Overclocking With AMD’s OverDrive Utility
The OverDrive utility is a handy and convenient alternative to the more long-winded BIOS settings you have to flip through in an effort to fine-tune your desired overclocking settings. With OverDrive, you can take care of all settings directly in Windows, and you don’t even have to restart to try a new set of operating parameters.
OverDrive Main Screen
The main screen provides a comprehensive overview of clock speeds and voltage settings. You can play with the HyperTransport base clock and multiplier, the processor multiplier maximum, Turbo CORE options, and the all-important voltage settings.
Turbo CORE Selection
It’s possible to tell the system how many cores should be accelerated by the Turbo CORE feature. Keep in mind that a large selection will limit the effectiveness of this function because there will be little thermal headroom to increase clock speeds on multiple cores.
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What is the CPU cooler used in this test please?
What is the CPU cooler used in this test please?
Given I can see no mention of any cooler, I'd say they used the stock cooler, but voltage increases with stock cooling aren't something that happens often...
AMD may not be able to beat the Hyper-Threaded competition, but Thuban surely has the i5-750 beat when it comes to multithreaded workloads.
Two things are clear from this investigation...
1. The 980X is a very special chip, and at such a price.
2. AMDs latest 6-core offering is incredible at $300. I'm no Fan-boi, but its nice to see some value out there...
My 2c.
Upto 1/3 more performance than an AMD Phenom II x6 for 4x the price..yeah, Intel sure it leading the way..
I'd much rather run a Phenom II x6 at 3.6GHz, than a Phenom II x 4. Quite a testament to AMD's advancements in power efficiency, don't you think? Both chips are 45nm yet the x6 has two extra core's to take care of, but is still able to achieve similar idle draw as well as a respectable overclock. Spend a bit more on your cooling and see how high she can go.
The results look good, and for this money I think they look like something of a real bargain. I'd take real more cores over threading units any day, even if Intel's cores are generally more efficient. The end result is what matters.
@ Wild9 - if the 'end result' was the only consideration, then everyone would have the 980X.
But what we have here is a bargin in terms of price/performance.
Err... The only "conclusion" is that a maxed out overclocked and overvolted X6 can beat stock intels at the same price. One of the biggest points of the i5\i7 line is how easily they can crank out the overclocks; 3.6-3.8 is possible without overvolting on 'good' (D0\SLBJ) iX's, and a voltage bump in the 1.35v range will easily break 4.2-4.4 (though you'll be pushing the limits of air, especially if your still on a stock cooler).
erformance.
Redo the tests, but instead of using stock intel settings, try pushing them into the 4Ghz range where they belong and do a fair comparison. I've seen a 'good' i7 chip push into the 4.8 range on air, and 4.4-4.5 with a stock cooler and good ventilation. With even half decent scaling, it'll easily blow past the X6 in efficiency and price
Summary of article:
Don't touch the core voltage, just increase multiplier/FSB for performance.
For the latent thinkers:
Don't touch the multiplier/FSB just undervolt.
Option 1 should give better efficiency results in these tests but option 2 will give better results in a PC that's on all day and is asked to do a few demanding tasks with a fair bit of idle time.
Power = VI^2 my friends.
cb
overclocking i7 930 is better than x6 1090t.in photoshop and excel and gaming i7 @ stock is much better than 1090t.but question what happen if i7 930 overclocked?beat 1090t in another field or not?in this article you see efficently of overclocking 1090t and you can't say intel is better or not!!!for this they should overcclocked intel's cpu then compare with amd that they don't do that.
AMD Phenom II stock coolers are actually pretty decent. Not entirely surprising if that was used.
@ Wild9 - if the 'end result' was the only consideration, then everyone would have the 980X.But what we have here is a bargin in terms of price/performance.
For me the end result is that I can get good performance much less, even though I may have to use more core's to do it. The money I save would go on a killer GPU and a few TB of hard drive space.
Can we bring Christmas a bit closer..? xD
So, AMD squeezed lots of performance from a 45nm 6-core die, and did it for only $300. Give them the 32nm machinery, and see what happens. Is that a case of "Intel does it first, but AMD does it better or cheaper" again?
AMD Phenom II stock coolers are actually pretty decent. Not entirely surprising if that was used.
I agree. I have also had a good experience with their coolers, and it's nice to know that even if you're using a thermal pad you're still gonna get decent cooling and low noise. Can't say the say with regards to third-party coolers, even the more expensive one's.
Err... The only "conclusion" is that a maxed out overclocked and overvolted X6 can beat stock intels at the same price. One of the biggest points of the i5\i7 line is how easily they can crank out the overclocks; 3.6-3.8 is possible without overvolting on 'good' (D0\SLBJ) iX's, and a voltage bump in the 1.35v range will easily break 4.2-4.4 (though you'll be pushing the limits of air, especially if your still on a stock cooler).Redo the tests, but instead of using stock intel settings, try pushing them into the 4Ghz range where they belong and do a fair comparison. I've seen a 'good' i7 chip push into the 4.8 range on air, and 4.4-4.5 with a stock cooler and good ventilation. With even half decent scaling, it'll easily blow past the X6 in efficiency and priceerformance.
Of course you would be right if this article were a horsepower race - but that's not what it's about; it's about efficiency. Cranking the juice on the processors you talk about will require more power and will cause them to be less efficient.
As far as your claims about an i7 going to 4.4-4.5 on the stock air cooler and 4.8 GHz on air - reporting what you've seen run long enough to take a CPU-Z snapshot of just before lockup is a bit dishonest. Post some Prime95 tested results - those are amazing enough.
So, AMD squeezed lots of performance from a 45nm 6-core die, and did it for only $300. Give them the 32nm machinery, and see what happens. Is that a case of "Intel does it first, but AMD does it better or cheaper" again?
AMD is probably like: Intel, you can lead the way...we'll just clean up after your mess and reap the benefits
OH YEAH!
I'm not sure it's reaping the benefits. Firstly, Turbo CORE is a less efficient implementation, and secondly, there's far more Intel i- CORE CPUs out there than Phenom IIs, but the Phenom II has won a lot of fans.