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More overclocking...

Pau11y

Turbo Monkey
Tanx for the info. That o/c from anand was interesting... I need to sit and digest it more.
As for the HT chassis, I'm a bit worried about the 240w PSU driving a system w/ an ATI 9800 Pro among other things. I'm figuring at least a 435w from Enermax or Antec. I'll be using it for more than just HT stuff (hoping to be relocating my ripping chores to the front of the house w/ this rig.
 

H8R

Cranky Pants
Nov 10, 2004
13,959
35
Pau11y said:
Tanx for the info. That o/c from anand was interesting... I need to sit and digest it more.
As for the HT chassis, I'm a bit worried about the 240w PSU driving a system w/ an ATI 9800 Pro among other things. I'm figuring at least a 435w from Enermax or Antec. I'll be using it for more than just HT stuff (hoping to be relocating my ripping chores to the front of the house w/ this rig.
That PSU is the weak sauce for sure. The Inwin cases are really cool though for the price. I think it'll fit most standard PSU's. Go for the toughness:

http://www.pcpowercooling.com/products/viewproduct.php?show=S41ATX

You can't go wrong there.
 

Pau11y

Turbo Monkey
The other thing is the upper vent. In my situation, I have a seperate AC3 decoder because my amp is only "5.1 ready". So w/ the vent, it dictates the location of the HTPC would have to be on top of somfin. It can't be the receiver as it'll melt the PC, and it shouldn't be on the decoder as it's just not that rugged. I may have to get a new TV stand when I do this anyhoo tho so this might be a moot point.
 

Discostu

Monkey
Nov 15, 2003
524
0
My current desktop setup is:

MSI K8N Neo 4 Platinum
A64 3000+ Venice Core
4x512 Corsair Value Select
6800gt
Enermax EG-465 FM PSU
XP-90 on the cpu
VF700-CU on the gpu

My day to day overclock is 267 FSB 9x Multiplier 4x HTT 150 Divider ~1.42 vcore.

This gives me 2.4ghz and DDR400 @2.5-3-3-8 with 37C idle and 48C load temps.

I've been able to get this thing into the 2.6ghz range with 1.5v or so but for everyday usage I prefer to play it safe.

Anyone that is having trouble with higher FSB speeds on the nforce 4 boards should make sure that their HTT multiplier is at 3x for testing purposes. HTT speed really affect performance until you get well under 800 mhz.

Also, what are you guys running for power supplies? I was having stability problems until I ditched my 420w Thermaltake with only 18 amps on the 12v rail for a Enermax 460w with 33 amps on the 12v.
 

H8R

Cranky Pants
Nov 10, 2004
13,959
35
Pau11y said:
Dude, what form factor is it, full atx? You'll have to post a review of how the vid performance is w/ the onboard.
I got it running stable this weekend - vid performance is better than one would expect from an onboard GPU - but nothing to brag about if compared to a dedicated card.

I tested Halo for PC and got a playable 25-30 fps at 1024x768 on "medium" settings. That's damn good for onboard. DVD quality is top-notch.

3DMark 03 score was a measily 1575. This is much better than the ATI X200 though.

I'd equate the 3D performance as on-par with an nVidia 5200 or maybe an ATI 9500.

OC'ing is not this mobo's strong point, but then again it's not aimed at overclockers. There are no adjustments to the vcore settings, and the passive cooling on the chipset consists of a couple of very small heatsinks.

I did manage a stable 2.2ghz with Prime95 and CPU-Burn-In running together 6 hours straight and the temps never went above 46c with the stock cooler running at 1500 rpms. I'm planning longer tests when the machine is not needed by the entire family.

Photoshop, etc load and run hella fast. (how's that for technical..)

One cool feature is the onboard nVidia hardware firewall included in the 6150/430 chipset. I could not get it to work right with my wireless PCI card though, so I disabled it. It works very well with the onboard LAN, and has a slick network management interface via a browser.
 

Pau11y

Turbo Monkey
Wow, totally sounds like a lower end HTPC worthy board! Think that onboard vid can pump out 1080P? I think 1080P is 1920x1080. How's the onboard sound if it has it...?

Edit: I shouldn't say lower end. I meant as a DVD playing PC vs a gaming HTPC.
 

