Cannan Posted February 3, 2009 Posted February 3, 2009 (edited) Thats fantastic! A quick tip that I found after getting my HDT set up, the fan moves quite a bit of air. I found I got better temps by about 2-4 degrees by ensuring the the exhaust fan on my case, which is about an inch away from the back of my cpu cooler, could keep up with the Xigmatek fan. Once I swapped out the old stock case fan with a higher CFM fan, it improved my airflow like whoa, and helped my temps. Good luck with the OCing! I'll definitely look at fans in the next little while. The HAF fans are pretty big and I have read they should be replaced. I'm doing some OCing now and things are going well. I'm up to 3.6 stable (for an hour anyway) so I might leave it there and run Prime95 overnight. I set FSB to 400, DRAM Frequency to DDR2-1066 (3:4 ratio), CPU voltage to 1.30v and DRAM voltage to 2.1v. I learned in the process that setting the FSB in the ASUS BIOS automatically jumps the DRAM Frequency to a higher setting - I had to turn it down when I couldn't boot. I am going to add a note to my initial post so others don't make the same mistake I have a couple of questions though: 1. There are other voltage settings in my BIOS that I left as auto and I was wondering whether I should be looking for the right values for them instead. They are: CPU GTL Voltage Reference (0/2), CPU GTL Voltage Reference (1/3), CPU PLL Voltage, FSB Termination Voltage, NB Voltage, NB GTL Reference, SB Voltage, PCIE SATA Voltage. 2. I left the BIOS setting "FSB Strap to Northbridge" on auto, is that ok? Values I could have set are 200MHz 266MHz 333 400MHz. 3. I set CPU voltage to 1.30. CoreTemp reports my VID as 1.2500v while CPU-Z reports my core voltage as 1.272v - any reason for this discrepancy? [EDIT: I am guessing the 1.30v -> 1.272v is this Vdroop that I've read about and the 1.2500v VID is the default vCore for the E8400] Thanks! Edited February 3, 2009 by Cannan Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebarone Posted February 3, 2009 Posted February 3, 2009 Answers: 1) These should help: In-depth explaination of GTL Voltage References (pretty technical) Explaination of other voltage settings Dont change the PCIE or SATA voltages. 2) See the 2nd link from above 3) I would trust CPU-Z on the accurate reading of the current voltage. Its not "vdroop", thats the droop in voltage you see when going between idle and load on your proc. The vdrop you see (yes, drop, one "o") is the discrepancy between the BIOS voltage setting and the actual voltage. Both are intentional, and I would rekon vdrop has something to do with the first link from above. Good luck! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannan Posted February 3, 2009 Posted February 3, 2009 Answers:1) These should help: In-depth explaination of GTL Voltage References (pretty technical) Explaination of other voltage settings Dont change the PCIE or SATA voltages. 2) See the 2nd link from above 3) I would trust CPU-Z on the accurate reading of the current voltage. Its not "vdroop", thats the droop in voltage you see when going between idle and load on your proc. The vdrop you see (yes, drop, one "o") is the discrepancy between the BIOS voltage setting and the actual voltage. Both are intentional, and I would rekon vdrop has something to do with the first link from above. Good luck! Thanks for the guidance! I think I am getting close to where I want to be. Last night I set my FSB to 423 (x9) and my CPU voltage to 1.30v (showing as 1.272 in CPUID). My DRAM was set at 1061MHz, which I believe is a 4:5 ratio with FSB. This took me to 3.8 GHz, without any trouble. I then ran prime95 (Large FFTs) overnight and throughout the morning (14 hours total) with no errors. Even better, the max temperature i got under load was 55C, which is what I maxed out at with my stock cooler at stock speed. I guess now I need to decide whether to go for 4GHz - which I think is very doable given the results I have so far - or stay at 3.8Ghz and just try to lower the voltages (and thereby temperatures) to the lowest point and tighten up my RAM timings. Right now I am thinking my 3.8 Ghz result is looking very safe and stable and should be great for long term use. I'll be sure to fully post my settings once I hit my "final" OC setup. Once again, I really appreciate the help and feedback. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebarone Posted February 3, 2009 Posted February 3, 2009 What is your system used for anyways? Gaming or all that video encoding stuff that I always wonder how people do? If you're gaming, a 3.8ghz dual core processor wont bottleneck you before the graphics card in about 99% of games. Until something like Alan Wake comes out, you should be blazing quick on the processor part of games for quite a while at that speed. If you're doing all those encoding/zipping/raring/decoding/whathaveyou, I suppose faster will be better, but again 3.8 is still darn quick. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannan Posted February 3, 2009 Posted February 3, 2009 What is your system used for anyways? Gaming or all that video encoding stuff that I always wonder how people do? If you're gaming, a 3.8ghz dual core processor wont bottleneck you before the graphics card in about 99% of games. Until something like Alan Wake comes out, you should be blazing quick on the processor part of games for quite a while at that speed. If you're doing all those encoding/zipping/raring/decoding/whathaveyou, I suppose faster will be better, but again 3.8 is still darn quick. Mostly gaming and home office use really, not a lot of encoding/decoding and all that. For what I do 3.8GHz is probably right on the money - I started this process hoping to get 3.6 Ghz after all And honestly, part of it was just for the fun of doing it! Some of the information in the links you provided is a little bit over my head (OK, a lot over my head!) so I might just leave those voltages at 'auto' - think that would be fine? From what I understand a lot of those settings come into play as you near the upper range of your chip's OC potential. So, I'm thinking tonight I will back-up on my CPU voltage a little bit to find the lowest setting. And then adjust my RAM timings to their 'optimal' values, running Memtest+ after each change. If I can lower my temps down a few degrees I'd be really happy - 3.8 GHz and cooler than when I bought it sounds pretty good to me! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebarone Posted February 3, 2009 Posted February 3, 2009 Mostly gaming and home office use really, not a lot of encoding/decoding and all that. For what I do 3.8GHz is probably right on the money - I started this process hoping to get 3.6 Ghz after all And honestly, part of it was just for the fun of doing it! Some of the information in the links you provided is a little bit over my head (OK, a lot over my head!) so I might just leave those voltages at 'auto' - think that would be fine? From what I understand a lot of those settings come into play as you near the upper range of your chip's OC potential. So, I'm thinking tonight I will back-up on my CPU voltage a little bit to find the lowest setting. And then adjust my RAM timings to their 'optimal' values, running Memtest+ after each change. If I can lower my temps down a few degrees I'd be really happy - 3.8 GHz and cooler than when I bought it sounds pretty good to me! Oh I hear ya there man. I bought my comp with the mindset that an E8400 would be wallet friendly and do me just fine for gaming. Then I got... "the itch". I overclocked... then overclocked more... then got a new cooler... then did more!... then I lapped my cooler and did more... then I lapped my proc and did more.... then I upgraded my whole airflow system and did more... I cant stop! Its a ton of fun, pushing things to their limits I'm a physicist so I love reading those technical articles too and finding out even more about what I'm doing, its just a ton of fun for me... Plus it looks cool, and looking awesome is so much more important than being awesome And tbh.. I have zero need to overclock my comp even a little haha I think auto on those settings is perfectly fine, 3.8 isnt anywhere near the thresholds where you'd need to start thinking about those other settings. Good luck, lets see some benchmarks in the OC Competition sticky when you're done! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannan Posted February 3, 2009 Posted February 3, 2009 Oh I hear ya there man. I bought my comp with the mindset that an E8400 would be wallet friendly and do me just fine for gaming. Then I got... "the itch". I overclocked... then overclocked more... then got a new cooler... then did more!... then I lapped my cooler and did more... then I lapped my proc and did more.... then I upgraded my whole airflow system and did more... I cant stop! Its a ton of fun, pushing things to their limits I'm a physicist so I love reading those technical articles too and finding out even more about what I'm doing, its just a ton of fun for me... Plus it looks cool, and looking awesome is so much more important than being awesome And tbh.. I have zero need to overclock my comp even a little haha I think auto on those settings is perfectly fine, 3.8 isnt anywhere near the thresholds where you'd need to start thinking about those other settings. Good luck, lets see some benchmarks in the OC Competition sticky when you're done! hehe - I could see how addictive it could be. The crazy thing is I actually haven't played a game for longer than 10 minutes since I got my my machine, I've just been reading about parts and overclocking And I'll definitely post my benchmarks when all's said and done. Thanks for all the help! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannan Posted February 7, 2009 Posted February 7, 2009 (edited) Back again with a little update and screen shot! For interest's sake I tried to bring my system up to 4.0GHz, but things started to get unstable. I suspect to reach that point I would have to adjust some of the other voltages. However, I'm quite happy with my 3825MHz so I started lowering my core voltage and tried some more in depth stability testing. So, far I have brought my core voltage down to 1.2250V (1.200V in CPU-Z) and everything seems stable. I ran prime95 (large FFTs) for 20 hours, the Intel Burn Test for 5 iterations (maybe not enough but I took the first value) and OCCT for one hour. All tests passed successfully. Also, my temperatures are pretty good too - around mid-30s idle, mid-40's under load. With the IBT the max temperature I got was 56C. My RAM is currently running at DDR2-1066Mhz, which is about a 4:5 ratio. So, I'm ready to call this a successful overclock! I only have 2 questions now: 1. Is it worth trying to lower the voltage even further? Lowering it 1.23125 to 1.2250 didn't lower my temperatures much. 2. Would there be much gain in tying to get a 1:1 DRAM to FSB ratio? I'm thinking FSB of 500 * 7.5 multiplier would get me DDR2-1000, with a speed of 3750Mhz. I doubt this would change things much, but its worth asking I have attached a screen shot of my system during a prime95 run - note that the core0 sensor is stuck and won't lower past 42C. Cheers! Edited February 7, 2009 by Cannan Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebarone Posted February 7, 2009 Posted February 7, 2009 No, those voltages are superb, your proc will last longer than you want to keep it if you use those. You never know until you try In general, you'd want as fast an FSB as possible, but as far as the ratio goes, I personally havent ever found cause to lower the speed of the memory simply to obtain a 1:1 ratio. Howeverrrrr.... it is worth a shot. If/when you do try it, once you get the 1:1, try changing your "AI Transaction Booster" number to a lower value and see how much performance you get out of that. Its a value that is a bit involved in its explaination, so I wont go into it, but it seems logical that at a 1:1 you can get that number lower than at other ratios. Hopefully, you'll see some impact If not... well, grats anyways on your successful overclock! Lets see some benchmarks! Post them in the sticky Socket 775 thread to compare against others Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great_Gig Posted February 7, 2009 Posted February 7, 2009 It may be a little late now, as you are well underway, but the best advice I got when I started overclocking was to keep notes. I record everything I do, every change, every voltage and temp. It has served me very well and proved useful many times later on, saving a lot of time. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannan Posted February 7, 2009 Posted February 7, 2009 It may be a little late now, as you are well underway, but the best advice I got when I started overclocking was to keep notes. I record everything I do, every change, every voltage and temp. It has served me very well and proved useful many times later on, saving a lot of time. Absolutely! I did keep a record of everything I did, how long each test was run, etc. etc. I think its a great tip and - well worth repeating. Also, I'll add some more detail as to what I did and what my results were to my original post when I get a chance. That will hopefully help people with similar hardware, and it serves as a bit of a record as well Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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