MA785G-UD3H + Phenom II X3 720 BE overclocking

[NLight95]

I'm building a system for my father using the following components:

Antec 300 case
Corsair 400W PSU
GigaByte MA785G-UD3H, F3 BIOS
Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition
2x2GB G.Skill PC2-8500
GeForce 6200LE **
WD 640GB Caviar Black
Samsung DVD burner (SATA)
WinXP Home

My oc'ing results so far have been unreliable. I had the processor running nicely at 3427 but OCCT crapped out at 58 mins, but it's rather warm in my office where I have it right now (85F). Nonethless, that's probably a good thing because I want it to be fail-safe for him.

I'm not that familiar with the newer AMD platforms (last I had was an Athlon 64) so I'm looking for some tips on overclocking the X3 720 BE. Unfortunately my dad doesn't want to spend the extra $$ on a better cooler so I'm left with the stock unit.

Can any of you provide or suggest some cpu/nb/sb voltages and some timings for the G.Skill mem?

I tried running it at 1066 but for some strange reason it causes read errors with the Samsung burner when installing XP using the MS XP Home OEM disc. It's not the disc because it has no trouble reading the same disc when the mem is at 800. I'm scratching my head on this one.

** I'm using a 6200LE in place of the on-board/integrated video to try to keep the nb temps down.

[hikaricloud]

First off, what are you using for a cooler? If you are using the stock cooler, I know 3.4 ghz should work around 1.425v and be pretty stable. With the summer temps, I had to downclock from 3.5 to 3.3ghz, max load temps were 64c or so. Now that I have a CCF, I'm fine at 3.7ghz.

[NLight95]

First off, what are you using for a cooler? If you are using the stock cooler, I know 3.4 ghz should work around 1.425v and be pretty stable. With the summer temps, I had to downclock from 3.5 to 3.3ghz, max load temps were 64c or so. Now that I have a CCF, I'm fine at 3.7ghz.

Are you using the board yourself? I was wondering if you were using the integrated HD 4200 or an external graphics card.

I'm going to use the included GigaByte EasyTune 6 software and see what kind of results it gives me. Normally I stay away from such utils and manipulate the BIOS myself but maybe it can give me a reference point to start from.

My core temps never go above 60 even using Prime small FFT for over 20 mins. I replaced the stock TIM with some MX-2. Don't know how much of a diff it made but I'm sure it didn't hurt. That's the only "mod" I've done, other than adding three fans to the Antec 300 case. It comes stock with a 140mm on the top (towards the back) and 120m in the rear--wanted the extra airflow.

[hikaricloud]

With a stock cooler, and your ambient temps, the best you could probably hope for is 3.3-3.4ghz, in my opinion. Your problem right now is probably the summer heat making things unstable.

Not using that board, using the TA790GX 128M, and I have a 3450 as a dedicated card. Come to think of it, I should check to see if hybrid crossfire is enabled in my benching OS...hmm.

I highly recommend an aftermarket HSF, The CCF is a good choice since it's 40 bucks right now, and it comes with TX-2. I have to say I'm very impressed with the results, at the current moment the ambient temps in my house are approximately 80F, and my load temps are 39c with the settings in my sig. Not to mention I have a terrible case with terrible airflow and it's under my desk, which is pretty closed up.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835207004

Also, HIGHLY HIGHLY don't recommend using any utility, but it's up to you. I have to ask though, at 3427, what voltages were you using?

[NLight95]

With a stock cooler, and your ambient temps, the best you could probably hope for is 3.3-3.4ghz, in my opinion. Your problem right now is probably the summer heat making things unstable.

Not using that board, using the TA790GX 128M, and I have a 3450 as a dedicated card. Come to think of it, I should check to see if hybrid crossfire is enabled in my benching OS...hmm.

I highly recommend an aftermarket HSF, The CCF is a good choice since it's 40 bucks right now, and it comes with TX-2. I have to say I'm very impressed with the results, at the current moment the ambient temps in my house are approximately 80F, and my load temps are 39c with the settings in my sig. Not to mention I have a terrible case with terrible airflow and it's under my desk, which is pretty closed up.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835207004

Also, HIGHLY HIGHLY don't recommend using any utility, but it's up to you. I have to ask though, at 3427, what voltages were you using?

I know my dad wouldn't pay $40 for a cooler. I have to ship the thing from ME to OH so anything heavy would be out of the question because two PCs I built failed because FedEx was rather careless with them and the heavy coolers (one was a Tuniq Tower, the other a TRUE 120) bent and the motherboards cracked under the stress, despite having a very secure monting. So my dad *may* go with an AC Freezer 64 if I can convince him. He paid $500 for the whole system and wanted to stick as close to that price as possible. The AC 64 is $28.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185125&Tpk=artic%20cooling%2064

EasyTune was taking forever--over an hour--so i just killed it. I'm gonna try upping the vCore to 1.425 and see if I can get 3300 MHz out of it. I think you're right on the numbers: I can expect 3300-3400 tops from the stock cooler.

One thing I've noticed is that the on-board 4200 eats up 512MB of the system memory on the Auto setting (you can set it to 128, 256 or 512).
Despite the on-board 4200 doing better than the 6200 in 3DMark06, the former really seems to bog the system down. Loading GPU-Z or 3DMark with the 4200 takes a long time and overall system responsiveness takes a hit. I was hoping for at least a little better but oh well. Maybe the drivers need to be optimized a bit more since they're still relatively new. I've always despised on-board video.

One weird thing I've discovered is that when I try to save my updated BIOS settings using the Q-Flash util incorporated into the BIOS, it only saves the default settings. What this means is that I can't save any modified BIOS settings to either a USB drive or a profile (the are no profile options in the BIOS). This makes oc'ing a hassle, esp if you don't make a note of the settings you've used. It would be nice for GB to add the option of saving to a profile. I'm using the latest F3 BIOS.

[haylui]

yo friend
I have a similar setup with you
my board is Asus M4A78-EM( 780G+SB700)
max. to get stable under light load is 3500MHz (17.5*200MHz) @ 1.425V
max. OCCT stable for 4 hrs or so is 3400MHz (17*200MHz) @ 1.425V
stock cooler, the country I am living is tropical country, summer all day long in this country.
so I believe it is the chip somewhat hitting the wall....