opteron 165 overclocking

edited November 2006 in Hardware
I have been trying to buy an Opteron 165 after the unannounced price cuts but I could never find it in stock at Newegg. Finally, I saw it as open box this weekend and immediately ordered. If it is DOA I will RMA it with AMD directly. I have also ordered an Asrock 939Dual-VSTA from Chiefvalue. I know that this MB can reach HTT>333 and can supply vcore upto 1.575v with a simple mod. I need help from the AMD gurus here. My other Athlon X2 3800+ could only reach 2.6 GHz with 1.5 volt and TT Big Typhoon. How realistic it is to expect an Opteron 165 reaching 3 GHz under similar conditions? If it is too optimistic, what would be a more realistic goal? Every 2c is much appreciated :)

By the way, this is going to be folding 24/7 for Team 93, so your 2 cents might be tax deductible :)
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Comments

  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    Opterons are like a box of chocloates ...
    Since it is an open box I would tend to think that someone either examined the stepping and decided they didn't want it ...or decided it wouldn't work with their setup for one reason or another (perhaps tried to make it work before bios was able to allow it, etc.)
    But for whatever reason ...first examine the stepping and refer to the stepping chart over at xtremesystems to see what you can expect.
    Off hand I know that newegg had been letting lose some 0615's that were very promising towards 3.0ghz.
    In all honesty ...I wouldn't get my hopes up too high for that type of frequency. By the same token I think you'd be doing real well with 2.7ish.
    And ...if you're dissappointed with 2.7ish ...I may offer to take it off of your hands since I haven't been able to buy a 170 or 175 yet that was stable that high.
    So even 2.7 is good in the 939 arena AFAIK.
  • edited October 2006
    csimon wrote:
    Opterons are like a box of chocloates ...
    Since it is an open box I would tend to think that someone either examined the stepping and decided they didn't want it ...or decided it wouldn't work with their setup for one reason or another (perhaps tried to make it work before bios was able to allow it, etc.)
    But for whatever reason ...first examine the stepping and refer to the stepping chart over at xtremesystems to see what you can expect.
    Off hand I know that newegg had been letting lose some 0615's that were very promising towards 3.0ghz.
    In all honesty ...I wouldn't get my hopes up too high for that type of frequency. By the same token I think you'd be doing real well with 2.7ish.
    And ...if you're dissappointed with 2.7ish ...I may offer to take it off of your hands since I haven't been able to buy a 170 or 175 yet that was stable that high.
    So even 2.7 is good in the 939 arena AFAIK.

    Thanks for the good info, I will start with expecting 2.6-2.7 then. I will post the results, maybe some pics, and more questions if I can not find help in Prime's sticky and A64 oc guide.
    Wish me luck
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    Good luck ...and please inform on the stepping. If I have time I may even look it up for you!:thumbsup:
  • edited October 2006
    csimon wrote:
    Good luck ...and please inform on the stepping. If I have time I may even look it up for you!:thumbsup:

    Sure, I will post the stepping as soon as I receive, hopefully by Thursday. I will not start assembling anything before weekend anyway. Thanks again. :cheers:
  • edited October 2006
    I received the Opteron 165 today. Stepping is CCBBE 0615DPMW. I think this is one of the better steppings. It came with the original box, the cooler was not touched, even the sticker was still inside the booklet. There were no remaining thermal paste on the processor. I will test it in the weekend after TT BigTyphoon also arrives.
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    mirage wrote:
    I received the Opteron 165 today. Stepping is CCBBE 0615DPMW. I think this is one of the better steppings. It came with the original box, the cooler was not touched, even the sticker was still inside the booklet. There were no remaining thermal paste on the processor. I will test it in the weekend after TT BigTyphoon also arrives.
    Ok ...I'll let you know what I find very soon. The 0615 is very promising but the CCBBE is what we need to verify at this point. I'll get back soon.
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    Well ...here it is!

    http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=96900

    Is that followed by EPMW or DPMW? Doesn't make much difference both do very well.

