Phenom II 920 owners - What are your overclocking results?

[Kei]

Ryo, how far can you go at 1.456v on your cpu? Leaving the rest of the voltages (Northbridge, HT Link, etc) I'd like to know how far you can get to.

Kei

 

[Ryo129]

well at 235 mhz FSB two of my worker threads on Prime95 fails after 5 hours. Nothing but the bus was changed

 

[johnnyfiive]

Kei, the highest I'm able to go at 1.47v is 3.4GHz, OCCT 1 hour pass. 3.5GHz requires me to use 1.51v+ unfortunately. So on my current air setup 3.4GHz is the max I'll do 24/7 for now. Idle temps range from 35-38c, max full load is 55-58c. The cooling setup I'm using is a Scythe Katana II with a 120mm fan so its definitely far from the best. I'd get a better cooler but my water setup is my priority for now. Have any suggestions?

 

[mordant80]

Hey guys, my first post. Just got a 920 and started overclocking it yesterday. Really amazed how far I could go on stock voltage. Here's a screenshot, I plan on putting the NB and HT link up some when I get home. I'll keep yall updated.

 

[johnnyfiive]

very nice. what motherboard?

 

[mordant80]

very nice. what motherboard?

Thanks. I'm running a GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-US2H.

 

[johnnyfiive]

Nice.

 

[Kei]

Kei, the highest I'm able to go at 1.47v is 3.4GHz, OCCT 1 hour pass. 3.5GHz requires me to use 1.51v+ unfortunately. So on my current air setup 3.4GHz is the max I'll do 24/7 for now. Idle temps range from 35-38c, max full load is 55-58c. The cooling setup I'm using is a Scythe Katana II with a 120mm fan so its definitely far from the best. I'd get a better cooler but my water setup is my priority for now. Have any suggestions?

That actually sounds about right for even my setup. I'm able to do 3.5Ghz at 1.456v, but I don't think I can go any further than that on that same voltage. I'll try in a little bit to see what happens, and maybe later on I'll try to see if I can tweak the voltages to get the cpu voltage a little lower if possible.

Temp wise you're running the same temps as me except for the idle temps which I beat you by a pretty large amount. Your cooling might not be the best of the best, but remember that I only run my cooler on the most silent of silent settings which probably make it put out oeven less cooling power than yours does right now. When my cooler is running full blast (aka loud and strong enough to blow a house down) 110cfm the processor at the same 3.5Ghz setting touches only 49C which is pretty sweet for air cooling I'd say.

My chip/setup/fans/cooling is so well setup though that even when I set the fan speed to almost nothing (~570-670rpm) out of it's max speed (2000rpm) the temperature hits 55C but no further. Idle is way down in the 27-29C range which is pretty awesome. I've attatched two shots to show a quick load test with Orthos, the temps, and fan speeds.

The CPU fan is the Scythe 110cfm fan mounted to my Xigmatek HDT S-1283 which I always run on silent so it's barely on at all, the 2nd fan shown is one of the Scythe 40cfm fans I have mounted on the side of my case, and the Xigmatek fan is the original cpu fan that I have now mounted in the rear exhaust spot for my case as I can't use fan control on that fan and didn't need that much air (~62cfm).

Kei

Btw, Mang what is your CPU VDDA, Southbridge, and Northbridge voltage set to right now for that clock.

mordant80 welcome to the club

 

[Kei]

Highest clock using only 2 cores?

Oh, and for those that know how to do it already...

Have you taken your processor down to two cores and tested your max clocks already? If so what is your clock at the max voltage available? For mine I did a quick test and was able to go to 3.9Ghz using my max available 1.552v. I never tried to tweak it or see if it was stable but I ran a few SuperPi runs and Wprime as well without problems. I ran the SuperPi in 17.x seconds without the rest of the system clocked up to even stock settings so it was pretty freakin fast!

The highest I went to was 3.93Ghz but I can't find my screenshot so here's the dual core run before it still at 3.9Ghz.

Kei

 

[johnnyfiive]

That actually sounds about right for even my setup. I'm able to do 3.5Ghz at 1.456v, but I don't think I can go any further than that on that same voltage. I'll try in a little bit to see what happens, and maybe later on I'll try to see if I can tweak the voltages to get the cpu voltage a little lower if possible.

