Love your socket 754?

[Xilikon]

My ram is 400MHZ ram. So when I run my FSB anything less than 250MHz I am running it less than spec and this bothers me. I currently have it at like 220 or something, but would I be better off lowering the HT multi and raising the Ram to a full 400MHz or does this not have much affect on these systems. I am comming from a Barton that loved memory bandwidth.

You need some reading to catch up on the new DDR technology. When we say 400 MHz DDR, it really mean 200 MHz FSB x 2 so if you run at 250 MHz, you are running at 500 MHz actually... It is impossible to run at DDR800 (400 MHz in your case).

Barton technology and A64 technology is really different I suggest you read the overclocking guide at http://eclipseoc.com/index.php?id=6,9,0,0,1,0 and written by our belofed [H] member, (cf)Eclipse

 

[unclewebb]

kent: 2630 MHz is a good solid overclock for a Venice core. I found with my Athlon64 3000 that the voltage really has to start heading upward after this point.

I don't think mine is Prime stable at 2600 MHz with less than 1.60 volts.

You might want to see if you can tighten your memory timings and leave the CPU as is.

Try setting the command rate to 1T. That will give you the biggest bang for the buck if it works reliably. Your memory might also be able to run at CL 2.5-3-3 which will help a little as well.

 

[kent]

kent: 2630 MHz is a good solid overclock for a Venice core. I found with my Athlon64 3000 that the voltage really has to start heading upward after this point.

I don't think mine is Prime stable at 2600 MHz with less than 1.60 volts.

You might want to see if you can tighten your memory timings and leave the CPU as is.

Try setting the command rate to 1T. That will give you the biggest bang for the buck if it works reliably. Your memory might also be able to run at CL 2.5-3-3 which will help a little as well.

Well, I got home and both Orthos I had opened had failed. One failed 11 minutes in, the other failed around 30 minutes. The computer didn't crash, matter of a fact I haven't rebooted yet.

So I bumped clock down to 2603MHz and I'm re-Orthosing right now.


BTW: Since this is a single threaded proc, is there any advantage in running TWO instances of Orthos?

BTW x2: It seems when I force 5.1% overvolt in the BIOS the actual is about 1.50v, I've noticed that I have to "undervolt" ClockGen because I can actually push my voltage to probably 1.65v now. I noticed it running at 1.6v earlier and I was like WOAH NOOO. (Temps were fine, though)

What's the upper voltage limit of air cooling on a daily driven computer?

 

[GreenMonkey]

I couldn't get my 3400+ to run at 2600mhz without at least 1.55v...that's pretty good for 1.5v.

 

[unclewebb]

Well, I got home and both Orthos I had opened had failed.

Running at 2600 is one thing but to run Prime stable it will likely take some volts. I'd try 1.60 volts first if possible and if that works then you could try backing it down to 1.55. Most Venice cores, whether a Sempron 2600 or an Athlon 3400 all seem to require about this much voltage to be Prime stable at 2600 MHz

No need to run 2 threads of Orthos / Prime on a single core computer. One will bring it up to maximum load and heat.

My daily use Athlon is running fine at 1.71 volts on air. As long as the temps aren't too high you'll be OK at this level. The single core Venice chips can safely take a little more voltage than the X2 chips because they don't create as much heat.

 

[kent]

Ok, it failed 2600MHz (248x10.5) at 1.5v. Note, the computer isn't crashing or locking up, the program just errors. That generally means I'm close to stability with more voltage, right?

With 5.1% in the BIOS + setting ClockGen at 1.45 (maximum that it actually changes anything) I get a maximum total voltage of 1.60-1.62 volts. I'm going to try 1.425 in ClockGen which yeilds a voltage of 1.58-1.60 and see if 2600MHz is stable there.

Will report back. Thanks everyone for your help. I'll sig S754 club in a few minutes!

