How To Train Your PC...

[MacClipper]

...for GOOC or overclocking tips for Bot noobs cos this thread probably isn't meant for any others but other HWBot noobs like myself.

And GOOC for the laymen stands for Gigabyte Open Overclocking Championship, an annual event held to push clock ceilings with Gigabyte made motherboards.

Previous to this GOOC SG 2010, I have come across the term HWBot on and off but paid totally no attention to it as I am more a overclock for actual 24/7 kind of guy. I have always believed in hitting the sweet spot in overclocking in terms of speed, power consumption and noise - thus I absolutely do not believe in chasing the last mini-micro-second reduction in SuperPiMod or wPrime32 etc...

Well, that was till GOOC SG 2010.

I have known the good guys at CDL for a while now and I was much impressed with their efforts to liven up the overclocking spirit at VR Zone with this GOOC competition. GOOC 2010 is actually a much bigger event involving many nations across the globe which will culminate in a final showdown over at our neighbouring city of Jakarta in June. Yes, it is quite a big deal as the national winners will be flown from all over to a fully sponsored all expenses paid for 4 days and 3 nights.

I was very much inspired to take part in support of all the good effort in organising GOOC SG 2010. So I quickly got hold of the necessary components thanks to encouraging supporting guys. Looking at the way the contest rules are formulated, I quickly decided that the top few spots were out of reach and reserved for the LN2 (liquid nitrogen) hardcore overclockers. Being the air head clock pusher, I got to familiarise myself with clocking with a i5 750/TRUE120 on a P55-UD6 only to realise soon enough that I really do need a X58 setup instead.

Register for HWBot here,
http://hwbot.org/register.do

Post your results here,
http://forums.vr-zone.com/cdl-tradi...cking-competition-2010-singapore-edition.html

 

[MacClipper]

Lessons learnt on the spot.

The Benchmarks
Get them here,
http://hwbot.org/benchmark.do

•SuperPi 1M
The higher the clock the lower the timing. Purely a single threaded benchmark so even the lowly i5 chips can do well here as long you can get the clock speed up to 4GHz and beyond. My aim - to go below 9s to compete.
OCX Spi Tweaker - OCXtreme.org Forums

•PiFast
Another single threaded benchmark initiated with a DOS box bat(ch) file. No need or use for quad or hexa cores here. My aim - to go below 20s to compete.

•Wprime 32m
And this is the toughest benchmark in the whole group in my opinion. You can pass everything else but fail this because it wants all the cores and hyperthreading to gel well to get a score. The more core/threads the merrier but things get tougher to control at higher bus clocks because hyperthreading starts to fail. My aim - to go below 4s to compete.

•Maxxmem
This benchmark is quite an enigma still. Though easy to complete and get a score, the score may not please you as it does not scale as well as you would have expected it to. It's almost all about RAM efficiency so get the best RAM as you can. My aim - to go beyond 1500 marks to compete.

It's important to note that all the above benchmarks only take merely a few seconds to compete, the longest being just ~20s. In other words, you will need to learn to live life balancing on the edge of stability/instability cos you do NOT need a uber rock stable system to get the best scores. In other other words, expect to see loads and loads of BSODs (blue screens of death) so you'll have to just get used to seeing blue like Pandorans.

 

[MacClipper]

The Hardware
You may have realised that to do well enough to even get a chance at the last places, you really want -

• A Monster CPU with as many threads as you can get which at the moment is the Gulftown viz. 980X
• RAM with low latency and high speed viz. DDR3-2000 or faster
• Motherboard which allows tri-channel RAM operations and a good overclocking BIOS to turn on and off cores/threads as when needed viz. definitely X58 no less and the GA-X58A-UD7 is the ultimate job in town till UD9 is out.

