955 Bottleneck?

D

Dallows

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jun 18, 2004
Messages
6,816
Is my 955 bottlenecking my system? I'm running it stock right now with a cooler master 212+ running about 45C on load. Should I try overclocking?

Really toying with the idea of upgrading right now. Not sure how much I could get for my old cpu+vid card.

rig is in sig.
 
It really depends on what your using it for, its certainly not much of a bottleneck for your graphics card if thats what you mean,

what the hell overclock that baby anyway, extra performance for free is always awesome
 
Dynomutt said:
It really depends on what your using it for, its certainly not much of a bottleneck for your graphics card if thats what you mean,

what the hell overclock that baby anyway, extra performance for free is always awesome
Click to expand...

Should stated mostly gaming, currently playing Dragon Age 2. I've always had to be more budget minded, but I always wanted better hardware. Especially now with all the new features in graphics.

Suppose I'll just try to get a sandy bridge with a new cpu at some point.
 
for games the 955 is definetly fast enough you would see more of a performance increase from a more powerfull GPU, IMHO I dont think you need to upgrade
 
it really depends on the games. but ya might as well overclock anyways. ya have a nice aftermarket heatsink and you have a black edition processor. should only take 5-10 minutes to hit 3.6Ghz and you should see a nice gain in some games.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
it really depends on the games. but ya might as well overclock anyways. ya have a nice aftermarket heatsink and you have a black edition processor. should only take 5-10 minutes to hit 3.6Ghz and you should see a nice gain in some games.
Click to expand...

I'm not really great at OC'ing. Only tried it a few times and had trouble understanding the stuff about the voltages and what's the right voltage, how you figure it out, and apply it, etc.

Seemed when I tried before with this cpu the voltage I set it to was not what it actually translated to. That didn't help.
 
Dallows said:
I'm not really great at OC'ing. Only tried it a few times and had trouble understanding the stuff about the voltages and what's the right voltage, how you figure it out, and apply it, etc.

Seemed when I tried before with this cpu the voltage I set it to was not what it actually translated to. That didn't help.
Click to expand...


yeah vdroops a bitch. especially if your board has load line calibration since it doesn't work. should always be the first thing you disable when overclocking. i have never seen it work on AMD motherboard's.

typically when overclocking i pick a really high voltage. so say your trying to hit 3.8Ghz(19x multiplier) i'd set it to 1.5v. then stress test it and see if it passes(10 passes on IBT). then once thats stable i work on lowering the voltage and testing between each change to see if its still stable. once it fails i raise the voltage up to the last good voltage and run 15-20 passes of IBT. if it passes that then you have your stable overclock for that voltage.black edition processors make it pretty painless since all ya have to play with is the cpu multiplier and cpu voltage.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
yeah vdroops a bitch. especially if your board has load line calibration since it doesn't work. should always be the first thing you disable when overclocking. i have never seen it work on AMD motherboard's.

typically when overclocking i pick a really high voltage. so say your trying to hit 3.8Ghz(19x multiplier) i'd set it to 1.5v. then stress test it and see if it passes(10 passes on IBT). then once thats stable i work on lowering the voltage and testing between each change to see if its still stable. once it fails i raise the voltage up to the last good voltage and run 15-20 passes of IBT. if it passes that then you have your stable overclock for that voltage.black edition processors make it pretty painless since all ya have to play with is the cpu multiplier and cpu voltage.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I appreciated the help. Could you tell me my mobo has that load line calibration? Since I'm not really sure what I'm looking for. It's the Asus M4A77TD. I know it has the ACC stuff which I think I need to OC, right?

Also what's IBT? I'm mostly familiar with prime95.

Thanks again.
 
Dallows said:
1920x1080

sorry
Click to expand...
Not even close to bottlenecking. If you did multiple high end cards in sli/crossfire it might bottleneck. But in that case it would be the difference would be like 100fps vs 130fps in game...well into the "who gives a crap" territory. As long as the fps are high enough and you don't have significant dips all the time, why worry about cpu bottlenecking?
 