Oh, what's the maximum "decent" load temperature. I'm idling (well, light usage of Firefox/TBird) and sitting around 38-40C, though my window is open and the air is off (ambient of maybe 75, I generally keep the house at 68-70.. whoops -- the air JUST clicked on LOL )

I'm thinking my maximum load temp might be around 55C. I've got some cooler that has a sticker on it that says Something64 and it was like $11 at newegg but all the reviews were like "Wow, no copper but this thing cools great!!"


Oh, and, I was thinking about making a speedup.bat and slowdown.bat (pointing to clockgen.ini files) and have them executed within ATI Tools whenever a 3D application is launched. That is, once I determine a stable overclock point. Wouldn't this be a great idea to run at say 2400MHz daily on low voltage (stock, 1.4v) and then once a 3D application is launched ratchet up the speed to 2600 or so with your overclock voltage?


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835186010 <-- my heatsink

 

[unclewebb]

kent: 55C to 60C is a good safe maximum for the Venice core when running Prime.

The one review I found for the Alpine cooler said it was quieter than the OEM AMD heatsink/fan but it didn't cool quite as well. It was a couple of degrees warmer at full load during their test but it would really depend on the fan speed on your motherboard.

Edit: I just found another review that says the Alpine is better than a stock cooler. It's a better review than the first one I read and I tend to believe it more.
http://www.hardware-review.net/html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1019

Your idea about ATI Tools running a .bat file is good in theory but I don't think really necessary. For light load, 2400 MHz at 1.40 volts only uses a few less watts than 2700 MHz at 1.70 volts and will only drop your temps a couple of degrees. Running cool or really cool at light load doesn't make much of a difference.

 

[kent]

How'ma doin'?

The case temp actually doesn't alarm me because the hard drives are icy cool. For cooling I've got a 120mm Silverstone (2000rpm) intake, some generic 120mm exhaust that came with the case (2400rpm), a dual slot Antec bullshit VGA cooler (I dunno that it -actually- works, I thought it was an exhaust fan but it intakes air from your PCI slot are and shoots it on your GPU )

PSU is an Antec TruePower 550 with a 120mm/80mm combo

General idle temp on the case is 30-33C, also the GPU generally idles around 40C, I suspect the extra heat generated by the stress testing is causing this.

BTW: Thank you for all of your help. This is wonderful. I think I've found my stable point.

 

[kent]

Well I figured out I couldn't boot up at 2600MHz, what I mean is my batch file which consisted of:

cd C:\nf
nf.exe -file=2600.ini


Crashed the computer upon login. So what I did was created a mild overclock .ini that raises the voltages to 1.5v, then I execute my 2600.ini like so:


cd C:\nf
nf.exe -file=2500.ini
nf.exe -file=2600.ini


That seems to get the system booted without crashing. I would believe the CPU is changing before the voltage can react to keep it stable.


BTW: At 2603MHz @ 1.55-1.58v it ran for 4 hours in Orthos last night until I shut the computer down to go to bed. What do you think of that?

 

[unclewebb]

Sounds like you've hit the sweet spot kent. These CPUs run great at 2600 MHz and if you ever want to get crazy, just add some more volts and away you go! The next step up is about 2650 MHz and my Athlon needs 1.65 volts to be Prime stable there. The extra stress and heat isn't worth it for most people but it's always fun just to see what she'll do.

My two slot VGA cooler on my X800XT was also a piece of crap. It looked high tech but couldn't keep up with the ATI oven. I replaced it with a Zalman VF700-Cu Ultra Quiet VGA Cooler. Much better cooler and very quiet. The OEM ATI cooler sounded crazy when it would spool up during a game.

http://www.crazypc.com/products/510260.html

You really don't need a layer of frost on your hard drives. They were designed to run with some heat in them. Why not use your intake fan for exhaust and retire the other one. Save your ears for more important stuff.

With your ini file if you put the volt line ( VID= ) before the ( FSB= ) line it is supposed to up the voltage first. Maybe your computer is just too damn quick now!

