Slight thread modification here which should make this more interesting: this thread will actually have two parallel builds going on at the same time. Figured I might as well include what I will be doing with the Gamerstorm BARONKASE LIQUID case listed in the first post as well (its a pretty radical case as well). Will be getting a Phenom II X6 to run at 3.9-4.0GHz and a high clocking CPU-NB. I found the same kit of 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3 CL7 ram used in the original rig. I have a period correct Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 GPU to go with it and Antec 620W High Current Gamer PSU. I also acquired the same motherboard as what originally existed in the first iteration which was shocking I've been searching once or twice every few months for that board FOR 4 YEARS and long after losing hope that I would ever find one again out of the blue I gave ebay a shot and what do you know? There it was with a $44 buy it now option. That would be the Biostar TA880GU3+ which is basically a T-Series (which is more of their high end stuff) micro-atx piece that you wouldn't expect to be a performer, but in all reality, it is a kick ass motherboard with extensive memory timings and in depth memory tweaking and had no problem holding a 4.0GHz daily driver overclock that was push hard intensively for over ten years, a testament that while nothing to write home about, the VRM section is up to the task. With everything in place my best latency number with this board was 33.9ns which is actually better than the majority of heavily overlocked i7 and i9 processors to put that into perspective. Goal is to hit that again since I have all period correct hardware that was identical to the original build with the exception of a 970 Zosma CPU. So what's a good substitute? Well the Zosma 960T, of course. Which was also an OEM processor but sold to the public at some point so they are really easy to find and are basically the last best hope for a shot at a high end X6 unlocked build. The 960T has a base clock of 3.0GHz and a boost clock of 3.4GHz IIRC, but they seem to overclock pretty well. So that being said I have about 10 960T chips to parcel through and bin to see if I can find something to match the performance requirements of the OG build. So all of this stuff will be going in the gamerstorm case. Check out the pretty sick lighting here:
BARONKASE LIQUID GAMER STORM CASES
With identical hardware, the goal of the project we be trying to match my original latency number that I hit back in the day, which is 35.5 here but in actuality I did pull off a 33.9 ns latency near the end of my bench session. Details (will be mirroring this as much as possible, obviously this is not a daily driver overclock):
Regarding this supplemental Gamerstorm project, I am essentially putting together a nearly identical performance base relative to the
OG Phenom II hexacore rig that I assembled almost a decade ago. That original system had a very rare OEM only 970 Zosma CPU, which comes from the factory with all six cores but two disabled, non turbo and has a base clock of 3.5GHz. Indicating, with a successful unlock you will get six cores at 3.5GHz, making it AMD's most powerful statically clocked CPU in the entire Phenom II lineup. In point of fact,
the Zosma 970 is the rarest processor in the entire Phenom II lineup. They are basically impossible to find nowadays (you can find it's Deneb X4 counterpart all over the web, just not the Zosma one and that's much more desirable.) But if you do find one, they really perform on a very high level. My first Zosma 970 successfully unlocked into a Hexacore that was stable at 3.9-4.0 for daily driving. Also had a great CPU-NB that I was able to push to 3121MHz for benching.
Second OEM 970 (these came from overseas by the way back in like 2012) Zosma would only unlock a single core the other one was not stable, making for five cores which is still pretty decent. But what was most impressive about this particular chip is that it would clock reliably to 4.3GHz (air cooled) and I basically ran it this way for years.
This is actually a trend with OEM only chips for both intel and AMD alike. Their OEM only chips tend to be superior to their retail counterparts in some cases including higher turbo clock speeds and doing it with a lower TDP, indicating better voltage efficiency as well.
*The Phenom II build is mostly complete in the old case, but once swapped over to the gamerstorm white case I will try matching that OC result I mentioned earlier since we have liquid cooling and better airflow. Will probably stick it outside the window on the porch to try to hit those #s. Also forgot to mention the gamerstorm case comes with a pre-installed 120mm liquid cooling loop so that is another upgrade to see about pushing a little higher than 4.0Ghz.
