Just installed 550BE - Oops...4 cores.

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memnoch_thedevil

Gawd
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Jun 3, 2008
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So I took out my 720BE, popped in the 550BE, then fired it up. I forgot to remove the 720 first, oops. I also forgot to revert to default settings in the bios, to boot as a dual core too. But it installed the cpu just fine, and low and behold its 4 cores...

Now to do some bench testing and oc'n...only have the stock TIM and cooler on it at the moment though lol so I don't expect too much.


 
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I really need a new motherboard. Everyone has these unlocks and i'm stuck with an AM2 motherboard that sucks for overclocking.... Anyways congratulations, really jealous right now :p
 
edinator said:
I really need a new motherboard. Everyone has these unlocks and i'm stuck with an AM2 motherboard that sucks for overclocking.... Anyways congratulations, really jealous right now :p
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hehe ya I hear that...not to make you more jealous, but at least at stock it looks stable...a little on the hot side, but like I said, it's stock cooler and the TIM that was on it. I'm going to go ahead and put the DarkKnight back on there, since my i7 stuff won't be here until Tuesday, and no telling when the CPU from Intel will ship...

A little tid bit more:




Next update:

Well the addition of the DarkKnight dropped the idle temps by 8 C with it overclocked to 3.4 vs stock with the stock amd cooler lol...no surprise there. I am still at stock volts, and going to keep on going!





Another update:





I mean really??? 3.6 on stock....never breaking 40 C???? (I say 40C because when I did my testing with 2 cores, TMPIN2 was the closest to the core temp, and it was always 3 C hotter than the core, in every stress test, oc, stock etc, and when the core went up so did it, consistent at 3 C)

I know these are just quick and dirty multiplier overclocks and just a quick 10 pass with IBT...but still, that's pretty impressive to me. I will keep going, and once I get to a stand still, I will do a more complete stability test.

Next update:





So far so good...3.8 w/ only a .75v increase...time for the next round...I smell 4.0 :)
 
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dennisjai said:
temps are incorrect when you unlock cores.
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I am aware of this. However with extensive testing with just 2 cores and 3 cores, the TMPIN2 sensor on the dual core, and the TMPIN03 sensor on the 3 core chip was ALWAYS within 3 degrees of the core cpu temp. When overclocking, idle, running different benchmarks, it was consistent across the board. The TMPIN2 sensor is unchanged to my knowledge even with the 4 cores unlocked. I had also read something about that over at xtreme. Point is, it's not balls on accurate, but it's close enough for me to feel comfortable about my overclocks temps.

I am typing this at 4.0 btw :)

Just gotta see if it's stable now lol
 
Well all my tests passed ITB with no problems, but failed P95 everytime. So I started testing the memory...and sure enough it fails the desktop version of memtest. So I pull all the sticks out but 1 and test it, that one passed. put in a second one and tested it, and it passed. I stopped there, because you have to RMA the sticks by the pair, and I knew that 1 of the 2 sticks left were bad.

I also decided to give the new bios a whirl and saved the old one just in case. Well, so far I can push my NB much further with the new bios, and I passed a 12 hour P95 @ stock settings and volts.

Now I am currently on a 20 pass IBT on high @ 3.6 w/ NB @ 2600...stock core volts and a .5 increase to CPU NB VID volts.
I am sure I can push this chip much much farther now...but the question is, is there any reason to go past 3.6GHz w/ a 2600 NB? Especially since I am stock CPU volts...
 
What did you get the 550BE for?

Q: Do you need to go past 3.6? A: You could for the fun of it.
 
Clumsydenial said:
What did you get the 550BE for?

Q: Do you need to go past 3.6? A: You could for the fun of it.
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Well originally I bought the 550BE because I thought I wasn't going to be able to do an i7 build, because I had missed out on the Intel Big Deal...so after I ordered all the parts for my AM3 build (CrossHair III + DDR3 Ram +550BE for now), I got an email from Intel confirming my account, and even though the rep on the phone had told me the Deal was going to end on the 22nd, I was able to grab an i7 on the 24th.

So I cancelled the AMD parts, but the CPU was already shipped...drat Newegg for their super fast shipping lol. But I like this chip so much, I am going to keep it and sell my 720 instead. This 550BE will stay in the sig parts and turn into my son's computer, which will be used for gaming, watching movies, and surfing the net. He's only 7 so nothing else for now. Instead of the 4890, he's getting my GTX 260.

I just wonder when the gains become diminishing. I mean 3.6 at stock seems great, add to that a NB of 2600 and HT of 2400, will anything past those really be that noticable, and more importantly be worth the increase of both volts to get there and the heat it generates from the increase?
 
Wow that is lucky.

I purchased some AMD hardware recently... wanted to get a triple core, so I could potentially unlock the fourth core, but they were out of stock.

