# Overclocking Amd phenom ii x6 1090t problems.



## Kartoffel (Oct 21, 2015)

So i bought this new motherboard MSI 970 Gaming, i think it has 6+2 power phase. 
I bought it because i wanted to overclock my CPU to about 4-4.2ghz but here is my problem, i can't even get stable at 3.4ghz.... 
I have disable everything in the bios as you should to overclock. CPU smart protection, Cool ‘n’ Quiet, C1E and Spread Spectrum but i still can't overclock somehow.
I have tried everything 3.4, 3.5, 3.6ghz and so on and even played with the voltage and set it as high as 1.45V but i somehow get bluescreen no matter what.

Can any1 help?

My specs.
MSI 970 Gaming motherboard
Amd Phenom ii x6 1090T 3.2Ghz CPU
Cooler Master TX3 Evo, will upgrade to water if i can get overclocking to work.
8GB ram ddr3 1333mhz
MSI 390 GPU
Cooler Master V850 PSU, i know it's overkill but i got it on sale.


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## CAPSLOCKSTUCK (Oct 21, 2015)

1090T you say, hmmmmm, firstly, welcome to the finest techsite.


a friend brought one round earlier for us to have some fun with,
its crunching at 100% at 3.724 ghz
which is
16 x 232.8
@ 1.46v
on a ROG Crosshair IV
8gb ram
HD 6950

we have many missions to accomplish this evening so further help will be forthcoming but not necessarily soon.


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## cdawall (Oct 21, 2015)

6+2 power phase problems. You have a 125w chip in a midrange board that isn't designed for anything bigger than a 125w cpu. Multpile reviews also show dead boards after overclocking.

Try being counter-intuitive and lower the voltage after bumping the multi one or two.


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## Kartoffel (Oct 21, 2015)

cdawall said:


> 6+2 power phase problems. You have a 125w chip in a midrange board that isn't designed for anything bigger than a 125w cpu. Multpile reviews also show dead boards after overclocking.
> 
> Try being counter-intuitive and lower the voltage after bumping the multi one or two.



I have just tried to lower the to 1.28V and it crashes at 3.4Ghz, i guess ill have to send it back. It's weird because i've seen others with fx 8350 at 4.5ghz and so on. And my old board with 4+1 power phase could overclock to 3.7ghz with 1.4V but i stopped quickly.


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## buildzoid (Oct 21, 2015)

cdawall said:


> 6+2 power phase problems. You have a 125w chip in a midrange board that isn't designed for anything bigger than a 125w cpu. Multpile reviews also show dead boards after overclocking.
> 
> Try being counter-intuitive and lower the voltage after bumping the multi one or two.



I ran that board on LN2 with over 200W of power going to the CPU. The VRM is fine for a Phenom II.

OP try using the FSB to overclock. Just remember to keep the RAM and NB in spec. Also when do you get BSODs and what does the BSOD say? Do you get it under load or when idling? Make sure the chip doesn't go over 62C under load many Phenom II chips get really unstable when above that temp regardless of voltage.


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## cdawall (Oct 21, 2015)

buildzoid said:


> I ran that board on LN2 with over 200W of power going to the CPU. The VRM is fine for a Phenom II.
> 
> OP try using the FSB to overclock. Just remember to keep the RAM and NB in spec. Also when do you get BSODs and what does the BSOD say? Do you get it under load or when idling? Make sure the chip doesn't go over 62C under load many Phenom II chips get really unstable when above that temp regardless of voltage.



Phenom II deneb or thuban? I have little faith in anything less than 8+2VRM setups. It might work it might not. From the sounds though he has a different issue 3.4ghz should work on even the most basic of boards.


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## buildzoid (Oct 21, 2015)

cdawall said:


> Phenom II deneb or thuban? I have little faith in anything less than 8+2VRM setups. It might work it might not. From the sounds though he has a different issue 3.4ghz should work on even the most basic of boards.



FX 8320E running Cinebench R11.5 and 15 at 6.3Ghz using 1.78V. I was benching for about 3 hours.

CB11.5

CB15

The VRM uses 2 70A low side MOSFETs per phase. Admittedly these are the shoddiest 70A MOSFETs I've ever seen and they can only do 70A at 25C but even at 90C they should do at least 20A each so about 40A per phase and 240A to the core in total. I've heard of one case of someone killing the 970 Gaming when trying to get an 8350 to 5Ghz on water cooling. Unfortunately I left the board in Prague so I can't go and test what the power draw at 5GHz is but the Phenom IIs use less current on the VRM output side than the FX chips so OP should be fine up to 3.8Ghz at the very least.


