Pat Moorhead » overclock

Breaking Records with Dragons and Helium in the Las Vegas Desert

Patrick Moorhead — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 09:55:00 +0000

How do I describe what happened in a tent on the edge of the Desert in Las Vegas on the last night of CES? Completely over the top…. I can say that it was a story that included dragons and helium at temperatures near the point where atoms and molecules cease to move. While I wasn’t at the event, I had droves of people come to me within and hours to tell an account of what happened. After researching the night’s activities, I wanted to bring it to you.

“The Experiment” was held on the edge of Las Vegas with the goal to push AMD Phenom ^TMII X4 processors to the absolute limits¹ using the most extreme techniques and methods available. The testing was done on AMD Dragon platform technology complete with dual ATI Radeon ^TM HD 4870 X2 and motherboards based on the AMD 790FX chipset.

Overclockers Macci, Hardman, Sampsa and SF3D were given 500 liters of liquid helium and an arsenal of motherboards from DFI and Gigabyte. I am an absolute neophyte when it comes to overclocking and have lots of fun with it, but when you add the pros and put great gear in their hands, the results are stunning. This proved quite true on this special night in the Vegas desert.

A world record score of 45,474 on 3D Mark 05 capped off the evening with all four processor cores at 6301MHz, the memory controller running at 3843MHz, and memory at DDR2-1100MHz. A pair of ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics cards using ATI CrossFireX™ technology were air-cooled at 800/950MHz.

The team was reinstalling drivers and cold booting on what the meter read as -242C but at that point the meters are only an approximation….amazing stability at temperatures on the verge of absolute zero (-273C at which atomic motion ceases). The team even got a run with one core operating at 6.8 GHz.

Remember, almost all of this stuff is certain to void your hardware warranties and could cause serious damage to your PC hardware. We burn through motherboards, processors and graphics cards at an alarming rate doing it. And liquid helium is incredibly dangerous in untrained hands. Only the most experienced, safe and methodical overclockers should every even think of attempting something this extreme.

There is some great initial posts out there, check it out.

English

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3570593&postcount=432

Event Thread (English)

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=211726&page=18

German

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,672730/News/AMD_Phenom_II_mit_fluessigem_Helium_uebertaktet_PCGH_vor_Ort/

Finnish

http://plaza.fi/muropaketti/3dmark05n-maailmanennatys-suomeen

YouTube Video of The Event

The team would like to break that record as they refine their techniques and the community goes beyond. We appreciate the support from the OC community that AMD has had over the years and hope that our Black Edition processors continue to raise the level of fun and competition. I am hearing that Dragon technology is proving to be a compelling platform for overclockers and we hope that the community enjoys it.

1) AMD’s PRODUCT WARRANTY DOES NOT COVER DAMAGES CAUSED BY OVERCLOCKING, EVEN WHEN OVERCLOCKING IS ENABLED VIA AMD SOFTWARE.

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

Ten CPU Overclocking Tips

Patrick Moorhead — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 09:18:00 +0000

My last blog covered how much progress the AMD Phenom X4 has made with overclocking (1) during the last 9 months. I have been overclocking systems for 10 years in my spare time and wanted to share with you a few tips…. OK, you’ll see I am having fun when you read some of these, but I think many of you overclockers can appreciate these. I Twittered on a few of these last weekend and got good private responses so I decided to finish the list below. Some responses I got were very serious so I will go out of my way again to point out that I am having some fun here.

#1: Wear safety goggles. Don’t get thermal paste in your eye as it burns…. burns badly. I was informed from a Facebook friend that this is because of the “silver” in the paste. It might as well have been made out of razor blades. Plus heavy-duty eyewear is in.

#2: Keep all appendages away from those thermally effective, but sharp and finny heat sinks. I have 17 symmetrical cuts on one finger…..almost like an “overclocking tattoo”. I have the pictures but if anyone is eating while reading this I will spare you.

#3: Don’t question why on some motherboards to get dual channel memory working you must plug your DIMMs into the same color slots while for other motherboards you must plug into different color slots. Better yet, with 64-bit operating systems, fill ‘em up!

#4: If you hear a firecracker sound and smell smoke but the PC reboots fine, you probably just smoked your MOSFET in the core VRM (voltage regulator module) on the motherboard. You didn’t blow up your CPU. This is my personal favorite….sound, smoke then working fine.

#5: PS/2 ports are actually still your friend, not some “wonder-why-its-still-here” legacy deal. Stick with a PS/2 mouse and PS/2 keyboard while experimenting. Sometimes USB likes to take a one boot “nap” after a failed OC. In case you have forgotten what PS/2 ports look like, I put a picture below.

#6: Buy a motherboard with power and reset button on the board itself. If you are using a bench-set, this will save time and headache versus plugging in a switch. Small but useful.

#7: Get a power supply with those cool plug-in power modules to reduce clutter in your workspace. Don’t mix the connectors between different makers of power supplies. I have heard it’s like Ghostbusters “crossing the streams.”

