***955 Unleashed***

[ecat]

Looks like progress all round, 4.0 eh ? Well let's see where I'm at

First, I have to say that using the 955 makes me appreciate just how smooth and easy my experience was with the 720. That poor little 3 core cripple always tried its damnedest to make my wishes come true. The 955, well, it's a bit twitchy and I'm starting to think the m3a79T deluxe is a little twitchy too.

After my hissy fit last night I got the 955 looking 3.8 stable at sensible volts by using ACC. -2%, +2%, auto it didn't matter and prime ran for 6 hours as I slept. So ACC helped, or maybe it didn't, it certainly shouldn't, but maybe it did ? Certainly the power consumption dropped a little when I enabled it.

I set out this morning with a plan to test the stability of all 48 basic ACC settings. Not a very good plan. So, I thought, if ACC is dropping the power consumption why not just boot to bios, set the values, reboot into the bios and look for the settings that give the lowest power reading ? Meh. Maybe not the best of ideas but it sure beats 48+ hours of watching prime.

Well, I have the 48 measurements here. In fact I have over 100 measurements. A very strange thing happens with my set up when ACC is enabled with one or more values not equal to 0. With various peripherals removed and ACC off or = 0,0,0,0 the measured power while at the bios cpu settings screen is 230w +/-1. Change a setting and reboot, the measured power is now around 218w +/-1. The sort of thing I was looking for, but reboot again without making changes and the reading jumps back to 230. Repeat as many times as you like, whatever non-zero values you like, the sequence is 230, 218, 230, 218 etc. Even if it is inconsequential I still find it curious.

Anyway. Much messing around later and I have changed over to my 700w Seasonic, 670w at 12v is making for a much more enjoyable experience. Watching it closely I think even at 3.8 the Tagan was nearing meltdown, 12v rail drooping and efficiency shot to hell.

After 24 hours messing around I'm now happy the 955 can at least match my darling 720. Nb doesn't like more than 2.4, even getting the fsb to 266 has been a chore. 4.0 ? I'll see what I can do, though it may be best if you don't wait up.