Temp wise you're running the same temps as me except for the idle temps which I beat you by a pretty large amount. Your cooling might not be the best of the best, but remember that I only run my cooler on the most silent of silent settings which probably make it put out oeven less cooling power than yours does right now. When my cooler is running full blast (aka loud and strong enough to blow a house down) 110cfm the processor at the same 3.5Ghz setting touches only 49C which is pretty sweet for air cooling I'd say.

My chip/setup/fans/cooling is so well setup though that even when I set the fan speed to almost nothing (~570-670rpm) out of it's max speed (2000rpm) the temperature hits 55C but no further. Idle is way down in the 27-29C range which is pretty awesome. I've attatched two shots to show a quick load test with Orthos, the temps, and fan speeds.

The CPU fan is the Scythe 110cfm fan mounted to my Xigmatek HDT S-1283 which I always run on silent so it's barely on at all, the 2nd fan shown is one of the Scythe 40cfm fans I have mounted on the side of my case, and the Xigmatek fan is the original cpu fan that I have now mounted in the rear exhaust spot for my case as I can't use fan control on that fan and didn't need that much air (~62cfm).

Kei

Btw, Mang what is your CPU VDDA, Southbridge, and Northbridge voltage set to right now for that clock.

mordant80 welcome to the club

My voltages are all default except for the vcore on the 3.4GHz clock. I'm not so sure my motherboard is giving me correct temps though. In the BIOS it much lower. I'm not sure which one to believe. Maybe ANOTHER flaw with the K9A2? :shadedshu

Here is the fan im currently using with the Scythe Katana II:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835209013

At the highest setting it reaches 79CFM @ 2,000rpm's, and its definitely loud. When running OCCT stability testing I put the fan at its highest speed and at 1.47v - 3.4GHz, it reaches 55C+ easily. Doesn't surpass 60C, but gets darn close. The Scythe Katana II is nothing like your Xigmatek or any tower design cooler. For being a $20 cooler is does a decent job. I really think my temps are incorrect.

 

[Kei]

I see, your cooler is smaller than mine though it's slightly similar in design to my Xigmatek. I wonder on the temps as well considering like I said on the lowest setting I run the same temps as you do with your highest setting. Then again my cooler is very large so it's got more area to remove heat also I don't know what cooling paste you're using. I'm using "expertly applied" Artic Silver Ceramique on my processor which is not lapped.

I don't remember the temps from the stock hsf at 3.5Ghz but I don't believe they were really much hotter if at all than what I'm running now. Maybe later on I'll swap coolers again to the stock one to see how my temps fare at 3.5Ghz. I never ran into any problems though cooling even with a stock fan. Also remember I have 2 side fans (120mm 40cfm and 80mm ~25cfm) which make huge differences in cooling, 2 exhaust fans (120mm 62cfm rear and 80mm ~25cfm top) so I've likely got more cooling than you and I'm in a full tower case right now.

I'll very likely be switching to a mid tower case very soon though with a smaller cooler considering I have 0 problems cooling right now anyway even on the lowest of settings. I don't expect much change at all when I switch since the stock hsf was already enough to keep my processor cooled nicely.

I don't remember the bios fully on the MSI board, but try to change your CPU VDDA voltage from auto up to say 2.7v and see if you can go to 3.5Ghz again. Also I see you're running 2 hard drives like I am (non raid for me) so you may benefit from upping the Southbridge voltage to say 1.26v. For those with single hard drives and video cards don't worry about this just those of us with a lot of stuff running on the southbridge. You're also using all four slots on your board for memory like me so you may need a bump in NB voltage to keep things stable (try around 1.3v or so) with the overclock.

Try those one at a time of course and don't go overboard chasing a clock because as you're already fully aware....you WILL kill your system if you don't know what you're doing.

Kei

 

[johnnyfiive]

Thanks again for tips Kei. And yes, your rig has WAY better cooling. I have one 120mm intake fan, one 120mm exhaust, and the fan on the heatsink. Thats it.

 

[Kei]

My fan setup & New codenames for Phenom II X3 and X2 revealed?

No problem mang, in total I have the following fans in my system...

