ocing doesn't boost speed at all!

[binkgle]

just got my new hd last night, and windows is up and running and i'm ready to oc again. the settings i've tested are cpu and ram @ stock, cpu @ 225 htt with 1:1 ram @ 2.5-3-3-10-2T, and cpu @ 235 with ram set to run at ddr333 (so it ends up something like 190 mhz) at 2-3-2-10-1T. all of these seem stable.

to test these all, i've tried running the sisoft sandra 2005 memory bandwidth test, which showed little noticeable difference between the three settings.
i've run 3dmark2001se at defaults settings and there really hasn't been a drastic change between any of these settings, only a couple hundred points. i've run 3dmark05's cpu test, and scores have all been within 100 points of each other.

therefore, is it even worth ocing with such close results? ocing my vid card helps a lot, but ocing the cpu seems to do nothing. i used to be able to set cpu @ 240, with ram at 200 2-3-3-10-1T, but no more, and from looking at what i've just found, i bet it wouldn't have changed much. am i missing something? you'd think that even if the ram were a bit slower than spec, if the cpu was oced by 235 mhz that there would be some difference!

i can't run any in-game benchmarks yet as i now only have half-life and cs, which aren't exactly taxing on my rig. i will have hl2 soon, but probably only during the upcoming winter vacation.

should i be seeing improvments? is it even worth wearing out the cpu if it doesn't help at all?

also, i now run a sata hd, and i've heard that the via sata controller doesn't do well past 220 mhz. is this true? could this be affecting my oc? this is a nioce hd (a WD Raptor), and there's no way i'm changing it after having just spent $170 on it.

[cuddles]

Ram won't make that HUGE of a difference unless you're going from something drastic like 200 @ 3-3-3 to 240 @ 2-2-2. You didn't mention how far you're OC'ing your CPU, what settings have you tried? Are you doing 235xstock multiplier? You should get a decent increase in CPU score, but not a huge difference. Keep in mind 2005 is 90% GPU.

[WesM63]

225mhz? your complaing about only 25mhz over stock? That is'nt much.

I'm not to familar with your board, so i can't add any advice. Try running the lowest ram timings you can (2-2-2-11) at stock speeds (200mhz) and see what you get.

Please don't refer to your ram speed at HTT, its really confusing when you start running dividers. (Higher HTT speed do not increase performance what so ever)

[reject]

i ran the kv8 pro up to 260 with no issues
try 240x10 that is a nice 20% oc and a big increase in speed

[binkgle]

did i refer to my ram speed as htt? sorry, didn't mean to, i do know the difference.

my stock multiplier is 10x (which would make that 25 mhz htt boost into an extra 250 mhz for cpu speed). i have heard that with a64s you want to use the highest multi possible.

my cpu will not clock higher than 240 htt, at least that's what i've found. i've tried 240x10 with vcore up to 1.7 (board overvolts by .05 anyway, and i don't want to run 1.8 through my cpu without water cooling), with an fsb:ram divider making ram (at stock) run as ddr333, there for ending up with 2.4 ghz cpu and ddr400 ram. this couldn't even last a minute in prime95, and would freeze during any gaming environment, from actual games like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Half-Life and CS (original versions) to 3dmarks 2001, 03, and 05. would also casue random reboots and crasing to desktop. so, obviously, that wasn't stable.

ram will not stably run 1T higher than 205 or 206 mhz, and is rated for 2-3-3 timings at ddr400. stock voltage is 2.65, but board overvolts by .09, so it's more like 2.75. i can get away with 2-3-2, but whenever i try lowering the 2nd number down to two, no matter the circumstances, comp won't boot, and i have to manually reset the bios via jumpers on mobo.

cuddles, when you say it should give me a decent cpu score boost, you do mean more than like 60 points, right? also, cpu tests run at the absolute lowest IQ settings so that the cpu does all the work, not the vid card.

highest oc i've been able to run with the ram is 2.5-3-3-10-2T. how much do timings affect performance? i really want best perf possible in those cpu-dependant levels in hl2, hl2 deathmatch, and cs:s. how much of a difference does 1T make over 2T? remember ram won't allow 1T when it's running over 205 or 206 mhz, which, obviously, is pretty darn low.

i am aware that i need new ram, but for the moment i have spent all the money my parents will allow me to for at least 9 months, and i'll need a job to earn what i spend from now on (no more leeching my bank account, say my parents, and seeing as mum is basically in charge of all withdrawls of money...)

