Investigations into Athlon X2 Overclocking
by Jarred Walton on December 21, 2005 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Benchmark Information
System components aren't the only changes that we've made. We eventually discovered an error in our Battlefield 2 benchmark last time and removed the scores. The problem was that frame rates were tracked while in the menu screen, skewing the results. We've corrected the benchmark and will provide complete results this time, and we also switched to version 1.03 of BF2 rather than using 1.00. (We'll be switching again to a new demo and version 1.12 soon. Wouldn't it be nice if game updates didn't break old demos?) In addition, Quake 4 and FEAR are now part of the game list. Quake 4 and Doom 3 are very similar, though we did notice that Quake 4 timedemo benchmarks actually disable some of the extra graphical effects (like some of the shadows and lighting).
Here's the list of all the benchmarks that were run, along with information on how they were run:
Please pay attention to the scales used on the graphs. The numbers are also included for reference, and in order to avoid having all of the results overlap, the charts for the most part do not start at the 0 point. This was not done to obfuscate the results, but rather to make the charts less cluttered. A steep line slope will not indicate a significantly faster score in most cases.
Battlefield 2 Benchmark Utility
We received some requests for our BF2 benchmark utility, and since I created it, I'm going to provide it for download here. First, a quick disclaimer: Battlefield 2 benchmarking is a little odd. The built-in benchmark feature runs the demo and pops up a modal dialog at the end with the results - except that you can't see the results because BF2 is still running fullscreen. Pressing space will clear the dialog and allow the game to exit, at which time you can open the results file. The problem is that the results file shows the average frame rate skewed by the menu - the menu will often render at hundreds of frames per second! The timedemo_frametimes.csv file contains the time used for every frame rendered, though, and we know the exact number of frames in our demo file: 6362. By only using the time required to render the last 6362 frames from the CSV, we can calculate the real FPS.
The benchmark takes care of all of this for you, but it's still beta software. Sometimes BF2 will crash and the script will get stuck in a loop; in which case, you'll have to close the command prompt window (or press CTRL+C). Also, some editing of the batch file will generally be required in order to customize the options. Specifically you should set the resolutions that you want to test as well as the drive and directory where BF2 is installed. Don't select resolutions that your monitor can't support - BF2 will simply exit and the script will be stuck in a loop. SLI support also appears to be questionable, at least with the tested versions of NVIDIA's drivers and BF2 1.03.
With the disclaimers done, here's the benchmark tool - including the bf2demo and bf2cam files. Extract it to your C: drive (C:\BF2Bench) and it should work with only a few edits. If you want to extract it elsewhere, you will need to edit the batch file a bit more, but it should still work. Included are freeware versions of a few helper utilities that are required for the script to work. Sleep.exe is used to wait (without using CPU resources) for the benchmark to complete. Gawk.exe is used to calculate the actual FPS for the demo, as well as the amount of time required to load the level. (If you haven't heard of GAWK or AWK before, it is an interpreted programming language of sorts that specializes in the parsing of data files and the generating or reports.)
The repeated calls to sleep.exe may affect BF2 performance slightly (more or less depending on numerous factors), so scores should only be compared with results obtained in the same manner. Suggestions for change and comments are, of course, welcome. You may also edit and/or redistribute the script, provided that my name as well as AnandTech is not removed. If you wish to compare scores with our current and previous results, you must test with BF2 version 1.03. I have also created a new version of the script (and a new demo recording) for BF2 1.12, but results in this article are from the old version. The latest patch also made benchmarking a bit easier, so the new script doesn't have to be as complex. It still has to calculate manually the frames per second in order to avoid the impact of rendering the menu screens, and the new demo file is 8336 frames long. Enjoy!
System components aren't the only changes that we've made. We eventually discovered an error in our Battlefield 2 benchmark last time and removed the scores. The problem was that frame rates were tracked while in the menu screen, skewing the results. We've corrected the benchmark and will provide complete results this time, and we also switched to version 1.03 of BF2 rather than using 1.00. (We'll be switching again to a new demo and version 1.12 soon. Wouldn't it be nice if game updates didn't break old demos?) In addition, Quake 4 and FEAR are now part of the game list. Quake 4 and Doom 3 are very similar, though we did notice that Quake 4 timedemo benchmarks actually disable some of the extra graphical effects (like some of the shadows and lighting).