H8R

Cranky Pants
Nov 10, 2004
13,959
35
Pau11y said:
Wow, totally sounds like a lower end HTPC worthy board! Think that onboard vid can pump out 1080P? I think 1080P is 1920x1080. How's the onboard sound if it has it...?

Edit: I shouldn't say lower end. I meant as a DVD playing PC vs a gaming HTPC.
In the vid settings the slider goes to 2048x1536...I dunno what the output would be for HDTV - I don't have one to test it.

It has DVI and component video out, I do know that. I am using a 21" CRT and it looks beautiful.

Audio is Realtek High Def 7.1
 

Pau11y

Turbo Monkey
H8R said:
In the vid settings the slider goes to 2048x1536...I dunno what the output would be for HDTV - I don't have one to test it.

It has DVI and component video out, I do know that. I am using a 21" CRT and it looks beautiful.

Audio is Realtek High Def 7.1
That onboard vid is perfect then. HDTV is only at 720P (1024x720...?). Your MoBo will do 1080P (1920x1080), but the frequency is questionable. I think most LCDs do it at 60Hz which is plenty good enough for playing DVDs thru the PC. Plus, it's got 7.1, so good sound too. I guess the only other thing an addon card might have over the onboard (sound) is you can pass out the decoded signal into component sound instead of letting the receiver do the decoding and using the SPDIF pass thru (no big tho since 5.1 receivers can be had for around $150.00 these days w/ plenty of power and great sound - 7.1 costs a bit more).
Couple of slim form factor DVD/RWs and it'd be an ideal HTPC, AND you won't have to have a monster of a PSU...435w Enermax should fly just fine. Get everything into passive cooling and it should be whisper quiet :D

Edit: This thread should be sticky'd for future reference.
 

H8R

Cranky Pants
Nov 10, 2004
13,959
35
Pau11y said:
I guess the only other thing an addon card might have over the onboard (sound) is you can pass out the decoded signal into component sound instead of letting the receiver do the decoding and using the SPDIF pass thru (no big tho since 5.1 receivers can be had for around $150.00 these days w/ plenty of power and great sound - 7.1 costs a bit more).
I think the board has a header for an optional SPDIF output bracket, if that helps.
 

H8R

Cranky Pants
Nov 10, 2004
13,959
35
Ok, here's the torture test I'm running tonight. All the following have been running all at the same time, (even while I type this)

Prime95
CPU Burn-In
Ad-aware SE doing deep scan
1 pass of 3DMark 03 WHILE ALL THE BOVE WERE RUNNING.:help: - Scored 1223. Hey, it finished!


CPU running at 2.4ghz (up from 2.0) - 240mhz HTT X 10 multiplier
Memory running at 218.2 at 2.65v - 3.3.3.8, T1.

No errors so far after 2 hours. I'm gonna try to run Halo CE and Battlefield 2 and see if I can make smoke. :devil:


BTW - CPU temp hasn't gone above 41c and the fan speed has stayed fairly low. (stock cooler)

:thumb: :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,092
1,132
NC
Just got caught up on this thread, sounds like you put together a pretty good budget PC, H8R.

I keep thinking about building a HTPC - I always come back to it at the end of the day as a fun project. But I think my money would be spent better elsewhere, considering how little I watch TV or movies these days.
 

steve45

Monkey
Sep 30, 2003
483
1
Dundee, Scotland
Pau11y , you say you have an MSI k8n neo4 sli, i wonder if you could help me out with some of the bios settings?
well i bought the neo4 F version, so i assume the bios settings will be fairly similar if not the same, up until now i was just using MSI CoreCentre to soft clock my A64 3700+ from 2200Mhz to 2442Mhz, but i'd really prefer to do this through the bios, i understand the whole FSB/multipier stuff, but i really not quite sure about the memory side of it, i'm running geil value 1gb(2x 512mb) pc3200, i know this will be a limiting factor in my overclock, i was told to set the divider lower, not sure how to go about doing this though, so was wondering how you went about setting the RAM:FSB ratio, have you done this or do you know how to go about doing it.

if it makes any difference i would like to set the FSB to 240-250, aiming for a 2.4ghz-2.5ghz overclock.

oh and any idea what the difference would be between the 2t and 1t setting? what does it do?