 

[kent]

[CG-NVNF3]
VID=1.40
FID=10.5
FSB=248.12
AGP=66


That's how my 2600.ini file is listed. Note that VID does not equal 1.40, I have the BIOS set to +5.1% voltage so using clkgen I can actually go up to 1.65v maximum. 1.40 results in 1.55-1.58v

Thanks again for all your help. I'm very satisfied at 2600MHz, I just wanted my RAM to run in spec because my board was forcing DDR333 when both sticks are DDR400.

 

[MiXdNuTs]

[CG-NVNF3]
VID=1.40
FID=10.5
FSB=248.12
AGP=66


That's how my 2600.ini file is listed. Note that VID does not equal 1.40, I have the BIOS set to +5.1% voltage so using clkgen I can actually go up to 1.65v maximum. 1.40 results in 1.55-1.58v

Thanks again for all your help. I'm very satisfied at 2600MHz, I just wanted my RAM to run in spec because my board was forcing DDR333 when both sticks are DDR400.

Sounds like I have the same issue. I want my ram to run in spec. I have 2GB of Gskill DDR400 with timmings of 2.3.2.5. It is running at like 170MHz now. It's teh ghey.
I tried to run the memory faster and the CPU a little slower, but it gets unstable and my Super pie still won't go below 34s. I think the problem part here is my motherboard.

 

[unclewebb]

I think the problem part here is my motherboard.

Most nForce3 motherboards do not overclock quite as well with two sticks of memory compared to when using only one stick.

My Gigabyte board falls on its face with two sticks.

DFI has probably got the best nForce3 motherboard for overclocking but even it performs best with only one DDR slot filled.

I haven't heard about this problem with s754 nForce4 boards.

Bigmac's board seems to do quite well.

Running your ram at CL2.5 should help stability and might allow you to increase the MHz. Overall performance with my ram is much better with CL2.5 and higher ram speed.

 

[BigMacAttack]

Yes, the Abit NV8 seems to be a good board but has been quirky for me but not others. Its an odd cold boot issue as I've described previously. I can cold boot my 3400+ Venice at 250x11 but try it at 251x11 and it locks up and won't POST. Same with the 12x multi. 230x12 will cold boot, anything above 230 and it won't. I don't know where the cold boot issue is with the 3400+ on the 10x multi.
If I want to go higher I have to cold boot (when I first start up the machine - I don't let it run 24/7) and let it boot into Win XP. Then I have to do a restart and set my bios settings up from there. I'm really on the ragged edge at 250x11 or 230x12 because I get a lot of failures beyond those points. I can go 252x11 and run Superpi and even HL Deathmatch but it isn't Prime stable. It might be if I'd back the ram down to the DDR333 divider and give it a try but as long as its stable in the programs I use I really don't care too much about Prime95 (I know, I know - it isn't truly stable - so sue me ).
I have heard really good things about the DFI nForce 4 skt 754 mobo. Kinda wished I'd gotten it instead of the Abit but...

 

[kent]

Well. 2600MHz isn't stable at almost 1.6vcore. The computer doesn't lock/freeze/crash but I've had FEAR and Madden 07 crash to desktop.

I've backed it down to 2500MHz (I ran this MHz at 1.4v default vcore forever) with still 1.6vcore and I'll report back. Memory clock is 190MHz

 

[Volkswagen]

i just run my newcastle at stock speeds @ 1.3V because I can't tell the difference once it is overclocked to 2.65ghz So this way I have a silent pc

 

[kent]

I'm just trying to force my memory as close to 200MHz as possible. When I put in a GB stick with my .5GB stick the BIOS went wacky and forced DDR333.

That's my whole reason for getting into this. It just so happened I already had a mild HTT209x12 (2507) overclock that worked at stock voltage (this was before the RAM swap) and it just so happened that 200MHz memclk was possible at 2600MHz.

I sure wish it would've been stable at 2600MHz. I don't understand why Madden 2007 was more "stressful" in 35 minutes than Orthos was in four hours. I figured 4 hours in Orthos = stable

 

[unclewebb]

I sure wish it would've been stable at 2600MHz. I don't understand why Madden 2007 was more "stressful" in 35 minutes than Orthos was in four hours. I figured 4 hours in Orthos = stable

Sounds like your CPU is pretty stable at 2600 MHz but when you add in the extra heat and load when using your graphics card in 3D, things crash.

