getting the most out of a dual core Opteron 185

[Raiasokura]

Hi, i know its quite an old procceser but here it still sells for over 160 and is one of the better highend 939 cpu's (supposed to be equilivent to FX60,and slightly better than the 4800X2) just would like to know how far i could push it before i buy an Q6600 and from what ive read they seem to be really good and can be pushed as high as 3.6ghz safely. I cant seem to get the opteron running 100% stable at 3.02ghz here , 2.95ghz is stable most of the time but ive read around that people have had it running at 3.2 on air. ive taken 2 sticks of ram out to help get the most out of it, originally had 2GB. how are some people getting this to 3.2, without needing to use watercooling.

system:
Opteron 185 usally at 3.02Ghz Multiplier 12x (Idle Temp: 39c, Load Temp 48c) Vcore 1.425,
2x Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC4000 Memory at 2.94v, FSB 252.
DFI LAN PARTY RDX200 crossfire
HD 3870
Hiper-R580 Watt PSU

would it be possible for me to get the most out of that rig is it the powersupply whats casuing the OC issue im having?, would like to see how much i can get out of it before i finally go quad someone help me try and push this im interested in getting it more stable and getting a little more performance out of it, when i have it running in Prime its only stable for a maximum of 2-5 minutes when its at 3.04 Ghz. Also i occasionally get the Program not Responding Error this related to ram?, can i up the voltage on the ram would it be safe to do that.

cheers

[ragejg]

What, did you pare down to 1gb RAM? I hope not.

DIMM voltage is definitely an option in your case..... and I do believe that if you can achieve stability anywhere between 2.8 and 3.0 ghz, you are maximizing the potential of an air-cooled 939 system, which at that speed just touches the coattails of C2D rigs.

I think I'm maxed out at 2.5ghz on my older rig and wish I could get to your speeds...

I also wish I didn't have RAM that won't go past around 218fsb (hell, one stick is a PC2700 so I shouldn't complain, lol).

Continue to tweak a bit and let us know how it's coming. A64 users certainly don't get too much attention anymore but I can tell you that a fairly loyal group of people here are interested in seeing what you can accomplish with your rig. I'm jealous of the cache on your Opty. ;)

PS: I recommend finding the highest speed your cpu will go with the most ram you can stuff in there. Certain apps will need lots of ram, and I would tend to believe that 1.5 or 2.0gb ram @ loose timings and lower speeds @ a cpu speed of 2.8 ghz would be better than only 1gb RAM @ tighter timings @ a cpu speed of 3.0ghz.

PPS: I think your PSU is probably up to the task of running your rig at up to 2.8ghz with a slightly bumped DIMM voltage. One thing to consider is the HD 3870 eating up watts on your 12v rail.

:)

[Bman212121]

Hi, i know its quite an old procceser but here it still sells for over 160 and is one of the better highend 939 cpu's (supposed to be equilivent to FX60,and slightly better than the 4800X2) just would like to know how far i could push it before i buy an Q6600 and from what ive read they seem to be really good and can be pushed as high as 3.6ghz safely. I cant seem to get the opteron running 100% stable at 3.02ghz here , 2.95ghz is stable most of the time but ive read around that people have had it running at 3.2 on air. ive taken 2 sticks of ram out to help get the most out of it, originally had 2GB. how are some people getting this to 3.2, without needing to use watercooling.

system:
Opteron 185 usally at 3.02Ghz Multiplier 12x (Idle Temp: 39c, Load Temp 48c) Vcore 1.425,
2x Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC4000 Memory at 2.94v, FSB 252.
DFI LAN PARTY RDX200 crossfire
HD 3870
Hiper-R580 Watt PSU

would it be possible for me to get the most out of that rig is it the powersupply whats casuing the OC issue im having?, would like to see how much i can get out of it before i finally go quad someone help me try and push this im interested in getting it more stable and getting a little more performance out of it, when i have it running in Prime its only stable for a maximum of 2-5 minutes when its at 3.04 Ghz. Also i occasionally get the Program not Responding Error this related to ram?, can i up the voltage on the ram would it be safe to do that.

cheers

The only ones over 3.0Ghz most likely have a cherry picked one from a really good batch. Your doing really good at 3.0Ghz I think; I couldn't get my FX-60 stable at 3.0Ghz. I backed it down to 2.8Ghz to keep it stable.