here is my cell menu, as you can see, all settings are set at stock.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v249/steve45/DSC00260.jpg

would also like to know what the HT frequency does.



overclocked my graphics card the other night, some reasonable results, my x800gt(r480 core) now sits at core speed of 550mhz and memory speed of 1100mhz, from 472 and 986 stock, from what i've seen i can push this a fair bit further.
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
OCing is so 90s, the hot thing these days is stealth PCs. Heck even Steve Jobs is about performance per watt now ;)

Check out Silent PC Review, its a great site :thumb:

My PC usually runs around low-mid thirties C CPU temp putting out around mid twenties dB.

System is as follows:

-Asus A8R-MVP Radeon Crossfire/ULI chipset Skt939 DDR ATX Motherboard w/Audio, Gigabit LAN, RAID/SATA II
-AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Dual CoreProcessor Socket 939
-Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2 2GB Kit DDR400 XMS3200 Memory w/Black Heat Spreader
-eVGA GeForce 7800 GT CO PCI Express 256MB GDDR3 Video Card w/HDTV, Dual DVI & VIVO
-Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10000RPM 8MB SATA (main drive)
-Maxtor Enterprise Maxline III 7L300S0 300GB Serial ATA 7200RPM Hard Drive w/16MB Buffer (storage drive)
-Creative Labs Sound Blaster Xfi Music Sound Card
-NEC ND-3540A 16X Double Layer DVD±RW
-Liteon SOHD-16P9S 16X IDE DVD-ROM
-TEAC FD235HFC 1.44MB 3.5in Floppy Disk Drive
-Seasonic S12 430W Power Supply
-Netgear WPN311
-Various USB switches/hubs, scanner, printers, wireless mouse/keyboard, webcam, memorycard reader
-Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2

Also a Mac Mini 1.42 with 1GB RAM and 80 GB 7200 RPM 8MB enterprise 2.5" HDD







 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,092
1,132
NC
syadasti said:
OCing is so 90s, the hot thing these days is stealth PCs.
I always read SPCR. It is a nice site, but I can't say I care too much about keeping my PC totally silent. It doesn't reside in a main portion of my house so the only time I'm in the room my computer is in, I'm using it.

I will, however, be picking up a new heatsink and 120mm fan eventually to combat the racket of the stock HSF.

Nice machine :thumb:
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
binary visions said:
I always read SPCR. It is a nice site, but I can't say I care too much about keeping my PC totally silent. It doesn't reside in a main portion of my house so the only time I'm in the room my computer is in, I'm using it.

I will, however, be picking up a new heatsink and 120mm fan eventually to combat the racket of the stock HSF.

Nice machine :thumb:
Well you can get a cooler/quieter AMD HSF for free if you enable "cool and quiet" in the BIOS and you install the AMD CPU driver from their site and the MS hotfix. Some chipsets don't like cool and quiet but it works fine on my machine

http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?id=896256

Edit, you don't have a dual core CPU, so you just need the AMD driver, enable CnQ in BIOS, and set minimal power management for it to work...
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
steve45 said:
p180:drool: :drool: :drool:

thats next on my list.
After using it a while, I think I would rather have the P150, I don't need the full size with all the extra bays and the P150 has the cool HDD suspension system.
 

H8R

Cranky Pants
Nov 10, 2004
13,959
35
syadasti said:
Edit, you don't have a dual core CPU, so you just need the AMD driver, enable CnQ in BIOS, and set minimal power management for it to work...
The HSF will still ramp up if the OC is high enough to get the temperatures up. Still, it beats a noisy P4!



The Antec 150 is tits, but not at that insane price. If it came in black w/ out the pre-installed PSU I'd be all over it.

I may try the suspended HDD mount thing in one of the extra 5.25"
drive bays in my case. Looks like two peices of elastic band. No too tricky to pull off. :D

The WD SATA drive I just bought is insane noisy, in fact I think I may have to RMA it - there is a constant low end hum coming out of it that I've never had to deal with on any other drive I've owned. :mumble:
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
H8R said:
The HSF will still ramp up if the OC is high enough to get the temperatures up. Still, it beats a noisy P4!
OCing only gives you a small % gain though and shortens component life...