The X800 and X850 produce a lot of heat. Your GPU cooler might be holding you back now. Run ATI Tool for a while and keep an eye on temperatures with your CPU at 2600 MHz. It the temps are sky high then there's your problem.

 

[nullzero]

Try seeing kent if your mobo has new bios release it may fix some of the hang ups with memory. I can vouch that the dfi nforce 3 mobo rocks im running my clawhammer 3400 mobile at 2.6ghz basically prime stable 236x11. My memory is running at 2x512 v2 mushkin at 216mhz 2-2-2-6. I seemed to get a 1 second better score on super pi 1meg test with the bus running in the 300s and the memory running in the 260-270mhz. I hit a wall basically on my clawhammer at 2.6 with 1.75 volts even when I amp it up to 1.8-1.9 I dont get much more OC.

 

[kent]

Would "sky high" imply around 75-80C?

I'm really hesitant to take the cooler off. I got such a great deal on this card and I unlocked it. To tell you the truth, I was at CompUSA the other day and saw a Zalman VF700C or whatever, the copper half sunflower cooler w/ memsinks. I know it fits my card but..

..I'm ashamed. I don't know how to take off the GPU cooler. There's two screws on a thin metal bracket on the reverse side of the card. I assume start there but after I remove those screws and the bracket what's next? I think we have the "same" card, except you have a tuner because we're both clocked at 500/500 I am also replacing that crappy Antec dual slot VGA intake cooler with an exhaust PCI cooler I bought from newegg earlier. I had to jump on that wireless PCI card for $.99 after rebate

At CompUSA it was only $5 more than Newegg after shipping, so if you recommend it and think it's an easy install...


BTW: I'm using the latest BIOS, there are no unofficial/beta BIOS available sadly

 

[unclewebb]

Would "sky high" imply around 75-80C?

Yepp, 75C to 80C is definitely "sky high."

I was having the exact same problem as you but the Zalman VF700 saved me. It does a much better job cooling the GPU. Best of all it's pretty damn simple to install. Undo those two little screws and off comes the old one and on goes the new one.

The memory on my X800XT card even at the default speed of 500 MHz gets scorching hot.
In the cool basement I can get my memory up to about 580 MHz - 590 MHz now for some suicide runs and the core is good for about 550 MHz.

If you're into gaming, its the best money you'll ever spend.

Edit: My ATI X800XT at default speed of ( 500 MHz core / 500 MHz memory ) is running at about 65C with the 3D window open in ATI Tool. That's with the VF700Cu fan on the slow setting and one rear case fan at a slow / silent speed and one small silent side case fan at 5V. The VF700Cu is pretty silent at 7V and you can set it at 12V if you need additional cooling. At default clock speeds, I prefer the silent setting.

 

[kent]

When you say you were having the same problem as me, do you mean your CPU was seemingly stable but games would crash to desktop?

So all I really do is unscrew the two screws on the back and the GPU cooler comes right off?

I've watched the video install (flash) over at Zalman's site and it looks really easy. Hmm... I wish newegg hadn't already shipped my order out (wow, shipped in like.. 3 hours!) or I'd cancel it and add the VF700. I'll go pick it up from CompUSA this weekend I suppose.

Edit: ROFL, I hit your 65C in three or four seconds of opening the 3D window. I've seen it peak around 80 or 81C before.

 

[kent]

BTW: I was watching the install video again.

What's the purpose of having four 3 pin adapters to the 4 pin molex adapter???

 

[unclewebb]

When you say you were having the same problem as me, do you mean your CPU was seemingly stable but games would crash to desktop?

Exactly. I'd overclock the hell out of my CPU and it would run fine all week and then my son would play some games on the weekend and as soon as the house heated up a little bit he would have it locked up solid or it would go back to the desktop on a good day.

