[macmagna]

Hello all,
I am new to this forum and to over clocking, but I have tried to read as much as I can before asking the following questions. I want my ram running at 1600 mhz and my CPU running as stable as possible overclocked and cooled by air. So far I have achieved pretty good stability I have run Prime95 small fft's for 4 hrs with no problems, but when I play games I notice some frame skipping. I'm sure the simple solution is to buy an expensive video card, but I want to see if the problem is really just me and my bios first. So let's get to the rig description and then we will move to the bios settings, and hopefully someone will be so kind as to tell me where I might make some improvements.
Board - Asus m4a79t deluxe
CPU - AMD 965 Black
Ram - Mushkin 996601 4 gigs
Video Card - Asus 4770 Formula
PSU - Corsair HT620 Modular PSU
Case - Coolermaster Storm Scout with two added side fans and one extra fan pulling air out the back
Hard Drives- 2 WD Caviar black 7200 rpm 500 Gig
Alright lets talk Bios settings I will post pics of the bios settings later so that anyone can have a good starting place, but as you all know from your other postings, even two computers built exactly the same could have different preferences for voltage or frequencies to make the system stable. Here are my settings. I have written exactly what the bios says. If you reply please use the same wording as to reduce confusion.

AI overclock tuner - Manual
CPU Ratio - 18x
FSB Frequency - 200 (didn't mess with this it was set already)
PCIE Frequency - 100 (didn't mess with this it was set already)
DRAM Frequency - 1600 (I set this but just noticed CPUZ says 800mhz what to do?)
CPU/NB Frequency - Auto
Dram Controller - factory settings
DRAM Timing/driving Config - (suggested settings by mushkin 2t 7 7 6 18)
CPU Voltage - 1.475
CPU/NB Voltage - 1.2625
CPU VDDA Voltage - Auto (I think this needs to change but don't know what to and don't understand why I read the overclocking definitions and know that this is the cpu core voltage, but I just set cpu voltage to 1.475)
DRAm Voltage 1.86 (suggested by mushkin within range)
HT voltage - auto
NB voltage - auto
NB 1.8v voltage Auto
SB voltage Auto
Everything else auto.

Again. I ran Prime for 4 hrs with these settings, but just figured out that my ram is underclocked. I thought I clocked it properly for 1600 mhz. If you know what to do I would greatly appreciate some help.

I am going to attach some CPU-Z pics of cpu profile and memory. Any help is good help.

Yours,
Mac

 

[Gyro]

All your settings look good.
Your ram is running at 1600.(DDR-double data rate, so 800x2=1600)
As you say the video card is the weak link here.

Good luck

Gyro

 

[macmagna]

I figure that IF my GPU is my weak link I need to work on that, but I don't want to rule out improvements to cpu perfomance. I am still open to suggestions on that.

Catalyst Control Center has a self test for suggesting overclock of the GPU and Memory Clocks. I went ahead and ran that overnight since it takes so long. Have GPU set at 820 mhz and Video Memory set at 840 mhz. I am also going to try increasing the GPU frequency to see if that helps.

The quality of the video picture is, and always has been amazing, still frame skipping in games though. I even have all settings in Catalyst control center turned down to performance rather than "Set by Program". That didn't seem to help. Still hoping that there is some way I can make up for it with the CPU since it is such a great cpu.

Any suggestions welcome.