The Antec 150 is tits, but not at that insane price. If it came in black w/ out the pre-installed PSU I'd be all over it.
They showed a black version at the Antec CES booth.

Sell the pre-installed PSU on ebay.

Plus the P150 does not have the bulging door/side panel issue. My P180 has those issues and supposedly Antec is going to send me new panels and doors that don't bulge.

The WD SATA drive I just bought is insane noisy, in fact I think I may have to RMA it - there is a constant low end hum coming out of it that I've never had to deal with on any other drive I've owned. :mumble:
Mine isn't too "loud", but the loudest things on my system are the HDDs and the arctic cooling VGA fan.
 

H8R

Cranky Pants
Nov 10, 2004
13,959
35
syadasti said:
OCing only gives you a small % gain though and shortens component life...
:think:

Depends on how far you are pushing it.

I have a 15% OC on my A64 3200+ on stock voltage. Temps never go above 35c. so my fan stays inaudible.

As far as a major OC, (if that's your thing) who cares if you burn out a proc in 5 years instead of like, 10. You wouldn't be using the proc in 10 years anyway.
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,092
1,132
NC
syadasti said:
OCing only gives you a small % gain though and shortens component life...
That's not necessarily true.

I have a 25% overclock, which is not a small percent gain first of all, and my temperatures are still lower than many stock setups, plus I don't run any extra voltage.

Components aren't going to burn out any faster just because they're crunching numbers faster - what causes burnout is the heat that most overclockers consider a "fact of life".
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
You usually have to run the memory timing much looser though and you lose some performance in memory intensive tasks.

Some of the core stepping do OC quite a bit and you get lucky sometimes.

If you have a really stable OC on AMD you can use it with cool and quiet to get extended life (since the speed/voltage is automatically throttled) and lower power consumption with the greater performance on tap.

With decent BIOS you could probably get a speed bump or two in rating without loosing too much memory performance and/or resorting to bus or voltage changes.
 

steve45

Monkey
Sep 30, 2003
483
1
Dundee, Scotland
seen it before, its insane, phase cooled chipset and liquid nitro cpu.
completly pointless and impracticle but cool nonetheless, i'd love to see it benchmarked like that.

gotta love the music:dancing:
 

Pau11y

Turbo Monkey
syadasti said:
I've seen something like that awhile ago with mineral oil too...
Yeah, but I think it was Fluid-Inert that was vapor phase cooled in a fish tank or a keggerator.

Hey Steve, I'll give you an answer here after I get out of class. Sorry I haven't been on the forum much due to homework. But for 2T or 1T, the MSI K4N Neo4s should set that auto. But when you run superfast memory, only in 1 or two (alternating) slots, you can run 1T, else 2T; it's to slow the timing down for dual channels when you're feeding 2 dual channels into the memory bus. For instance, I have 2 stix of 512mb 2-2-2-5 (in alternating slots on the MoBo because they're dual channels) - single dual channel. I can run 1T here. But when I fully populate my mem slots w/ 4 of them (2 dual channels), I have to change it to 2T... almost like (2 dual channel)/2T = (1 dual channel)/T. There is a performance hit tho unlike that equation; 1T is noticably faster. You can let the MoBo auto set this part (at least you can on mine) and it'll go to 2T when I fully populate my memory. When full, if I tried to use 1T, it won't even boot.
 

steve45

Monkey
Sep 30, 2003
483
1
Dundee, Scotland
ah cheers, that clears that up, i have 1gb(2x512mb sticks dual channel) so if i understood that properly i should be able to run 1T assuming the memory will allow me to?
its auto set to 2T i'll try changing it later see what happens.
 

