Overclocking
Overclocking
If you decide to start an overclocking session with the Phenom processor; typically you are much better off with the BE editions (CPU multiplier unlocked). In today's test we will overclock the Phenom II X4 965BE C3 (Black Edition = easy to overclock).
The key to the 770/790FX/GX and thus now 785G feature set is AMD's Windows compatible Overdrive interface that allows very easy overclocking of the Phenom II (and last gen Phenom X4 Black Edition) processors. It's one of the best tweak utilities out there and thanks to AMD's recently introduced Advanced Clock Calibration technology the results on a 770/785/790 chipset based platform will certainly be good.
For this review we used the latest 3.02 beta which has some cool new options.
In AMD Overdrive you can simply max out the CPU voltage towards ~1.50V and increase the multiplier. Play around with it, don't be afraid of a crash.
We however overclocked through the BIOS -- the results were insane really as we took it towards 4 GHz easily -- and again, this overclock was managed with a simple OCZ Vendetta 2 air-cooler.
Check it out:
Here's an overclock at 4 GHz 100% stable. We boosted Voltage towards 1.55 in the BIOS and simply applied a multiplier of 20. Temperatures are now on the high side for an AMD Phenom II processor, but nothing to worry about at 61 Degrees C / 140 F. Again, and I can't stress this enough -- we are only using a 25 USD air based Vendetta cooler here.
