The *offical* hexus opteron overclocking thread

[davethechamp]

Update: Decided to leave it folding whilst at work at the following:

305 x 9 - 2745
1.375 + 104% = 1.430V (In bios) CPUZ = 1.392
Mem - 2.5 4 4 7 150 divider actual freq = 228.8

Max temp Iv'e seen is 45C.

I'll say this, The protein I'm woring on at the moment is due to finsh a lot sooner than estimated when the venice was in here, and that includes the time swapping and Overclocking. A nice benefit I think.

Dave

[Rohan]

Really, really want to hear of results on the Asus A8N-SLi boards... I have a brand new Standard here waiting for the 146 to turn up today for my new build, yet I've heard only the Premiun can get up to 300htt with the Standard and Deluxe stuck at 250htt, Quite blatently, the Premium would be the obvious choice for an Opteron build. Sumang have you built your yet?!

The 240HTT limit on the Asus A8N-SLI only applies when you're using 1:1 ratios and 1T command rate. If you're on a divider, 300+ HTT is quite easy.

Here's my Opteron 144 stock cooling, stepping: CABYE 0536 GPMW on an A8N-SLI deluxe:

[davethechamp]

nice results. How do any benchies compare to your previous CPU (which was a...?).

Ps what wallpaper is that? from what I can see, it looks pretty cool.

dave

[Rohan]

Previous chip was a winchester 3000+ that topped out around 2.5GHz. Not sure if I have any benchies saved from when I had that chip though.

Wallpaper came from here: http://www.parkoz.com/zboard/skin/parkoz_wallpaper.php

[davethechamp]

Cheers Rohan, some rather good walls there, still looking for a decent opteron one though.

Have now tweaked my Memory timings down to 2.5 3 3 7
Some noticably better results in sandra bench's and in super pi. will leave it like this overnight I think, folding to check stability.

Dave

[philyau]

ordered a DFI Ultra-D, which bios is every1 using, ditching my msi k8n SLI.

phil

[da_ging]

am not going to push mine any higher till i've sorted out my cooling as it's not as it should be for some reason today , so will probably just order 1 of those cheap xp90's from ebuyer but wont get till mid next week
but 2.8gig on stock volts so far is better than my winnie 3000 could manage as that only did 2.6gig on stock volts and im hoping that this opteron can go even higher when my cooling is done

[JimNastics]

The 240HTT limit on the Asus A8N-SLI only applies when you're using 1:1 ratios and 1T command rate. If you're on a divider, 300+ HTT is quite easy.

Here's my Opteron 144 stock cooling, stepping: CABYE 0536 GPMW on an A8N-SLI deluxe:

Oooooooooh looks promising! Can you use 1T with a divider or do you have to use both a divider and 2T?

[JimNastics]

I have an A8N-SLi Premium turning up today, and I've already got an A8N-SLi Standard sat unopened... I have no idea which one to keep! I only bought the Premium because I heard the Standard would be a poor overclocker with the Opteron due to low HTT, but now I hear it can indeed go upto 280+. I have no use for the extra features of the Premium (coolpipe, 2 x GB LAN and dual raid Sata), but aparently it's a much better overclocker :/ I could just refuse delivery of the Premium, save £30+ and hope I get similar results to Rohan... christ, I hate things like this. Any thoughts anyone?!

[Rohan]

Yeah, using 1T with a divider works fine. As long as the RAM is kept under around 240MHz then you can use 1T. The HTT tops out at around 320Mhz though.


Regarding the standard/premium issue, it's quite a tough decision. If you have good overclockable RAM (like TCCD), then the premium will make the most of it (assuming that the 1T issue is fixed). Otherwise, if you're planning on using a divider and have cheap RAM, then the standard/deluxe should be OK, although the voltage options aren't too great.

[Dav0s]

im on 2.8GHz, i need to use a very crap ram divider though to get any higher

[Tobeman]

Guys, I'm a complete newb to overclocking CPUs, infact, I've never really tinkered into the BIOS. Only pushed my graphics card, doing that comes with a pretty GUI

Is there a breakdown of the steppings, and how they perform? If so, anyone fancy typing a brief one up for me?

Also whats these issues I hear about the Asus A8N-Premium board? Ive already got one waiting, along with 2x1gb OCZ Plat PC3200 2-2-2-5, for a processor and would like to get stuck in and get the most out of it by pushing one of these Opterons as far as I can go

[Dav0s]

read these for how to overclock

http://www.rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbish.com/showthread.php?t=310
http://www.rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbish.com/showthread.php?t=1488


no stepping is certain to get you a good OC,

but in a nutshell

CABNE = teh_pwnerage
CABYE = very very good
CABGE = teh sucketh

as far as optys go neway ^^^


also read the thread a xtremesystems.org and look at people steppings

[JimNastics]

Yeah, using 1T with a divider works fine. As long as the RAM is kept under around 240MHz then you can use 1T. The HTT tops out at around 320Mhz though.


Regarding the standard/premium issue, it's quite a tough decision. If you have good overclockable RAM (like TCCD), then the premium will make the most of it (assuming that the 1T issue is fixed). Otherwise, if you're planning on using a divider and have cheap RAM, then the standard/deluxe should be OK, although the voltage options aren't too great.

Rohan, I'm really struggling overclocking on my new Premium here - I think it's mainly down to me not being able to match the terms used in the bios with ones I keep hearing... like I can see no mention of HTT for example. That's probably completely nooby of me but it's where I am at the moment, considering that my last overclocking was an AthlonXP on an A7N8X-E! I know it's a big ask but could you give me a run down of how I should start overclocking my 146, but by using the terms used in the bios? Say just for like a 2.5ghz oc, just to get me started

If anyone else could chip in as well that'd be great, da_ging I love your little guide and I actually understand it, I just can't match it up with my bios!

[Dav0s]

you are thinking overclocking is way tooo easy, u dont just set ur cpu to 2.5. read the guides i posted 2 posts up ^^ and then start easy.

[Rohan]

Rohan, I'm really struggling overclocking on my new Premium here - I think it's mainly down to me not being able to match the terms used in the bios with ones I keep hearing... like I can see no mention of HTT for example. That's probably completely nooby of me but it's where I am at the moment, considering that my last overclocking was an AthlonXP on an A7N8X-E! I know it's a big ask but could you give me a run down of how I should start overclocking my 146, but by using the terms used in the bios? Say just for like a 2.5ghz oc, just to get me started

If anyone else could chip in as well that'd be great, da_ging I love your little guide and I actually understand it, I just can't match it up with my bios!

I haven't used the Premium myself, but from experience the terms used by Asus in the BIOS can be confusing. On my A8N-SLI deluxe, the HTT is labelled as "CPU frequency", the HTT multiplier labelled as "Hyper Transport Frequency" and the memory divider labelled as "memclock index" (sometimes "max memclock" depending on BIOS version). The best way to tell which term is which is by the options you are given. The HTT can be set from 200-400+Mhz in 1Mhz increments. The HTT multi can be set 1x-5x (set this to 3x when overclocking). And the memory divider can be set to 400,333 and 266 etc.

In time you will get to know your BIOS very well . Hope that helps.