DHS

Friendly Neighborhood Pool Boy
Apr 23, 2002
5,094
0
Sand, CA
yea i did the same thing. i have the 3800+ 64. but on the sli-deluxe board from asus. more sata plugs then anyone could care for. left the memory as it is. but was able to boost it to just under 2.8.
love the sli overclocking bios and software for the 6800 gt sli too
 

Pau11y

Turbo Monkey
DHS said:
yea i did the same thing. i have the 3800+ 64. but on the sli-deluxe board from asus. more sata plugs then anyone could care for. left the memory as it is. but was able to boost it to just under 2.8.
love the sli overclocking bios and software for the 6800 gt sli too
Where did you start from? What's your mem and multiplier settings, VCore and Mem voltage? What kind of cooling?
 

steve45

Monkey
Sep 30, 2003
483
1
Dundee, Scotland
finally got round to working my way round the settings, took some time earlier to fiddle, first round has the CPU at 2.6g (2.2 stock)
HTT 236x11 putting it at about 2606
the memory dosnt seem to like going up past 218-220mhz on the stock timings but thats completely to be expected as its geil value ram, so i knocked it back to the 180mhz setting and is now effectively at 200mhz.
primed for about half hour seemed stable but at that speed i didnt expect any problems anyway.
using an AC freezer 64 pro i'm getting
idle at 28degrees
load at 36degrees

later tonight i'm gonna push it a bit further maybe go for 2.7+ and prime it for a reasonable amount of time.

am i going about this ok? i havnt touched the voltages at the moment, everything seems fine, no problems yet.
 

Attachments

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,092
1,132
NC
steve45 said:
am i going about this ok? i havnt touched the voltages at the moment, everything seems fine, no problems yet.
Yep, looks like you were doing everything fine. Didn't see this message when it was originally posted - have you done anything to it since?

You should not need to touch the voltage unless things go unstable.
 

steve45

Monkey
Sep 30, 2003
483
1
Dundee, Scotland
binary visions said:
have you done anything to it since?
yep i now have it up to 2.75ghz, 250x11, completely stable, gets unstable at 2.8 on stock voltage, havnt bothered going any further, havnt really had the time to prime it, but i may have a go at pushing further, when adjusting voltages, what sort of increments should i be goingup at? .05?
its at 1.45 at the moment, so maybe trying it at 1.5v?
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,092
1,132
NC
steve45 said:
when adjusting voltages, what sort of increments should i be goingup at? .05?
its at 1.45 at the moment, so maybe trying it at 1.5v?
Go up at the smallest voltage increments your motherboard will allow. You should never run more voltage than is absolutely necessary to stabilize your overclock. Upping the voltage is when you start getting into shortening component life and causing overheating problems.

I enjoyed tweaking mine and got a pretty good O/C out of it, but in the end, I bumped the voltage back down to normal and the clock down a few notches to get a stable overclock that I was sure wasn't going to shorten my CPU/motherboard's lifespan.
 

steve45

Monkey
Sep 30, 2003
483
1
Dundee, Scotland
temps wouldnt really be a problem, i have a freezer 64 pro, which in my sweatbox of a crappy case, keeps core temps at a reasonable 29 idle 36 load, but now i'm thinking i wont bother raising the volts, i'm very happy with the current clock, hell i'm getting 25% more than what i payed for, at the moment i'll just settle for what i have.
 

tebstebstebs

Chimp
May 7, 2006
28
0
i got my amd 64 venice 3000+ up to 2.6 ghz but it can do more, i just dont feel like pumpin my voltage past 1.4 with a computer that is on/idle a lot. i got a sweet artic cooling 64 freezer to keep it runnin at temps ive seen drop to 19C (depends on room temp lolz)
 

steve45

Monkey
Sep 30, 2003
483
1
Dundee, Scotland
ach well its been a while since i've been around here.

but anyway since i've been gone i've went conroe.

Intel Core2duo E6600 2.4 with Scythe ninja plus
Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-8500C5 TwinX
Asus P5W DH Deluxe
C3D X1900xtx
Antec P180
NEC 20WGX2
Tagan TG580-U15
barracuda 320gb
Audigy2 ZS platinum

my overclock at the moment is going well, had a play about with it last night, from 2.4 stock, its now sitting at 3020mhz each core
still to fiddle about with the ram so its currently underclocked, but i'm not finished with the CPU yet i reckon i could get a lot more out of it hoping 3.2-3.5 stable on stock volts, as soon as i get some watercooling i'll be aiming much higher, so all i've done to the ram is lower the timing from stock 5,5,5,15, now its at 4,4,4,12, thats on the stock recommended 2.1v, but i'll come back to that when i've finished working on the cpu.

i'm utterly astounded by the speed increase i got by going to conroe, even at stock speed, i didnt realise my old A64 3700+ was such a bottleneck.