AMD Phenom II x555 black edition

[Who?]

Hi All,

I have had some recent success on overclocking my system and thought that my experiences may help others.

System:

AMD Phenom II 3.2GHz x555 black edition CPU (Dual core)

Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H

8GB DDR1333 RAM (AData)

Sapphire HD5770

Enermax Liberty II 620W PS

CoolerMaster V8 cooler

WD 1TB Black Edition HDD

Windows 7 64 bit

I have successfully ran the PC in quad core unlocked mode @ 3.4GHz on the stock AMD cooler but was concerned about the higher temps so ended up getting the V8 cooler...which of course leads to more tweaks to squeeze the max out of the setup

The long and the short of many hours of fiddling has resulted in a rock solid setup with the following settings:

Quad cores unlocked

CPU Ratio x19.0 (3.8GHz)

CPU voltage 1.350v

NB ratio x12 (2.4GHz)

HT ratio x12 (2.4GHz)

NB voltage 1.340v

This resulted in a CPU temp via ET6 of 55 deg C (running Prime95). A trick that caught me out for a while was once you unlock the 2 other cores, the core temps no longer show up in any of the apps I have tried so far including AMD's OverDrive.

Another trap is that the ET6 application displays the correct CPU voltage but AMD OverDrive assumes it is still at 1.3v so if you have made all the settings via the BIOS, be warned that AMD OverDrive will not necessarily tell you the full story and any further changes by the AMD OverDrive app will show any changes but be out by the delta between the BIOS set voltage and 1.3v.

I have tried going to 4GHz but at 3.9GHz Prime95 starts to show errors even with the CPU voltage stepped up to 1.400v so have settled on a good compromise between added performance and stability.

Here are the benchmarks between the original factory default settings and the overclocked settings:

Setup                   Units       Stock   Overclocked 

Cores                               2       4       100%

Core Frequency          GHz         3.2     3.8     19%

HT/NB Frequency         GHz         2       2.4     20%

Core Voltage            Volts       1.3     1.35    4%

HT Voltage              Volts       1.3     1.34    3%

Graphics Card       

GPU Clock               MHz         850     925     9%

Memory Clock            MHz         1200    1350    13%

PC Mark       

PCMarkSuite                         4992    7851    57%

Memories Suite                      4750    6555    38%

TV and Movies Suite                 3200    4981    56%

Gaming Suite                        5488    8117    48%

Music Suite                         5764    5686    -1%

Communications Suite                5369    8410    57%

Productivity Suite                  4582    7529    64%

HDD Test Suite                      4490    4764    6%

3D Mark       

3D Mark Score                       P7667   P11046  

GPU Score                           9644    10553   9%

CPU Score                           4747    12844   171%

GPU Test 1              FPS         29.77   32.82   10%

GPU Test 2              FPS         26.68   28.94   8%

CPU Test 1              Plans/s     606.69  1650.15 172%

CPU Test 2              Steps/s     7.55    20.22   168%

Feature Test 1          Gtexels/s   31.57   34.34   9%

Feature Test 2          Gpixels/s   3.84    4.29    12%

Feature Test 3          FPS         30.59   33.38   9%

Feature Test 4          FPS         28.74   31.08   8%

Feature Test 5          FPS         33.87   39.24   16%

Feature Test 6          FPS         86.36   93.92   9%

NovaBench       

Overall Score                       845     1141    35%

System Ram                          153     157     3%

CPU Tests                           251     479     91%

Graphics Tests                      421     484     15%

Hardware Tests                      20      21      5%

The above shows a healthy improvement and good bang-per-bucks for this CPU and if you are looking for an entry level processor with some good gains, then the x555 black edition is a good bet.

(PS. As a newbie, I may have posted this in the wrong area so please let me know if that's the case)

 

[Who?]

I've managed to knock 8 deg C off the CPU temp by changing the rear 120mm fan to one that flows more air. It has also reduced the internal system temp by a similar amount so has got to be good for long term 24/7 operation.

 

[AMDFTW]

very nice mate for some unlocked goodness