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Northbridge frequencies

745 Views 11 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  incubated, 
incubated
hello people

i've been tweaking my new build recently, and i've seem to run into a dead end when it comes to upping the northbridge frequency on my 6300. it's currently clocked at 4.4ghz @ 1.3125v and northbridge is running at 2600mhz @ 1.3v. i'm happy with the performance. it's the best i could get out of it thus far, but it's the insatiable desire to push forward that's gnawing at my failed attempts to up the damn frequency, and i can't figure out why the hell not.

i tried upping the northbridge voltages to 1.45v. nothing. won't budge to 2800. i've been reluctant to go beyond that on a 24/7 rig, especially considering that the cpu is perfectly stable at 1.3125 and generates enough heat to make my dual fanned h55 struggle for its life. the rest of my specs are as usual. all the power saving stuff disabled. llc enabled. ht link on max @ 2400. my mobo is asus m5a97 rev 2.0, and the memory is g.skill ripjaws x 2133 specced according to xmp.

also, a side question. is it recommended to keep the cpu and nb voltages equal? based on amd overdrive settings, the nb voltages can be lower, slightly, but it's just a conjecture of mine.

thanks
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mikeo01
Upping the CPU/NB doesn't give that much of a performance boost from your current settings.

However you could try playing around with FSB?

CPU/NB limitations may be due to the internal clock however you could push it further by increasing the bus speeds along with your current settings.

Increasing the bus speeds and also the multiplier can gain higher frequencies as well as an overall performance boost in other areas of the system.
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E
The new processors do not get nearly as Deneb and Thuban lines, the performance also doesnt improve as much as with those cores either. If you can hit 2600MHz I wouldnt worry about going farther as it wont make hardly any difference. The Deneb cores gained significant speed increased in l3 cache and RAM latencies with higher NB core, the new Zambezi and Vishera cores still gain, but only a small amount compared to the % increase on the older cores. The new ones also top out at a much lower speed, around 2600MHz. Whereas Deneb cores were able to hit 3200MHz sometimes.
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incubated
Hmm. So I basically topped out? I have the option to go up to 3200, but it seems like that won't happen. I'm not really looking to messed around with the fsb because I would have to do the ram timings from scratch. Having said that I definitely saw a performance boost in maxxmem from 2200 to 2600. I guess I will just lay off the damn thing. Would upping the multiplier yield noticeable results without serious drawbacks?
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mikeo01
Great feature on the M5A97 board (I have the PRO) is that you can extend the limit of how much current the CPU/NB and CPU can draw. It may or may not help but you could attempt it.

It's called CPU/NB current capacity, just allows more amp draw than usual.

However it does sound like your at your limit or near it.

As long as your voltages are decent (not too high) there won't be any issues.

EDIT:
I just realised how fast your RAM is running at, upping the CPU/NB a bit more will definitely be a nice improvement.

However as said playing around with FSB will probably be the only way to get you slightly higher if you have hit the internal clock limit.
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incubated
hey. thanks for the tip. i don't think my mobo has that. i can't find that power feature anywhere. ah well. i'm perfectly happy with this setup for now.

just another quick question about nb. is it recommended to keep the cpu and nb voltages the same?
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mikeo01
Looks like your board doesn't have that option,

As for the voltages the CPU/NB has it's own voltage and shouldn't be set too high as it's a different part of the chip. So the CPU vcore and CPU/NB voltages are different.

Example my Phenom's vcore is at 1.344 and my CPU/NB voltage is at 1.150v.
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And too high of CPU/NB voltage cause actually cause you to not be able to overclock as high. Find the sweet spot and leave it there. Most say not to go above 1.3v on the CPU/NB because very few processors run well higher than that.
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incubated
I'm at 1.3 on my nb. I find it crashes in prime95 if I go lower. I was on G. Skill forums and it seems like the tech support guys recommend adding just 0.1v. Would that be 1.2 total? I'm not sure what the stock voltage is. Also, could it be that my nb voltage is too high at 1.3 to boot into 3000 frequencies?
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J
Quote:
Originally Posted by incubated View Post

I'm at 1.3 on my nb. I find it crashes in prime95 if I go lower. I was on G. Skill forums and it seems like the tech support guys recommend adding just 0.1v. Would that be 1.2 total? I'm not sure what the stock voltage is. Also, could it be that my nb voltage is too high at 1.3 to boot into 3000 frequencies?
Click to expand...
What's the VID of your chip??
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Quote:
Originally Posted by incubated View Post

I'm at 1.3 on my nb. I find it crashes in prime95 if I go lower. I was on G. Skill forums and it seems like the tech support guys recommend adding just 0.1v. Would that be 1.2 total? I'm not sure what the stock voltage is. Also, could it be that my nb voltage is too high at 1.3 to boot into 3000 frequencies?
Click to expand...
No, because only a small handful of FX line processors will boot at that speed, and most need sub zero cooling to do so. These processors just do not like high NB speed like the old ones did.
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incubated
Gotcha.
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