Phenom Overclock

[GameModeLiam]

I've had my Phenom II X4 965 for about a year now and I am thinking of overclocking it. I was wondering if anyone on here had any stable overclocks with this CPU and what were they. I've never overclocked before so some basic instructions would greatly be appreciated.

[catbutts]

I got my old 965 BE up to 3.7-3.8 without messing with voltages, but that was before I got an aftermarket cooler.

Your Arctic Freezer will probably help yield much better results.

[chaozbandit]

I've got my 955 BE (essentially the same chip) up to 3.8 GHz on stock volts with a CM 212+. Got it up to 4.2 GHz at 1.456V with my current NZXT Havik140, but since then it has degraded a bit and I keep it at 4.0 GHz for a 24/7 stable (and folding@home stable). The chip is two, two and a half years old. Mess around with the multiplier / bus speed and make sure to test for stability. Prime95 and IntelBurnTest are generally good, quick stress testers; make sure you monitor temps with something like HWMonitor. 

 

As far as upper limits, don't let the chip go past 62 C (mine hit 65 C in the early days) and try not to go past 1.500 V.

[OozyGorilla]

I've got a 1090T (same architecture) running 3.6Ghz (currently testing 3.8GHz and it seems to be stable so far) at 1.5V. Temps stay right around 60C on the CM 212 Evo. Pretty crap. Sometimes I think I'm missing something.

[Ryan Leech]

that motherboard

[helping]

I've got a 1090T (same architecture) running 3.6Ghz (currently testing 3.8GHz and it seems to be stable so far) at 1.5V. Temps stay right around 60C on the CM 212 Evo. Pretty crap. Sometimes I think I'm missing something.

That's some really high voltage just for 3.6. 

[Ryan Leech]

I've got a 1090T (same architecture) running 3.6Ghz (currently testing 3.8GHz and it seems to be stable so far) at 1.5V. Temps stay right around 60C on the CM 212 Evo. Pretty crap. Sometimes I think I'm missing something.

At 1.5v I could run my cpu at 5.2GHz

[OozyGorilla]

That's some really high voltage just for 3.6.

I know! That's why I feel like I'm missing something! I don't know if it is just horrible luck with the silicon lottery or if it's my motherboard but it really sucks.

[-rascal-]

Depending on which revision of the Phenom II 965 you have. The C2 and older revisions couldn't overclock as far. Most of them could only reach 3.6GHz-3.8GHz areas. The newer C3 revision chips we a little better. A large portion of these C3 owners were able to push 4.0GHz (some even luckier!!).

Find out what revision your Phenom II 965 is.

1) CPU-Z should tell you on the "CPU" tab.

2) Look at the model number.

HDZ965FBGIBOX and HDZ965FBK4DGI are C2 steppings / revisions

HDZ965FBGMBOX and HDZ965FBK4DGM are C3 steppings / revisions.

I've got a 1090T (same architecture) running 3.6Ghz (currently testing 3.8GHz and it seems to be stable so far) at 1.5V. Temps stay right around 60C on the CM 212 Evo. Pretty crap. Sometimes I think I'm missing something.

What are your other frequency / voltage settings? Maybe I can have a look over them and give you a little hand to push it further. The Phenom II X6 1090T I got right now can reach 4.0GHz 110% stable (4.1GHz is a little iffy, but never got much free time to test / teak it).

Another thing, increasing the CPU-NB also gives a slight performance boost to the memory read / writes.

Some quick testing I did a while back. Same RAM timings, and simply upped the CPU-NB one multiplier...so 2400MHz vs 2600MHz CPU-NB. I also ran the tests a few times, and the results were fairly consistent so...

As you can see below 313MB/s read increase, 661MB/s write increase, 238MB/s copy increase.

I have mine clocked 3000MHz now, but I don't think I've done a test yet to see the numbers.

[maazster]

Ahh.. the Phenom II's they were awesome at their time. You could get up to and around 4.0 Ghz with that cooler but it depends on your chip.