Phenom II X6 1090T + ASRock 970M Pro3

Just wondering what you ended up with. I just got this board and CPU.

I didn't check what voltages the CPU reached using those load balanced settings, but using my manual settings, Vcore never seems to even reach 1.4 V even though the value set in BIOS is 1.4125 V. During a four hour P95 run, the max Vcore value was 1.384 V. The corresponding value was 1.344 V with 3.7 GHz and Vcore at 1.375 V in the BIOS, although I only tested this for two hours. In any case there seems to be a 0.041 V difference between the set value and the value detected by HWMonitor. Safe or not? Who knows. I might drop down to 3.7 GHz for 24/7 use just to be "safe".

I updated my BIOS and lost all my settings, so before setting everything up again, I decided to see what the "Load Optimized CPU OC" settings had to offer. Compared to my settings, the ~3.8 GHz load optimized setting had less Vcore, Vcpu-nb was something like 1.3 V, the bus speed was higher (250 MHz) and RAM speed was set at roughly 1000 MHz with CL 5, I think. I ran Geekbench (only once though) and it didn't seem to do any better than my current setup. Otherwise it was pretty even, but the memory performance was notably worse.

I then decided to try the 4000 MHz load optimized setting. Vcore was 1.45 V and everything else was pretty much the same as with 3.8 GHz as far as I can remember. Geekbench scores were marginally better than with my manual OC, partially because memory performance was again notably worse. I then decided to run Prime95 to see if the settings were stable. Were they? Not even close. It didn't take many seconds for several of the workers to produce an error, which would imply the Vcore was way too low. When I tried 4.0 GHz with a Vcore of 1.45 V I lost only one worker and it took slighlty longer, so it would seem the load optimized settings are so well optimized for the piece of silicon I own.

Of course this is not hugely surprising. This sort of "cookie cutter OC" rarely works quite as it should, especially if the OC is at all demanding. Still, it was interesting to see what sort of settings ASRock had chosen. Now my rig is back on my manual settings and running at 3.8 GHz. I might drop back to 3.5 GHz at stock voltages later on purely out of pity for the VRM section (more on this in another topic), but we'll see...

I'd be better of running this like I couldn't afford replacing it. ;D

I bumped CPU-NB and HT to 2400 MHz on stock voltages. Didn't seem to have much impact on heatload, had a very slight impact on a few benchmarks (for the better) and seems to be stable as well (4 hours on P95).

wardog wrote: Heating of the substrate below the socket, and in turn more importantly the traces leading to and from laced throughout in the substrate below the socket, will change the resistance of said traces.

True, and it's easy to see how this could affect the stability of the system, since less current would be reaching the CPU. Thus, the user would need to increase voltage, which would lead to increased heat and also increased resistance... Apart from possible stability issues, this increase in resistance also affects the power draw, as you probably already know: A CPU can use several tens of watts more power at a higher temperature, even if clock speed and voltage are kept constant. But if one doesn't care about anything else than stability, does the temperature really matter?

I wish (AMD) motherboard manufacturers would specify a Tmax for the socket temperature, since they bother to measure it. Or maybe there's just no sense. Maybe the VRM or the CPU will put out smoke or start throttling before the socket components are in any actual danger.