The Official OCZ VX Thread - Strictly Test Data Only!!!

[conrad.maranan]

Yesterday afternoon, I mentioned that I had a surprise. I've been wishy-washy about buying a new processor, especially since I'll be doing a very major upgrade in the near future. Anyway, my wife picked up my 3500+ from mWave while I was at work yesterday. This was the surprise I was talking about over here. I was mentally exhausted when I got home last night. I had a meeting to attend early this morning, but I took the rest of the day off so I can have some quality time with my new CPU. "Enough of the story telling, Conrad. Just get to the point, damn it!"



First of all, CPU code is as follows:

ADA3500DEP4AW
CBAXC 0437SPBW
1076514I40252

Week 37? Big deal, nothing new, who cares? The first thing that I noticed was that the CPU voltage set in BIOS was the exact same voltage registered with CPU-Z. I tested accuracy with a digital multimeter and the voltage was true. BIOS is still 1.36 Beta. I then made the necessary adjustments to have my CPU and memory run 1:1 at 10x250MHz. Guess what? It worked! At this point, I was jumping for joy because I did not have to drop my CPU multiplier down to a mediocre value to push my memory at this frequency. Moving on, I dialed in my DDR Booster to a digital multimeter-verified 3.51V. After several hours of testing, the images below depict the best I was able to pull off.







Here's what's interesting: I was able to do 265MHz Memtest and Super PI 32M stable on the two 3000+ Winchesters that I tested with previously. For some reason, the magic number is not making itself known with this CPU. VDIMM has been adjusted in 0.05V increments from 3.3V all the way up to 3.8V. 265MHz is just not manifesting itself right now. I haven't experimented with lower CPU multipliers yet, but I'm beyond happy with where I'm at considering I could not do this with the prior Winchesters tested.

Maximum CPU speed has not yet been tested, so I'm hoping for a few more megahertz later on this evening. Current BIOS setting for CPU voltage is 1.550V + 5% using AMD's retail-boxed HSF. Once I find my maximum CPU frequency, I'll experiment with memory dividers to discover my sweet spot.

Last but not least, I ripped the heatspreaders off of my VX modules. Yes, I'm aware that I voided the warranty by doing so, but the warranty has been voided since day one considering I pushed up 3.8VDIMM on the first night. What did I gain by doing this? Max stable Memtest was 255MHz with the heatspreaders intact. A 2MHz gain isn't anything extreme. It doesn't even justify voiding a lifetime warranty. But I'll do anything for an increase in speed, even if it's just 2MHz. I'm just xtreme like that.

Cheers!