Opteron 165 Testbench & Analysis

[WarriorII]

Looking really good S_N !

 

[Joe Phantom]

WOW Exelent Super Nade. Please test all your ram and post more info !
Good OC

 

[dropadrop]

Sorry to say, mate...you can't really have silent air cooling if you wish to blast a big OC out of your CPU. That is why people move to water.

So,its either of the two. Become stone deaf like me whilst cranking out the GHz or be a wimp and run every component in-spec.

Dragon, we will meet again for sure...only that, you guys would be in the audience clapping, when Tony Dungy lifts the trophy.

Your quite correct

I took this rig home, and suddenly it sounds alot louder then it was at the office. Changed the case fan and processors fans to nexuses at 5v, and removed all other fans. Now it's pretty silent, but I can still hear something if I lean over to the computer. Backed my overclock down to 2.2ghz at 1.15v.

 

[PriceKey]

Hey SuperNade,

I'm really interested in your burn in process.
Though before I start I have a few questions:

Here is my setup:
Opteron 165
2x 512 (g.skill le 3200)
msi k8n neo2 plat.
enermax 465 watt.

1st question: For the cpu.. do you leave it at default voltage of 1.325?
2nd question: And for the ram, do you first use the divider or do you leave it 1:1 and then slowly increase the cpu fsb freq. when doing the burn in.

Thanks

 

[Super Nade]

Hello mate and Welcome to the forums!

Question 1:
Yep, start with your default VCore of 1.325V at stock settings. Then bump up the HTT to see how far your CPU can go on stock voltage. Keeping the voltage at stock is the key to the first phase of the burn-in.

Question 2:
Keep the RAM at SPD timings by running it on a divider. You are not really concerned about the RAM at this point.

Good Luck!

 

[PriceKey]

Pwmic

Hm. my temps seem to be okay. i'm at 2.6ghz with 38 load C. but my PWMIC is like 50-52 according to smart guardian. is that okay? Even on stock settings... its' that high.. is there anyway to fix that?

 

[Super Nade]

Hello Pricekey and Welcome to the forums!

The key to lowering PWMIC temps is good airflow. I'd suggest having a fan blow over the area where the three big Aluminum heatsiks are at. That should help.

 

[PriceKey]

Quick question: though it may sound stupid... but i think it would help the mosfets and pwmic. Should the fan on top of the xp90-c blow away from the cpu or towards the cpu.

 

[deathman20]

Quick question: though it may sound stupid... but i think it would help the mosfets and pwmic. Should the fan on top of the xp90-c blow away from the cpu or towards the cpu.

It depends what gets the lower temps. But usually blowing tward the CPU is the winner.

On my last heatsink... SP-94 i think it was called, sucking air into the heatsink seemed to get me better temps.

 

[InfiniteThought]

Wow 2.7Ghz (stable) at 1.456V very nice! I'm around 2.5Ghz (stable) at that voltage.

How far will you over-volt? Will you go 1.55V (CPU-Z) or beyond? You might graze 3Ghz if you do.

How did you manage to "hand-pick" your stepping?


Have you kept a record of Vcore, frequency and stability testing? I did during my overclock and I used it to generate a plot to find a knee on the voltage vs frequency curve to judge where my CPU is confortable. Mine falls around the 2.6Ghz mark.

 

[PriceKey]

thanks guys, that worked pretty well actually , after putting the fan towards the cpu. (no change in cpu temp, still at 30C(Idle)/39C (full load), but pwmic dropped 10 degrees to 45C and chipset dropped 2 degrees to 46C). Anyway I just restarted the cpu burn in and I'm currently at 280 x 9(multiplier) = 2520mhz at 1.325 Volts! (Stock volt?) (though it says 1.296 on cpuid)

It should be 1.296Volts right? Anyhow thanks! Wow the burn in process does work, thanks.