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 22, 2015)

Kartoffel said:


> I have just tried to lower the to 1.28V and it crashes at 3.4Ghz, i guess ill have to send it back. It's weird because i've seen others with fx 8350 at 4.5ghz and so on. And my old board with 4+1 power phase could overclock to 3.7ghz with 1.4V but i stopped quickly.



chip could be degrading, Get a 990FX board and Call it a day. On Air I can get 4.7GHz stable for OCCT, after that Watercooling is required


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## Kartoffel (Oct 22, 2015)

cdawall said:


> Phenom II deneb or thuban? I have little faith in anything less than 8+2VRM setups. It might work it might not. From the sounds though he has a different issue 3.4ghz should work on even the most basic of boards.



Thuban, can you explain why the motherboard automatic puts the CPU voltage to 1.35? when it's 1.3 and i have used 1.25 on my old motherboard


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## Kartoffel (Oct 22, 2015)

I contacted the place where i bought it from, and i will try to replace it. I really like the motherboard, i really wanna have it to work because it fits with the rest of the system and i like the soundcard which i use with my audio technica headset.


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## cdawall (Oct 22, 2015)

Kartoffel said:


> Thuban, can you explain why the motherboard automatic puts the CPU voltage to 1.35? when it's 1.3 and i have used 1.25 on my old motherboard



That is based off of the cpu microcode. Each cpu is different and will have a different default voltage. This is a result of binning, high vcore chips are known for clocking better when extreme clocking, while low vcore chips clock higher on air/water and give lower temperature these are known as low leakage CPU's.


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## Kartoffel (Oct 22, 2015)

cdawall said:


> That is based off of the cpu microcode. Each cpu is different and will have a different default voltage. This is a result of binning, high vcore chips are known for clocking better when extreme clocking, while low vcore chips clock higher on air/water and give lower temperature these are known as low leakage CPU's.


hmm, good to know. But i think it's high so i manually set it to 1.3V, but on my old board i ran it at 1.25V


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## uuuaaaaaa (Oct 22, 2015)

My 1100T does 3.7GHz at 1.3V just adjusting the multi. I have the cpu-nb at 1.15v and 2400MHz, ram is at 1600MHz. For Thubans or Denebs bsods usualy mean memory or memory controller problems... cpu vid problems (low voltage) usualy results in black screens.


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## Kartoffel (Oct 22, 2015)

uuuaaaaaa said:


> My 1100T does 3.7GHz at 1.3V just adjusting the multi. I have the cpu-nb at 1.15v and 2400MHz, ram is at 1600MHz. For Thubans or Denebs bsods usualy mean memory or memory controller problems... cpu vid problems (low voltage) usualy results in black screens.


nice, but my problem is i cannot even do 3.4ghz by just adjusting the multi. It crashes no matter what i do. I'll send this board in and hope what comes back is better


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## Kartoffel (Feb 7, 2016)

Update

I bought the Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P Rev. 2 and now i can overclock, but when i overclock through bios it only overclocks core 1... I think i have to wait for bios update.


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## uuuaaaaaa (Feb 7, 2016)

Kartoffel said:


> Update
> 
> I bought the Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P Rev. 2 and now i can overclock, but when i overclock through bios it only overclocks core 1... I think i have to wait for bios update.



Did you disable turbo core and all the power saving features?


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## Kartoffel (Feb 7, 2016)

uuuaaaaaa said:


> Did you disable turbo core and all the power saving features?


Yes, everything. And sat load line calibration to medium so the vcore was somewhat stable.


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## SnakeDoctor (Feb 7, 2016)

What Bios version you on?

Bios update - M3/M4 - Improved system stability,Improved memory compatibility.

Does the ram stay it its default 1333 once overclock?


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## Kartoffel (Feb 7, 2016)

SnakeDoctor said:


> What Bios version you on?
> 
> Bios update - M3/M4 - Improved system stability,Improved memory compatibility.
> 
> Does the ram stay it its default 1333 once overclock?



I switched to the motherboard Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P Rev. 2, where the latest bios is FB which im using.
The ram stays at 1333 because i only changed the multiplier not the fsb.


