Phenom 9950 Overclocking

[RASTAVIPER]

Try running GANGED,,with somewhat the same NB speed or 100mhz/200mhzNB less..

Youll get that 21.xxxs @3.6mhz


BIGNOTE: If the NB slowsdown or you CPU score is lower in any bench ,,Its most likely lowVolts on the NB..trust me.

Just watch your temps and ive found my NB uses at least 1.48volts for 2500mhz stable at any ram freqency. ..Just raise it slow and watch temps ,,youll see..
Also differnt ram multi will help with high NB..Some ram multis work better than others even if the Ram freqency is lower than what you had before. Even Mild latency like 5-5-5- with 15 or 18 is a phenon sweetspot indeed.

I always clock what the IMC likes most,,thus trying to have a Low latency above 800mhz it dosnt like too much.

I thought UNGANGED provides better perfomance..
And for NB voltage.At what point does the BIOS reading gets red in this voltage?

[starledXpress]

You can't expect stability at these numbers...
Maybe stable enough to get some cpuz screenshots.

[.....]

P.S. 3500mhz range is even oushing stability...id love to see benches @ B3 3700mhz but know its a farcry at stability Water or Aircooled. [...]

Well, its not primestable, but benchstable i think







Watercooling +XP32Bit (9950BE 125 W TDP)

[mongoled]

Well, its not primestable, but benchstable i think



Watercooling +XP32Bit (9950BE 125 W TDP)

Great overclock



But for some reason your cinebench10 score is very low. Can you try to run it at 3500mhz to see if your score jumps.

Oh and welcome to Xtreme Systems

[Chicken Patty]

starledXpress

welcome aboard buddy, thats a heck of an overclock you have there. Great job!!

[starledXpress]

Great overclock



But for some reason your cinebench10 score is very low. Can you try to run it at 3500mhz to see if your score jumps.

Oh and welcome to Xtreme Systems

Thank you for your welcome.

Score in Cinebench is somehow strange. I´m Looking forward to test more with watercooling. On Air @ 3400 Mhz with faster Timings i had slightly better results. (Cinebench 32Bit)

starledXpress

welcome aboard buddy, thats a heck of an overclock you have there. Great job!!

Thank you. It makes me enjoy the Phenom 9950 to over clock

[Chicken Patty]

Thank you for your welcome.

Score in Cinebench is somehow strange. I´m Looking forward to test more with watercooling. On Air @ 3400 Mhz with faster Timings i had slightly better results.





Thank you. It makes me enjoy the Phenom 9950 to over clock

i'm sure it does My current 9950 is not such a good overclocker, however I had a 9850 that did 3.55 GHz stable and validated at 3.6 GHz. I had my fun with that chip but it gave up on me shortly after

[zif33rs]

Great clocks starledXpress...congrats! and welcome to XS.



1.5s off 1M record for superpi. keep at it.


zif

[RASTAVIPER]

Great clocks starledXpress...congrats! and welcome to XS.



1.5s off 1M record for superpi. keep at it.


zif

You cannot reach First place without using extreme cooling.
But sure great Ocing from starledXpress and the most important that he can run benchs at these high MHZ.
Good job!

[starledXpress]

Great clocks starledXpress...congrats! and welcome to XS. [....]

THX for your Welcome

You cannot reach First place without using extreme cooling.
But sure great Ocing from starledXpress and the most important that he can run benchs at these high MHZ.
Good job!

THX...

Benching Beyond 3.7 is most difficult with watercooling..Maybe 3.8 will work with chilled Water and slow timings. I managed Screenshots at 3.8.. - maybe one Core will Clock a little higher.
I Think sub 21 sek SP1M is not impossible with watercooling, but very fast Ram is also needed. For SuperPi1M WR at least + ~300 Mhz more Clock Speed. - No way with watercooling......But i think this could be the fastest AMD SuperPi Run with a µATX Mainboard

[gOtVoltage]

Star,, Great job..

Thats amazing B3....

