Understanding Opteron CPU voltage

D

Dennis Gordon

Gawd
Joined
Sep 13, 2005
Messages
590
What do I trust?

Opteron 170 and a 9NPA+ Ultra board.

I currently run at +.15v CPU voltage. This shows up in Speedfan or CPUZ between 1.55 - 1.59v. I need that much juice to run stable at 2.6. Some people will say it's too high, but my temps are staying under 40 with my new HSF.

I see that the 170 is rated at 1.35v. In the BIOS it deaults to 1.41-1.43V at stock speed

Is this discrepancy normal or is it due to any irregularities in the board? Does the Epox over volt the chip at stock or is it misreading it? If I thought I was actually running at 1.51 rather than 1.58, I'd give it another bump, but I figure I'm missing something obvious. Sorry if I'm being dense. Any advice welcomed...
 
Yeah, I get a bit of discrepency between bios readings and cpuz/speedfan. My bios will say 1.63 but in windows it'll be 1.6 (on average; it drops to 1.58 under load and I have an Enermax 600w psu).

I guess that in windows the voltage drops as the video card and everything is fully powered up etc. Just trust your temps and be sure of stability. Some people get lucky and get an opteron that'll do crazy speeds with little voltage and gash-wack heatsink.

I have a 22" car radiator with 7 80mm fans on it and I *need* 1.6 volts to my opty 146 stable at 2900mhz.


Whatever it takes basically ;)
 
I asked because I once accidentally bumped the voltage up .25, and it ran great until I realized ijn horror that I was running at 1.675 and quickly brought it down. Ran great though...;-)

But if the voltage is being misreported, then what the hell, I'll bump it up another .05...
 
I wouldn't go over 1.7. I think that really has to be the absolute max even if you're watercooling.

The reason being at that voltage with a 90 micron chip, I reckon you're gunna damage it pretty quickly (possibly a year or less).

With Athlon XP's 1.95v was the limit. I ran an XP at 2.05 for a year and at the end I lost 100mhz in overclock due to degradation. I'm sure the same applies to 90 micron opterons and I'm just guessing at a 1.7 limit.

Maybe someone who knows about the technicals here can chime in...? ;)
 
what does your bios show?

and im not sure but a lot of people have said for air have it at 1.55max and water 1.6
 
My BIOS seems to report a bit under what I see in Windows. At default speed I'm seeing 1.41-1.43; so my .15v bump comes out at about 1.575. As long as 1.575 is cool to run at it doesn't really matter that much if it's off or not. I'd never consider getting near 1.7, although 1.6 seems okay if I'm not getting too hot. My temps never climb above 44.
I'm thinking way too much about this....;-)
 
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