Recommend Next Steps 4 my (weak) k9a2 Plat 9850 OC?
My system taps out between 2.7 and 2.9 Ghz depending on bus and memory settings, i.e. I can run
200 x 13.5 with 1066 6/6/6/24/18 or
200 x 14.5 with 800 5/5/5/21/15 or
232 x 11.5 with Auto mem timing
Tweaking NB or HTT voltages causes quick instability of temps. Dropping HT multiplier seems to accomplish little relative to what I can achieve with HT=NB=10x.
Having (desperately) played with individual core multi's in AOD, it appears I can run Core 0 and Core 2 up to 3.0-3.1 Ghz but Core 1 taps out around 2.9 and Core 3 taps out around 2.75 Ghz (observations from quick torture tests with prime95).
System Particulars
Phenom 9850BE on k9a2 Plat v1 Bios 1.5 dual boot XP Pro or Vista 64bit
3870x2 GPU with 8.6 drivers, 8GB Corsair Dominator (haved OC'ed with less)
QUESTIONS
I'm convinced that I need to run a beta bios to drop the NB multi; the question is which one? In particular, will 1.13B, P0H, 1.3B and/or 1.3 final be able to deal with this CPU (125 Watts) and enable NB manipulation?
Alternatively, what Windows-based NB manipulation is available?
Oddball question: is "drive strength" a term that only applies to memory? I read a random post on another site that seemed to be applying the term to multi-core core manipulation? Is that jibberish?
Thanks for any feedback...