Overclocking the Athlon64 X2 3800+

M

Myrandex

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 4, 2002
Messages
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Hi all, I just recently upgraded to the Athlon64 X2 3800+ (after finding someone to buy my currect proc that is in my signature). Anyways, I had an Athlon64 3000+ (old vore, not one of the new Venice ones), and it overclocked just fine to 2.25GHz. by dropping the HTT mult from 5 to 4, and then just upping the HTT bus to 250. I have DDR500 memory, so that was running to spec as well. When I bought the Athlon64 X2 though, I seem to be struggling a bit. I never changed the voltage or multiplier before, just the bus speeds and multipliers.

So yea with this new proc, I had to upgrade the bios before it would even boot any decide (it would post fine, but it would hang when it should boot off the CD drive or hard drive array). I finally got the bios upgraded, but I am still having OC problems. It is running stock right now with the DDR500 option enabled (using the new memory controls in the CPU). I tried upping the voltage a little bit, and I even tried adjusting the multiplier down to see if I could increase the HTT speed still, and that didn't help. So this makes me wonder if my chip is just reluctant to change speeds, or if it is the motherboard not OCing as well with the X2 chip? I was able to increase the HTT speed to about 208 or so with the system still booting, but I didn't test it for any extended period of time at that speed. Thanks for any help guys,
Jason

edit -> The motherboard is the Gigabyte K8N Ultra SLI
 
how far have u gone/do u wanna go?
ive heard that a venice OCs alot better than manchester...
 
yeah, the asus shud be able to get to that...10x multi w/ 225fsb seems ok, ive seen some push up to 250....not sure how much voltage tho :rolleyes: if u havent checked it out already, look at eclipses OC guide..has info on other peoples chip OCs and a basic guide on overclocking...gl
 
Want to give me your 3000+ or sell it for cheap? My sempron is pretty much worthless at this point.
 
make sure your pci/agp bus is locked. (for my board I set HTT to 201 and agp to 67) Use clockgen to overclock.


Read the stickies about overclocking. Don't be afraid of cranking up the voltage to the cpu, provided you have your temperatures under control.
 
Well working slowly I have 240MHz. HTT so that my proc is running at 2.20GHz. and it seems pretty stable so far. I tried 250 again, and I raised the VCore all the way up to 1.45v (obviously in steps), and it would boot windows but freeze at the login page. I think I might be able to hit it eventually, but I think 2.2GHz. is a nice stopping point right now if everything works out alright.
Jason
 
Alright, I got it running on the 250HTT with 9.5x multiplier, giving me a final 2.38GHz. I would liek to hit the 2.5GHz. if I increase the multiplier, and I have 1.45v set right now. It is air cooled, but it is a pretty nice heatsink/fan combo.
 
2.5GHz from an X2 3800+ isnt asking for much.

you should easily be able to hit 2.6 to 2.7GHz depending on how good your other computer hardware is. (oh, and as we all know, luck also has alot to do with this as well. :D )
 
ozziegn said:
2.5GHz from an X2 3800+ isnt asking for much.

you should easily be able to hit 2.6 to 2.7GHz depending on how good your other computer hardware is. (oh, and as we all know, luck also has alot to do with this as well. :D )
Click to expand...

I agree, I hit 2.8 with my 3500+ venice
 
Alright so 2.5GHz. should be doable. Maybe that will be a goal later tonight. If the results come in, they will be posted. Thanks for the help guys,
Jason
 
I haven't pushed it up yet, as I am running into a little bit of an issue. In games and Windows and everything it seems super stable, but it seems that about every other reboot it hangs at the initial screen (where you can enter the BIOS etc.). I will reboot it when it hangs, and it boots fine. I don't know why it does that, but it doesn't seem to be anything serious and maybe just a small annoyance. Any thoughts?
Jason
 
What's your specs apart from the board. BTW nice board (gigabyte) but not the overclocking champion so keep that in mind. What's your brand of memory, timings, dividers?
 
