AMD Optimal BIOS settings + Overclocking Guide

JMke writes "Here's a step by step guide on how to get the most out of your AMD setup. Overclocking tips and BIOS tweak settings discussed, as well as an overview of the more popular overclocking tools. Start your overclocking here!" Lots of good info here for getting the last bit of performance out of your system while also watching out for dangers that could fry your processor.

Comments

Temperature

[DrEldarion]

From the article: NEVER LET IT GET ABOVE 55C IN MY OPINION ON AIRCOOLING

When I had the stock heatsink/fan on my 1800+, it would IDLE at over 55C, and peak at around 63C under a full load. I never had any problems. Are overclocked CPUs more sensitive to heat, or is this just a "to be safe" recommendation? AMD says they're good up to 85C.

Re:Temperature

[IvyMike]

The chips are tested at a DIE temperature of 85C. However, the temperature sensor on you MB isn't at the die, it's at the packaging (or maybe just near the packaging), so it's not going to read as hot. A rule of thumb I've read is a 20 degrees difference, so that would mean 65C.

Unfortunately, this is all academic because motherboard temperature sensors are notoriously non-calibrated, and I've seen them be 10C off or more! It's more useful to use MB sensors to monitor relative changes than absolute temperature. (In other words, the difference between temperatures running at idle and at load is probably accurate...but the absolute values are probably fuzzy).

Additionally, the fact that the chip was tested at 85C doesn't mean that it will be harmed by temperatures over 85C; it just means it's likely to not work (a bit won't flip somewhere on the chip). Your system will eventually lock up if this is happening. They used to test some chips at 95C or more, and military use chips get tested even higher, so that shows that the silicon chip itself won't be damaged at those temps...it's just functionality that will suffer. :)

If your chip is marginal, running for long times at higher temps can cause it to die quickly (atom migration, etc, can be more pronounced at higher temps) so some people will warn of running at very high temperatures. But this is very unlikely, and if it does eventually happen, hey...now you need to upgrade. Sweet.

Overclocking

[Ianoo]

The biggest thing I've always found with overclocking (both Intel & AMD) is that 'YMMV' (your mileage may vary). I've talked to people who say they run their systems at 20% more speed than they should be doing, yet one of my systems constantly locks up even if midly overclocked. Increasingly I wonder, given the current prices for this kind of technology, whether overclocking is a bit pointless. Do I spend $100 extra or do I spend 12 hours mucking with my BIOS? You decide!

Overclocking also seems so 1990s now, most people I speak to who rate themselves equal to my own geekdom are in to case modding and quiet PCs... concepts which I find much more interesting than getting 5% extra FPS in Quake.

Re:Overclocking

[obsidianpreacher]

But ... but ... but ... it's QUAKE! I simply HAFTA play at 400 frames per second! Have you tried playing it at any less? It's practically a slideshow!

Not so fast...

[EmCeeHawking]

while also watching out for dangers that could fry your processor.

With all of the offshore outsourcing going on, we geeks need as much practice frying things as possible. =)

Re:Fry?

[Scottaroo]

Tom's Harware loves doing stunts like this. They've run processors without coolers just to see what happens, and they investigated problems with the early AMD thermal diodes. Check it out

Re:Anyone Not Know This?

[spektr]

Seriously who doesn't know how to set there BIOS's settings?

My 96 year old grandmother uttered the other day that she was not perfectly confident with setting the DRAM burst timings on her nforce2 board. I pointed her to this site and now she is happy, because she could squeeze 2 fps more out of her box and can thereby delay the "necessary" upgrade for another 3 months. Silly old granny and the fps madness...

And remember guys..

[Lussarn]

No overclocking is considered rock solid before you have compiled a complete gentoo on your OC CPU.

Am I the only one who UNDERCLOCKS?

[MarcQuadra]

I for one don't need the horsepower of a top-end CPU. I have a KT266a-based board (max FSB=133/266) and I put an Athlon-xp 2500/333 into it.

My CPU is underclocked from 1.83G to 1.46G, it dissipates about 45W, which is about the same as a G4, and HALF what a modern P4 drops. It's stable as all hell and I'm very happy with the speed.

I do the same thing to my G3/450, I use it as a fileserver so the 450MHz is totally wasted. I turned it down to 300MHz with less than 2% 'real world' performance difference from the client machines. It also generates less heat and uses less power now.

Any of you living on your own and paying electric bills would be well-served by underclocking, as the VAST majority of our CPU cycles go to waste anyway.