[STEvil]

bump the CPU to 1.8v and see where you can go.

Run dividers and keep your ram at 1T if you can. Try feeding the ram more volts.. I dont think that board does more than 2.9v so you should be safe feeding it all the board can support.

EDIT

1.8v.. just keep an eye on temps and if they get too high for your liking drop back.

[blinky]

just got my new hd last night, and windows is up and running and i'm ready to oc again. the settings i've tested are cpu and ram @ stock, cpu @ 225 htt with 1:1 ram @ 2.5-3-3-10-2T, and cpu @ 235 with ram set to run at ddr333 (so it ends up something like 190 mhz) at 2-3-2-10-1T. all of these seem stable.

in this case what u had it running before would be better since the ram is at 225 instead of 190 something. although because ur increasing the cpu by 100mhz ud prolly get a small increase in mark01

[binkgle]

but when the ram is at 225 it's using 2T, and when it's at 194 or whatever, it's running 1T, and 1T is suppossed to make an enormous difference. i test how much of a difference tomorrow.

i have a zalman cnps7000a-Cu cooling my cpu, with arctic silver 5 thermal grease. the hsf is using its fan controller, limiting it to 1500rpm. i never saw much of a cooling perf improvement without the the fan controller, and certainly not enough to warrant to increased noise level (sys is already too loud, what with 2 120mm fans that came with the case which are spinning (i think) at their max speeds (as an aside, how could i control them? they make much more noise than any other fans, especially the intake one). i don't feel comfortable with cpu temps above 50 celcius, but i really don't know what's too much. what would you guys consider too hot?

my mobo has cpu temp reading issues (almost all abit kv8 pros do, it's a bios issue, abit hasn't corrected), but in general, with everything stock, my cpu idles around 37, and loads around 45, 47. still, this seems a bit too hot for stock speeds, even with air cooling. what do you think?

would lowering ldt multi down to 3x from 4x lower temp? it isn't suppossed to have much effect on performance at all.

EDIT: for better cooling, i *might* be able to get water cooling if i do enough babysitting/working at local indian retaurant. i am a total noob at water-cooling, so would be happiest with a recommendation for a good full kit that performs well, is quiet, is relatively cheap, and cools cpu and gpu (and preferably northbridge, too). or recommend a place where i could either build a kit and have them send me the parts (buy pre-made rig on the internet style, as one does from alienware, for instance) or a list of parts. must be easy to do!

[STEvil]

ldt will not affect temperature.

47c seems a bit high, but my 2800+ at 2.4 with 1.75v gets about the same with 21c ambient and stock cooler on the bench.

[craig588]

1T adds about 25MHz of performance. That happens to coencide almost exactly with your performance.

[binkgle]

see the edit i put in my previous post just as a side note i'd also like to bring up

[binkgle]

1T adds about 25MHz of performance. That happens to coencide almost exactly with your performance.

so running cpu @ 235x10 with ram @ 194 mhz 2-3-3-10-1T should be the best?

it'll be nice to have hl2 and its timedemo feature... any ideas on pushing cpu further than 235x10? should i try lower multipliers?

ram is only rated up to 2.8 volts, so the higest setting i feel comfortable setting it at is 2.7 (seeing as board overvolts up to 2.79). highest bios will allow is 2.8. is it safe for ram to bring voltage higher than 2.8 volts? i have alifetime warranty, and, let's face it, mushkin would never know i'd raised vdimm higher than 2.8 if i had to rma it.

why would ram not allow 1T after 206 mhz? should i try loosening other timings? how much effect on performance do each of the main 4 timings have?

EDIT: sry for the double post

[cuddles]

The ram will be fine at 2.8v.

