Phenom II overclocking & temperatures

Phenom II overclocking & temperatures

First off this: if you decide to start an overclocking session with the Phenom processor; you are better off with the Phenom II BE editions (CPU multiplier unlocked), and thus the combo of an AMD 790 FX/GX based mainboard. In today's test we will overclock the triple core Phenom II X3 720 BE (Black edition, really easy to overclock, heaps of performance and a lot of value).

The key to the 790FX/GX feature set is AMD's Windows compatible Overdrive interface that allows graceful 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 790 chipset based platform will certainly be good.

The new Phenom II processors can complement the 790GX chipset's overclocking capabilities very well. Example: A Phenom II (BE) can be pushed to 3.6 GHz relatively easily and is 100% stable with just an air cooler. Which we'll show you today.

With real good air-cooling or water-cooling you should be able to reach 3.8-4.0 GHz. And as many news posts have shown, in demonstrations some freaks were able to super-cool the processor with LN2 and clocked it close to a geeky 6.0 GHz. If you decide to overclock, then you should be using an AMD 790 chipset based motherboard as this chipset supports Advanced Clock Calibration, okay? ACC, short for Advanced Clock Calibration, really enhances the overclocking potential of Phenom / Phenom II processors.

ACC has the ability to keep clock frequencies in sync and stabilize inter-chip communications between the CPU, Northbridge, Southbridge and memory. Mind you, this trick only works for Phenom II processors, particularly for the Black Edition processors.

The processor tested today is the AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition, this is in fact a Phenom II X4 920 processor with one out of four CPU cores disabled. Since this is a BE edition we can easily overclock.

In AMD overdrive we simply max out the CPU voltage to 1.45~1.55V and increase the multiplier. With a heatpipe based air-cooler we actually reached 3800 MHz though not stable enough. Once we settled at 3600 MHZ (18x200) we were good to go.

Also, please have a look at the stunning CPU core temperatures, while overclocked and running Prime95 (CPU stress software application).

Small note: CPU-Z still reads the processor as a Socket AM2+ processor.