AMD A8-3870K & GIGABYTE A75-UD4H LN2 overclocking by froxic (WRs inside)

[froxic]

Results from a ten-hour overclocking marathon with Llano



Last week I finally received a cooling stack for overclocking with liquid nitrogen, and so, my first three days of the week were pretty busy – big thanks Vince! Monday and Tuesday I dedicated to my efforts in GIGABYTE Spring Extreme Competition (5th place). Encouraged by the results and the output of the overclocking stack, I told myself that would try my luck with Llano.

Testing setup:

CPU: AMD A8-3870 (DA 1151PGT)
RAM: Geil EVOTWO 2000 C6 + KINGPINcooling Tek-9 FAT 6.0
MB: Gigabyte GA-A75-UD4H (F7 bios)
VGA: Radeon HD 6550D (integrovaná)
PSU: Corsair TX850M
COO: KINGPINcooling Dragon F1 Gemini 2.0 + fast base


It is not good to underestimate preparation

Although I had about 35 l of nitrogen, I wanted to test everything at one go. If I did it at two steps, I would be risking the next day that the motherboard would pack up (due to dampening etc.). So, I dedicated more time than usual to insulating.



Greater care was paid to the memory slots. I taped the unused slots over with an electric installation tape and I inserted, using my driving license card, paper tissues into the spaces between the slots.




What followed was insulating of the surrounding of the motherboard socket and not only it. For these purposes I used freely available plastic rubber that you can buy at any stationer’s shop.




Thermal insulation (armaflex) was added from the bottom and top sides of the motherboard.



Insulated motherboard in all its beauty. Will it be able to withstand the extreme conditions?


Achieved results



I won’t drag it out and I will proceed directly to the point. As you already surely know from the review, my 3870K is a quite ordinary piece. The more it surprised me how it was coping with low temperatures. If 3800MHz with water cooling had meant that the set had not been able to start Windows. Here, after a while of debugging, booting at 5100 MHz was not a problem! Already after the first hour of overclocking I guessed that some real solid results would be possible to get at. I continued in improving the results for next several hours and I also tried some drollery (I will come to that later). The results are as follows:



3D tests: http://hwbot.org/hardware/videocard/radeon_hd_6550d/

First positions:
3DM03 http://hwbot.org/submission/2265310_...0d_35031_marks
3DM05 http://hwbot.org/submission/2265312_...0d_21937_marks
3DM06 http://hwbot.org/submission/2265314_...0d_11282_marks

Second positions
3DM01 http://hwbot.org/submission/2265308_...0d_54303_marks
3DMV http://hwbot.org/submission/2265319_...50d_7063_marks

Fourth position
3DM11P http://hwbot.org/submission/2265316_...50d_1778_marks

2D tests: http://hwbot.org/hardware/processor/a8_3870k/

First positions:
SuperPi 1M http://hwbot.org/submission/2265320_...0k_14sec_187ms
SuperPi 32M http://hwbot.org/submission/2265321_...in_42sec_140ms
Hexus PiFast http://hwbot.org/submission/2265322_...870k_21.72_sec
wPrime 32M http://hwbot.org/submission/2265324_...70k_6sec_875ms
wPrime 1024M http://hwbot.org/submission/2265326_...0k_225sec_47ms
Ucbench 2011 http://hwbot.org/submission/2265323_...32.7_mpt_score

Validation of CPU and RAM:

CPU 5920MHz http://hwbot.org/submission/2265328_...0k_5920.09_mhz




So, now you already know why I insulated the RAM slots so thoroughly. With the temperature of -80°C at the memory slots I managed to reach the frequency of 2840MHz at 1.925V, which is, by the way, by 840MHz more on the specifications. A more curious fact is that I cooled down the memories using the port designed for graphic cards – Tek-9 FAT 6.0.

RAM 2840MHz http://hwbot.org/submission/2265290_...ram_1420.2_mhz

Screenshots:



Some photos and videos:

Photos on FB page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNwvJzVfDQc&hd=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFXpcGoIta0&hd=1

Overclocking of the Llano was a great fun and I can´t wait for another similar experience. The achieved first positions with the integrated graphic card 6550D also represent world records in the category of all IGPs in general. I wonder whether A10 into FM2 socket will be a success and whether overclocking will also be such fun. By the way... If you are interested in overclocking, please, check the new FB channel: Czech and Slovak Republic overclocking, where you can find more information from the background of the Czech and Slovak overclocking scenes.

Thanks for reading,
froxic

[Dumo]

Awesome runs there Froxic

Good prep. for cold run most likely will yield good results

[FlanK3r]

Hehe, nice results teamman, u know ,-)....AMD rullez here! And very nice POT, looks, Il buy second CPU pot from Kingpin.

[massman]

Strange there's such a large gap between 1M stable and CPU-Z stable on Llano. Others reported this too.

Any idea why?

[froxic]

I dont know, but more voltage didnt help at all. I adjused frequency of only one core by PSTcheck (for validation and spi/hexus runs). With all cores at this speed it will be much worse.

More strange is that I have some scaling problems on Windows 7. Tried 12.2, 12.1 and 11.8 drivers - no difference.

LN2 @ 5000MHz: 1778 http://hwbot.org/submission/2265316_...50d_1778_marks
WC @ 3600MHz: 1635 http://hwbot.org/submission/2255998_...50d_1635_marks

LN2 @ 3900: 1865 http://hwbot.org/submission/2203006_...50d_1865_marks (by Iron)

I have +- same efective RAM (clock/timings ratio), higher GPU and CPU clock. If drivers doesnt do the trick... It must be of some sort of throttling. But on the other side, wPrime 1024M on 5Ghz runned smoothly (without throttling). Vantage was same and in Heaven I received same points (at 5.2GHz) as on WC (3.6GHz). With 3DM11 i tried even lower clocks 4.6/4.8 but it was even worse. Any thoughts?

[dinos22]

awesome stuff man

you've been GBT Tech Daily-ed

[Christian Ney]

Nice Ales, keep pushing

[Leeghoofd]

Congratz man, en very nice board giga crew !!

[Hondacity]

thanks for the slayer base pic..

[froxic]

Thanks guys! Especially dinos22 for share :-)

[BeepBeep2]

thanks for the slayer base pic..

I was gonna say, I didn't think Mr. Lucido wanted people posting pictures of the bases.

[froxic]

Didnt know this fact. First post was updated.

[Farmer Boe]

Nice scores! You got the FSB cranked right up to 160 eh! I've only hit 148 on my Llano system so far.

[l0ud_sil3nc3]

very nice review froxic, I have a 3870K and UD4H that should be here today sometime.

what do you think would be the best choice for memory on this platform?

BBSE, Hyper, PSC, Samsung 30nm or Hynix?

[froxic]

Some high frequency modules. I can recommend PSC but I tried only them on Llano setup.

[BeepBeep2]

very nice review froxic, I have a 3870K and UD4H that should be here today sometime.

what do you think would be the best choice for memory on this platform?

BBSE, Hyper, PSC, Samsung 30nm or Hynix?

AFAIK Hyper has problems on Llano.

[froxic]

Same problems as on Thubans? I had big troubles with 1100T + LN2 + Hypers MGH-E after temperature dropped to -140-150°C. Some BSOD resulted corruption of system files (4x reinstalls, then used PCS without any problems). One always learns...

[BeepBeep2]

Same problems as on Thubans? I had big troubles with 1100T + LN2 + Hypers MGH-E after temperature dropped to -140-150°C. Some BSOD resulted corruption of system files (4x reinstalls, then used PCS without any problems). One always learns...

No, I meant problem even under air cooling. When Llano was new, chew* posted several videos of Hypers passing SuperPi 32M but instantly BSOD'ing in 3D tests.

[froxic]

Strange, but good to know :-)

[Shahryar_NEO]

No, I meant problem even under air cooling. When Llano was new, chew* posted several videos of Hypers passing SuperPi 32M but instantly BSOD'ing in 3D tests.

Yes , true . We've done a review on A75-D3H and we tested three very good hyper kits but we couldn't done even a 2000mhz stable OC for 3DMarks ...

But PSC did a good job !