With the Zalman, that never happens anymore. Even during the middle of summer it was fine and it allowed me to raise my CPU speed up another notch and still remain stable, even during gaming.

Run your GPU back up to 80C and then click on the Scan for Artifacts button and your computer will likely show some artifacts in a little while or it might even lock up, even at a CPU speed of 2500 MHz.

A VF700 is the simplest thing you'll ever install and best of all it works.

My previous cooler was an Arctic Cooler and it simply couldn't keep up with the ATI oven.

 

[unclewebb]

What's the purpose of having four 3 pin adapters to the 4 pin molex adapter???

Mostly overkill if you ask me. The black plugs supply 12 volts and the white ones supply 5 volts.

I use the white 5 volt one and the other 3 dangle in the case. A simple switch would have been nicer.

I guess a user could use the other two to power somthing else like some case fans or what have you. Probably not a good idea for the CPU fan but I'm sure it's been tried.

 

[Gibby82]

Mostly overkill if you ask me. I'd have to go get my volt meter but I'm pretty sure 2 are wired for 12 volts and 2 are wired to supply 7 volts.

I use the 7 volt one and the other 3 dangle in the case. A simple switch would have been nicer.

I guess a user could use the other two to power somthing else like some case fans or what have you. Probably not a good idea for the CPU fan but I'm sure it's been tried.

I thought about this previously and SLI came to mind. Having two VF-700's would use one of the pairs.

 

[GreenMonkey]

Exactly. I'd overclock the hell out of my CPU and it would run fine all week and then my son would play some games on the weekend and as soon as the house heated up a little bit he would have it locked up solid or it would go back to the desktop on a good day.

With the Zalman, that never happens anymore. Even during the middle of summer it was fine and it allowed me to raise my CPU speed up another notch and still remain stable, even during gaming.

Run your GPU back up to 80C and then click on the Scan for Artifacts button and your computer will likely show some artifacts in a little while or it might even lock up, even at a CPU speed of 2500 MHz.

A VF700 is the simplest thing you'll ever install and best of all it works.

My previous cooler was an Arctic Cooler and it simply couldn't keep up with the ATI oven.

I thought I had my CPU stable at 2.7ghz (passed prime95, memtest) but I was getting an occasional hard lockup in games (particularly Civ4 and occasionally Guild Wars). I was running 1GB Ultra PC3200 cas3 @ cas 2.5 and 512MB Corsair value select cas2.5@2.5. I adjusted latency to cas 3 and the problem went away...I was pushing the RAM too hard (now running 2x512 value select, RMA done).

I'd strongly suggest underclocking the RAM, Hypertransport, etc and leave your CPU speed where it seemed stable... to make sure it's really the CPU causing the lockups. Isolate, and then troubleshoot. You should be able to get 1.6 with ~1.55v no problem.

BTW my NF4 board sometimes re-defaults back to 333mhz for the RAM (seemingly at random following a too-high overclock attempt), but I can just adjust it back to 400mhz just fine.

 

[unclewebb]

I installed an Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro so I could compare it to the AMD OEM 4 pipe cooler that I've been previously using.

The AMD uses an 80mm fan with a maximum speed of about 2900 rpm. The Freezer 64 uses a 92mm fan but the maximum speed is only 2500 rpm. In my opinion, at full speed the Freezer is a little quieter with the tone being slightly deeper.

Unlike most lame heatsink reviews on the internet, I cranked my Athlon 3000 up to 1.76 volts and turned up the CPU speed to 2701 MHz to maximize heat generation.

Here's how the temperature looked while running Orthos / Prime after about half an hour with the OEM AMD heatpipe cooler.

Same test with the new Freezer 64 Pro

A drop of 2C from an average of 59C to 57C is pretty minor.

The MX-1 paste needs 200 hours to fully cure but so far the Freezer 64 Pro hasn't made too much of a difference.

 

[kent]

That looks like a very good test.

I may pick up one of the 4 pipe coolers and replace my Alpine64, it couldn't hurt methinks.

BTW: I've been Orthosing all night. I'm currently at 11 hours stable at 2.6GHz at 1.57-1.58vcore.