Yea I am a fan of the board, but I know it isn't well known for its overclocking powers. It did overclock a 3000+ to 250MHz. HTT w/ 9x multiplier for 2.25GHz. completely stable with no voltage changes or anything, so I kind of feel it isn't the board, unless it isn't as stable with the X2 proc's OCed, or else the new BIOS I had to load for the X2 isn't as overclocking friendly. I don't have the 3000+ anymore as I sold it when I got this. My RAM is KingMax DDR500 memory. The timings are not pushed too hard right now just to try to keep that out of the equation (I have it running on SPD timings). http://www.kingmax.com/product/hardcore_tsop.htm is a link to the RAM, and I just noticed it said 2.7V for DDR500 operation. I didn't increase the VDD, so maybe that would help? But still before I didn't change it either, so I don't know how that would make a difference. I guess Iwould prefer to get the stability things worked out before I try pushing it higher, but at least once it boots it seems 100% stable.
Jason
 
I upped the voltage +0.2V (the max the board allows), and I haven't had a hang in 2 reboots. I dunno if the new bios had more aggressive settings for the memory or what, or maybe I got lucky in the three reboots I have tried since then, but this might be the solution.
Jason
 
Good to hear you got it going. I don't run ram by spd, usually whats programmed in there is wrong, and I've had several sets of memory that won't run properly until you manually set the timings and voltage. I would say a vdimm of 2.7-2.85 will be no problem for your ram.
Also be aware that you can use memory dividers to keep your ram at or below 250mhz. Ram speed has very little performance gain on the a64s, so a higher cpu clock is preferable.
 
Eh stupid system has turned out to not be as cooperative as I thought. The thing that sucks is that this board used to be able to do these settings just fine with a 3000+ (same mobo and same 500MHz. RAM). I think it does deal with the BIOS opgrade, because I tried adjusting the multipliers on the CPU to lower its clock, and it is showing the same issues. I tried adjusting all of the voltages possible (there isn't extensive voltage adjustment on this board, such as RAM settings are +.1v & +.2v, same with the PCI-E bus and the HTT bus. I wish Asus or Abit or DFI had a nice nForce4 sli board with the features of this giga-byte board.
Jason
 
I saw some guy running his 3800+ X2 @ 290x10 2900! I was like... whoa... that would be nice.... I didn't think those non-toledo core X2s were good OCers? Is that right or have things changed already? granted - there will always be the occational good OCer... and then there is phase changer cooling. lol... but anyways..

What are some other X2 3800 numbers from OCers here??
 
My toledo based X2 3800 is doing 2.6 nicely.....I was stuck, like chuck, at only 2.4 until I got my ram timings sorted out. That held me back badly...then I tried some things in Eclipse's guide and VOILA!!!!! An easy 2.6......
 
my X2 3800+ Toledo is @ 2854Mhz with 1.58 volts. like everybody else i was stuck at 2.6 and then i figure out my RAM timings and now it is smokin FAST :D


x2.jpg
 
Yea guys all 3800+'s should be Manchester's due to having only 512KB cache per core instead of 1MB per core like the Toledo's.
 
revenant said:
I saw some guy running his 3800+ X2 @ 290x10 2900! I was like... whoa... that would be nice.... I didn't think those non-toledo core X2s were good OCers? Is that right or have things changed already? granted - there will always be the occational good OCer... and then there is phase changer cooling. lol... but anyways..

What are some other X2 3800 numbers from OCers here??
Click to expand...


My Toledo-Based 3800+ X2 is doing 2.7ghz per core day and night @ 1.55v stable in a Small Form Factor SN25P chasis. I could probably push it higher easily, but I am content with these speeds and don't really have enough time to fiddle with it right now. Maybe in the future :)!
 
Myrandex said:
Yea guys all 3800+'s should be Manchester's due to having only 512KB cache per core instead of 1MB per core like the Toledo's.
Click to expand...


Righto...same here. I have a Toldeo, identified by CPU-Z as a Toledo...but with half the cache disabled...too bad we can't turn it back on
:p
 
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