Rasta,,

Unganged can be better overall ..Ganged faster for single apps..Unganged will be more efficient and get more use with multiple Tasking vs ganded..

1.60v is ,,

1.61v is RED

Ive tested CPU/NB to the Max Volts Asus79-T Mobo has to offer.

[xaris106]

Hello people. This is my 1st post here.

I recently got a Phenom 9950 BE 125W tdp CPU,
an ASUS M3A78-T motherboard
and a pair of GEIL B.Dragon 2x2GB 800MHz CL5 RAM.

I dropped them in my case (Lian Li 2x120mm,1x250mm side) with the stock cooler changing only the thermal compound with AS5.

I flashed the latest BIOS (502) and was ready to get busy.
I like to explore things on my own just reading stuff but this board is a bit weird...
So I came here thinking I might get some answers.

In the end I managed to get 3GHz (200x15@1.4V, ACC +4) with 60C (I think) peak load temp. And I'm stuck here.

Things I figured out so far and questions:

1. The mobo sets Vcore at 1.4V in auto even in stock speeds. eg when I clearcmos it defaults at 1.4V. The mystic thing is that you only can see this in the bios and pcprobe2. AOD and cpu-z show only the VID (whatever this is?) with a static value of 1.3V.
-Is this a bug or something? anyone with the same board /and cpu? Could it be the cpu is not recognized correctly?

2. If I change the CPU voltage in bios (I think it changes VID not Vcore) then AOD and cpu-z report the new static VID but thankfully the actual voltage changes (as reported in bios and pcprobe). And I managed to push 3GHz.
The funny thing was that I tried in AOD first (cpu vid=auto=1.4v actually) and thought woaaa 3GHz with stock voltage easy!When I got to the bios an set everything manual I bsoded.
-Why cpu-z (v1.48) shows VID and not core voltage that I see in other screenshots?Is it poor Bios support?Am I doing something wrong?And what is VID anyway? (guessing - its the reference value that the vcore should be.but then why vcore is 1.4 in reality with a 1.3V VID?)

3. Temperatures in programs seem off except in pcprobe2 that reports the correct values for voltages,fan rpm and temps (voltage seems correct as described above, fan speed numbers seem correct , temps seem to change in a normal manner as opposed to coretemp/speedfan and is proportional to fan speeds). Or the bios/pcprobe reads the wrong temps...
-Anyone knows which is the correct reading?mobo/probe or speedfan/coretemp?

4. While trying to go past 3GHz, I got to the bios and changed CPU NB voltage to 1.35V as some have suggested (while I only clock with multi so far, I thought it might help). Well the bios setting did absolutely nothing I think (actually changes CPU NB VID, I think). AOD reports the same CPU NB VID (1.2250V) no matter what I put in the bios. Also I can't change it from within AOD. I hit apply and it goes back to the default.
-How can I check if the setting works?

5. CPU tweak = AOD green button top right. I double checked this out of curiosity because when it had the red circe in AOD my idle temps were 5-10C higher! I didnt notice any change in load temps. So I was trying to figure out what this does and I noticed superpi was a bit faster with it enabled. I also read here later that some other people noticed this. Also, it has nothing to do with tlb fix, as I have read somewhere, and the mobo manual says there is another setting for the tlb fix (doesnt show up in mine.not applicable I guess)
-anyone knows what this is actually supposed to do?Is it documented anywhere?

6. Finally I would like to ask what are the max safe 24/7 vcore and temps.
I have Vcore at 1.4 and I am a bit concerned to go higher. Also, is it safe to go above 60C peak load temp?

I am currently trying for 3.2GHz but anything I have though ends in bsod with Prime. At least I managed 3GHz not so easilly after all.I had to give +4 ACC for 8h prime stable. I think its ok. (+4 ACC was my first try btw. Don't know if its the best)Cpu-Z validation

Thanks.
I hope there is someone with same mobo/cpu so we can at least check the bios stuff if they are the same.

[Chicken Patty]

Hello people. This is my 1st post here.

