Snapshots of my CPU and RAM overclock! Comment Please!

Hy there, I recently posted about my overclock results with my C2D e6300 and Kingston 667mhz PC2-5300 ram, I have 2x 1gb kingston value ram sticks. What I heard was that I couldnt overclock alot with value ram and I wouldnt be able to go above 333mhz FSB.

I followed all I learnt from this forum, was able to reach 3.2Ghz on my e6300 @ 1.86, as my multiplier was 7 ( unlike other CPUs with 8 or 9 ) i had to hit 457Mhz FSB, which is pretty high, my mobo has a 1:1 ratio, so my ram was to work at 457 x 2 = 914Mhz! I heard its simply not possible to hit this FSB with value ram.

Anyways, here I am, now I want to know, am I just lucky with my pair of sticks? Is this really a very good OC with value ram? Im posting screen shots, with CPU-Z showing CPU and RAM specs, OCCT stressing the CPU for 40minutes, with Windows Dream scene running on the background, Core temp taking temps, then im also posting Everest ultimate memory benchmarks. I have ran memory tests with Burnit as well, no errors.

I got my sticks a couple of months back at a higher price, but these days I can get these for around GBP 22, where as a pair of 800Mhz corsairs are available for around GBP 88!. If value ram can give this performance, why get an 800Mhz or even 1066Mhz ram for overclocking? Plus my PC runs all day all night on 3.0Ghz, thats still quite okay so its not like the memory has not been under stress, me and my brother game for hours on it. Further more, its not like I cant go further with my OC, nothing has stopped me yet, but with my CPU at 1.45v in the BIOS and ram at 2.0V (its rated for 1.8V) I would perhaps do better not to push it too far :D.Please have a look at the shots below and comment :)

PS: its my first time posting screen shots, so I apologize for anything I do wrong:)

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...otos/OC295.jpg

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...hotos/ram3.jpg

Looks nice, will be more impressed when its 12hrs stable tbh, are you activly cooling the ram as your'll start to cook them soon if not.

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Originally Posted by daza

Looks nice, will be more impressed when its 12hrs stable tbh, are you activly cooling the ram as your'll start to cook them soon if not.

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Yes I have installed 2 extra 80mm fans, one to blow on the motherboard heatsink and the other to blow on the ram chips. Previously my motherboard temperature used to shoot up to 55C in no time, now as you can see, it levels at around 36 and hardly goes to 38C. So since its doing good for the mobo Im assuming the ram fan would be doing something for the ram as well :)

As for 12hours, I did run OCCT to 3 hours yesterday but didnt have a photobucket account or snapshot, a few members pointed it to me yesterday so today I did it. I will run it over night in a day or two (these days we are having frequent load-shedding, power outages) and then try posting longer stressed snapshots, but I think a 40min stress is quite okay for normal usage stability?

I've had 2.3v going through my ram for a few months now, no perceptable wear yet. It's Ballistix PC6400 CL4 @ 500MHz (DDR2 1000) 4-4-4-12. No extra fans, but I did tear off the poorly applied heatspreaders to let what air flow they have cool the bear chips.

The amount of voltage you can put through memory is pretty vairable though, really depends on the chips and pcb used, but nearly any DDR2 should handle 2.1v just fine with no extra cooling.

As for a 40 minute stress, I wouldn't use my computer to check e-mail if it wasn't at least 24 hours prime stable (I normally do 72 hours) and could pass a full run of S&M 1.9.1. Even small instabilities can cause large problems over time.

Basically if any stability test ever fails, something is wrong.

Well I havnt tested the 3.2Ghz overclock much, But the 3.0Ghz one has been tested by 8 hours Orthos, 2 Hours of burnit, over a month of gaming for hours and the PC running all day all night, I think that is pretty much okay, the main question here is though the performance of Kingston value ram pair I have.

Running ram rated at 667, at 950 is going to be extremely hit-and-miss.

Your very lucky to hit it, although I suspect your running the RAM at exceedingly loose timings to make it that far - something I personally don't like.

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Originally Posted by Hunain

, my mobo has a 1:1 ratio, so my ram was to work at 457 x 2 = 914Mhz! I heard its simply not possible to hit this FSB with value ram.

