Any comments on this overclock?

[DonNagual]

I typically stay away from overclocking, but decided to have some fun with my current cpu (Athlon64 3700+ San Diego) before I take the plunge and get a dual core CPU.

I also added two more sticks of 512mb to get myself up to 2Gb of memory.

First off, when I installed the additional 2 sticks my system automatically underclocked the ram to 166Mhz. I know that this is fairly common with the AMD memory controller, but I didn't think that I would be affected. I had it in my head that since my CPU is rev E4 that I would not be affected.... anyways....

I cranked up my CPU frequency to 2.75Ghz and I am not hitting more than 45c at full load (stock cooling). This OC also brought my ram almost back up to 200Mhz (with the divider) as well.

HTT: 250Mhz
Multiplier: 11
Core Speed: 2.75Ghz
1.472v
FSB/DRAM: CPU/14

A8N-SLI deluxe motherboard.
4sticks of 512mb 400Mhz PC3200 (samsung original)

Any OC junkies out there that have comments on this?

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Ooh that's a nice OC. BTW, wouldn't getting the FX55 San Diego for $199 be a better bet than getting a dual-core X2? Would give better performance in games at least.

 

[DonNagual]

Well I basically have an FX-57 now with this overclock (the FX-57 is 2.8Ghz with 1Mb L2 cache).

But my next step will be dual core (probably in a few months). I do some multitasking every once and a while, and hopefully more games utilizing dual core CPUs will come into the market. I am looking at the Opti 180 now.... maybe....

Anyways, here's what I have going on right now with the Athlon64 3700+

 

[DonNagual]

Hmmm. My 3DMark06 score went DOWN after upgrading to 2Gb of ram and overclocking my CPU.....

Before the overclock:
3DMark Score 3344 3DMarks
SM 2.0 Score 1485 Marks
SM 3.0 Score 1475 Marks
CPU Score 865 Marks

After the overclock:
3DMark Score 3076 3DMarks
SM 2.0 Score 1479 Marks
SM 3.0 Score 1047 Marks
CPU Score 1072 Marks

I lost points on the SM 3.0 score? Odd. I am running the latest nvidia drivers (93.71) .... hmmm..... It could be that 3DMark06 at this point is still only supporting 91.47 Drivers and I have a NEWER version installed... maybe...

 

[Sharkfood]

Hi Don,
Im confused by your FSB/DRAM ratio. CPU/14? What does it show in CPU-Z? 1:1 or 4:5?

I'd try relaxing your latencies a bit. AMD's with the 4-stick memory controller issues (yah, E4 is one of the stepping cores with this issue) can usually revert back to standard timing by increasing latency a bit.

Grab SiSoft Sandra 2007 and run it's CPU Arith tests and Memory Bandwidth tests. Run both of these when testing an overclock and measure if BOTH increase. If you go up in one, down in the other- it's time to play with memory timings/ratio to get both up. This will save you time finding the best ratio/timings for your ram/chipset vs. 3dmark06 hehe.

 

[MetalX]

CPU-Z shows CPU/x for the memory ratio on Athlon 64s because they don't have an FSB since the memory controller is integrated in the CPU. My memory in my old Athlon 64 3200+ system was CPU/15, resulting in DDR266 even though my memory sticks (all of them) were DDR400 sticks. But anyway, I guess you could say the FSB/DRAM ratio in Athlon 64 systems is really 5:1 normally because the closest thing they have to FSB is the HTT and that's always 1000MHz unless overclocked. (My memory shown here is faster than 133MHz because the system is overclocked)

 

[DonNagual]

Thanks for the input so far guys.

Here is the CPU-Z for my memory:

And it is just as MetalX points out.

So here's what I'm thinking, let me see if people agree or if I am missing something.

Before whenever I tried to OC this cpu, it failed. The ram simply couldn't handle an overclock as it isn't meant for it. Yesterday I popped in that 4th stick of ram and it underclocked the ram to 166Mhz because of the AMD memory controller issue.

I crank up the HTT to 250Mhz on the cpu, and the ram automatically also gets bumped up to about 200Mhz during the process (which is a perfectly acceptable speed for the ram).

So now I have a 2.75Ghz processor and my ram is working at 200Mhz. The timings of the ram are actually TIGHTER than they were before the overclock as well. I used to be at 3-3-3-8 but now it is at 2.5-3-3-7.

I am thinking this is looking like some damn fine settings and nothing needs further adjusting.... am I missing anything here?