Phenom 9500 w/ MSI K9A2 Platinum

[mAJORD]

great Effort KTE.

ONe thing,. Your realstorm 2006 result. I get 2520 @ 2.68Ghz for 640x380 so that seems really low??

[KTE]

KTE, when you get a chance... on your next update (and subsequent updates) summarize your clocks, and stability prime95 so far... simply by stating.... "Best prime95 stable 2.8 GHz at 1.4 volts so far"

Thanks Jack. I'll try that when I can.

great Effort KTE.

ONe thing,. Your realstorm 2006 result. I get 2520 @ 2.68Ghz for 640x380 so that seems really low??

Thanks mAJORD. Do you have a screenshot of the result or details of the config please?

For instance: RAM speed, mode, timings, NB frequency, HT speed, GPU, MB (you have the Gigabyte 790FX, right?). Mine are very buggy. I can't really overclock it proper until better BIOS TBH. The Gigabyte and ASUS look to be a whole mile better in every way because of support. MSI still hasn't replied to me.

[mAJORD]

yeah KTE I have an entire Windsor Vs Agena thread comin up so you'll see it there later tonight

[Aussie FX]

yeah KTE I have an entire Windsor Vs Agena thread comin up so you'll see it there later tonight

Good work, I will keep an eye out

[JumpingJack]

Hey, do you guys know of anyone who has worked with this processor in an older AM2 board?

[yuckup]

Hey, do you guys know of anyone who has worked with this processor in an older AM2 board?

kazgirl has with an asus M2N32SLI having isues with getting an updated bios

[informal]

Hey, do you guys know of anyone who has worked with this processor in an older AM2 board?

Yes,user OBR has hinted in one of his latest posts that one of the regular AM2 boards had much better OC potential with his 9500 retail sample than 790FX based board.I suspect he is playing with it now and will post back soon.He couldn't pass ~240Mhz (IIRC) on his 790 board.

[nguoisaigon]

Hi KTE, can you tell me the exact clock and FSB you got with your system right at this time. I have one K9A2 Platinum as well as MA790FX-DQ6 but I have just test out the K9A2 Platinum. Tomorrow I will try out the DQ6. After checking around, I think you got the highest speed for a phenom right now. And I would be very happy if you give me some advice when overclock a phenom CPU on 790FX motherboards.

[Ricey20]

let us know how the beta bios works for u on the K9A2. I have one too but couldnt mount my thermalright Ultra 120 extreme because the backplate isnt the metal one. Hopefully getting a metal backplate today :p

[KTE]

Jack I don't think I'll be able to test stability or oc yet, sorry. To give you an example of how buggy this all is.

I run Systools 16M Pi calculation for initial stability, time critical. It loads all cores to the same power draw as P95 but it also loads RAM ~1.26GB and errors very quick if unstable: http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/216/systoolvz6.png

200HT 2200MHz:


I booted at 210HT 2310MHz stock volts on all and ran the test:



All fine, although slow because I was messing about in the background and had more applications open during running it.
I used OverDrive to put just 2MHz HT more and it froze my system.

I then booted at 220HT stock volts and multi on all things incl NB and ran the tests and benches just fine:



And I use 2420MHz every day whenever I use it. The weird thing is, right now I can bench and bootup 2550MHz perfectly. But the minute I switch it off or use OverDrive it will probably not even reach 2300MHz. Yes, many times I have no boot if I adjust just by 1MHz HT in BIOS and yet I've done ~2500MHz Systool/P95 15min stable on stock volts before, high ambient and lowest fan speed.

And by pure luck, I might give it another try sometime randomly and get 2904 again on stock all volts/multis before it freezes. That's around 264HT.

If I max volts on all things, lowest NB/HT/RAM multi... it will still get the same damn thing. This is just very buggy yet so I can't draw any conclusions. Also some of my benches are unusually low and I can't work out why.

I had 2 FDDs here, both working before this and I've just wrestled them because both have quit working. So flashing BIOS is a problem right now and my USB drives are not empty.

nguoisaigon: Too buggy for me to say anything much. Soldner (he's banned) got a bit above 3GHz with his 9500 and K9A2. It wasn't normal cooling nor air cooling and volts were all quite high yet it was very unstable. Mine with no volts or max volts only reached 2.9GHz and even then, at times it will get there and at other times it won't allow a single MHz above 2200MHz. So just try using low RAM speed/low NB speed/low HT speed and then overclock. You'll be able to see what is holding you back or if you have a buggy sytsem too.

Fastest I've booted was 236HT x 11 = 2596MHz at stock all volts for everything. The system will not boot at far too many frequencies which are stable if it does. Meaning there's either a platform bug or honestly, this core has a bug itself.