More tips on the motherboard
Since the aim is to go beyond 4GHz on a multicore CPU, a robust motherboard with at least 8 phases of onboard power is recommended. Some would even say the more the merrier especially Gigabyte themselves. Make good use of the BIOS CMOS savings slots so you can reuse and refine the o'c profiles as you scale up. Play around with the BIOS options eg. disable anything that is not needed. Up the voltages (Vcore, QPI, vDIMM) as needed keeping in mind, the safe limits and the load temperatures. Do be careful of using Auto voltage settings as you increase bclks because the BIOS will auto-increase the voltages sometimes to borderline limits and beyond. You can always do a doublecheck reading in the BIOS or using the bundled Gigabyte EasyTune utility in Windows. btw, EasyTune can be a great asset for fine tuning clocks within Windows too.

imo, even the budget X58 mobo from Gigabyte is well built enough to reach almost 5GHz on air as can be seen from some of the entries to GOOC SG 2010. Above that, you can go for the higher end models (the top end UD9 is incoming) if you are reaching out for more.
http://www.gigabyte.bz/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=3317

The GA-X58A-UD7 is the mobo I used for the GOOC, presently the top end till UD9 comes out, the UD7 is a full featured mobo all ready for water cooling with its built-in water block. From clocking the test rig over a few CPUs (i7 920/920, Xeon X5660), it was definite that the eventual overclocks achieved were all limited by the CPU multipliers and not the mobo.
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=3251

At higher bclk (bus clocks) for 6 core CPUs, things get hairier the more threads you run. At 200bclk and above, a 6 core CPU may only complete wPrime without hyperthreading ie. using 6 but not 12 threads, with the resultant massive drop in score. The only solution to this seems to use a CPU with unlocked multipliers (all hail the kingly 980X !) keeping the bclk to less than 200. Do note that above 170 bclk, the QPI value may need to be increased to beyond Intel's specification so do take considered care of your uber CPU there.

Breaking the bclk wall, maybe we need old toys to help the new? PCI-e 110, PCI video card, IDE HD... can use Memtest86+ looping test no. 7 to check.
222 Bclk "wall"

The definitive "How to overlock the i7" thread

 

[MacClipper]

The Operating System (OS)
Much has been said over the web that the best OS for SuperPiMod is arguably Windows Server 2003 but I don't have that so good old Windows XP x86 will have to do the job for me. Vista is way too bloated while Win 7 is more sensitive to any instability than XP.

XP x86 is ideal as the benchmarks do not need much memory space so no need for x64 (also more sensitive to any instability esp. RAM) and XP can be tuned so that many unneeded services can be deactivated or even not installed. I managed to get XP down to a total of 16 processes as seen in the Task Manager.

I guess I definitely could have done better if I had spent more time researching because every unneeded process meants a few more microseconds added to the benchmarks. Plus my superduperbad habit of always installing an antivirus program probably made a mockery of my benching efforts. I deactivated it almost all the time except when I was submitting HWBot scores but never could convince myself to uninstall it. Mental note to myself in future - run clean and lean, run clean and lean, run clean and lean...

Very very important tip - always use a spare harddisk to do a clean OS installation and do NOT use your work OS since you are going to experience BSOD galore as previously mentioned. You do want maximum efficieny at minimum risk. If you have yet another spare harddisk, consider imaging the clean install just in case you corrupt the OS when benching.

OK, that's it for now. Remember that there are no losers in GOOC, there are new lessons to be learnt and even 2GB fig leaves to be earned just by taking part early. Perhaps, the only ones losing out are those who are not taking part.

Godspeed to all, to infinity and beyond. :b15:

 

[MacClipper]

All constructive comments and criticism are welcome, remember take this noob guide with a lump of salt. Hope it helps others and encourages you to take part as the benching time is actually very short and not time consuming. Kindly click on the thank you button if this had helped you out in some way, thanks.

Cheers.

 

[lyfeforce]

Quite a well-designed guide. If you happen to move another OS (Vista or Win 7), would you be adding to this?

Also, I would like to know what kind OC settings you made for your test benches. Helps in estimation for future projects.

 

[MacClipper]

See again post no. 4 why it's not ideal to use Vista or W7 when chasing HWbot submissions, the newer OS are more fastidious about stability and everything is just plain slower. Bench OS is not the same as 24/7 work OS.

Before I forget to post it here, I encourage all interested to jump and join in early for the experience if not then for the free 2GB fig leave from Gigabyte, wonder if it is a limited item since I don't remember seeing it in the shops.

OK... Here Goes....

The first 20 Submission will get themselves a....

Gigabyte 2GB Flash Drive!!!

 

[lyfeforce]

See again post no. 4 why it's not ideal to use Vista or W7 when chasing HWbot submissions, the newer OS are more fastidious about stability and everything is just plain slower. Bench OS is not the same as 24/7 work OS.