I didn't think getting two cores unlocked on a 550 BE would ever happen, so I settled with a 945 BE quad. But you got all four operational, that's pretty badass, you got what I'm using for more than half the price.

I'm still stress testing my system at stock speeds, just to make sure everything is 100% okay before I start pushing the hertz. But I am hopeful of at least 3.5 ghz using AMD's stock HSF. If I had your 3.6 ghz rock solid stable I would be very happy indeed.
 
lt_shiro said:
how about some pics of your rig :)
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Here ya go...the only thing different is I swapped out the 4890 with a GTX 260, the 4890 will go in my i7 rig. Can't believe the GTX 260 was bigger than the 4890 lol...

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Jalidi said:
Wow that is lucky.

I purchased some AMD hardware recently... wanted to get a triple core, so I could potentially unlock the fourth core, but they were out of stock.

I didn't think getting two cores unlocked on a 550 BE would ever happen, so I settled with a 945 BE quad. But you got all four operational, that's pretty badass, you got what I'm using for more than half the price.

I'm still stress testing my system at stock speeds, just to make sure everything is 100% okay before I start pushing the hertz. But I am hopeful of at least 3.5 ghz using AMD's stock HSF. If I had your 3.6 ghz rock solid stable I would be very happy indeed.
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Sell your 945, buy my 720 and pocket the difference :)
 
I'm a sucker for punishment, and want MOAR out of my chip...would you guys say this is stable?
I will run P95 overnight, when I go to bed, but I think I would call this stable...and a pretty dam good oc on air...thoughts? Should I keep going? lol...






Here's what I'm testing now :D

 
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memnoch_thedevil said:
Well originally I bought the 550BE because I thought I wasn't going to be able to do an i7 build, because I had missed out on the Intel Big Deal...so after I ordered all the parts for my AM3 build (CrossHair III + DDR3 Ram +550BE for now), I got an email from Intel confirming my account, and even though the rep on the phone had told me the Deal was going to end on the 22nd, I was able to grab an i7 on the 24th.

So I cancelled the AMD parts, but the CPU was already shipped...drat Newegg for their super fast shipping lol. But I like this chip so much, I am going to keep it and sell my 720 instead. This 550BE will stay in the sig parts and turn into my son's computer, which will be used for gaming, watching movies, and surfing the net. He's only 7 so nothing else for now. Instead of the 4890, he's getting my GTX 260.

I just wonder when the gains become diminishing. I mean 3.6 at stock seems great, add to that a NB of 2600 and HT of 2400, will anything past those really be that noticable, and more importantly be worth the increase of both volts to get there and the heat it generates from the increase?
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So you basically got lucky two times.

Seems to be stable at the moment. Not sure if the slight gains you will see if you push harder will be worth the effort. If it stays cool, and you are happy with where you are at, I would leave it.
 
Clumsydenial said:
So you basically got lucky two times.

Seems to be stable at the moment. Not sure if the slight gains you will see if you push harder will be worth the effort. If it stays cool, and you are happy with where you are at, I would leave it.
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That's kind of what I was wanting to hear lol...I mean I am pretty much at stock to run 3.8, and need a fairly large jump in volts just to get into windows at a little over 4.0...so I don't think it's worth it...but nice to see I can do 4.0 if I wanted too...if this were going to be my main rig, then with as nice of a chip it appears I have here, I would probably look into getting my first WC setup, and push it further :p
 
Jalidi said:
Wow that is lucky.

I purchased some AMD hardware recently... wanted to get a triple core, so I could potentially unlock the fourth core, but they were out of stock.

I didn't think getting two cores unlocked on a 550 BE would ever happen, so I settled with a 945 BE quad. But you got all four operational, that's pretty badass, you got what I'm using for more than half the price.

I'm still stress testing my system at stock speeds, just to make sure everything is 100% okay before I start pushing the hertz. But I am hopeful of at least 3.5 ghz using AMD's stock HSF. If I had your 3.6 ghz rock solid stable I would be very happy indeed.
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stock cooler would be pushing it honestly.. the 955 would of been a better choice.. 1.25v VID instead of the 1.32v VID that the 945 has.. has more headroom overclocking wise.. depending on how good of a processor you got.. 3.5ghz is possible anywhere from 1.44-1.476v on the 945.. so good luck and enjoy the overclocking..
 
memnoch_thedevil said:
Well originally I bought the 550BE because I thought I wasn't going to be able to do an i7 build, because I had missed out on the Intel Big Deal...so after I ordered all the parts for my AM3 build (CrossHair III + DDR3 Ram +550BE for now), I got an email from Intel confirming my account, and even though the rep on the phone had told me the Deal was going to end on the 22nd, I was able to grab an i7 on the 24th.