120mm front fan ~40cfm
120mm side fan 40cfm (lined up with gpu and southbridge)
80mm side fan ~25cfm (lined up with memory)
120mm rear fan ~62cfm
80mm top fan ~25cfm (exhaust)

The cpu fan of course, gpu fan of course, and power supply fan.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In other news I upgraded my copy of Everest Ultimate a few days ago and I've noticed that just like with Phenom I you can find out what the codename for the next AMD processors should/will be when you downcore them.

We all know the X4 is the Deneb, and now I give you....Heka and Regor (X3 and X2).

In the previous Phenom I series you got the names Toliman and Kuma that I gave everyone by downcoring to find out and the names turned out to be correct once the X3 and X2 versions of the Phenom I processors arrived. We don't have word on what the X2 Phenom II will be called officially, but when I found the Kuma name we didn't have that either and it proved correct last time as well months before the announcements came.

This time we have Heka (X3) and Regor (X2) with the Phenom II lineup and it's already been confirmed that Heka is indeed the X3 codename if you look at the reviews for the AM3 X3 720/710 processors. Perhaps the X2 name will be correct too.

The Kuma and Toliman names were cooler to me, but these work they're just harder for me to pronounce.

Kei

 

[johnnyfiive]

welp, at 3.5. Sadly, required above 1.47, at 1.505v now. NB at 1.3v. 100% stable. with window open, temps are 33c idle, about 55c full load. cannnot wait for the water setup!

 

[cdawall]

i'm looking at getting a 925ES can i join here after

 

[johnnyfiive]

sure

 

[mordant80]

Found out I wasn't prime stable. Had to up the voltage just a tad. Seems alright now with the NB and HT at around 2.1. Ran prime for about an hour and played some games the rest of the evening. Next few days I'll turn the voltage up some more and actually put this sunbeam heatsink to use and see what I can get out of it. Couple pics for ya.

 

[johnnyfiive]

Nice mord!

 

[mordant80]

Thanks Mang.

Buddy of mine that's in to overclocking did some research for me. Apparently there's not really a performance increase turning the HT up, in fact there's not really a performance hit turning it down until around 600. Said he found out that having it up much at all past the stock 1800 can cause some stability issues. I'm going to turn it back down to as close to 1800 as I can without going over and see if maybe that's holding anything back. Gonna leave the NB turned up though.

Also, anyone know much about this ganged and unganged modes for the memory. Buddy was sayin that in most situations and gaming it may be better to have it in ganged mode. What are the requirements to get it in ganged mode? Didn't see any options for it in bios.

 

[johnnyfiive]

Should be an option to change the memory mode in the BIOS. As for the HT, usually keeping it around stock will give you the best stability, that was true with the first gen Phenom's, I'm not sure how that applies to the Deneb's though. The Deneb's area a lot more resilient. I'm at 2250 on both the HT and NB and I have no issues. My only issue is keeping my processor cool, I have to use 1.505v+ to have 100% stability at 3.5 (250HT link, 2250HT (default voltage), 2250NB (1.3v) ).

 

[mordant80]

Cool, I'll have to go through my bios with a fine tooth comb and see if I can find that memory option. Great info, thanks.

 

[johnnyfiive]

Dropped the HT, changed memory mode to ganged, kept voltages the same. VCore is 1.505v in the BIOS, NB voltage is at 1.3v. I recall having to use 1.51v+ in the BIOS to get 3.6 to boot before... testing 3.7 now.

 

[mordant80]

Dude, that's awesome!

 

[johnnyfiive]

3.7 is up, but I have no time to test for stability. Gotta head to work. But I will say this. When I first started overclocking my 920 I had a really hard time getting 3.7 to stay up for longer than 2-3 min. It's been up for over 5 min or so. I may be getting somewhere.

Same voltages as my 3.6 screenie above.:

Validation:
http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=505203

I'll try for 3.8GHz when I get home. I'm pretty sure my limit was my temps. If those are my actual temps (Which I'm not buying), whenever I get the rest of my water setup 3.8-3.9 SHOULD be attainable. Only drawback after that is FSB, will my board let me run 280+ with stability... hrmmmm.

Hopefully Kei will chime in to let us know if Ganged vs Unganged yield's better stability and or better performance. I really have no clue.

 

[R-Type]

Yes please do keep us updated, its very helpful to learn the intricacies of these chips so the rest of us can let them be all they can be.