Here's the list of all the benchmarks that were run, along with information on how they were run:
| Benchmark Information | |
| Winstones 2004 (v1.01) | Default settings except reboots between benchmark runs were disabled. |
| PCMark04/05 | Default settings. |
| AutoGK 1.96 | Encode Ch. 9 of The Sum of All Fears to 75% quality Encode a 30 second commercial to 5MB size with audio DivX version 5.2.1 and Xvid version 1.0.3 |
| Battlefield 2 (v1.03) | High detail setting with lighting set to High as well. |
| Doom 3 (v1.03) | High detail setting. |
| Quake 4 (v1.00) | High detail setting. |
| Far Cry (v1.33) | Very High setting with 8xAF. |
| Half-Life 2 | All settings at High plus Reflect World and 8xAF. |
| F.E.A.R. (v1.01) | High detail setting with 8xAF and no soft shadows. |
| 3DMark03/05 | Default settings. |
| CPU-Z (v1.30) Latency.exe | CPU cycles using 512 byte stride size with 32M data set. |
Please pay attention to the scales used on the graphs. The numbers are also included for reference, and in order to avoid having all of the results overlap, the charts for the most part do not start at the 0 point. This was not done to obfuscate the results, but rather to make the charts less cluttered. A steep line slope will not indicate a significantly faster score in most cases.
Battlefield 2 Benchmark Utility
We received some requests for our BF2 benchmark utility, and since I created it, I'm going to provide it for download here. First, a quick disclaimer: Battlefield 2 benchmarking is a little odd. The built-in benchmark feature runs the demo and pops up a modal dialog at the end with the results - except that you can't see the results because BF2 is still running fullscreen. Pressing space will clear the dialog and allow the game to exit, at which time you can open the results file. The problem is that the results file shows the average frame rate skewed by the menu - the menu will often render at hundreds of frames per second! The timedemo_frametimes.csv file contains the time used for every frame rendered, though, and we know the exact number of frames in our demo file: 6362. By only using the time required to render the last 6362 frames from the CSV, we can calculate the real FPS.
The benchmark takes care of all of this for you, but it's still beta software. Sometimes BF2 will crash and the script will get stuck in a loop; in which case, you'll have to close the command prompt window (or press CTRL+C). Also, some editing of the batch file will generally be required in order to customize the options. Specifically you should set the resolutions that you want to test as well as the drive and directory where BF2 is installed. Don't select resolutions that your monitor can't support - BF2 will simply exit and the script will be stuck in a loop. SLI support also appears to be questionable, at least with the tested versions of NVIDIA's drivers and BF2 1.03.
With the disclaimers done, here's the benchmark tool - including the bf2demo and bf2cam files. Extract it to your C: drive (C:\BF2Bench) and it should work with only a few edits. If you want to extract it elsewhere, you will need to edit the batch file a bit more, but it should still work. Included are freeware versions of a few helper utilities that are required for the script to work. Sleep.exe is used to wait (without using CPU resources) for the benchmark to complete. Gawk.exe is used to calculate the actual FPS for the demo, as well as the amount of time required to load the level. (If you haven't heard of GAWK or AWK before, it is an interpreted programming language of sorts that specializes in the parsing of data files and the generating or reports.)
The repeated calls to sleep.exe may affect BF2 performance slightly (more or less depending on numerous factors), so scores should only be compared with results obtained in the same manner. Suggestions for change and comments are, of course, welcome. You may also edit and/or redistribute the script, provided that my name as well as AnandTech is not removed. If you wish to compare scores with our current and previous results, you must test with BF2 version 1.03. I have also created a new version of the script (and a new demo recording) for BF2 1.12, but results in this article are from the old version. The latest patch also made benchmarking a bit easier, so the new script doesn't have to be as complex. It still has to calculate manually the frames per second in order to avoid the impact of rendering the menu screens, and the new demo file is 8336 frames long. Enjoy!
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rekabwolrab - Friday, February 24, 2006 - link
I'm new to OC and both the articles were very nice. Good Job. I am looking forward to the next installment with HSF/Cooling.shoeish - Friday, February 24, 2006 - link
Any results to share about watercooling or stock HSF with this chip yet?mcpdigital - Wednesday, December 28, 2005 - link
This article comes in the right moment since lots of people are thinking about upgrading their PCs or just did it.In my case I have a pretty simmilar configuration with LanParty Ultra-D, 3800 X2 and OCZ EL 3200 (2x1GB).
I found the breakeven of my setup at 280x9(2520), Mem at 210 MHz CAS 2,3,3,5 1T and HT x 3. Memory is running at its best, with 1T, Fastest in BIOS and CAS2 achieving around 61000 MB/s transfer rate running Sandra 2005 Pro, a value that is a bit under the maximum bandwidth with HT @1680 MHz of 6720MB/s
Anything over this speed makes the system unstable and requires a lot of slowdowns in other settings, voltage and temps raising fast, its a bad tradeoff IMO.
So Anandtech simple of the 3800 X2 seems a little better than mine, not that I'm not happy, I'm for sure.