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## OneMoar (Feb 7, 2016)

the *silicon lottery*  Lost it you have .....


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## Johan45 (Feb 7, 2016)

You could try upping the CPU_NB voltage. Some of the Thubans needed a little extra push there and it's hard to say where those boards set it on auto. Try setting it manually to 1.3v and see if that helps.


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## Exeodus (Feb 7, 2016)

Does it BSOD as soon as Windows tries to load, or only while attempting a stress test?


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## Kartoffel (Feb 7, 2016)

Heres an example on how it looks like when i overclock from Bios


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## OneMoar (Feb 7, 2016)

your chip has hit its limit what more can we tell you
goto 1.55v if that doesn't do it call it
most phenoms require >1.5 for 4Ghz


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## uuuaaaaaa (Feb 7, 2016)

OneMoar said:


> your chip has hit its limit what more can we tell you
> goto 1.52v if that doesn't do it call it


My 1100T easily does 4GHz @ 1.4v... I think his problem is the board. I mean his 1090T should easily do 3.6GHz on all cores. When he oc's he is just overclocking one of the cores, there must be an option or something to even the frequency between all cores, or select which cores you want to oc!


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## OneMoar (Feb 7, 2016)

uuuaaaaaa said:


> My 1100T easily does 4GHz @ 1.4v... I think his problem is the board. I mean his 1090T should easily do 3.6GHz on all cores. When he oc's he is just overclocking one of the cores, there must be an option or something to even the frequency between all cores, or select which cores you want to oc!


I think you need to overclock more cpus most phenom II's need 1.5 for 4Ghz and the Thuban is worse about it
here let me google it for you
https://www.google.com/search?q=phe...7.6629j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8


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## uuuaaaaaa (Feb 7, 2016)

OneMoar said:


> I think you need to overclock more cpus most phenom II's need 1.5 for 4Ghz and the Thuban is worse about it



I bought this one second hand from a guy who shipped it inside a sock (naked pins) rolled with aluminum tape, I guess I got quite lucky xD Regarding frequency or w/e, his problem seems to be able to overclock just one of the cores, which should not happen, he should be able to oc all at the same time!


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## Kartoffel (Feb 7, 2016)

uuuaaaaaa said:


> I bought this one second hand from a guy who shipped it inside a sock (naked pins) rolled with aluminum tape, I guess I got quite lucky xD Regarding frequency or w/e, his problem seems to be able to overclock just one of the cores, which should not happen, he should be able to oc all at the same time!


Yes that's the problem, and i have searched and tested different things and i can't seem to find an option. Only option right now is to use software like Amd Overdrive. Even in the bios it says that it overclocks all cores, but in windows it doesn't.


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## Johan45 (Feb 7, 2016)

On that Giga board set the turbo the same as your OC


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## OneMoar (Feb 7, 2016)

always leave c/Pstates/turbo enabled unless you are having a specific issue


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## eidairaman1 (Feb 8, 2016)

990fx is where its at for overclocking


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## Johan45 (Feb 9, 2016)

For PII/T I prefer 790


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## GoldenX (Feb 9, 2016)

Modern AMD boards (900 series) are designed for FX in mind, so they are not so stable for Phenom II CPUs.


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## eidairaman1 (Feb 16, 2016)

i used a 970 to unlock a 555BE to a 955BE


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## cdawall (Feb 16, 2016)

GoldenX said:


> Modern AMD boards (900 series) are designed for FX in mind, so they are not so stable for Phenom II CPUs.



I have clocked both on 790FX and 990FX with no difference between the two.


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## Kartoffel (May 24, 2016)

Recap

Bought the Msi 970 Gaming, it couldn't overclock.

Bought the Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P rev. 2 and it couldn't overclock neither, i contacted Gigabyte support who after some time provided me with a new bios so i can overclock.

I am finally at 4.0ghz 1.536V. 
Max temp on core 48°C, and max 60°C Vrm using the Noctua NH-D15 After 30 min with IntelBurnTest. 
I will have to test more, but it seems like this is the most stable for now.


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## Steevo (May 24, 2016)

It took me awhile of tweaking to get where I am with my 1100T, and its below what I expected.