I recently got a Phenom 9950 BE 125W tdp CPU,
an ASUS M3A78-T motherboard
and a pair of GEIL B.Dragon 2x2GB 800MHz CL5 RAM.

I dropped them in my case (Lian Li 2x120mm,1x250mm side) with the stock cooler changing only the thermal compound with AS5.

I flashed the latest BIOS (502) and was ready to get busy.
I like to explore things on my own just reading stuff but this board is a bit weird...
So I came here thinking I might get some answers.

In the end I managed to get 3GHz (200x15@1.4V, ACC +4) with 60C (I think) peak load temp. And I'm stuck here.

Things I figured out so far and questions:

1. The mobo sets Vcore at 1.4V in auto even in stock speeds. eg when I clearcmos it defaults at 1.4V. The mystic thing is that you only can see this in the bios and pcprobe2. AOD and cpu-z show only the VID (whatever this is?) with a static value of 1.3V.
-Is this a bug or something? anyone with the same board /and cpu? Could it be the cpu is not recognized correctly?

2. If I change the CPU voltage in bios (I think it changes VID not Vcore) then AOD and cpu-z report the new static VID but thankfully the actual voltage changes (as reported in bios and pcprobe). And I managed to push 3GHz.
The funny thing was that I tried in AOD first (cpu vid=auto=1.4v actually) and thought woaaa 3GHz with stock voltage easy!When I got to the bios an set everything manual I bsoded.
-Why cpu-z (v1.48) shows VID and not core voltage that I see in other screenshots?Is it poor Bios support?Am I doing something wrong?And what is VID anyway? (guessing - its the reference value that the vcore should be.but then why vcore is 1.4 in reality with a 1.3V VID?)

3. Temperatures in programs seem off except in pcprobe2 that reports the correct values for voltages,fan rpm and temps (voltage seems correct as described above, fan speed numbers seem correct , temps seem to change in a normal manner as opposed to coretemp/speedfan and is proportional to fan speeds). Or the bios/pcprobe reads the wrong temps...
-Anyone knows which is the correct reading?mobo/probe or speedfan/coretemp?

4. While trying to go past 3GHz, I got to the bios and changed CPU NB voltage to 1.35V as some have suggested (while I only clock with multi so far, I thought it might help). Well the bios setting did absolutely nothing I think (actually changes CPU NB VID, I think). AOD reports the same CPU NB VID (1.2250V) no matter what I put in the bios. Also I can't change it from within AOD. I hit apply and it goes back to the default.
-How can I check if the setting works?

5. CPU tweak = AOD green button top right. I double checked this out of curiosity because when it had the red circe in AOD my idle temps were 5-10C higher! I didnt notice any change in load temps. So I was trying to figure out what this does and I noticed superpi was a bit faster with it enabled. I also read here later that some other people noticed this. Also, it has nothing to do with tlb fix, as I have read somewhere, and the mobo manual says there is another setting for the tlb fix (doesnt show up in mine.not applicable I guess)
-anyone knows what this is actually supposed to do?Is it documented anywhere?

6. Finally I would like to ask what are the max safe 24/7 vcore and temps.
I have Vcore at 1.4 and I am a bit concerned to go higher. Also, is it safe to go above 60C peak load temp?

I am currently trying for 3.2GHz but anything I have though ends in bsod with Prime. At least I managed 3GHz not so easilly after all.I had to give +4 ACC for 8h prime stable. I think its ok. (+4 ACC was my first try btw. Don't know if its the best)Cpu-Z validation

Thanks.
I hope there is someone with same mobo/cpu so we can at least check the bios stuff if they are the same.

Hi there, welcome to XS. Glad you made a good choice of MOBO and CPU. You just gotta find the sweet spot of your hardware and it'll all come together bro.

below responses are matched to your post:

1- I trust CPU-Z over any other program as far as voltage. Have you tried to see in the BIOS what it is reading? Should tell you under hardware monitor. But i have a 140w tdp Phenom and the default vcore is 1.312v or 1.300v in the BIOS with my M3A79-T board.