I understand that. It's just that seeing actual implementation to prove the situation is best at clearing doubts. Of course, I'm not implying that you should. Just a thought.

Before I forget to post it here, I encourage all interested to jump and join in early for the experience if not then for the free 2GB fig leave from Gigabyte, wonder if it is a limited item since I don't remember seeing it in the shops.

It looks a wasabi cookie.

 

[MacClipper]

I understand that. It's just that seeing actual implementation to prove the situation is best at clearing doubts. Of course, I'm not implying that you should. Just a thought.

The situation is that GOOC benches involves very short runs of max 20s. so eventual timing differences between competitors will come down to the nitty grity microseconds. In other words, there is very little to separate the winners from the losers so you have to run with as little overhead as you can.

Xp can definitely be trimmed to even less than 16 processes, check your Vista or W7 Task Manager and compare how many more processes they run at stock. Pity I don't have or ever used Win Server 2003 else I will compare too.

If I had considered myself a serious GOOC competitor I would have not installed any antivirus app as well which would bring the total no. of process in XP down closer to 10.

 

[lyfeforce]

The situation is that GOOC benches involves very short runs of max 20s. so eventual timing differences between competitors will come down to the nitty grity microseconds. In other words, there is very little to separate the winners from the losers so you have to run with as little overhead as you can.

Xp can definitely be trimmed to even less than 16 processes, check your Vista or W7 Task Manager and compare how many more processes they run at stock. Pity I don't have or ever used Win Server 2003 else I will compare too.

If I had considered myself a serious GOOC competitor I would have not installed any antivirus app as well which would bring the total no. of process in XP down closer to 10.

Ah... I see. All down to the essential services.

As for the processes in Windows Server 2003, there are a mixture of 32-bit and 64-bit processes but basic essentials number in the figures of 15-18.

 

[MacClipper]

Bare essential services actually.

Case in point, click on this link and then click on the word Air under the Cooling line,
http://hwbot.org/rankings/benchmark/superpi/rankings?start=1

The top 2 airheads are separated by a mere 15 ms, quicker than the blink of an eye. Hey, I am only 795 ms away on air... lol
http://hwbot.org/community/submission/993703_macclipper_superpi_xeon_x5660_8sec_969ms

 

[FinalTidus]

Inspired by 'How to train your dragon' LOL

 

[MacClipper]

Join in and you will realise that it is actually the BSOD blue world of Pandora instead.

Anyway, you can still train a dragon but you can't submit it to HWBot or get a free fig leaf with it.

 

[kero89]

Hi,

Does the amount of rams installed affect the speed, particularly for maxmemm?

Do you recommend using 2GB for X58 or full 6GB?

 

[MacClipper]

Some say not so impt, 2GB is actually enough RAM for XP. This thread was written before X58 but should be still informative.
http://www.techenclave.com/overclocking-n-modding/trying-hard-record-superpi-1m-run-105309.html

For X58, I prefer to run trichannel myself. At this moment in time, for SuperPiMod personally I think CPU architecture > clock rate > RAM.

 

[lyfeforce]

Oh my! k|ngp|n at 21?

The Taiwanese are on air too?

 

[BlackWing1977]

Good luck TS, I can't never find the time and effort to do any kind of OC, especially when you need to do a series of stability tests.

 

[MacClipper]

Neither could I get myself to do any HWBotting till now and found it actually not too cumbersome nor time consuming actually.

 

[MacClipper]

Oh my! k|ngp|n at 21?

The Taiwanese are on air too?

LN2

Check out under the cooling portion.
http://hwbot.org/community/submission/955245_hicookie_superpi_core_i5_670_5sec_944ms

With over 2V pumped into a 32nm chip, you got to have really serious cooling else...

You can be no. 1 on air but you will get totally no HWBot points cos you will still be totally nowhere on the global stage (all kinds of cooling allowed).

 

[MacClipper]

Well, well, writing this guide has actually helped clear my noob blockheadedness on selective overclocking and gained new insights into the workings of the various benchmarks. This new approach has translated into new timings which are still undergoing refinements though.

1st example,

The weekend is almost here so the weekend warrior is reassembled back! :b15: