Opteron 144 - want to try OC above 2.7

indigoflow_as

I just got my hands on an Opteron 144 Venus, and like my 3000+ Venice from before...the highest I can get it to before BSODs and reboots is about 2.72GHz/HTT@302 according to CPU-Z. My RAM seems to be holding it back.

What would I need to do to get beyond 2.7GHz?
Cooling? RAM divider (don't think I have control over it)? Voltages? Or is my RAM simply maxed out?

Ask me to elaborate on any of the settings if you think it may help. Thanks.

airbornflght

indigoflow_as wrote:

I just got my hands on an Opteron 144 Venus, and like my 3000+ Venice from before...the highest I can get it to before BSODs and reboots is about 2.72GHz/HTT@302 according to CPU-Z. My RAM seems to be holding it back.

What would I need to do to get beyond 2.7GHz?
Cooling? RAM divider (don't think I have control over it)? Voltages? Or is my RAM simply maxed out?

Ask me to elaborate on any of the settings if you think it may help. Thanks.

I dont know if you are going to get much higher, the chip will have physical limitations, you might be able to squeeze a little extra out of it, especially if you want to put a vapo on it. Can you bump up the voltages at all? what is you ram rated for? what is it? and what mobo do you have.

indigoflow_as

Thanks for the reply first off.

Mobo is: Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe
RAM is: Corsair XMS 2x512MB DIMMs (the really popular ones w/ the platinum spreaders). It's DDR 400 RAM, I set it to 266 so I can get the HTT up to ~301mhz, bringing the RAM back up to DDR400. I don't think my RAM can be set to DDR200.

I've heard some ppl get those Corsair chips beyond that, but I have not...I've not stepped up the voltage much, nothing beyond 2.8v.

I thought I had seen Opteron 144s at 3.0GHz w/ stock cooling, but I may be mistaken. Just trying to see if I can notice any performance increases b/w the Venice and the Opteron (very little so far).

I imagine if I had got another Venice w/ a higher factory clock (like a 3500+) I may have gotten 3.0GHz, not sure what the 1MB L2 cache will do for me...can someone tell me

airbornflght

It differs on stepping. There were good weeks and there were not so good weeks, it was the luck of the draw.

and your going to have to get the htt to 333 to get 3Ghz. Not sure if you can hit it, but you can try. The first thing I would try and see if any increase in voltage helps keep you stable.

indigoflow_as

Yeah, I don't think I'll be able to get it any higher HTT305 already craps it out w/ max voltages allowed. No sweat, I should be satisfied w/ a 50% OC :-)


Can a 939 Mobo do DDR2 RAM and would that even allow for a higher HTT? I'm on the market for RAM and am simply curious if DDR2 (at DDR400 speed of course) runs on my A8N-SLI (that way its a little more futureproof too).

muddocktor

No, your socket 939 board and processor cannot use DDR2 ram. The physical slots are quite different and the DDR2 slots have 240 pins vs 184 pins of DDR. And even if you could get them in, your socket 939 processor's memory controller couldn't recognize the memory.

As for overclocking your present setup, I would suggest that you download and run a couple of apps to see what exactly is failing when you try to go beyond your max stable overclock presently. Download CPU-Z and also Memtest86.

First, boot up at your max stable overclock and then run the CPU-Z app. After a moment or 2, it will give you a bunch of information about your computers operational parameters at the moment such as clock speed, HTT speed, vcore, programmed memory spd timings and also actual memory speed and timings it's presently running at. Check and see what CPU-Z is showing for your actual speed and timings and then posted a screenshot of it so we can see where your ram speed and timings are presently running at.

Also, since you are now over 300 HTT, you might need to set the LDT multiplier to 2X instead of 3X to give yourself some more overclocking headroom.

You can use Memtest86 to check for ram stability by making a boot disk of it (floppy or CD based boot disk) and booting with it and letting Memtest86 run it's suite of tests to see if the ram is returning any errors.

EDIT: As far as dimm voltage goes, higher volts helps some ram get higher overclocks but on others like ram built with TCCD chips it can hurt the overclockability when you go over around 2.9v or so. But regardless, 2.9v shouldn't hurt your memory if you want to try that and see if you can get a higher overclock.

indigoflow_as

Here is a screen capture of what I have going on so far according to CPU-Z, nTune and CrystalCPU ID

And just in case: LDT = HT (a multiplier that goes from 1x-5x)?

airbornflght

Do you have CnQ enabled? if so disable it. because it messed with the voltages and such, and it can lessen your stability when OC'd

muddocktor

OK, it looks like your ram and also the HT bus speed are within parameters with your present settings. So I would say that you are just running into the max overclock your processor can do with the vcore you are feeding it presently. The memory is running within it's parameters and it doesn't look like you are pushing the timings too tight either and the HT buss speed is just a little over 900 MHz, so neither of these should be affecting you for now.

Try to set the vcore a bit higher and then try booting up the computer a bit faster and see it is able to run without problems. You may or may not be able to get more out of your processor, but usually when you start seeing large increases in vcore to gain a little more stable speed with A64 procs, you are about maxed out on overclocking headroom. I would be very careful bumping vcore up unless you are using some good cooling. I see that you said something about the stock heatsink; is that what you are cooling your proc with? If so, is it the heatpipe design that comes with the X2-4400/4800 and Opteron dual cores? If it isn't, then a hsf upgrade looks to be in your future. If it is, then replace the stock fan that comes with it with something like a Panaflo H1BX or some other 80mm case fan that moves more than 40 cfm of air. The stock retail heatpipe coolers are quite effective if you replace the included fan with a higher cfm model.

indigoflow_as

Alright, I'm pretty sure she's to the max. Nothing more than 2.72GHz. Voltage changes are not helping. I may try again someday when I get a better cooler for the CPU, but I think that the RAM is just yelling at me :-)

Thanks for your help!

muddocktor

I have some news hot off the presses for all socket 939 owners and for you too. I just saw this at The Inquirer, so take it with a grain of salt, but it should be readily known very soon if this is the real deal.

The Inquirer wrote:

AMD ANNOUNCED a surprise round of price cuts today, and they are good through the end of the year. They are only on S939 Opterons, AKA 1xx series, but are good on PIB and Tray parts.

This tells me that OEMs shifted to Socket AM2 a lot quicker than AMD had hoped, and there is a pile of parts sitting in a warehouse waiting for a loving owner.

Upgraders, Christmas arrived early, those tray 170s and 175s look pretty good.µ

Prices are: ($US)