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Overclocking Phenom II: My Experience from 4years

A Guide for Beginners and everyone else aswell:
Phenom II, still a widely spread CPU among PC users, is known for its good overclockability. Being a user of Phenom II since 2009 starting with an X2 555BE, and today an X6 Version, I collected a lot of experience and knowledge on how to get the most out of your CPU.

In this explanation we will work with the Phenom II X6 (1055T and 1100T), as the sixcores are the most powerful and versatile of the entire series. Before you overclock, its important to think about the negative effects: Overclocking can cause harm to hardware and/or shorten its lifetime. I dont recommend doing this without any help or experience. When you know what you are doing and have realistic expectations however, there's not much you will have to fear.

Before we get started also: What kind of cooling do you use? If you have the original AMD-Box fan, you should not overclock too much. If you use an aftermarket fan, chances are high you will be able to overclock more without issues. If you use water-cooling however, you have the perfect setup for a huge amount of overclocking.

And lastly: Is your cooling system clean or eventually obstructed by dust? If the latter applies, you will have to clean it before starting. Also make sure that your CPU Thermal Paste is in a good state. It should be replaced at least every 4-5years.

The typical temperature range for PhenomII is 30C (idle) to max 63-68C (load). Above 68C, most mainboards will reboot the computer and reset to the stock clock eventually. To make sure your system is within the typical range right now, download the tool >CORETEMP< or >Speedfan< and check what they say about your temperature. While you overclock, you should have one of these programs running to monitor your temperature and prevent damage.

In this guide we overclock using the BIOS. Make sure you get acquainted with your bios, in particular where you can find the "RAM Settings" and the "CPU Frequency" section. In order to access your bios, you might have to press ESC, DEL, F2 or F10 after turning on your pc depending on your mainboard.


BASICS:
The Phenom II X6 1055T is a sixcore processor running at 2.8ghz. When you want to overclock, the first thing you need to know is: Which values do I have to change for overclocking? The point is that those 2.8ghz are made up by an equation as follows:

Figure1:
200mhz BUS * 14 Multiplier = 2800mhz (X6 1055T)
200mhz BUS * 16.5 Multiplier = 3300mhz (X6 1100T)

Having this in mind, its obvious that you can overclock by raising one or both of these numbers in the equation. The BUS-Speed can be overclocked on EVERY existing PhenomII Processor, whereas the Multiplier is only adjustable on so called "Black Edition Processors".
In the case of the X6 1055T, the value "Multiplier" is locked, so users are forced to overclock solely by BUS. Note: The BUS Frequency is always 200mhz on default


Figure2:
200mhz BUS * 10 Multiplier = 2000mhz Northbridge (All PhenomII)
200mhz BUS * 10 Multiplier = 2000mhz HyperTransport (All PhenomII)

As shown in Figure2, your processor does not only have its core clock. It also contains the Northbridge, which transports its information with the Hypertransport. Overclocking the Northbridge will give you a performance increase, but the Hypertransport should never be raised above 2300mhz - it doesnt have benefits.

Figure3:
Core Voltage 1.35V (Most PhenomII Processors)
Northbridge Voltage 1.15V (Most PhenomII Processors)
Hypertransport is only a speed, not a hardware and has no voltage.

Moreover, for high overclocking results you may have to slightly raise the operation voltages inside your processor. The faster you let your processor run, the more power it will consume. Therefore, the voltage is the power control. In many cases, you can still overclock about 100-300mhz without raising any voltage at all.

Now you have to understand the effect of these values on your computer (Continue reading PART2)