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## hat (May 24, 2016)

Well, looks like you got it now. Problem is you had to do a lot to satisfy that chip, though... new board and cooling solution to be able to push that thing. /shrug


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## PHaS3 (May 24, 2016)

GoldenX said:


> Modern AMD boards (900 series) are designed for FX in mind, so they are not so stable for Phenom II CPUs.



I had my 1100T on an MSI 990FX and it was solid as a rock



Steevo said:


> It took me awhile of tweaking to get where I am with my 1100T, and its below what I expected.



Got my 1100T to 4.3 IIRC, with NB of 3000. The NB OC helped more than core, but both together it was really not a bad CPU. Took some doing to go beyond 4.3 though, if I recall the voltages had to increase like mad past that point. I think it comes down to (obviously) the CPU in question, and the power delivery of the board. Again IIRC, at the level I had it OC'd it could draw over 200W. 970 boards like the OPs are usually cheaper and have lesser VRMs and cooling. I'd imagine thats whats limiting the OC here, as @cdawall all said. Also @Johan45  is right, the NB voltage sometimes needs to be upped (more so if you OC the NB, but can help general OC).


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## Kartoffel (May 25, 2016)

PHaS3 said:


> Got my 1100T to 4.3 IIRC, with NB of 3000. The NB OC helped more than core, but both together it was really not a bad CPU. Took some doing to go beyond 4.3 though, if I recall the voltages had to increase like mad past that point. I think it comes down to (obviously) the CPU in question, and the power delivery of the board. Again IIRC, at the level I had it OC'd it could draw over 200W. 970 boards like the OPs are usually cheaper and have lesser VRMs and cooling. I'd imagine thats whats limiting the OC here, as @cdawall all said. Also @Johan45  is right, the NB voltage sometimes needs to be upped (more so if you OC the NB, but can help general OC).



I don't know if it's safe, but i have my NB at 2.6ghz with 1.3V and it stays under 50°C


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## PHaS3 (May 25, 2016)

Kartoffel said:


> I don't know if it's safe, but i have my NB at 2.6ghz with 1.3V and it stays under 50°C



Had mine under a Corsair H100 at the time, don't recall actual temps but I remember it was in the safe zone. You mentioned getting a new cooler in your original post, I suggest doing that and getting an H105 or similar to handle the heat an OC'd Phenom II 6 core will produce. 50 is OK for now though, higher OC's I wouldn't recommend until cooling is improved. 

Hope that helps


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## cdawall (May 25, 2016)

65C load is about when you should stop on the chip. 50C is fine if its stable.


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## OneMoar (May 25, 2016)

its a phenom II ,the question is not whats safe but do you really care if you kill it


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## Schmuckley (May 25, 2016)

I'd sell that thing and get one of these:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon-...967478?hash=item25bcd68d76:g:PxgAAOSwMHdXRJms

http://valid.x86.fr/pjn41h Moar Cores!


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## Schmuckley (May 25, 2016)

Kartoffel said:


> I don't know if it's safe, but i have my NB at 2.6ghz with 1.3V and it stays under 50°C


That's fine.Try to get CPU/NB to 2800-3000
Most Thubans need 1.47-8v for 4Ghz
cpu/nb=1.37v
NB=1.26v
Keep HT link around 2000-ish (but above)
^from memory.
You also might want to experiment with different multi/base clock combinations.
anywhere from 200-300.


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## Kartoffel (Jun 14, 2016)

Schmuckley said:


> That's fine.Try to get CPU/NB to 2800-3000
> Most Thubans need 1.47-8v for 4Ghz
> cpu/nb=1.37v
> NB=1.26v
> ...




I got my Northbridge at 2.6ghz with 1.3V i could maybe tweak it to reach 2.8ghz.
I got the Noctua NH-D15 cpu cooler which keeps the core temp under 50°C and on a hot day it reaches 55°C.
My motherboard got some decent 8+2 power phase and Vrm cooling which stays under 60°C on a normal day, here is a picture of the motherboard: http://www.gigabyte.com/fileupload/product/2/5194/20141121102844_big.jpg

My cpu needs 1.536V for 4ghz i have tried lower but it crashes after some time.