So I cancelled the AMD parts, but the CPU was already shipped...drat Newegg for their super fast shipping lol. But I like this chip so much, I am going to keep it and sell my 720 instead. This 550BE will stay in the sig parts and turn into my son's computer, which will be used for gaming, watching movies, and surfing the net. He's only 7 so nothing else for now. Instead of the 4890, he's getting my GTX 260.

I just wonder when the gains become diminishing. I mean 3.6 at stock seems great, add to that a NB of 2600 and HT of 2400, will anything past those really be that noticable, and more importantly be worth the increase of both volts to get there and the heat it generates from the increase?
Click to expand...


it really depends if you would see the difference.. i mean unless your kid plans to play ghostbusters or GTA4.. those 2 games are about the only thing that would really push a processor.. then the extra speed is quite noticable.. but the majority of games.. no you wont see a difference.. especially since it will only be running a single GTX 260..

me personally.. id suicide run it to as high of a clock as you can without killing the chip.. just to see whats possible.. then clock it back down to what ever the highest clock was at stock voltage..
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
it really depends if you would see the difference.. i mean unless your kid plans to play ghostbusters or GTA4.. those 2 games are about the only thing that would really push a processor.. then the extra speed is quite noticable.. but the majority of games.. no you wont see a difference.. especially since it will only be running a single GTX 260..

me personally.. id suicide run it to as high of a clock as you can without killing the chip.. just to see whats possible.. then clock it back down to what ever the highest clock was at stock voltage..
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ya I fell asleep last night...I'm a little unsure of this chip lol...I can run 3.8 at 1.375 rock solid, but I try going past that, and it just seems to need a ton of volts...to pass a 10 pass IBT at 4.0+ it took 1.55v. I'm going to lower my NB and HT to see if that will help any, but I think I'm ok with 3.8GHz w/ 1.375v & a NB + HT of 2600...I dropped the core volts .025 and I passed @ 3.7 w/ 2600 NB, so I am going to slowly back off my NB volts to see if I can get it down. I can boot with 2860 NB,. but can't get stable unless I add .2v to the CPU NB VID and that's more than I want pumpin through there heh

I guess my goal now will be the highest I can get with .05v or less on the core and .075 or less on the NB. I want a balanced overclock, which means I have to learn how to get my ram tighter next :p Isn't there some program you can use for your ram while on the desktop?
 
nah you cant change the CAS timing on ram through windows.. you can change all the other settings with overdrive though.. just open cpu-z up.. go to the memory tab.. write down the names of the series of numbers.. go into your bios and change the numbers in there.. if you have decent ddr2 800 ram it will run 4-4-4-12 between 1.9-2.2v if you have decent ddr2 1066 ram then it will run 5-5-5-15 or 5-5-5-18 timing @ 1.9-2.2v
 
hey i have a question. What is the difference between a 550be unlock to 4 cores and a x3 720 be unlocked to 4 cores? Are there cache differences?
 
Nope, they are the same. But from my own personal experience the 550BE seems to clock better...at least it was easier to get stable with less votes, than my 720...
 
memnoch_thedevil said:
Sell your 945, buy my 720 and pocket the difference :)
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Your system looks nice! Hope you're enjoying it. :) Phenom II is pretty sweet, I've never had an easier, relaxing build in all my life. I love it when a new system comes together.
sirmonkey1985 said:
stock cooler would be pushing it honestly.. the 955 would of been a better choice.. 1.25v VID instead of the 1.32v VID that the 945 has.. has more headroom overclocking wise.. depending on how good of a processor you got.. 3.5ghz is possible anywhere from 1.44-1.476v on the 945.. so good luck and enjoy the overclocking..
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You're probably right, I should've sprang for the 955... it was only thirty more bucks, and I had spent hundreds of dollars already. I did get 3.510 ghz with just a minimal voltage bump, so maybe it worked out for the best in the end.

Still I'm not terribly unhappy with my processor choice, although I was surprised to find out that the top multiplier is 15x, the same multiplier being the stock speed. I didn't want to drop the multiplier so I just pushed the fsb from 200 to about 235 where I left it.

Had to bump voltages a couple of ticks around 3.4 ghz, CPU is like +0.05v in bios for 1.39v, ddr3 is at 1.8v. Been running Prime95 for eight hours without any issues. Temperatures are like 63C full load with AMD stock cooler, I'm guessing 3.6 ghz is possible though the (!) in Core Temp has me wondering just how far is too far. Definitely an improvement over my old system in sig, which scored 13.5Kish in 3dmark06, this one nets me 16.7Kish with the same 4890.

http://i486.photobucket.com/albums/rr223/jalidi/july1st3510-g7hoursp95.jpg
 
acidic said:
hey i have a question. What is the difference between a 550be unlock to 4 cores and a x3 720 be unlocked to 4 cores? Are there cache differences?
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they have the same cache. both @ four cores = the same

oops didnt realize this q had already been answered :)
 
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