Now I've finally got my TRUE rev. C installed on my Athlon II X4 630 (Propus), I want to overclock it but I'm totally confused by all the guides on the Net that talk about reducing the NB, HT and RAM multipliers, as my BIOS doesn't seem to have those settings, despite being regarded as a good board generally for overclocking (Biostar TA790GXBE).

I can reduce the HT Link speed to 1600 Mhz (although CPU-Z shows it's running at 1840 Mhz) and increase the FSB but I can't figure out the rest. I've uploaded the pdf of the BIOS manual here if anyone has the time to look at it (p.33 is where the manual overclocking section starts) to see if they can explain what I need to adjust.

This is what I've got/adjusted so far:



With those settings, I've been able to set the FSB to 230 to get 3.22Ghz @1.456v, the RAM runs at 460Mhz and it managed 5 passes of IntelBurnTest OK. CPU temp Min/Max was 24/40c.

Even though it passed IntelBurnTest OK, something didn't quite feel right and there seemed to be strange graphical glitches (I'm running a 6950 now, with the IGP disabled) that I hadn't experienced before, which is why I think I'm missing something important. I really want to get the FSB up to 250 for 3.5Ghz, but I did have a go at 250 and 240 but got BSOD on both. At least it's booting since I reduced the HT Link to 1.6Ghz, 'cos before I did that it wouldn't even POST and I had to keep resetting the CMOS with the jumper!

You can do the old fashion BIOS overclocking but if you do you lose out on Cool n Quiet. You literally have a hotter system, and you'll likely be dealing with more noise for little or no gain vs other methods.

Myself I left the BIOS options at normal/reliable settings (no overclock during boot) then use K10STAT to overclock on the fly if I need it or underclock when I don't.

See viewtopic.php?f=28&t=58198. Working K10STAT profiles have several advantages over BIOS overclocking.


As to the rest of your BIOS settings:

Check with CPU-Z which revision of the X4 630 you have. If it is C3 I'd turn C1E on, if its C2 I'd leave it off.

Spread spectrum I'd leave at the BIOS default (ON or OFF as set by the BIOS), only disable this no matter what if you are doing extreme overclocking which you probably should avoid anyway.

CPU vcore I'd set back to default.

Memory voltage I'd set to the default unless you have problems and then only go 0.1v higher to stabilize if needed. Check the SPD tab of CPU-Z to see what memory settings should be for your RAM. Look for a column labeled JEDEC #x with 400 MHz in the frequency row and use those values.

Chipset and HT voltage should be at defaults, no extra voltage needed.

Be sure to set all the FSB back to default or 200 or whatever after lowering the voltage back to stock.

Yeah, I don't think this will work with the X4 630, as it's multiplier locked so the only way to overclock it is to increase the FSB.

If you are multiplier locked the FID won't change but you can change the DID and voltage. It can be useful for over or undervolting but it won't help you in most overclocking situations.

One option would be to make sure your bios is at least 78DGA902.BST 2009-09-02 then sell your X4 630 and get one of these:

X3 720 BE $75 95W TDP
X4 9950 BE $80 125W TDP (be sure it isn't the 140W version)


another option is to just go for milder BIOS overclocking with the X4 630. Like say stock voltages and the FSB at 210 or 220.

I've taken my X3 720 to 3.2 GHz for short tests but I can't see a good reason to overclock it in daily use so I'm undervolting more than I'm overclocking.

Keep in mind that MHz isn't the only metric that matters for overall performance. The X3 720 has 6MB L3 cache which will make it faster than the X4 630 in some cases. the X4 9950 has 2MB L3 cache and will be faster in all cases than the X4 630 but still might be slower than the X3 720 in some cases.

But any BE CPU will let you use K10STAT for more flexible clocking options.

I'm not interested in changing my processor thanks. I've actually got an X3 720 on my other PC, which I've overclocked and undervolted at 3.2Ghz (whilst it does go a little bit higher, it needs quite a voltage boost to do so and I decided it wasn't worth the substantial temperature increase).

I'm not sure that the L3 Cache would make much difference for gaming, which is what I'll be using this PC for (as well as an HTPC). It seems OK at 230 FSB now, after I bumped up something else in the BIOS (can't remember what just now!), so hopefully I'll be able to get it up to 250 FSB with a bit more tweaking.

I wonder if Phenom MSR Tweaker will be able to downclock the CPU at idle, even if overclocked in the BIOS?