    IMO I wouldn't do the volt mod since you should fair well on the voltages you already have. I don't know you voltage limitations though.
  • edited October 2006
    csimon wrote:
    Well ...here it is!

    http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=96900

    Is that followed by EPMW or DPMW? Doesn't make much difference both do very well.

    IMO I wouldn't do the volt mod since you should fair well on the voltages you already have. I don't know you voltage limitations though.

    Wow, thank you csimon, I really appreciate your help. It is DPMW and I saw at least one at the link you provided that made upto 3GHz. This board only supports 0.05 volt above the default in BIOS, given that Opty165 is 1.35, maximum will be 1.4. The one I saw with this stepping at 3GHz was below 1.4. So, you are right voltmod might not even be necessary although it is very easy to do. But we will see what kind of chocolate I got :) I will post the result here. Once again, thanks !! :thumbsup:
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    Great I'm looking forward to results.
    I would start reading up on the overclocking guide.
    Something else that may help is "burn-in". Some people don't believe in it at all while others believe in it whole heartedly!
  • edited October 2006
    csimon wrote:
    Great I'm looking forward to results.
    I would start reading up on the overclocking guide.
    Something else that may help is "burn-in". Some people don't believe in it at all while others believe in it whole heartedly!


    I did not see any benefit of burning in based on my overclocking with AMD-K6, PIII-Tualatin, P4-B, P4-C, Celeron-D, Athlon XP-M. But it is a different story with Pentium-D 805; overclocking limit improved after 2 months from 3.33 to 3.5. Of course, overclocking limit is not always determined by CPU but other factors such as MB, RAM, PSU as well. So, it needs much more detailed data to determine the effect of burn-in. But I am too impatient to test the limits, so I sometimes overclock even before installing the OS :) Athlon64-X2 is too new to comment on this, and we will see how Opteron 165 behaves. Fingers crossed .....
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    Good luck on that.
    As for burn-in ...I have had luck with lowering my vcore but no more overclock really.
    I like your mobo better than mine btw ...Is that the rd480 chipset or 580? I can only do 2T with the ram when overclocking. It is common on this mb.
  • edited October 2006
    Just a quick update, csimon. I could not wait until weekend and assembled the system. I have not done the stability tests yet, but system boots at 3GHz (vcore=1.52v) and I can run CPU-Z to verify it (using BartPE). There is one problem though, I am not able to boot with 4 sticks but only two sticks when HTT is 333. Each set is working as a pair separately, but not all together. I suspect the memory controller of Opteron have problems at 333 HTT, do you have any idea ? Each stick is identical 512 MB PNY DDR400 memory with 3-3-3-8 specs. The memory divider is 14 (I could not make it 15 in the BIOS). I have increased the vdimm to 2.8 also.

    I am not sure about the chipset (480 or 580), let me check, I will get back to you.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    Try setting the HTT up and down a couple MHz. Sometimes motherboards/BIOS revisions don't work right at funny numbers.. 333.33 numbers have always been a little iffy, even as early as the KT266A days.
  • edited October 2006
    Thrax wrote:
    Try setting the HTT up and down a couple MHz. Sometimes motherboards/BIOS revisions don't work right at funny numbers.. 333.33 numbers have always been a little iffy, even as early as the KT266A days.

    Good idea !! I will try. Thanks
  • edited October 2006
    mirage wrote:
    Good idea !! I will try. Thanks


    4 DIMMs only work if I set HTT way down, less than 300. I tested both pairs with Memtest separately, and they are not giving any error at HTT=333 and memory-divider=14, i.e. DDR430 @ 3-3-3-8. I tested almost every BIOS setting to make 4 DIMMs work but I could not succeed. I think it is fairly safe to say at this point that this Opteron's memory controller is not able to support 4 DIMMs at 3GHz but I will test with Kingston Hyperx and Crucial Ballistix tonight to be certain about that. Anyone knows how to make 4 DIMMs work ?
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    mine only works with 4 sticks set at htt 100. I only use the 2x1gb anyway.

    How will you do stability tests?
  • edited October 2006
    csimon wrote:
    mine only works with 4 sticks set at htt 100. I only use the 2x1gb anyway.

    How will you do stability tests?

    Yeah, it seems hopeless to me and ordered 2x1gb Crucial Ballistix DDR500 kit. There were $30 rebate and $10 discount on Newegg. I will sell the other 4x512MB DDR400 sticks on ebay.

    I will install Win2K and test with Memtest for several hours first, then with Prime95 for several hours on each core. This is the way I usually test stability. Do you have any other suggestions?
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    mirage wrote:
    Do you have any other suggestions?

    You can try ORTHOS. It can test your ram from within windows ...and test it using both cores at the same time.
    It can also run a prime cpu torture or gromacs torture. If you do f@h this is an excellent way to test before you go losing wu's. I use the gromacs torture quite a bit and it does make the system hot!
  • edited October 2006
    csimon wrote:
    You can try ORTHOS. It can test your ram from within windows ...and test it using both cores at the same time.
    It can also run a prime cpu torture or gromacs torture. If you do f@h this is an excellent way to test before you go losing wu's. I use the gromacs torture quite a bit and it does make the system hot!


    Here is the first result, 3GHz is stable after increasing vcore from 1.5 to 1.55. I am very much impressed with this processor, 67% overclock is phenomenal IMHO. Csimon, what do you think about the temperatures ? Speedfan is reporting the core temperature in addition to Tcase for each core (Temp2 and Temp3 ??). Now everything is open on the table, but I think, temperature will be a problem when I put these in a case. What do you think ?

    By the way, thank you for ORTHOS recommendation, i will try it at first chance.
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    I think the temps will come down a little once the TIM has cured.
    Also ...you may try coretemp as a temp monitor. It measures both cores with very little overhead on resources and it works wonderfully.
    These would be my biggest recommendations atm.
    1.) CoreTemp v0.93
    2.) ORTHOS beta
    3.) A64Info

    If you need links I can help you find them.
    Als
  • edited October 2006
    csimon wrote:
    I think the temps will come down a little once the TIM has cured.
    Also ...you may try coretemp as a temp monitor. It measures both cores with very little overhead on resources and it works wonderfully.
    These would be my biggest recommendations atm.
    1.) CoreTemp v0.93
    2.) ORTHOS beta
    3.) A64Info

    If you need links I can help you find them.
    Als


    I ran Prime95 overnight, and it is funny, it gave error after 8 hours on Core 1. Core temperature was near 62C after 4 hours in open air. I backed off the HTT to 311 (2.8GHz) and vcore to 1.5v from 333 and 1.55. I will keep it like this until the TIM cures, after that, I will try 3 GHz again. Processor is definitely capable of going 3GHz or little beyond that but I am feeling uneasy with >60C core temperatures. The ultimate solution would be either removing the IHS or investing in water cooling but .... I like this chip too much yet to operate with a knife and funds are dry for a water cooler :)

    Coretemp is reporting 10C difference between the two cores while running Prime95 en each core separately, strange. Thanks csimon, for all your help :thumbsup:
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    You're using a big typhoon right? You may just need a stronger fan. Watercooling isn't always cooler than air ...but it can be quieter. Have you done watercooling before? You're looking at around $250 to get started.
    When I set up my first watercooling system I was disappointed to see the same temps as air. Now I have a better watercooler and case. It makes a big difference to do it right.
    On that note ...what fan are you using on the big typhoon? How many cfm?
  • edited October 2006
    csimon wrote:
    You're using a big typhoon right? You may just need a stronger fan. Watercooling isn't always cooler than air ...but it can be quieter. Have you done watercooling before? You're looking at around $250 to get started.
    When I set up my first watercooling system I was disappointed to see the same temps as air. Now I have a better watercooler and case. It makes a big difference to do it right.
    On that note ...what fan are you using on the big typhoon? How many cfm?