Anyways, here I am, now I want to know, am I just lucky with my pair of sticks? Is this really a very good OC with value ram?

I got my sticks a couple of months back at a higher price, but these days I can get these for around GBP 22, where as a pair of 800Mhz corsairs are available for around GBP 88!. If value ram can give this performance, why get an 800Mhz or even 1066Mhz ram for overclocking?

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As I said in your other post, people buy faster RAM because they know it will definately do the speeds they require, whereas you need to be lucky and get a good kit if you're going to try to use value RAM.

Screenshots are fine mate, well done with the overclock you've got:thumbsup:.... vCore is a little high for my liking, and I personally try to keep the CPU load temp below 60C, but unless you're doing a lot of very CPU intensive work it should be okay.

Sorry but could you tell me difference between tight n loose timings? I dont see anything performance wise, the benchmarks are all very good. What should I be looking at?

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Originally Posted by GSte

As I said in your other post, people buy faster RAM because they know it will definately do the speeds they require, whereas you need to be lucky and get a good kit if you're going to try to use value RAM.

Screenshots are fine mate, well done with the overclock you've got:thumbsup:.... vCore is a little high for my liking, and I personally try to keep the CPU load temp below 60C, but unless you're doing a lot of very CPU intensive work it should be okay.

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Gee, thanks! :D, hmm, lucky then :juggle: yay! As for the vcore, its set to 1.45 in Bios,but it shows it to be 1.31 everywhere else including the hardware monitoring page in the BIOS! (Dont know whats up with that).
As for temperatures, individual cores are at 65, but the CPU temperature levels out at 56C :)

There are a number of parameters in your BIOS for RAM timings, setting these low (tight) increase performance, setting them high (loose) decreases performance.

You basically trade latency for bandwidth when loosening the ram timings.

The reason vcore shows differently is because of something called "vdroop" where the CPU vcore loses some of its power for some reason. All boards suffer from it, just some a lot more then others.

tight ram timings and ram speeds have small performance gains, except in winrar or programs of the like, where the gains can be quite big.
but yes quite a nice OC :)

Thanks moogle and shaithis, Well, even though I have relaxed timings I did see huge performance gains with my memory overclock, I posted a benchmark shot as well, on your mention of latency, I ran a memory latency benchmark, mine came on number 4, with a latency of 59.7, from what I know, this is not bad, what do you say?

One more question, since the BIOS is giving 1.45v, the CPU is taking 1.3V due to vdrop, I have heard its not advisable to go above 1.4v, so should I consider this as a 1.3v to the CPU? and go further? Or should I stop on 1.45v from the BIOS, I mean since the voltage is dropping, Can I keep increasing the BIOS voltage untill I get actual 1.4v on the CPU? That would be something like 1.6v on the BIOS.

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Originally Posted by shaithis

The reason vcore shows differently is because of something called "vdroop" where the CPU vcore loses some of its power for some reason. All boards suffer from it, just some a lot more then others.

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Actually motherboards are designed with Vdroop. It's an important process that keep the cpu stable. VID (vcore) is the maximum voltage allowable for the cpu and not the target voltage. There is an excellent article at anandtech that explains it, specifically this page onwards

AnandTech: Overclocking Intel's New 45nm QX9650: The Rules Have Changed

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Originally Posted by Hunain

One more question, since the BIOS is giving 1.45v, the CPU is taking 1.3V due to vdrop, I have heard its not advisable to go above 1.4v, so should I consider this as a 1.3v to the CPU? and go further? Or should I stop on 1.45v from the BIOS, I mean since the voltage is dropping, Can I keep increasing the BIOS voltage untill I get actual 1.4v on the CPU? That would be something like 1.6v on the BIOS.

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There's no point in my opinion, I'd be surprised if you got much further with air cooling, and you risk toasting your CPU.... even 1.45v sounds high to me on air, regardless of vdroop.

Hmm, advice taken, I didnt plan to run it higher though, not even on 3.2, im running fairly well on 3.0Ghz, with quite low temps, I was just going higher to see whats the limit I can reach, and for sheer benchmarking fun, well I think toasting the CPU isnt worth that :D considering I might not get lucky again with the CPU and Ram, thanks to the forum and everyone for supporting and teaching me, I hope and try to give something back to the community, cheers!