Well, the conversion is complete.-Opty 165 results inside

S

stiltner

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Mar 16, 2000
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10,691
My conversion from a P4 1.6A to my new Opteron 165 is complete, and I couldn't be happier with the combination.

After I finally got Windows installed (HD issues, then I forgot to pull 1 stick of memory (DFI board)), once I got all that sorted out, I was ready to rock and roll. So I decided I'll do a small OC, from 200 to 220 FSB. Booted, no sweat. Said ok, next step, 250, booted, no sweat.
Bumped voltage to 1.4, booted @ 280, no sweat. Went to 300, booted, no sweat.

Ran Prime 95 (2 instances) for 8-10 hours straight, not a single peep out of it.

Here's the specs, and my findings. I think the temp sensors on these boards are funky faulty, but I can't verify yet.

Opty 165 MPMW 0546 (Monarch OEM)
DFI LP Expert ( I hear all the complaining about tweaking, it took me 10 minutes of reading before I got it all figured out, just take some time and thats all)
G.Skill 3-4-4-8 @ 5/6 divider (that'd put it squarely at 250, its default speed, and stable enough for me)
Smart Guardian is showing CPU @ 26C idle and 28-29 under load
VST in HL2 gives 179.9 FPS with a 7800 GT.

Oh yeah, using a Antec P180 with a Thermalright SI-120 with a 120mm Sanyo Denkei 100CFM blowing down on the CPU (keeps the ram and my video card cooler too that way), and another one blowing out the back, with the stock Antec fan on the top. I can put my finger on the heatsink base and not feel any warmth whatsoever.

Now, I have a serious feeling those temps are 110% incorrect. But if I stress it for a good 20-30 minutes, get it built up and boot to the BIOS, its showing only 22-26C there also. So maybe, is that right?
Ambient is probably less than 26C honestly :) Its about 55-60F down in the underground man bunker :)

Next step, 3Ghz :) I'm thinking this CPU is fully capable of it, w/o a doubt.

So, yes, you can officially welcome me to the AMD crew. I'm convinced that there's no other option out there now. With a 50% OC on a processor and it feels like it didn't make a dent in the thing. I'm hooked :)

I get a 30-32 in SuperPI 1M (Core 1, Core 0)

All I gotta say is, I'm so damned impressed, that I can't believe there's really any better setup to go with right now, bang for the buck, this is a no brainer IMO.
 
you are on the right road! AMD! Congrats on the new setup! Let's see that 3ghZ :)
Do some more research on the temp sensors etc. I am not up to date on dfi sensors
maybe check dfi-street.com

 
You got 30s on stock? That's not bad at all. 3Ghz sounds hard on your cooling, but 2.8 could be a 24/7 overclock if it doesn't require that much voltage. Keep us posted.
 
I think your temps are right, bc stock temps on my opty 175 are 22 C idle. I just built my system within the last couple of weeks so I have not had a chance to fully test and push the system to the limit. I hope to achieve a 24/7 stable 2.8 overclock but we will see.

Oh and I am also on air with the Scythe Ninja
 
I think my temps are correct now that I do some conversions. Based on my ambient, 26-27 is about 7-8c above ambient (yes, its that cold here, I prefer it that way), so it could actually be reading correctly. I think most of that heatsource is being extracted so quickly with the roughly 250CFM of fans directly around the CPU, that it won't build up to be anything major.

If I can do 2.8 and get nothing over 30-31c, I'll be plenty happy. I'm next gonna try lowering the voltages, I've seen some get 2.7-2.8 on 1.35-1.37 so I'm tempted to give it a whirl. But so far, I consider a 50% OC a winner, no matter how ya spin it. I know these chips are capable of it, but my only real goal was 2.4, anything over was a blessing in disguise, now I wanna see just how far it will go, then drop it back to what I consider a very fast, very playable and very safe OC for the time being. When necessary, I'll go farther, cause I know I could, but till then, I'll leave it where its well under its ceiling.
 
just remember in most modern games running a single 7800gt at higher resolutions your video card is now the bottleneck... after reading many reviews a 2.2 ghz amd cpu can basically turn the 7800gt into the bottleneck. Anyways after getting your cpu speed I would consider getting a aftermarket cooler for your video card and oc'ing it and whola speeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed.
 
If 200FPS ever becomes too slow for me, I'll let you know :D

Till then, I'll leave my video card where it is, stock, w/o question, and just go with it as such. I'll wait for SLI till there's more headroom to be gained from it, in other words the bottleneck of the video card, actually becomes an issue.

I don't play at ultra high resolutions, 1024x768 is peachy keen with me. I have a 19" CRT, it can do higher, but i always found things just too damn small for me to aim at. I got like 420/440 vision, so the larger size of objects in 1024 seems to make it easier on me.

So a lot of guys that hit bottlenecks from video, are unlike yours truly. I usta run 1600 x 1200 on my desktop, but the text was so hard for me to read after a good 6 months ago, I had to drop back to 1280 x 1024. I know, but its just the way it is. As you age...things start to fall apart. I was already told my next glasses will be bifocals, and that'll probably be before I'm 35.
 
Yeah, I'd have it done also, but my eyes had to stay constant for 2+ years before they'd do it for me.

That time has just now passed, and hopefully they don't weaken anymore before I can consider it.

Eyes, or PC, I chose to game =)
 
sexy. Seems like the newer steppings of A64's don't respond very well to volts. My Manchester will do 10x260 1.4 easy, but takes like 1.55 to get to 2.7.
 
ive never seen a 165 get past 2.75ish on air, is 3 even possible on wc/phase? i know 170/175's have a hard time getting stable at 3 now a days on water/some phase
 
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