Marcelo
Some1ne - Sunday, December 25, 2005 - link
Re: If you have any specific requests or suggestions before then, let me know.I noticed that as you increased the clock speed, you also increased your chipset voltage in a fairly linear way. I question whether or not this is really necessary or beneficial. I have a MSI Neo4 Platinum mainboard, and I've never had to touch the chipset voltage when overclocking. In fact, some of the behavior I observed when playing with it seemed to imply that the chipset got slightly less stable with higher voltages (though I didn't do enough testing to know conclusively if the relationship holds or not). Using the stock chipset voltage, I was able to hit:
2464 MHz (352x7) on a Winchester 3000+ w/ 6.6% over-VID on the CPU
2420 MHz (242x10) on a Manchester 3800+ w/ 10% over-VID on the CPU
2400 MHz (400x6) on a Winchester 3000+ w/ 6.6% over-VID on the CPU, just to see if the board would run stably at a 400 MHz "fsb" setting...it did
So as far as I can tell, boosting the chipset voltage is not necessary in order to attain a good overclock. It might be interesting if you could do tests to see what, if any, impact it has on stability at higher clock speeds, or maybe at least re-run your 2.7 GHz tests with stock chipset voltage just to make sure that your instability wasn't coming from an overheating chipset.
JarredWalton - Monday, December 26, 2005 - link
The results reported are only after testing all of the lower voltages. I encountered instability without the increased voltage to the chipset and processor. That said, other motherboards may not behave the same. I intend to switch to a different motherboard for the cooling tests -- a DFI LanParty SLI-DR. I will be sure to comment on whether the voltage requirements change or not.AtaStrumf - Friday, December 23, 2005 - link
Just want to commend you for a really thorough article. I miss that from other AT editors as of late.I also agree that all that ultra high end memory with tight timings is an absolute overkill for all but the most rabid overclockers. This is especially true since Athlon got an on die memory controller and became Athlon64. Just get some good quality RAM that will get you to 220-233 MHz so you have some headroom with BIOS FSB/dividers settings, because generic usually craps out at 201-203 MHz (sad but true).
Visual - Thursday, December 22, 2005 - link
Fantastic article, folks!It really showed alot. Sure, as someone commented, using a better mobo might have been interesting... but after all its the CPU that is important here, and you made the differences in performace with varying oc well presented.
I have to say, this article showed a surprisingly high difference between memory types too. You did comment in the end that there wasn't much difference, but there are some cases where there is :) 3dMark05 is the extreme case i guess, and not "real world" enough to be worth the added price, but 15fps or more in a lot of games from going from generic to the PC4800 mem isn't bad too. Seriously, this article showed the importance of memory way clearer than any of your RAM roundups in the past.
What is still dissapointing is that the test didn't reach the near-3ghz ocs a lot of people are bragging with on some forums :p But this is a good thing in a way, as now there won't be any misled readers buying the chip and expecting unrealistic achievments. I'm still curious about what the chips can do at max though, so I'm looking forward to your stock/Chill tests :) Maybe comparison with both infinity and lanparty boards? Maybe trying out several chips so you can give us a somewhat more realistic max average oc? (Hehe, no, scratch that last one. I don't want AT going broke from buying out all the X2s, plus no matter how many chips you test, the readers' own luck will deviate from yours)
Visual - Thursday, December 22, 2005 - link
Oh hey, I want to add a bit but there is no edit feature. So here goes...The RAM difference is much higher than with the singlecore veince. This does match with the assumption that two cores would need (and benefit) more bandwidth. So it also brings hope that the move to AM2 and DDR2 will have an even further boost, atleast for the dualcores. I'm already drooling over an imaginary AM2 X2 oced with DDR2 800mhz ram or faster :p
JarredWalton - Thursday, December 22, 2005 - link
I would say the performance difference shown here (relative to Venice) is from two things. First, two cores can use more bandwidth, though most of these tests won't show that since they're single-threaded. Second, the faster graphics card allows the CPU to really stretch its legs.Once you're at realistic settings for this system (minimum 1280x1024 resolution), the scores get a lot closer. Also, 3DMark has a pretty large deviation between runs - probably 3% or so. I didn't run 3DMark multiple times looking for the best score, so the results may not present a completely accurate representation of performance. Still, the CPU tests do show generic RAM at a pretty major disadvantage as clock speed increases. If 3DMark05's CPU test is an accurate estimate of multithreaded game performance, we're looking at a 25% difference! But I wouldn't put too much stock in 3DMark05. :p
Visual - Friday, December 23, 2005 - link
From what I read on the futuremark forums once, even though 3dmark05 is multithreaded, vertex processing in cpu tests is singlethreaded (some dx9 functionality from MS, not developed by futuremark) so isnt taking full advantage of dualcores still.