[ocmyface]

i really dont recommend WC, save an extra 100 bucks and get a mach1 off ebay then have an AC guy regas it

[reject]

OT: why do the stock phase units come with crappy gas?
binkgle: try running the ram at 2-2-2 and then find the max HTT it can go.
then find ur max cpu speed and find a divider that will allow your ram to be as fast as possible.
with a64s cpu speed takes preference over ram speed

[iboomalot]

take this for what its worth since I have never run your ram or mobo

270-275 FSB with a 4/5 divider and 9X multi and lowering ldt multi down to 3x if needed.

this should put the CPU around 2475 mhz the ram at 220 mhz

see if it will run that at 1T with low timings ,, I never use 2T

[binkgle]

i'll see if ram runs 2-2-2 when at ddr333, but would prefer to not have to manually reset my bios (again).

if i were to run 300x8 (ldt multi 3x), would setting ram stock to ddr266 be ideal?

have any of you heard about the thing were a64s should use highest available multi? is this true?

EDIT: i tried running ddr266 stock with 300x8, but comp wouldn't manage to boot (would get past loading of bios, but would hang when trying to boot from hd). ram was @ 2.8v, cpu @ 1.75v. hmm...

[WesM63]

EDIT: i tried running ddr266 stock with 300x8, but comp wouldn't manage to boot (would get past loading of bios, but would hang when trying to boot from hd). ram was @ 2.8v, cpu @ 1.75v. hmm...

Dude thats really confusing.. are you saying you had your max mem speed set to 133mhz? then set HTT in bios to 300mhz?

I'd try using clockgen, I couldn't boot at 10x245mhz 1:1 but when I set it in clock-gen it ran 100% stable 24/7... computers are odd sometimes.

[binkgle]

Dude thats really confusing.. are you saying you had your max mem speed set to 133mhz? then set HTT in bios to 300mhz?

I'd try using clockgen, I couldn't boot at 10x245mhz 1:1 but when I set it in clock-gen it ran 100% stable 24/7... computers are odd sometimes.

sry i confused you. ram was set to ddr266 when cpu was at stock. with an htt of 300, that would come back up to ddr400 (i think). timings used were 2-3-3-10-1T. I'll try with 2T. And I'll try memtest86+, as well.

[STEvil]

8x300 using 133mhz memory divider comes out exactly at 200mhz for the memory.

Did you set your HTT to 3x? If HTT total mhz is over ~1100 it can cause stability or corruption issues sometimes, depending on the board etc. Good idea to shoot for around 1000mhz or under.

HTT multi X HTT FSB (3 x 300 in this case) = HTT Frequency (900mhz).

[binkgle]

yes, i did it with htt mulit (bios calls it ldt multi) 3x. don't know why there was the hang, but i know it didn't work, so...

[WesM63]

It is the LDT multi, like i said, don't refer to memory speed as HTT it confuses us all, also don't refer to memory mhz in its DDR speed, also confusing (well when we are trying to troubleshoot your problems).

My rule of thumb is anytime your HTT speeds exceed 265mhz lower your LDT multi to 2 or 2.5x.

[binkgle]

It is the LDT multi, like i said, don't refer to memory speed as HTT it confuses us all, also don't refer to memory mhz in its DDR speed, also confusing (well when we are trying to troubleshoot your problems).

My rule of thumb is anytime your HTT speeds exceed 265mhz lower your LDT multi to 2 or 2.5x.

i can't do half multipliers. anyway, isn't 2x a bit low? there must be some perf difference between 4x and 2x! i'll give it a shot, though.

[binkgle]

well, i tried 300x8 with 1.65 volts (overvolted to 1.7) with ram @ 200 mhz 2-3-3-10-1T and ldt multi 2x. i managed to boot, did very well in the sandra cpu arithmetic benchmark, then tried to run 3dmark05's cpu test. system hung when loading the first test. should i try with voltage set to 1.7v (effectively 1.75)?
anyway, how exactly does a cpu multiplier work?

[Holst]

Nice one binkgle, your getting there now.

Try a little more voltage on the CPU, 1.75 is about as high as I would go. Just to see if you get get the system stable.

If that dosent help try lower memory timings (keep 1T, but try 2.5,4,4,10.1t)

If thats still no use try lowering the HTT a bit, try 295..