 

[deathman20]

thanks guys, that worked pretty well actually , after putting the fan towards the cpu. (no change in cpu temp, still at 30C(Idle)/39C (full load), but pwmic dropped 10 degrees to 45C and chipset dropped 2 degrees to 46C). Anyway I just restarted the cpu burn in and I'm currently at 280 x 9(multiplier) = 2520mhz at 1.325 Volts! (Stock volt?) (though it says 1.296 on cpuid)

It should be 1.296Volts right? Anyhow thanks! Wow the burn in process does work, thanks.

Trust bios voltage more then windows voltage. Since you have an ultra-D theres a very good chance its reading 1.325V almost dead on. As for stock volts, mines 1.35 for stock V, its possible that yours is lower only way to know is to check it out with that program thread around here somewhere.

 

[PriceKey]

Trust bios voltage more then windows voltage. Since you have an ultra-D theres a very good chance its reading 1.325V almost dead on. As for stock volts, mines 1.35 for stock V, its possible that yours is lower only way to know is to check it out with that program thread around here somewhere.

What program thread do you mean, do you mean TCase Max? I'm not sure... exactly what you are referring to, if you can hint me in the right direction that would be great. According to Tcase Max stock temp is 1.350v . I guess i'm going below under... I just followed Super Nade's stock temps. Thought it would be the same

 

[Darkdashing]

interesting post, keep it updated

 

[dawei213]

S-N, seems like the combination of both the 165 and DFI LP Ultra-D is key here.

I too hit 2.7ghz (300x9) at right about the same voltage but slightly higher temp (at 54°C) with a borrowed DFI LP U-D board. It was stable through 12 hours of Prime95 on both core. I even ran my RAM at 183mhz divider at 3-4-4-8 with no problem. The DFI board is definitely a good board.

However I have the EPoX 9NPA+. I borrowed the DFI to test the temp. With the EPoX board, I'm currently running 290x9 at 1.55V. From what I've read the EPoX board overvolts a bit as well (and the voltage reading is probably higher than it is).

Nonetheless, the combination of the 165 w/ DFI LP NF4 U-D is the best combo I've seen personally.

 

[Kenai]

I bought my Opty 165 the same day from ZZF as S_N.
I was able to boot up to 2.7Ghz on stock voltage without any issue.
Since I am using the Swify water-cooling kit my temps are only 30/36, so I probably have some room yet. I could not boot into windows at 310 HTT, I could boot into windows but lock up with benchmarks at 305 HTT, this is with stock voltage.
I did at one time accidently <enable> the overvolt feature on my CPU in the ASUS bios and after 8 hours of CPU Burn I noticed my vCore sitting at 1.6. My temp was only 40*C though. I want to tweak the memory a little and crank up the vCore and see what this baby will really do at 1.6 Right now I am satisfied at 2.7GHz, not for long though.

 

[IWasHungry]

S-N, seems like the combination of both the 165 and DFI LP Ultra-D is key here.

I too hit 2.7ghz (300x9) at right about the same voltage but slightly higher temp (at 54°C) with a borrowed DFI LP U-D board. It was stable through 12 hours of Prime95 on both core. I even ran my RAM at 183mhz divider at 3-4-4-8 with no problem. The DFI board is definitely a good board.

However I have the EPoX 9NPA+. I borrowed the DFI to test the temp. With the EPoX board, I'm currently running 290x9 at 1.55V. From what I've read the EPoX board overvolts a bit as well (and the voltage reading is probably higher than it is).

Nonetheless, the combination of the 165 w/ DFI LP NF4 U-D is the best combo I've seen personally.

Perhaps DC Opterons are just one of those CPUs the DFI LANPARTY boards likes?

 

[dawei213]

Perhaps DC Opterons are just one of those CPUs the DFI LANPARTY boards likes?

Perhaps. I just might switch over...

Dang, all this testing and I have yet to play any games or do anything else with the computer yet.

 

[deathman20]

Dang, all this testing and I have yet to play any games or do anything else with the computer yet.

LOL it took me a week or two before I played any either when I got my CPU.

 

[Darkdashing]

do you run oc'd all the time??