[JumpingJack]

KTE -- many thanks again, I cannot compliment enough on the tremendous amount of work.

From what you are saying, ORB mentioned bugginess, and TechReport has some inputs on stability, my suspicion is that they still need a bit more time to get things in order, or perhaps this TLB bug is getting in your way... a lot of memory problems.

You saved me a heap by taking the leap first ....

Jack

[informal]

KTE,did you check out the latest clockgen?
I remember clearly 4 separate PLL sliders appearing in one review.I can't remember where i saw that,but i'm 100% sure.
If you are in position to try it out,please do and tell us what is going on .Much appreciated

Cheers

[saaya]

awesome infos kte!
i plan to get that board as well

one thing tho, could you use thumbnails? pls?

[mrcmtl]

Hey KTE,

REALLY nice job there ...although could u add the winrar single threaded benchmark?

thx

[Lightman]

Amazing job KTE!!


My Phenom can boot easily @240HTT but only with 10x multi. Also I can put one core (core 2 or 3) @2640MHz with only 1.26V. The other 2 cores are weaker and 2550MHz is max at stock volts. But when I want to load all 4 cores at same frequency then max I can do is 2470MHz ! This is wired and any voltage adjustments can't give me single MHz more ...

It really looks like this so called 'BUG' is showing it's nasty side

[JohannesRS]

It really looks like this so called 'BUG' is showing it's nasty side

REally great job! Specially cause this is" first aimmed at" mb for me.

anyway, I would like to ask one thing: what do you experts think about this new: http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=209123

[KTE]

Hi guys. Thanks all, very appreciated.

I tried max total HT speed 9x (not reference) and max NB speed stock volts on HT but +0.12V on NB, first BIOS (1.0). I was able to get 2142MHz HT and 3094MHz NB. More than that is not stable stock volts and would freeze.

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/7721/jsjssk9.png

I've flashed new BETA BIOS v1.1B3 (113) after that, it gives many more options but it only boots at 11x138 1.52GHz all cores, NB at 1.8GHz, HT at 1.25GHz, RAM at 533MHz and all the meanwhile I have it set to 200x11, DDR2-800MHz, HT 2600MHz in BIOS.

Here it is what I'm running at right now (stock): http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/2979/messedat6.png

Also with this new BIOS ALL CPU-Z dumps fail: http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=276160

We can control CPU FID/VID and NB FID/VID now but CPU-Z does not recognize these changes and has problems with it. And with the new BIOS no OC is possible. It keeps reverting everything back to bootup values. I guess that's BETA for ya.

From what you are saying, ORB mentioned bugginess, and TechReport has some inputs on stability, my suspicion is that they still need a bit more time to get things in order, or perhaps this TLB bug is getting in your way... a lot of memory problems.

The BIOS is very buggy indeed because a) they don't run memory at above 1:1 and 1:2 while the options are there b) HT 3.0 speed is still not supported although option for 2.6GHz is there c) tRC of only 26 max means you can't run much above 1000MHz on RAM. New BIOS are even worse.

KTE,did you check out the latest clockgen?
I remember clearly 4 separate PLL sliders appearing in one review.I can't remember where i saw that,but i'm 100% sure.
If you are in position to try it out,please do and tell us what is going on.

I have it here but they stated no support for the MB yet. I need support for PLL ICS 9LPRS477.

one thing tho, could you use thumbnails? pls?

Can't use thumbnails, no option for them. But I'll just link to it instead.

REALLY nice job there ...although could u add the winrar single threaded benchmark?

Which version of Winrar do you want me to run?

My Phenom can boot easily @240HTT but only with 10x multi. Also I can put one core (core 2 or 3) @2640MHz with only 1.26V. The other 2 cores are weaker and 2550MHz is max at stock volts. But when I want to load all 4 cores at same frequency then max I can do is 2470MHz ! This is wired and any voltage adjustments can't give me single MHz more ...

Sorry about that mate. You're lucky you have HT options of upto 11x, we only had 5x until this BETA BIOS which gives us 9x but it still runs everything very slow so I can't really try any OC. My Core 3 is weaker than rest though.
Have you tried WPCREDIT and lowered NB to ~1400 and then tried going past those speeds?

What's the max volts and tRC you can have for RAM?

It really looks like this so called 'BUG' is showing it's nasty side

I ran some EVEREST/Pi tests at NB speed 2.6GHz and 3GHz and they were very poor, worse than stock so there's definitely something wrong on this platform.

anyway, I would like to ask one thing: what do you experts think about this new: http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=209123

I hope they get it out fast! I know I won't be waiting long.

Thank you to all.

[Lightman]

Sorry about that mate. You're lucky you have HT options of upto 11x, we only had 5x until this BETA BIOS which gives us 9x but it still runs everything very slow so I can't really try any OC. My Core 3 is weaker than rest though.
Have you tried WPCREDIT and lowered NB to ~1400 and then tried going past those speeds?

What's the max volts and tRC you can have for RAM?
I ran some EVEREST/Pi tests at NB speed 2.6GHz and 3GHz and they were very poor, worse than stock so there's definitely something wrong on this platform.

I hope they get it out fast! I know I won't be waiting long.

Thank you to all.

I think WPCREDIT doesn't work on Gigabyte and judging from your experience it's same on your MB! What it does it's simply fooling CPU-Z and other information tools

Max volts for my RAM is +0.5V from stock (which is 1.95V )
regarding tRC in AOD I can set 26 and in BIOS I need to check. My mem is happy with tRC set to 15 @1000MHz

The 'BUG' I'm almost sure is kicking hard on my CPU above 2.5GHz. Sometimes my CPU is stable all cores @2.58GHz for 1 hour and sometimes it's stable just @2.5GHz. With differently clocked cores it's same. I did complete 2h30min stability test from AOD for cores 1,2,4@2.48GHz and core 3@2.59GHz plus Cinebench test and SuperPi! After reboot I couldn't run anything stable even @2.55Ghz on any core

One more thing to note, when my computer hangs up it's doing it in wired way. First screen freezes but I can move mouse and NumLock can change status, then keyboard stops responding (can't change NumLock) and finally after around 10-20 sec. mouse freezes....

[KTE]

Here's some more testing.

Well, look what happened today out of the blue. Set 240HT ref. in BIOS, booted up fine.
CPU stock, HT stock and NB +0.1V => Prime95 1hr plus stable+temps @ 240HT x 11 = 4 cores 2640MHz, NB at 3120MHz and HT at 2160MHz:


CPU: 47C
Ambient: ~20C

Could've done hours Prime easy but never had time. Ignore EVEREST frequencies. They are obviously higher than 2420MHz I ran in the tests earlier as you will see further down so EVEREST is very buggy if I change my NB/HT speed in BIOS. All settings were only BIOS changed.

More benchmarks at that setup. Note: no tweaks, I had full services, AV and background processes running as on a usual system you would have. Also RAM is higher latency this time and still single channel.

BENCH SETUP


3DMark06: http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/953/dm06vq7.png
Cinebench 10: http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/704/cbqq1.png
EVEREST read: http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/37/evnf4.png
EVEREST write: http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/4567/evwoz9.png
EVEREST copy: http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/5828/evcce9.png
EVEREST latency: http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/9015/evlon2.png
CPU Queen: http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/3564/evqueenfv1.png
CPU PhotoWorxx: http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/9849/ev1mp0.png ( lower than 2420MHz )
CPU ZLib: http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/5886/ev2bi8.png
CPU AES: http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/5944/ev3fo6.png
FPU Julia: http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/8749/ev4tl7.png
FPU Mandel: http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/1108/ev5qc0.png
FPU SinJulia: http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/3424/ev6ak4.png
Fritz: http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/8113/fritzgn4.png
ID2: http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/5813/idcgt2.png
Lightsmark 2007: http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/5634/lmrt4.png
Nuclearus: http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/6342/numb4.png (look at the frequency it picks up! Soldner you could've at least fixed that )
POV-Ray 3.7-SSE2: http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/6220/ppsta7.png
RealStorm2006: http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/8/rsag1.png
Sandra Arithmetic: http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/4859/safu9.png
Sandra Multimedia: http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/5180/smtm2.png
Sandra Cache/Memory: http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/4320/scfo6.png
SPi 1M: http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/3200/spidd9.png
Vecmat: http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/3912/vecmatut1.png

I'll make a table of the scores later for easier comparison but I won't put scaling down because you can't work out CPU frequency scaling with so many variables. But it does scale very well overall I would say.

Then I did 245 x 11 = 2695MHz and threw ALL voltages to MAX which is around 1.55V each.

Here's the maxmimum power draw of the system during Prime95 (which is more than in anything else):



330W AC = ~273W DC

Yup, it shoots up very high, near my PSU limit.

Also, the maximum power consumption pulled in a ms was 331W AC and no bench got close to it apart from EVEREST FPU Julia. It pulls the highest power.

HERE-> what effect does Core speed/NB speed have on L1/L2/L3 cache latency? Compare:

240HT x 11 = 4 cores 2640MHz, NB=3120MHz, HT=2160MHz, RAM=480 5-5-5-5 2T:


220HT x 11 = 4 cores 2420MHz, NB=1980MHz, HT=1100MHz, RAM=440 4-4-4-4 2T:


Very noticeable difference.

[KTE]

I think WPCREDIT doesn't work on Gigabyte and judging from your experience it's same on your MB! What it does it's simply fooling CPU-Z and other information tools

It works with me because if I set it too low or too high I get no POST.

Although I don't use it because it gives me negligible benefits and new BETA BIOS has NB changing option in the BIOS.

Max volts for my RAM is +0.5V from stock (which is 1.95V )

This board has 2.30V

regarding tRC in AOD I can set 26 and in BIOS I need to check. My mem is happy with tRC set to 15 @1000MHz

Well if the RAM I'm using benches 1350 5-5-5-15 at 2.3V then it should be able to do quite good as I did 1.9V 5-5-5-5 1T at 1000MHz on it just yesterday. But I don't want to push RAM, I need it.

The 'BUG' I'm almost sure is kicking hard on my CPU above 2.5GHz. Sometimes my CPU is stable all cores @2.58GHz for 1 hour and sometimes it's stable just @2.5GHz. With differently clocked cores it's same. I did complete 2h30min stability test from AOD for cores 1,2,4@2.48GHz and core 3@2.59GHz plus Cinebench test and SuperPi! After reboot I couldn't run anything stable even @2.55Ghz on any core

This one can boot and run 2640MHz with high HT/NB speeds stable. Although I've not had time to try more with this BIOS. I know 245HT ref. 9x is no boot and OD is too buggy to try for me after high HT ref. boot. It will freeze the system upon starting.

One more thing to note, when my computer hangs up it's doing it in wired way. First screen freezes but I can move mouse and NumLock can change status, then keyboard stops responding (can't change NumLock) and finally after around 10-20 sec. mouse freezes....

Quite weird. This system hasn't rebooted or hanged yet apart from at POST or when using OD in Windows (freezes).

[justapost]

So at 2,2 GHZ you have 100VA power consumption in idle and 180VA under full load. With 2,6 GHz you have 120VA in idle and 200VA under full load.
You only had to change the Nb voltage +0,1V to archive those high NB and HT frequencies so i assume a similar power consumption.
This system runs more power efficient (GHz vise) if overclocked to 2,6GHz.
As my 9500 still did not arrive and the M3A seems to be delayed till 12/12 may i ask for CnQ enabled (or lowest possible multis set) idle power consumtion at 200 vs 240 MHz HT?
HD 2600 XT's power consumption here in idle ~30W. So using an HD 2400 XT or pro instead should substract ~20W from the power usage resulting in 80W consumption for the whole system w/o CnQ.

[nguoisaigon]

Yesterday, I managed to push my 9600 to 2909 MHz with air cooling (zalman 9700) with MSI K9A2 Platinum. Since I don't have much experience with AMD, I cannot manage to push it any higher. It's been a long time since I use an AMD system. I didn't know about the software that use for overclocking in Windows like AMD Over Drive or memset. So I stop with MSI mainboard at FSB 253 - 2909 MHz.



Today, I tried with Gigabyte MA790FX-DQ6. Since Gigabyte provide Easytune 5 Pro so I have a little bit better with Gigabyte mainboard. I can push the 9600 to FSB 263 - 3035MHz. Other components are the same, only the mainboard is changed.



Validation: http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=276431

Tomorrow I will try again with MSI K9A2 Platinum and a sample board base on RD780 chipset from J&W. Hope I will get the ASUS M3A32-MVP series soon.

[mrcmtl]

Which version of Winrar do you want me to run?

the same as the multi-threaded bench.

you dont need to post screens...just the number is good.

[Lightman]

Yesterday, I managed to push my 9600 to 2909 MHz with air cooling (zalman 9700) with MSI K9A2 Platinum. Since I don't have much experience with AMD, I cannot manage to push it any higher. It's been a long time since I use an AMD system. I didn't know about the software that use for overclocking in Windows like AMD Over Drive or memset. So I stop with MSI mainboard at FSB 253 - 2909 MHz.



Today, I tried with Gigabyte MA790FX-DQ6. Since Gigabyte provide Easytune 5 Pro so I have a little bit better with Gigabyte mainboard. I can push the 9600 to FSB 263 - 3035MHz. Other components are the same, only the mainboard is changed.



Validation: http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=276431

Tomorrow I will try again with MSI K9A2 Platinum and a sample board base on RD780 chipset from J&W. Hope I will get the ASUS M3A32-MVP series soon.

That's impressive!!

What Gigabyte board revision you're using? I can't get above 240HTT, it might be CPU though...

[informal]

Lightman,did you try using the EasyTune 5?SInce it seems that nguoisaigon managed 3Ghz with Phenom using this utility on your board.