    I have not done water cooling before since that is quite amount of investment. Instead of paying ~$250 for a water cooling setup to go from 2.8 to a little above 3 GHz, I would buy a new chip that runs at that speed with Big Typhoon or similar (Core2 maybe). Big Typhoon helps cooling the RAM, NB, and MOSFET's with a 120mm fan blowing toward the motherboard. This is an advantage of TT BigTyphoon over water cooling. If I use water cooling, I will need to consider something else to cool these other components. I am using the default 120mm, 1300 rpm, 54.4 cfm fan with TT Big Typhoon while the setup is outside. I was planning to replace this original fan with a 78cfm 2000rpm fan (which I already have) when moving the setup into the case to compensate the increased temperatures.
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    Perhaps try the stronger fan ...it really should make a difference.
    Well ...if you decide to go Core2 you know where can unload that 165!:bigggrin:
  • edited October 2006
    csimon wrote:
    Perhaps try the stronger fan ...it really should make a difference.
    Well ...if you decide to go Core2 you know where can unload that 165!:bigggrin:


    Yeah, I will test the stronger fan in a couple of days when I take apart the other computer for upgrade. I am very much satisfied with 165 though, this has been one of the best bang-for-the buck deals I had. But, who knows, if a Core2 falls on top my head I will shoot this towards you :vimp:
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    mirage wrote:
    Yeah, I will test the stronger fan in a couple of days when I take apart the other computer for upgrade. I am very much satisfied with 165 though, this has been one of the best bang-for-the buck deals I had. But, who knows, if a Core2 falls on top my head I will shoot this towards you :vimp:
    That's simple. I ship you this:
    LOL ...Open Box: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6300 - OEM $169.99.
    You ship me that!!!:thumbsup:

    All joking aside. There might be a way that you can get your opti to run at 3ghz at decent temps. Care to listen?
  • edited October 2006
    csimon wrote:
    That's simple. I ship you this:
    LOL ...Open Box: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6300 - OEM $169.99.
    You ship me that!!!:thumbsup:

    All joking aside. There might be a way that you can get your opti to run at 3ghz at decent temps. Care to listen?

    Of course, I am all ears :) PLease let me know your suggestions, this is becoming the most fun overclocking experience with your help. You know, the biggest reason I chose this processor was the motherboard. That is simply the most fun motherboard I have ever used.
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    Start a cpu burn-in asap. There is supposedly a 2 week window which this can be done. In effect your cpu should be able to run top speed at lower voltage.

    If you don't have a "burn-in" guide then you should probably start at stock voltage. Boot to the highest frequency get stable and start stability testing.
    Go up one mhz at a time and burn for 10-12 hours. Some prefer 24.

    If you decide to do it I'll help ...
  • edited October 2006
    csimon wrote:
    Start a cpu burn-in asap. There is supposedly a 2 week window which this can be done. In effect your cpu should be able to run top speed at lower voltage.

    If you don't have a "burn-in" guide then you should probably start at stock voltage. Boot to the highest frequency get stable and start stability testing.
    Go up one mhz at a time and burn for 10-12 hours. Some prefer 24.

    If you decide to do it I'll help ...

    Okay, as I understand from your comments I will return vcore to 1.35 (default), raise the frequency as high as stable, and run Prime95 on both cores for 24 hours. I will be doing this tonight and Prime95 will run all day tomorrow. Right?

    Do you think I have destroyed the chances of burn-in by overclocking it since two days? It is already running FAH with both cores at 2.8GHz using vcore=1.5v.
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    Oh no you haven't disturbed the chances.

    You don't have to burn 24 hours ...10-12 will do fine.
    Download the orthos progam.
    Download the A64Info program.

    Once you're done you should be able to run f@h or prime all day long. For right now orthos will simulate each one of whichever you chose. This way you won't lose any work.
    What is your highest stable clock at 1.35?
    If you begin your burnin at this voltage and you get errors on either the ram or the cpu then lower the frequecy about 5mhz.
    A64Info will give me all of the answers to any questions I might have later on if you start getting errors so it would help much to get that ...plus the latest version has an awesome temp monitor. Works as well as core temp IMO.
    Here is a pic of the two programs running together. Look at all of the info on A64Info.
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