just goto the BIOS as instructed above?

 

[imported_wyrmrider]

Overclocking Athlon 64 FX-57
Nordic Hardware
http://www.nordichardware.com/Reviews/?page=1&skrivelse=447

"We hope that we have given you a well documented insight of how a CPU is affected by different types of cooling devices and what increases in performance you can expect. Partly with an FX-57 CPU, but also what increases in performance you get when changing from air to water or even a phase change."

 

[tornadog]

I have a MSI K8N Neo4-f motherboard. I have bios ver 1.90. Where is the memory divider everyone is talking about? My cpu is a brand new AMD 3000+ Venice and Ram is 2 x 512 MB Corsair VS at 2.5 CAS

Also I am not sure I understand the way to find the max MEM

Heres what I did and the results.

I set HT to 2.5x, multi to 6.5x, RAM to 100 Mhz and increased HTT. It went upto 340 before it failed, so my max HTT was 320

I set multi to 9x, HT at 2.5x, RAM to 100 Mhz and increased HTT, it failed primetest95 at 280 Mhz, so my max cpu was 2400 Mhz

Now the third test I was not sure how the MAX MEM is found, I set multi to 6.5x, HT 2.5x, RAM to 200 Mhz, 2.5-4-3-7 and staarted right away at HTT 320. Ran memtest and it passed both tests 5 and 6. SO does this mean my max MEM is 320 Mhz??

in the example shown, they say MAX mem should be around 200-210 for Value RAM, so what am I doing wrong.

so if someone can explain how the max mem works and also where to find the memory divider in the bios, it would be most helpful.

Right now after much experimentatin, I am running at HTT300, HT2.5x, multi 8x, RAM was set to 100 Mhz but in the bios it says current DRAM frequency is 150 Mhz(half of HTT). I cant set the RAM speeds any higher than 100 or it wont boot.

With this setting I got my max 3dmark05 score of 7700 which is 1000 points more than what I got at default everything. Videocard is a BFG 7800 GT OC at 489/1.18.

 

[jEnus]

How do you choose what is the correct HT Multi? 5x, 4x, or 2.5x??

 

[theMan]

you want the ht frequency to be around 1000mhz. that number is calculated by the ht multi X htt. for example, if you have a 250mhz htt, you want a 4x multi, because that gets you 1000 mhz.

 

[tornadog]

which should I go for, 270 HTT and 3 HT or 240 HTT and 4HT. With the first option though my CPU speed is 270 x 9, my VS 3200 RAM is at 174. With the second option, MY RAM can get to 192 and HTT x HT is 960 closer to 1000.

 

[theMan]

first off, HT doesnt matter, i could be at 400mhz and wouldnt do anything. the important thing is that it doesnt go very far over 1000mhz. you will have to benchmark yourself to see if the extra 20mhz ram beats the extra 30mhz cpu. im guessing 270x9 with 174mhz memory would be the best.

 

[fbrdphreak]

bump for sticky!

 

[Losty]

hello people...!
Awesome guide Zebo...Thanks!

I have a chaintech VNF3-250. HT = 4 default, 800mhz right? Everyone says to keep it at 1000 or less, but is this because their default is set at 5?. Will it damage my board if i go higher than 800? (HT @ 2 puts my mobo in safe mode ... says to plz re-setting cmos bios)
***Found out the mobo bios has issues @ HT = 2

I'd also like to know how I can get 0.5 increments in my Multiplier settings(bios shows whole numbers only) and how I can get 150 setting for my memory (i only have 100 / 133 / 166 / auto)

I tried HT 3 (798), FSB 266, Memory 133 (~177mhz) auto settings 1T, Multiplier 9 and it crashed going into windows.

based on the test:
Didn't crash when I did the cpu test to see the max (used prime for 5 min...torture test right? i think i used blended should it be something else???
)
My memory hasn't reached 200mhz yet
I can go up past 300 FSB

Why did it crash when i consolidated?? I set the multiplier to 8 and it still crashed.

Does the change in FSB affect anything else such as hdd or pci/agp (how do i know if pci/agp is locked? I set agp to 67mhz) ***NVM is has pci/agp lock

I'm still playing around with it.
Still all on stock voltage. A64 2800+. Corsair VS 1gb.

Wierd things also i tried 297x8 memory @ 133 divider ... so under 2.4ghz , 800HTT, 200 memory ... all in spec ... but motherboard says it goes into safe mode ... and won't go ... just like when i put HT @ 2. What makes this "safe mode" trigger? ***nvm anything higher than 285 makes it go to safe mode ... can't find a fix or new bios for this.

Thank you!

-Lostboy

 

[SonicIce]

resticky?

 

[phaxmohdem]

Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky Sticky vv

 

[TheGingerbreadGenius]

STICKY GODAMNIT!

 

[ZoSo]

BUMP FOR STICKY

 

[crazylegs]

gotta keep this sucker up there ^^^^^^^^^

 

[Zebo]

I asked it to be taken down.. served it's time.

Here is a better one with some "borrowed" points from Z. but much more detail and better written. You can apply most of the DFI information to all A64 boards.

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20823