2-dont know what to tell you bro, again check the bios under hardware monitor and see what it tells you

3-I'm not sure about your board, but with my board M3A79-T they have really buggy temp sensors. Mine displays 10ºc higher than everything else. For that reason I find the most accurate Core Temp and Hardware Monitor. However when I had my previous M3A32-MVP board that had sensors reading correctly, I found PC Probe to be the most accurate.

4- I would try to leave your NB voltages and SB voltages on auto for now, I can do all the way up to 3.4 GHz without touching those. However, try to clock with the BIOS, AOD changes things around and makes it confusing. There is a member in here named "got voltage" he can tell you exactly how it works with AOD, or I believe a few posts back you can find that info, great guy and has helped me alot.

5- CPU Tweak is basically a performance boost, however it does increase temps by easily 5-10ºc. I never run with it on as I don't think the performance difference is all that great in the real world use of the computer, higher temps for really no reason. However some have reported slightly higher stability at higher clocks with it on. However watch your temps as CPU tweak can help you just as it can hurt you (temp wise)

6-I have ran my Phenom at 1.63v under water and no more than 60ºc under full load. However you can set the voltages as far as your cooling will let it go. Always increase voltages one notch at a time, and don't go from 3.0 GHz to 3.2 GHz. Just try small increments at a time. It'll pay off an you'll remember me, everyone else can tell you too!!

Good luck and keep us posted dude!!

[Chicken Patty]

@ xaris106

Here you go, the post I was talking about referring to response #4 on my post. Lots of useful info on how AOD works in conjunction with your BIOS. I just use the BIOS now, AOD only made it more complicated for me, it is however a great tool!

http://www.xtremesystems.org/Forums/...&postcount=492

[xaris106]

thanks a lot.
although my mobo does not have seperate VID and vcore settings, I can see that aod can cause trouble when it reads wrong settings from the bios and I hit apply. basically when i change the multi to x16 to get 3.2GHz it might mess with the probably wrong cpu nb vid reading. Although it doesnt seem to change it. I dont really know. The bios seems a bit buggy to me. especially the wrong vcore auto setting (yes I check the bios for the real voltage.its the same with pcprobe)
The problem is i dont know if its the bios that doesnt set cpu nb or aod that cant read/set it.

Also for the cpu voltage. Isn't there a danger from high cpu voltage regardless of the temperature? thats what i'm asking. eg is 1.6V dangerous even with 30C temp at load?whats safe?

I'm trying to get the max 24/7 oc with the stock cooler(+AS5) and my current goal is 3.2GHz with minimum vcore (prime stable). Anything above 1.4V seems pushing it.or i could go a bit more? I`m at 60C now with 3GHz@1.4V. I mean I'd like 3.2G with 1.4Vcore so I`m trying stuff like cpu NB vid, unganged ram, acc etc but no luck so far.

[Chicken Patty]

thanks a lot.
although my mobo does not have seperate VID and vcore settings, I can see that aod can cause trouble when it reads wrong settings from the bios and I hit apply. basically when i change the multi to x16 to get 3.2GHz it might mess with the probably wrong cpu nb vid reading. Although it doesnt seem to change it. I dont really know. The bios seems a bit buggy to me. especially the wrong vcore auto setting (yes I check the bios for the real voltage.its the same with pcprobe)
The problem is i dont know if its the bios that doesnt set cpu nb or aod that cant read/set it.

Also for the cpu voltage. Isn't there a danger from high cpu voltage regardless of the temperature? thats what i'm asking. eg is 1.6V dangerous even with 30C temp at load?whats safe?

I'm trying to get the max 24/7 oc with the stock cooler(+AS5) and my current goal is 3.2GHz with minimum vcore (prime stable). Anything above 1.4V seems pushing it.or i could go a bit more? I`m at 60C now with 3GHz@1.4V. I mean I'd like 3.2G with 1.4Vcore so I`m trying stuff like cpu NB vid, unganged ram, acc etc but no luck so far.