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## Schmuckley (Jun 14, 2016)

Kartoffel said:


> I got my Northbridge at 2.6ghz with 1.3V i could maybe tweak it to reach 2.8ghz.
> I got the Noctua NH-D15 cpu cooler which keeps the core temp under 50°C and on a hot day it reaches 55°C.
> My motherboard got some decent 8+2 power phase and Vrm cooling which stays under 60°C on a normal day, here is a picture of the motherboard: http://www.gigabyte.com/fileupload/product/2/5194/20141121102844_big.jpg
> 
> *My cpu needs 1.536V for 4ghz i have tried lower but it crashes after some time.*



That's just how it is, then


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## Recon-UK (Jun 22, 2016)

I would point at the motherboard being chit.

I used a MSI 790FX-GD70 to clock my unlocked dual core 555 BE (4 cores) to 4100mhz on 1.475v using a Hyper TX3 (max temps 56c)

It's also dependant on your memory too, but this looks like a motherboard problem foremost.


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## Recon-UK (Jun 22, 2016)

CPU Clock at 4.1ghz
North Bridge 3650mhz
HT Link 2600mhz
CL9 1600mhz Ram @ 1.5V

NB/HT link base motherboard voltages.

I relied heavily on the MSI board to deliver the clocks not the CPU multi and found it went higher this way, with just multi it hit a wall at 4ghz.


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## Caring1 (Jun 23, 2016)

@Recon-UK edit your posts together please, to conform to forum rules re multiple posting.


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## pbm86 (Jun 23, 2016)

I had a Phenom II 955 on an ASUS M5A97 Pro. It was almost stable at 20 multiplier without any tweaking. Only some very heavy tests could cause a crash but after a slight voltage increase it was perfectly stable.
I bought the motherboard before the first AM3+ CPUs came out,. Maybe that's the reason why it worked so good with the old part.


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## GoldenX (Jun 23, 2016)

I can do 4000 with the stock 1.425v, and 4100 with 1.46v.


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## natr0n (Jun 23, 2016)

Recon-UK said:


> CPU Clock at 4.1ghz
> North Bridge 3650mhz
> HT Link 2600mhz
> CL9 1600mhz Ram @ 1.5V
> ...




NB 3650 are you for real ? what volt you running it at ?


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## Recon-UK (Jun 23, 2016)

natr0n said:


> NB 3650 are you for real ? what volt you running it at ?



Stock voltage, actually that number looks very high o.0 i think i meant 2650 lol.


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## Kartoffel (Jun 23, 2016)

Recon-UK said:


> It's also dependant on your memory too, but this looks like a motherboard problem foremost.



How much can memory impact? Im only touching the multiplier so it isn't changing the memory mhz.

I have 4 very old 2gb sticks that run at 1333mhz the name is hmt325u6cfr8c-h9 to be exact, im thinking of buying 2x8gb 1333mhz since 8gb isn't enough and in the future i wanna use this for hyper-v.
I've heard it's better to run 2 sticks than 4 sticks.


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## Recon-UK (Jun 23, 2016)

Kartoffel said:


> How much can memory impact? Im only touching the multiplier so it isn't changing the memory mhz.
> 
> I have 4 very old 2gb sticks that run at 1333mhz the name is hmt325u6cfr8c-h9 to be exact, im thinking of buying 2x8gb 1333mhz since 8gb isn't enough and in the future i wanna use this for hyper-v.
> I've heard it's better to run 2 sticks than 4 sticks.



`1333mhz ram is going to limit your overclock for sure, there is only so far you can increase your HT clock before your memory starts to go over it's rated spec.
I would invest in some 1600mhz 1.5v ram, the lower voltages helps to lower temps on the CPU and actually can increase stability at higher clocks.

As i mentioned - if you have a good board i suggest you use it combined with your CPU multi, i found that Phenom II generally clocks higher if you mix in some HT clock with a good multi setting.

EDIT, noticed i double posted on page 2 and was asked to edit it, i am very sorry but i missed that post, i can't edit it now, i would have if i saw it 

Once again my apologies. @Caring1


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## GoldenX (Jun 24, 2016)

You can just set the ram to 800MHz and overclock from there, in theory you can have a 333MHz HTT and still don't have oced your rams.


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## cdawall (Jun 24, 2016)

GoldenX said:


> You can just set the ram to 800MHz and overclock from there, in theory you can have a 333MHz HTT and still don't have oced your rams.



There are issues playing that game however.


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## GoldenX (Jun 25, 2016)

cdawall said:


> There are issues playing that game however.



http://hwbot.org/submission/2112352_goldenx_reference_clock_770_c45_405.02_mhz

Depends of the motherboard.


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