#8: Go for the high-end CMOS clearing jumpers with a real handle. If you have big fingers or bad eyes you will be thankful. It’s OK, you can admit it… real men do clear CMOS. There is counseling for this as well, I hear.

#9: Don’t spend any time gazing at your motherboard wondering why there is space for convenient, vertical serial and floppy connectors yet no room for convenient vertical SATA connectors.

#10: Don’t spend any time wondering why different motherboards have consistent colors for back panel connectors, but different colors for the power switch, power LED, reset, and hard drive light. There is no good reason. Differentiation?

I would love to hear from you if you have any CPU overclocking tips, serious or funny.

1) ***WARNING*** AMD and ATI processors are intended to be operated only within their associated specifications and factory settings. Operating your AMD or ATI processor outside of specification or in excess of factory settings, including but not limited to overclocking, may damage your processor and/or lead to other problems, including but not limited to, damage to your system components (including your motherboard and components thereon (e.g. memory)), system instabilities (e.g. data loss and corrupted images), shortened processor, system component and/or system life and in extreme cases, total system failure. AMD does not provide support or service for issues or damages related to use of an AMD or ATI processor outside of processor specifications or in excess of factory settings. You may also not receive support or service from your system manufacturer.

DAMAGES CAUSED BY USE OF YOUR AMD OR ATI PROCESSOR OUTSIDE OF SPECIFICATION OR IN EXCESS OF FACTORY SETTINGS ARE NOT COVERED UNDER YOUR AMD PRODUCT WARRANTY AND MAY NOT BE COVERED BY YOUR SYSTEM MANUFACTURER’S WARRANTY.

More Than Doubling the AMD Phenom X4 Processor Overclock Capabilities in About Nine Months

Patrick Moorhead — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:09:00 +0000

As I discussed in earlier posts, when building, specifying, or buying a computer, it is important to have a balanced platform. It is vital to have that balance of processor, graphics, and chipset to help get the very best experience. In this blog, though, I will drill down on the CPU and specifically on CPU overclocking (1), and share with you the details of more than doubling the headroom in about nine months.

While historically the exclusive realm of technology enthusiasts, CPU overclocking has opened up to a much wider audience. This has been driven by huge improvements in the overclocking tools from motherboard makers and component manufacturers like AMD. As an example, a few weeks ago we launched a new utility called AMD Fusion for Gaming and last year AMD OverDrive™ which when combined together provides simple, one-click CPU (and even GPU) overclocking.

In addition to simple and effective overclocking software, you obviously need a good CPU and chipset. I have been very happy with the progress we have made in the nine months with the AMD Phenom X4 processor and I wanted to share this with you. So last weekend I started building and testing a few rigs to document how far we have come, having more than doubled the overclock. So onto the data I generated…

Processor	Stock Frequency (Mhz.)	Over-clocked Frequency (Mhz.)	Improvement(Mhz.)	HT Reference Clock (Mhz.)	Over-clocked Voltage	CPU Announced
Phenom X4 9500	2,200	2,508	308	228	1.29	November 2007
Phenom X4 9600 BE	2,300	2,800	500	200	1.45	December 2007
Phenom X4 9750	2,400	2,940	540	245	1.3	March 2008
Phenom X4 9850 BE	2,500	3,200	700	200	1.45	March 2008

I wanted to point out that I used all stock components I bought from the internet or from my local Fry’s store. As important, I used the same AMD heat-sink and paste that comes with our processors, not a special one that could have delivered even better raw results. I used an AMD 790FX-SB600 motherboard for the AMD Phenom X4 9500/9600BE processors to coincide with what was sold at launch and a 790GX-SB750 (2) motherboard for the AMD Phenom X4 9750/9850 processors which are primarily sold today. I am certain I am getting a bump from the SB750’s Advanced Clock Calibration (thank you chipset, BIOS teams, and mobo partners). I only had to go into BIOS once ( for the AMD Phenom X4 9500) and changed all other settings through AMD OverDrive. Like reviewers, I used a bench-set to save time versus screwing all the components into a case. Finally, to test stability, I successfully ran the AMD OverDrive benchmark and the stability test. I want put an exclamation out there that your results will vary, sometimes higher, sometimes lower.

So as you can see, according to my experiences, we have more than doubled the raw overclock of the AMD Phenom X4 processor, going from 300 Mhz. in November, 2007 to 700 Mhz. in August, 2008 when the SB750 became available. Given some of the comments and questions I still receive from some folks on the AMD Phenom X4 processor, I hope they find this interesting. I would love to hear their recent experiences.

Configurations: Stock AMD heatsink and thermal paste, Foxconn A7DA-S motherboard (BIOS 81BF1P03) for AMD Phenom 9750/9850 BE, MSI K9A2 Platinum (BIOS V 1.5) for AMD Phenom X4 9500/9600 BE, 4GB Corsair dominator CM2X2048-8500C5D RAM Ver 1.1, Seagate Barracuda 7200 1TB hard drive, 900 watt PSU, AMD Overdrive 2.1.4.

2) AMD 790GX chipset with SB750 announced August 6, 2008.