Phenom II 965 Overclocking - some simple questions

[psytropic]

Specs:
Phenom II 965 BE / Asus M4A79XTD EVO / 4gb (2x2) OCZ AMD Black Edition (no longer sold)


I am not new to the game, just haven't had any time to tinker with this system I have had now for almost 2 years. When I built the system I bought 4gigs (2x2) of OCZ BE Memory (DDR3-1600) and just made sure I manually set the voltage and timings. I also raised the multiplier only to get to 3.6Ghz. I know, not a big o/c at all, but the system was stable and ran everything I needed it to.

Well now I want to buy new memory, 8 gigs (4x2). Newegg has some 1866mhz memory on sale all the time but the more and more I read, it seems 1600 is not even being utilized much more than stock 1333mhz with tighter timings would give. I also read contradicting articles about how raising the multiplier somehow effects the memory because the memory controller is on the cpu. I also read that with my system, the CPU will not even try to run the memory at 1866 even if my motherboard supports it.

So my questions are:
Do most of you overclock just by upping vcore and multiplier or is there some sort of tweaking of the HT as well?

Do any of you have a Deneb based Phenom that runs memory at 1866? If so how did you do it.

[red_dog007]

Most just do the multiplier. If you overclock HT, it will also overclock the memory. Though AMD systems benefit more from tighter timings than speed.

Also, raise the multipler of the CPU-NB. Make sure that it is NOT just the Northbridge but the CPU-NB. Get this in the 2.6~3GHz range.

[psytropic]

I will check out that CPU-NB setting. I prime95 tested my PC last night and even at 3.6 @ 1.425v I am not stable, looks like I was never prime stable to begin with, now I am on a quest to get this thing rock solid.

[psytropic]

I just wanted to thank you for having me look into that CPU/NB clock setting. I went from 2000 to 2400 just to test and prime95 ran for 20 mins before I stopped it. Is it possible that having it at 2000 made my system unstable? I think it's great that overclocking that setting makes the system MORE STABLE. Cheers.

I am going to leave my system at 3.6 @ 1.425 for the time being as that 400mhz jump should get me the stability I wanted and boost some more performance.

[red_dog007]

Yeah, when I was reading around a while back about overclocking Phenom's and Phenom II's, I came across a lot of claims of users, and even tutorials saying that increasing the CPU-NB can help out with stability issues.

Glad it fixed it up for you.
Not only have stable system, you also get a pretty nice performance increase by overclocking the CPU-NB.

If AMD had clocked those higher on stock chips, they sure could have competed better against Intel.