So you defentally believe my CPU is stable at this speed and it's just my GPU cooler holding me back from the extra ambient heat generated by the generous overclock? I'm going to the doctor in about 2 hours so I'll swing by CompUSA and grab that VF700.

Unclewebb, btw, I can't say this enough. Thank you for ALL of your help.

 

[unclewebb]

Your welcome kent. I hope this info also helps other s754 users keep their old computers competitive.

I originally picked up my AMD heatpipe cooler, new in a box, off of ebay for $8.99. It's a decent cooler, especially for the price, and the guy is still selling them. Only difference is now he's dropped the price to $7.99! Head to Ebay and do a search for CMHK8 or try this link:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Coolermaster-CM...ryZ42001QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

The official part number is CMHK8-8122A-A2 and they're made by CoolerMaster.

If your present system is stable at 2600 MHz with your quiet Alpine cooler then you probably really don't need it, but they look nice! When you tell your friends its just an old s754 they'll see it running at 2600 MHz, have a look in your case and might think you really have an FX-55 hiding in there.

Your GPU hitting 80C is definitely a problem that needs your attention. The low speed fan setting on the VF700 is good enough for my setup. The extra breeze over the memory chips and the individual RAM heatsinks isn't such a bad idea either.

 

[kent]

I just took out that Antec cooler because I'm going to drop by Circuit City and get a refund.

I hope they don't mind the receipt says Kenton Smith but my drivers license will say Kenton XXXX, I just didn't feel like giving them my real name on a cash transaction

Get this, at least at idle, the Antec cooler did NO good. Right now I'm idling at 43C and that was my idle without it a couple of weeks ago. What a piece of FUD despite favorable reviews I read on it. I just don't know who would think it's a good idea to intake air from behind someone's desk and spray it on their GPU. Though, in their defense, I didn't closely inspect the packaging

It was stable at 2.6GHz for 11.5 hours before I shut down to remove the GPU "cooler."


BTW: How do you install the 4 pipe cooler? I see the black tab I would assume you pull up on. When you pull up on it I assume it "loosens" the metal retention clip so to install it both clips would initially be up then you place the cooler in the retention bracket and push down on the black tabs to make the retention clip attach to the retention bracket? Right?

 

[unclewebb]

The 4 pipe cooler installs exactly the same as the original AMD cooler. Hook it on the mount and then rotate the side lever to lock it into place. Nice and simple.

Here's a picture of my X800XT running with the VF700 fan on the high 12 volt setting.

Pretty consistent between 58C and 59C. Much better than 80C!

A little more noise than I like but with all your fans running you'd probably never notice it.

Compared to the original ATI fan it is almost silent, even at full speed.

 

[kent]

WOW. I just installed my 700. Amazingly easy to install and I even hurried myself.

One of the screws on the stock mount wouldn't come off so I got the other screw off and used the retention bar as a "pry bar" to get the other screw to turn. No biggie. Discovered there was a THIRD screw holding the GPU cooler on.

Also had a little difficulty in getting the fan cable out of the socket but no big deal.

WOW. I'm idling at 34C now on full speed (noise doesn't bother me, my computer is pretty quiet anyhow.).

Ok, been running 3D view for a few minutes now and I'm topping out at around 56C with environment temp of 39C.

Yup. I defentally installed it correctly. I doubt I'll get a chance to game any tonight because I'm about to head out but I will report back tomorrow if I have any FEAR/Madden troubles. Thanks again for everything!

Aww. it's topping out at 58C now, lol. Still 20+C lower than stock. QUIET too!

 

[Unknown-One]

Yup, the VF700 is a little beast, I've got my old one keeping an Athlon XP 2800+ cool

When I upgraded to a VF900, my old VF700 got boxed for about a month. I ended up building a Socket A system from all the spare parts left over from previous upgrades and was short a heatsink, I figured out pretty quickly that the VF700 fit my particular Socket A motherboard and viola!

