Phenom II overclocking

[worshipme]

Thank god I've finally got a computer again!
I sold my E3110 intel setup weeks ago. Everything would have gone fine if only my first motherboard hadn't been DOA. So I then had to wait for another to arrive in England, and then get to France. I was about to explode with impatience

So anyway, I've now got my new PII setup to play with

Phenom II 925 2.8GHz - No, it's not a black edition, just a boring locked one...
MSI 770-C45 AM3 - This is about the cheapest, most basic board out there. But I don't ever really think that the motherboard is that important in overclocking. This cost £50 and I bet it performs just as well as the £140 790GX 4-way Crossfire super massive huge heatsink boards. All that 24 phase PWM is complete marketing bull if you ask me...
OCZ 2x2GB DDR3 1333


This is the first time I've ever touched a Phenom so it should be fun..

I used the motherboard's backplate and some screws I found to strap my TRUE on, so this won't be overclocked on stock cooling

 

[Remeniz]

It was always the HT speed that held my previous rig back.

But I reckon you could hit 3.7Ghz.

 

[worshipme]

On my first venture into the BIOS I set the voltage manually to their default values, so that the board would not increase them automatically.

Then to eliminate variables during my CPU overclock, I selected the lowest ratio for the RAM, and increased the timings slightly.
Spread spectrum was disabled as well of course, cool'n'quiet too.

3.2 was achieved by just raising the bus speed.



3.4 was the same, and no voltage increase was needed to boot.

 

[Remeniz]

Also watch the HT link speed and note the limit here. When you hit the wall you might be able to reduce the HT multi to achieve faster clock speeds before a vCore increase.

 

[worshipme]

Yes, I've been keeping an eye on the HT link, I've been trying to keep it relatively constant, and increasing the NB when I need to.

Anyway, here's 3.8, I did have to increase the voltage a bit here.



And 3.95

 

[Remeniz]

^lol^

Sweet! That's nearly 4.0Ghz there.

<Ninja Edit>