AMD Value Platform Analysis Part 2: The Performance

Overclocking

Overclocking can be fun, but it can also be dangerous. It’s fun to get extra “free” performance out of your hardware but you also run the risk of destroying it by overheating or overvolting. So I’m going to show you how I achieved my overclock but I don’t take any responsibility for any damage you may do to your own hardware by following my method.

The MB Intelligent Tweaker is where you need to be if you are trying to overclock. I started off by turning Cool&Quiet and C1E options off. Then I set all the multipliers from “Auto” to their default values for stock speed. To find the maximum overclock  I bumped up the voltages – CPU Vcore to 1.5V, Memory to 1.8V, CPU NB +0.1V, NB Voltage +0.1V, HT Votlage +0.1V. As the Athlon II X2 250 has a locked multiplier, I had to increase the bus frequency to overclock. So I proceeded with increasing the bus frequency. After I found my final stable overclock, I started to lower the RAM timings. The lowest the memory would do is 7-6-6-15 1T. Then I lowered the voltages to obtain the lowest voltages the overclock would be stable at. The final overclock required a voltage of +0.125 on the CPU, +0.3V on the memory, +0.075V on the CPU NB. All other voltages were kept at normal.

My final overclock is as shown below:

The memory was running at x5.33 multiplier which is DDR 1066 speed to keep the memory stable.

Here is a look at the Everest cache and memory benchmark at stock (left) and overclocked (right)

Memory overclocking

So I had three memory kits sitting on my desk. What would an enthusiast do ? Overclock all of them, of course and have a mini battle royale. So to see which kit overclocked the best, I tried to keep all other settings as close to stock speeds as possible while increasing the bus speed with the memory multiplier set at x8 or DDR1600 Speeds.

First the Corsair memory overclock:

Up next, Crucial:

Now it’s Kingston’s turn

Although GIGABYTE says that the board is rated to run with DDR3 1666 speeds, you can see that it can run up to 1880 MHz DDR3 speed. Kingston took the honors in the pure speed test while doing it at the lowest voltage out of the three kits. The Kingston memory was running at 1.7V while other two kits ran at 1.8V.

Surprisingly, the Kingston kit did not play well with my overall maximum overclock. This kit would not boot at 1562 MHz with a x5.33 multiplier to match the Crucial kit.