It’s idling at 41c and loading at 52c (hey, that’s pretty dang low for Socket A, this one dumps out 75w of heat). Not only is it running cool, its stable at 2.7GHz (700MHz over stock) .

 

[unclewebb]

I can't figure out why ATI didn't do the smart thing and install VF700Cu coolers on all of their X800 / X850 cards. I know that shocked feeling when you see how well it cools and how quiet it is, both at the same time.

Isn't it nice kent to get some information from a forum off the internet that isn't full of bullshit for a change?

Long live the s754 and the great community of users that are keeping the dream alive.

If you installed the ram heatsinks it might be too late but try having a look for a part number on the graphics memory chips. Its usually Samsung and the last bit of the part number will be either -xx16 or -xx20. The 16 indicates Samsung 1.6 ns memory which can approach 600 MHz. The 20 is 2.0 ns memory which is only rated to 500 MHz. My X800XT has the 1.6 ns memory so it's no trouble overclocking the memory from 500 to 550 MHz or so. It won't quite do 600 MHz but I think I had it up to about 590 MHz last month when I was doing some 3DMark05 runs with it. The GPU was hitting 550 MHz in my basement with the VF700 keeping things cool.

ATI Tool makes it easy to see what your card is capable of. Knocking 20+C off the GPU core temp should definitely help improve reliability, even if you don't overclock it any.

 

[kent]

Yes, it is wonderful to get some useful information on a forum for once!!

Sadly my RAM modules are the 2.0ns versions. I had already checked it out.

But, before I installed my 700 I could roughly overclock to XT speeds, keep in mind this was with a mild (2500MHz) overclock using the BIOS (12x209), my core was stable at 515 and I never pushed the memory past 540. So it's XT-ish.

I just don't think my computer has enough gusto to run FEAR at 1280x960 with high details. I'm able to run it right now with everything set to maximum at 118?x768 (soft shadows off, fsaa 2x, medium texture resolution) but 1280x960 is closer to my LCD's native resolution though 118?x768 looks good too. Maybe I can get the core stable around 530MHz now and that would help out!

Thanks again for everything. You transformed my mild-overclockin' gpu-overheatin' into a capable screamer for another year.


BTW: Which genious over at ATi decided it was a good idea to put the GPU in one location on the heatsink and the fan on the other side??

 

[kent]

Check this out

That's actual XT speed. I was impressed that it didn't really go above 60C! I didn't push it further but I'm betting it's stable there too.

Look at my previous case temp (temp1) as well, it's a cool 10C lower since I installed the VGA coolah!

 

[unclewebb]

It's looking like your computer is running pretty stable now kent, including in 3D apps.

Have you had a chance to play some games with it yet? Let us know if your new super cooler is working for you during some real world testing.

If you can trick your mobo into giving you a little more CPU voltage you should still be able to bump it up one more notch.
I think BigMac and I are both game stable at 2750 MHz.

The extra performance is free so you might as well use it!

 

[bobrownik]

i hated my 754 , the cpu didn't overclock for shit, i got like 100mhz out of it ,

gave it to my brother long time ago

 

[kent]

i hated my 754 , the cpu didn't overclock for shit, i got like 100mhz out of it ,

gave it to my brother long time ago

Probably wasn't a Venice. I knew when I got this CPU from Newegg it would be a a good overclocker as long as I could get some decent settings to the motherboard...which happened.


Unclewebb, I played FEAR a little yesterday for maybe 45 minutes and today for about 30. No problems yet. I'm not a hardcore-sit-down-and-game-for-six-hours kinda guy. It's mainly casual timefillers. I got FEAR running at 1280x960 pretty smooth with high details except texture resolution and soft shadows. If I can get another maybe 10-20MHz out of the core/memory it will almost play perfect. Damn LCD

I would think about clocking it up a little more but I fear the core might run a little too hot. May need to invest in a better cooler, like the cheap 4 pipe Coolermaster/AMD unit. You did say 55-60C was the upper limits of these chips so I'm heeding that advice. By the way, did you use Zalman's paste or AS? I used a little AS5 I had left over.