Well of course too much v core is bad even with good temps. But I say 1.4v to 1.5v is fine for everyday use. Once you start going over 1.5 or close to 1.6v, its pushing it to me. Although it can last a while like that, you are definitely pushing it. Did you disable CPU tweak??

[Daveburt714]

xaris106: I had an Asus M3A78-T when they first came out, and it was actually a very poor overclocker (Bios 0302). The board itself seemed to be well contructed, and the PWM section stayed pretty cool, which were all good things.. Hopefully they've fixed alot of problems through Bios with the 0502 update.

If you can get it to boot stable at 3Ghz with Bios, I would suggest that you leave it there and use AOD to turn it up until you find the stablility limit. That way, if it crashes you'll still have a good BIOS setting to reboot from without having to reset CMOS.

It seemed like a nice board, but early BIOS were really flakey....

Good Luck man, sorry I couldn't offer more help, I sold the board to a friend and it's happily running in a HTPC now...

[xaris106]

If you can get it to boot stable at 3Ghz with Bios, I would suggest that you leave it there and use AOD to turn it up until you find the stablility limit. That way, if it crashes you'll still have a good BIOS setting to reboot from without having to reset CMOS.

Yeah I have it stable at 3GHz from bios (8h prime) and I use AOD with these settings as base to try for more, as you suggest. Didn't have to clearcmos even once so far.AOD is a nice tool for trying things out - not sure if some settings work though, with no feedback from another program, like in the cpu vnb setting. No luck so far above 3GHz. I can run spi 1M at 3.2GHz with the same settings as the stable 3GHz, but I bsod instantly when I start prime. Maybe I`ll try more Vcore or HTT and clock straight from the bios.
As for the mobo I hope it clocks more. All those heat sinks and bios settings are eye candy? :/ Thats why I got it...

Thank you for the input.

Anyone knows why cpu-z does not report core voltage?Maybe it doesnt support the mobo yet?

[starledXpress]

Anyone knows why cpu-z does not report core voltage?Maybe it doesnt support the mobo yet?

...Perhaps, but i dont`t think so...Have you ever tried the new version 1.49?


http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

Regards!

[xaris106]

ah new version came out...still reports VID and no core voltage.
I think its the motherboard's fault.maybe a new bios will support the cpu better or something.
thanks though.

[Chicken Patty]

@ gOtVoltage

Hey dude, finally overcame my stability issues passed 3.2 GHz. This chip just wanted lots of more juice. The vcore in the screenshot is a bit higher than what it needs to be for my chip to be stable at this clock but thats just what I have it set at for now. Temps under full load go up to about 45ºc and vcore jumps to 1.6v!!!! Anyhow, idle temps and just browsing around and gaming stay in high 20ºs to mid 30º's max. I overcame the fear and just upped the damn voltage and now I got one happy Phenom . I just wonder how long it'll stay happy, but with the AM2 Phenom II just around the corner, i'm not too worried as I am getting once released.

Anyhow, so far i've ran this chip like this at 3.33 GHz for about 1 week now or a bit more, done a few runs in prime for about 15-20 minutes each and never fails. So hasn't crashed once yet, benchmarked a lot with it and have gamed and just used it since, flawless so far. Guess Phenom is like "the perfect storm"

[Daveburt714]

Yeah I have it stable at 3GHz from bios (8h prime) and I use AOD with these settings as base to try for more, as you suggest.

Hey, if you wouldn't mind, would you edit your sig so we can see what parts you are using? If your using anything less than a 9950BE, 3.0Ghz may be the best you can get with your particular chip.. My 9850BE is pretty weak and takes way more V's than I'm comfortable with to go much over that.

Here's a SS of my settings in AOD (w/9950). Bumping up the NB(chip) voltage and the HT voltage helped stability quite a bit. I also raised the SB v's, but to be honest I'm not sure if that was really necessary, it's only one bump and things were running good so I left it alone for now..

