Overclocking a phenom 2 x6

My cpu is a standard phenom 2 x6 1075t, it runs well an has never given mr an issue. I've had it going on 2 years now an was thinking of tweaking it a bit now its a lil dated. Anyone have any experience or suggestions on this? Its stock cooled for now, though ive contemplated water cooled should i do this. My msi fxa-gdx70 supposidly allows me to oc from the board at a turn of the dial though i dont nessicarily trust it either. I dont even know if its worth it but figured trying an oc for the first time on this couldnt hurt, worst case is ill buy a new one lol.

Sent from my outdated junk to your outdated junk

Hello fellow thuban owner. I have the same processor as yours and have succesfully overclocked it to 4Ghz and overclocked its memory controller to 3GHz. Is the performance difference noticeable? YES! Mine is watercooled, but is this worth it? No. Good watercooling with all the parts needed can be minimum $200. The major benefit of water cooling is not so much the better cooling but it is much quieter. I would recommend watercooling if your building a brand new setup otherwise for now get a descent air cooler. On stock cooler I would estimate a 3.5Ghz oc and good air cooling about 3.8ghz.

I will write up a how to guide later for overclocking. In the mean time can you download and setup the following.

You need a program that tells you the processors temperature.
install prime95 or prime95+
install memtest on a usb stick or cd
Check your bios and let us know if you can change the cpu multiplier, fsb frequency, memory controller frequency and ram frequency. change the cpu, ram, and memory controller voltages.

If you did the material on the previous post then proceed to the next steps

Some suggestions is to make sure your heatsink is dust and hair ball free. Also replace the old heatsink interface material with antec7 which can be bought off the shelf at Staples. In your bios either set the CPU fan at full speed or if your bios has the option to go to full speed at like 40-50C.

On stock settings run prime95 for about 10min and see what temperature you get. If it is below 50C then you can overclock but if it is higher than that temperature you need better cooling.

To overclock the simplest way... BEFORE STARTING MAKE SURE YOU KNOW HOW TO RESET THE BIOS (CLEAR CMOS)

• up the cpu multiplier. - Try 3.2Ghz and rerun prime95 checking for errors and temperature. If it does not error and the temperature is below 50C then you can up the speed again to to 3.4 and recheck.
• If it goes past 50C then you need to go back to a slower speed
• If the temperature is below 50C but you get an error in prime95 or windows doesn't boot or the computer doesn't boot (you may have to reset your bios) then you need to up the voltage on the processor. After upping the voltage by 0.1volts recheck the temperature again while running prime95.

Pretty much repeat the steps above until it is stable and 50C or below. That will be your maximum safe Overclock.

I also have a Phenom II x6 1075t and my chip is not one of the good overclockers, basically I can push it to 4GHz, but that requires about 1.56-1.57V


To keep the voltages is a safer range, I keep the CPU at 3.91GHz at 1.52V

Here is my CPUz validation

http://valid.x86.fr/1b8iry

This CPU at stock uses 125-130 watts and increases significantlly as you overclock, so it will put out a lot of heat. With my old air cooler (core contact cooler)
http://www.legitreviews.com/sunbeamt...u-cooler_798/3

The CPU temperatures would top out at about 70C at full load

When I upgraded to my Kraken X40, the temperature now tops out at about 47-48C (even though I added a little extra voltage)

Since the multiplier is locked, you have to overclock using the bus clock speed. This will overclock a few other components as well, so you have to balance the various multipliers. Keep the NB clock speed under 2.6GHz (default is 2GHz but overclocking it, significantly improves memory performance). The HT clock speed is also 2GHz at stock but does not benefit from overclocking as it is not a bottleneck, the components like the sata 6 bus and other components connecting to it, are the bottleneck.

Overclock the CPU first, then play with the NB multiplier to get it as close to 2.6GHz as possible.

The RAM will also be overclocked, so before pushing any click speed higher, first, drop the memory multiplier 1 or 2 ratios (you can push it up later to get your stock RAM speed or higher)

When properly overclocked, the x6 1075t is not a bottleneck for modern gaming.

GRRR annoying 5 minute edit limit (why not make it 15 minutes? )

Wanted to also add, disable cool n quiet, as it causes stability issues wen overclocking because it does not scale the voltages and clock speeds properly when pushing a high overclock (you are likely at some point in the scaling to get an unstable clock speed/ voltage combination, or a non instant voltage change that leads to instability)

With a decent cooler, you should be able to hit at least 3.8GHz without much trouble. (The stock cooler can get you to around 3.5-3.6GHz )

Mokona dont feel bad. My deneb requires 1.55v at 4ghz core and 1.35v at 3ghz for memory controller. Is 2.6Ghz the best you can do or d8d it not scale in performance after that? I have seen calculations saying to oc the memory controller to certain speeds but mine kept getting faster the higher I went. I was able to do 3.1Ghz but wasnt stable. These processors are awesome as they can take abuse and still recover. I had pushed 1.6v on the ( on water) but couldnt keep the temp down.

For the memory controller, the higher the better, Most of the Phemon II's top out at about 2.6GHz and a lucky few will hit 3GHz+

The only one that does not improve is the hyper transport since only low throughput items are located on that bus.

From a benchmarking standpoint, a 6 core Phenom II when overclocked to about 4GHz, can game just as well as a core i7 2600k on most games (except CPU bottlenecked ones like watchdogs where the DRM/ memory check which tries to make sure you are not using a cracked uplay launcher, runs on the same Core as the render thread, causing massive periodic framerate drops) the i5 2500k and i72600k and better have the single threaded horsepower to still power through situations like that.

I have a Phenom II x4 be i thinks its similar just less cores, i have had that thing overclocked 4.0 for over 2 years using hI100, been through two different motherboards no hiccups i could hit 4.5 but i dont like the heat/fan noise required to keep it cool as i use this for my media pc now next to my tv. I love that little thing great processor

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Originally Posted by AOD_Frostythehitman21

I have a Phenom II x4 be i thinks its similar just less cores, i have had that thing overclocked 4.0 for over 2 years using hI100, been through two different motherboards no hiccups i could hit 4.5 but i dont like the heat/fan noise required to keep it cool as i use this for my media pc now next to my tv. I love that little thing great processor

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Yes they are similar except for two things. The number of cores and a slightly tweaked memory controller or IMC.

Here is some tips for overclocking both.

Denebs x4 like to have the cpu and imc voltages to match. Also if you bump the voltage up slightly on the northbridge it helps stabilize the imc and ram.

Thubans x6 like slightly less voltage on the imc than the cpu. Northbridge voltage seems to do nothing to help so leave it stock.

This all from personal experience on multiple machines.