Hi, I am trying to venture a bit on the overclocking side of things with my processor without changing any voltage. I'm not an expert in overclock, but so far I figured that if I don't change the voltages, the components won't be damaging themselves in the long run, right? Correct me on this if I am wrong, because I cannot afford a replacement should things go wrong.
Right, so with that said, here's what I got:
- AMD FX-8150 with Closed Liquid Cooler by Asetek
- ASUS Crosshair V Formula with BIOS 1703
- Kingston ValueRAM KVR1333D3N9K2/8G CL9-9-9-24 8GB DDR3-1333 (2x4GB)
- AMD Overdrive 4.3.1.0698
- Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, updated to Service Pack 1
So here's what AMD Overdrive says about voltages at default:
4.2 GHz - VID 1.4125
3.9 GHz - VID 1.4125
3.6 GHz - VID 1.2875
3.3 GHz - VID 1.2250
2.7 GHz - VID 1.1000
2.1 GHz - VID 0.9625
1.4 GHz - VID 0.8625
What I've done so far was setting the base and turbo clocks from inside BIOS, to this:
4.6 GHz - Turbo
4.0 GHz - Base
AMD Overdrive reports:
4.6 GHz - VID 1.4125
3.9 GHz - VID 1.4125
4.0 GHz - VID 1.2875
3.3 GHz - VID 1.2250
2.7 GHz - VID 1.1000
2.1 GHz - VID 0.9625
1.4 GHz - VID 0.8625
I had to fix that annoying middle turbo and used AMD Overdrive for it. I went to the Turbo Core settings and set the multiplier to 21.5x. It finally became this:
4.6 GHz - VID 1.4125
4.3 GHz - VID 1.4125
4.0 GHz - VID 1.2875
3.3 GHz - VID 1.2250
2.7 GHz - VID 1.1000
2.1 GHz - VID 0.9625
1.4 GHz - VID 0.8625
Now my real question is... how to actually test stability for 24/7 operation for the Turbo frequencies? Most stress programs fully stress 100% CPU usage, but that would mean the turbo frequencies won't be used pretty much. I need a way to test stability such that it can stress the CPU going up and down in frequency, and not necessarily 100% usage, but in a way it can stress on a per core basis or in a fraction of the number of core usage so that it can trigger the two turbos.
I am entirely not sure if these frequencies I've got right now (4.0/4.3/4.6 GHz) are stable. I've tried Cinebench, wPrime 1024M and AMD Overdrive for stability tests, as well as gaming, exploring the web but I don't seem to have any issue, though I'm not too sure about it.
I've tried higher frequencies like 4.7 GHz on the MAX turbo, but it failed in single core cinebench. I've also tried 4.4 GHz as the middle turbo, but Cinebench failed the OpenGL test. I've also tried 4.1 GHz as base and it failed on Overdrive.
So that's my goal. Without changing voltages, I want to find out the maximum frequencies I can get from my processor by making use of Base and the two Turbo frequencies.