ACC is not needed for overclocking. ACC is designed for automatic overclocking, but I wouldn't really trust it.

Download AMD Overdrive. It makes it very simple to overclock. All you have to do is adjust the CPU multipliers, or you can have it detect optimal settings for you. IMO, manual overclocking is better. They always use too much voltage.
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
Not even close to bottlenecking. If you did multiple high end cards in sli/crossfire it might bottleneck. But in that case it would be the difference would be like 100fps vs 130fps in game...well into the "who gives a crap" territory. As long as the fps are high enough and you don't have significant dips all the time, why worry about cpu bottlenecking?
Click to expand...

So then it's the GTX460 holding me back? I'm wondering because playing games like Dragon Age and Dragon Age 2, Bad Company 2, etc, I'm hovering between 40-50fps most of the time, maybe even down into the 30s. And I would say the average settings are around High with 2xAA and 4xAF. I want to play smoothly, which I might consider 50+fps most of the time with as much eye candy as possible.

Maybe I'm missing something and not doing it right, I dunno.

Tsumi said:
ACC is not needed for overclocking. ACC is designed for automatic overclocking, but I wouldn't really trust it.

Download AMD Overdrive. It makes it very simple to overclock. All you have to do is adjust the CPU multipliers, or you can have it detect optimal settings for you. IMO, manual overclocking is better. They always use too much voltage.
Click to expand...

So you're saying I should OC through software? I was always doing it via the bios. ACC is currently disabled.
 
Tsumi said:
ACC is not needed for overclocking. ACC is designed for automatic overclocking, but I wouldn't really trust it.

Download AMD Overdrive. It makes it very simple to overclock. All you have to do is adjust the CPU multipliers, or you can have it detect optimal settings for you. IMO, manual overclocking is better. They always use too much voltage.
Click to expand...

if i'm not mistaken acc is advanced clock calibration and is used for unlocking dormant cores in amd cpu's not overclocking.

If you were to try to oc that cpu's which I agree with Danny_Bui 100% here you just need to increase the multiplier from x16 to say x18 and up the cpu voltage by say 0.25 v. Stress it with prime95 small ffts or somthing and and as long as its ok for an hour you are good to go. Make sure you run hardware monitor while you do so you can monitor all temps.

GL!
 
Dallows said:
So then it's the GTX460 holding me back? I'm wondering because playing games like Dragon Age and Dragon Age 2, Bad Company 2, etc, I'm hovering between 40-50fps most of the time, maybe even down into the 30s. And I would say the average settings are around High with 2xAA and 4xAF. I want to play smoothly, which I might consider 50+fps most of the time with as much eye candy as possible.

Maybe I'm missing something and not doing it right, I dunno.
Click to expand...
I can't speak for Dragon Age series, but I will speak for Bad Company2. BC2 loves quad's but it still only pegs my 9850BE at 2.5ghz to 95% usage across all 4 cores. If I overclock my CPU to 3.0ghz, I get a max of 5-8 more fps (to about 50fps) at the same settings. I currently run medium settings, 1600x1200 res, 2xAA 4xAF, HBAO off, and DX10 mode on my ATI HD4850 (no OC). Keep in mind your Phenom II is probably 5-10% faster clock for clock than my Phenom I due to some core tweaks and larger cache.

If your running a GTX460, you should be be able to run high settings 1920x1080 res, 2xAA 4xAF, HBAO off, and DX11 mode and still be able to maintain high fps in the 50fps range. The biggest thing to make sure you do is turn HBAO off in this game, it absolutely kills framerates. Only run HBAO if you have GTX470 and higher. If you can't maintain decent frames in this range you should try medium settings with a notch higher AA and AF.

Dallows said:
It's the Asus M4A77TD. I know it has the ACC stuff which I think I need to OC, right?

Also what's IBT? I'm mostly familiar with prime95.

Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Advance Clock Calibration (ACC) is used to remove certain built in restraints in AMD chips. In the Phenom I series, it was used to allow the chips internals to tolerate higher clocks and voltages on certain buses and was necessary to use when overclocking those chips. On the Phenom II series it does not benefit overclocking, it only magically unlocks disabled cores on dual and tri cores and can actually hinder overclocking on fully functional quads or chips that don't actually have disabled cores on them.

IBT is Intel Burn Test. Its another stress test program.
 
Last edited:
Dallows said:
1920x1080

sorry
Click to expand...

at that native your cpu shouldn't bottleneck even at stock. A 955Be over 3Ghz have no issue in pulling a 5970. Did you test to see on which side of the code the bottleneck is coming from by dropping all the settings to low and then again enabling AA and such? If the fps stays the same in both then its coming from the cpu side of the code. If it goes up and down the gpu. When I say cpu side then it maybe a couple of things which you will have to nail down.
Btw what antivirus are you using?
 
ACC can be used for overclocking, from what I've heard, although I have never actually figured out myself how to use it (not that I really bothered with it).

Overdrive is useful and handy, and it only takes effect while in Windows. So your bios settings aren't changed (your computer will boot at bios settings, and then you can use Overdrive to take over and overclock). It's handy for quickly figuring out what clocks are stable without the constant need to restart your computer. Once you find a sweet spot, then you can go into your bios, adjust those settings to what you had in Overdrive, and leave it at that.
 
Sweet spot for the 955Be is 3.6Ghz beyond that you don't see much performance increase.
 
Nvm. Installed a slightly older version of Overdrive and have the full spectrum of multiplier to use.
 
Last edited:
Alright I bumped voltage to 1.3625 (according to overdrive), multiplier is at 18x and it was stable on the intel burn test using the standard testing for 10 passes. Temps were mostly under 50C, highest was 51-52C.

I'll reboot and set this in the bios and see what happens. Wonder if I should try OC'ing my GTX460. This is the one I have - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003WUXNPE

Also, I do appreciate the help. Thanks a lot guys.

And to whoever was asking I'm running Avira Premium.
 
Last edited:
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
sirmonkey1985 said:
yeah vdroops a bitch. especially if your board has load line calibration since it doesn't work. should always be the first thing you disable when overclocking. i have never seen it work on AMD motherboard's.
Click to expand...

By disabling do you mean setting it to zero? There's Auto, 0%, and increments of percentage to choose from.

I set that to 0%, set the cpu voltage to 1.350 and stress tested. CPU-Z reads from 1.344 to 1.392 during the test.

Temps peaking at about 59C
 
Last edited:
Load line calibration works pretty well on my board. When I had the voltage set to 1.3v, I could only achieve a max overclock of 3.6 ghz on a 1090T, and voltage dropped down to ~1.277 volts under stress. With LLC manually set at 100%, I can hit 3.8 ghz, with voltage settling at about 1.332v. This is still with 1.3v manual setting. Asus Crosshair IV.

59 C is pushing it kinda close. Max safe temp for the Phenom II's is 62 C.
 
Tsumi said:
Load line calibration works pretty well on my board. When I had the voltage set to 1.3v, I could only achieve a max overclock of 3.6 ghz on a 1090T, and voltage dropped down to ~1.277 volts under stress. With LLC manually set at 100%, I can hit 3.8 ghz, with voltage settling at about 1.332v. This is still with 1.3v manual setting. Asus Crosshair IV.

59 C is pushing it kinda close. Max safe temp for the Phenom II's is 62 C.
Click to expand...

I don't understand what the load line calibration does.

Well I read the IBT pushes cpu's further than a lot of tests. I switched out quickly in game and I think it was around 45C.

I gotta say though I'm not really noticing a big enough difference from stock to 3.6ghz
 
Dallows said:
I don't understand what the load line calibration does.

Well I read the IBT pushes cpu's further than a lot of tests. I switched out quickly in game and I think it was around 45C.

I gotta say though I'm not really noticing a big enough difference from stock to 3.6ghz
Click to expand...


depends on the games you play. BFBC2 the difference between 3Ghz and 3.6Ghz is about 10-15 FPS depending on the graphic settings you use. games like starcraft 2 you should see a gain as well since its clock dependent instead of core dependent.

as far as temps go. AMD does recommend not exceeding 62C but in stress testing its fine. what matters is temps for every day usage.

load line calibration is suppose to get rid of vdroop.. eg you set your bios to 1.35v its suppose to keep the voltage as close as possible to 1.35v. though it rarely ever works correctly and usually exceeds the voltage set. but i've also seen it where you set the bios to 1.35v then put the processor under full load and the voltage spikes to 1.65v.
 
Overclock your northbridge to about 2400 mhz, it should be capable of hitting that very easily. You'll notice decreased load times, especially when booting into Windows.

Most games will not see too much of a benefit, but there are a few that will see dramatically improved benefits. It just comes down to how the game is written.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
depends on the games you play. BFBC2 the difference between 3Ghz and 3.6Ghz is about 10-15 FPS depending on the graphic settings you use. games like starcraft 2 you should see a gain as well since its clock dependent instead of core dependent.

as far as temps go. AMD does recommend not exceeding 62C but in stress testing its fine. what matters is temps for every day usage.

load line calibration is suppose to get rid of vdroop.. eg you set your bios to 1.35v its suppose to keep the voltage as close as possible to 1.35v. though it rarely ever works correctly and usually exceeds the voltage set. but i've also seen it where you set the bios to 1.35v then put the processor under full load and the voltage spikes to 1.65v.
Click to expand...

It's set to 0% right now and spiked to 1.39 during the IBT test. One guy above said he set his to 100% and that worked for him. Dunno what I'll do, maybe mess with it more.

I don't understand why the programs I use show the voltage different. I watched cpu-z for the volts during the testing, that fluctuates the most, hwmonitor and core temp didn't seem to move and overdrive was still reading 1.3250v.
 
Tsumi said:
^^^ can this post be reported as a spam post?
Click to expand...

Why? I thought he was replying to my mention of not much improved performance after the overclock. At least with Dragon Age 2. I run v-sync because of screen tearing. But if the game was running smoothly it would just run at 60fps all the time instead of dipping like it does.

For instance when I switched to medium settings it's almost always at 60fps. I don't need it to go over that to understand the performance difference.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
it really depends on the games. but ya might as well overclock anyways. ya have a nice aftermarket heatsink and you have a black edition processor. should only take 5-10 minutes to hit 3.6Ghz and you should see a nice gain in some games.
Click to expand...
This, lol
 
mellon said:
This, lol
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm going to throw a 2nd fan on my 212+ to see if that brings the temps down any.

I think my case is holding me back though. It's the Lancool K-58 I think. No side fans and no top fans (spots for it but none installed). So I only have the one exhaust on the back. I replaced the stock fan with something better but meh, not doing much.

Hard to find the side panel online too. They have one that just came out with one that has 2x 140mm fan holes. I found it at one online shop for like $30. I paid like $45 for the case.
 
Dallows said:
Why? I thought he was replying to my mention of not much improved performance after the overclock. At least with Dragon Age 2. I run v-sync because of screen tearing. But if the game was running smoothly it would just run at 60fps all the time instead of dipping like it does.

For instance when I switched to medium settings it's almost always at 60fps. I don't need it to go over that to understand the performance difference.
Click to expand...

Well, I guess I can see that, but I usually only take into account where the thread has headed. And if v-sync is disabled, it won't run at 60 FPS, it would run at whatever the graphics card is able of outputting (like 100 FPS). Of course, you would only see 60 FPS on your monitor.

I usually read the entire thread, and only take into account the questions being asked by OP, and where the thread is headed. Based on where it was going at the time of the post, his thing about vsync was irrelevant. Then again, I guess it's fine to answer things that had been answered.
 
It wasn't irrelevant because he was making sure the op would be able to notice any icrease due to proper measurement.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top