CLICKABLE:


I'm pretty sure this chip would do a little better than this with more V's, but I'm on air and my load temps hit 60c while running Linpack...

Speaking of Linpack, you might want to use that to test your OC's rather than long Prime runs... It stress's the system much harder, but doesn't require hours of stress to your Mobo's Power section (which tends to kill boards!)...

Here's a link for the IntelBurnTest (Linpack), Thanks again to AgentGod

LINK: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=203011

[gOtVoltage]

Hey, if you wouldn't mind, would you edit your sig so we can see what parts you are using? If your using anything less than a 9950BE, 3.0Ghz may be the best you can get with your particular chip.. My 9850BE is pretty weak and takes way more V's than I'm comfortable with to go much over that.

Here's a SS of my settings in AOD (w/9950). Bumping up the NB(chip) voltage and the HT voltage helped stability quite a bit. I also raised the SB v's, but to be honest I'm not sure if that was really necessary, it's only one bump and things were running good so I left it alone for now..

CLICKABLE:


I'm pretty sure this chip would do a little better than this with more V's, but I'm on air and my load temps hit 60c while running Linpack...

Speaking of Linpack, you might want to use that to test your OC's rather than long Prime runs... It stress's the system much harder, but doesn't require hours of stress to your Mobo's Power section (which tends to kill boards!)...

Here's a link for the IntelBurnTest (Linpack), Thanks again to AgentGod

LINK: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=203011

Hey Dave,,

Could you run any benches you like before and after Turning OFF CPU Tweak.. I think you might just want to run with no tweak..It makes minamal differance on B3 but keeps the Heat down if you choose to not run CPU Tweak..

seeing your @ 60c load on Air and the Volts arnt over 1.5v it should bring that Load to a 56-58c. Every Bit helps right

let me know what ya think.. It wont enable TLBfix on B3 ...So you wont see a decrease in performance like with TLB..It will disable Optimal power and load states for CPU and bus..
'
Your before and after benches should practically be the same from what ive been seeing so far..Im now trying to figure How high i can sqeeze my 9950 with CPU tweak off

[Chicken Patty]

^^^ I found CPU Tweak only giving better performance in Super pi.

SO I turn it on, close AOD, run super pi, open AOD and turn it off hehehe.


Anywhere else, difference not noticeable.

[gOtVoltage]

^^^ it all depends on what and how you want to overclock ..I must say when its OFF the Bios reads temps like all the Other Mobos ive used..i believe this is whats causing ASUS 79-T to report Higher than Normal temps(Being Enabled)..

CPU tweak OFF (disabled )i am @ my Normal Temp for 1.65volts and 1.55vid for Both CPU and NB in which i ran on Four other Mobo's with this cooling..

CPU tweak is actually not needed and isnt implemented on a lot of Bioses for most midrange low end other Mobos..I dont see how ive missed this before. But im glad we caught on to it.

By not using this item you gain two good things (higher CPUclock and NB possiably ) Way lower temps. Depends on what each chip likes , It will help to have it Disabled if you have a chip that builds heat quik or uses High volts to clock.

Also i use AOD to monitor and thats really it.. i like to Oc Old school hands on in Bios

[Daveburt714]

It wont enable TLBfix on B3 ...So you wont see a decrease in performance like with TLB..It will disable Optimal power and load states for CPU and bus..

Your before and after benches should practically be the same from what ive been seeing so far..Im now trying to figure How high i can sqeeze my 9950 with CPU tweak off

Hey Got, I have pretty much the same results as Chicken Patty... CPU Tweak only showed improvement on my SuperPi times, and like you the temps went up quite a bit compared to the performance boost it offered.

AutoExpress (enabled) on the otherhand gave me a pretty good boost in 3D06 and didn't seem to cause any rise in CPU temps...

I'll try to run a few more benchies this weekend to see whats up, but my gut feeling tells me your right and the CPU Tweak option w/temps is better off left disabled.