Maximum PC

I was going to overclock this system on my weekend:

Case: Antec 600 Case
Motherboard: GA-MA785GM-US2H motherboard
Processor: AMD Athlon II X3 435 Rana 2.9GH
Ram: 4 GB Patriot Viper 2 DDR 800 CAS 444
Video Card: ASUS CuCore Series EAH4850 1gig 256-bit DDR3
CPU Cooler: Hyper 212+
PSU: 620 Antec Earthwatts P/S

My goal is to get it running stable at 3.4 Ghz and I planned to do this with these settings. Anyone see anything wrong?

CPU Northbridge Freq. x9 =2115 Mhz
CPU Frequency 235
PCIe Clock(Mhz) 100
HT Link Width Auto
HT Link Frequency 2.0 Ghz <--is this right? This setting worries me the most
Memory Clock x3.33 = 783 Mhz

System Voltage Control
DDR2 Voltage Control Normal
NB Voltage Control Normal
SB Voltage Control Normal
CPU Voltage Control [+0.025V] 1.45 Volts

Ok I found some more information on the HT link.



I found this here http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=666760 Thanks Miro87043

So this is how Im going to go about overclocking my system. Anyone see anything I need to change before I try this let me know. Im going to set the following in the bios and slowly increase the refence clock by 10 untill it crashes or I hit 235. Is there any stability issues with having settings lower than spec? Because the fist reference clock test will be 210, so that would make my ram run at 699 Mhz, NB 1890 Mhz, and HT link at 1680. Or should I compensate the timings to keep them inline with spec? I know if its too high it will cause problems but is it the same if its too low?

CPU Northbridge Freq. x9 =2115 Mhz
PCIe Clock(Mhz) 100
HT Link Width Auto
HT Link Frequency 1.6 Ghz Which is the same as x 8 and will give me 1880
Memory Clock x3.33 = 783 Mhz

System Voltage Control
DDR2 Voltage Control Normal
NB Voltage Control Normal
SB Voltage Control Normal
CPU Voltage Control [+0.025V] 1.45 Volts

I've never had any problem running RAM or HT lower than spec. In fact some older AM2/AM2+/AM3 combo boards can't run at the faster HT speeds supported by socket AM3 CPUs, so those boards restrict HT to AM2/AM2+ speed.

My only suggestion is I would ratchet up the voltage as needed. Every CPU is different, but on my main machine I got a 20% overclock with only 10% increase in voltage. Your mileage may vary, of course. I recently tried to boost an older 4600+ for the fun of it, and it wouldn't take any worthwhile OC (not sure if that was the board or the proc, though).

How did things go, did you start OCing yet?

I got to 245 reference clock before my system rebooted during a stress test. It was on for about 15min or so before it rebooted. Here is what I had set in the BIOS.

CPU Northbridge Freq. x8
Reference Clock 245
PCIe Clock(Mhz) 100
HT Link Width Auto
HT Link Frequency 1.6 Ghz
Memory Clock x3.33

System Voltage Control
DDR2 Voltage Control Normal
NB Voltage Control Normal
SB Voltage Control Normal
CPU Voltage Control [+0.025V] 1.45 Volts

At 240 reference clock and about 2 hours of running prime 95 my cpu was about 36 C.

I'm guessing if I upped the Vcore a little more I could get more out of it. I wonder how much life it was shave off the cpu though.

Sounds like a solid overclock with good temps. I always make sure to run memtest86+ for a few passes too (if you ended up overclocking your ram at all). If I calculated right in my head, though, it looks like you probably kept the ram at ~800, so that shouldn't really be a problem.

For what it's worth, I've got an old Athlon 64 3200+ that still runs fine after ~7 years at a 20% OC (2.4 from 2.0). As always, your mileage may vary I've heard people say things like OCing might take 5 years off the life of a proc that would otherwise last for 10, or something like that, but I don't know if anyone has actual concrete numbers from a long term test of identical CPUs