Does it really matter if you squeeze out another 100mhz? I highly doubt your going to see any tangible gains from it, and are only going to cause more issues with stability. From what I've seen I would say a dual core 939 processor with 2MB L2 cache running at 3.0GHz is very comparible to an E6600 stock. (4MB L2 2.4Ghz)

Once again with the Q6600's just because one person can get it that high doesn't mean that everyone can. I can't seem to get mine stable above 3.2Ghz right now. I don't think I'm hitting a voltage limit but rather a heat issue. The ones running 3.6ghz likely have a massive fan on their coolers to push as much air as possible.

One more thing to note, I would really bet that having a slightly lower processor OC and having 2GB of ram instead of 1GB will probably have a larger impact on performance. 1GB of ram isn't very much these days.

[abtomat74]

My friend and I built identical(100%) systems for s939 and upgraded nearly identically last year(we both got 8800GTS 640's, I got the X2 4800+ while he chose the Opty 185). As far as gaming goes we have noticed ZERO difference at all with his extra 200MHz.

I even went to Vista late last year(Crysis played a couple fps better due to him using XP, not the 200MHz), and now with Vista SP1 they are back to being identical. If there is any difference in gaming fps, it is not noticeable.

Most games are GPU limited anyway, which means any decent CPU is already good enough. The extra few hundred MHz you might squeeze would be pointless for GAMING. If running Pi faster makes you wet, then by all means overclock it.

To further add to this, another friend with an 8800GTS 640 and an e6600 gets a couple fps better than us average in Crysis, and Dirt with multiple cars, all other games we tried played well enough to not even bother comparing to the older Athlons.

I suggest doing what I plan to, wait for Intels next socket so we have a longer upgrade path, or just grab an e8400 and finish off LGA775 with the nastiest quad they will bring out in the near future that still fits the socket(hopefully 3.2GHz or better). When our X2 first came out they were $800+, we bought them for $250 and less...same will happen with the quad Intels now.
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Oh and yea, like the other guy said, you need 2GB of ram...1GB is 3 years ago.
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Check this out:
http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=672&p=5

yea it is a year old article, but we're talking about old processors. The AMD's listed are AM2's just to let you know, but it still illustrates what increasing MHz does...practically nothing for gaming. Between .2-2 fps max! Whoa! On the games where the difference is greater, your fps is already so high(100+fps) it doesn't matter.

[Raiasokura]

yes i do see your point but what about games what tend to have more cpu usage, for example the source engine.

i am sure there would be a noticable difference between the opteron and the core2duo.

[abtomat74]

yes i do see your point but what about games what tend to have more cpu usage, for example the source engine.

i am sure there would be a noticable difference between the opteron and the core2duo.

I mentioned that too, though not specifically by mentioning Source...as we all know the HL2 series plays awesome on a wide range of older CPU's and the fps we get is more than high enough to not care about any difference.

Actually, the HL2 series was the only game we(me and friend) ever played higher than 1280x1024 with our 88GTS's...we were able to play in 1600x1200 8xAA easily, or 12x10 with 16xAA. Trying that with other games didn't pan out too well, Source games and our CPU's no problem.

If you're getting a steady 70+fps do you really care about all the trouble of overclocking to get 73-75fps? Getting 110 you still want 120? Only when you go around 30fps do single frames begin to matter, and right now that is Crysis and the extra MHz does nothing as mentioned earlier, more graphics card will.

I just ran some more Crysis benches between us(we both added a 3rd gig to our systems) and the results are still the same...fluctuationg within 1fps as the tests are always slightly different...they average out perfectly.

No Celeron? You're fine on the CPU already, overclock your GPU if you want gaming improvements as our CPU's are architecturally maxed already. Maybe at 4GHz it might mean something in the minimum fps department.