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NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI Technology Chipset Overclocking 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DU-02451-001_v01 

 

22

 

05/17/06 

 

5.

 

Go to the 

Driver Strength Settings

 BIOS menu shown in Figure 14.   

The Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C5 memories can overclock further when 
you lower the chip-select (

CS

), address (

MA

), and clock (

MCLK

) drive strength 

settings.  Drive strength defines how sharp the edge of a signal transition is.  
Lowering the signal drive strength reduces noise injected to neighboring 
signals and helps increase frequency.   

Note:

 

If you use different memory types, you may discover other tricks and 
optimizations by experimenting. For instance, raising the drive strength 
may be more a more effective way to tune memory for low latency but 
less effective for increasing frequency.  
 
For example, OCZ Technology memories with EPP, lowering data (

MD

and 

DQS

 drive strengths by 0.75x produces higher overclocking results. 

 

Figure 14.  BIOS Drive Strength Setting for Memory 

Overclocking 

 

6.

 

Save BIOS settings and exit. 

7.

 

Using NVIDIA nTune 5.0 in Windows, adjust 

Reference Clock (HTT)

 to 

directly change memory frequency, shown in Figure 15. 

Summary of Contents for nForce 590

Page 1: ...User Guide NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI Technology Chipset Overclocking May 2005 DU 02451 001_v01...

Page 2: ...DU 02451 001_v01 ii 05 17 06 Document Change History Version Date Responsible Reason for Change 01 05 17 06 WZ TS NSmith Initial release...

Page 3: ...hnology Chipset 5 Disable AMD Cool n Quiet Technology 7 A Systematic Approach 8 CPU Reference Clock 9 CPU HyperTransport Overclocking 15 CPU Core Clock 17 DDR2 Memory Interface Overclocking 19 Balance...

Page 4: ...OS System Clocks Configuration for CPU Overclocking 18 Figure 11 Disabling SLI Ready Memory in BIOS 20 Figure 12 BIOS System Voltages Configuration for Memory Overclocking 20 Figure 13 BIOS Memory Tim...

Page 5: ...nce and overclocking headroom in the chips they produce Nowadays with the availability of highly overclockable PC components and the utilities that allow users to easily attain higher performance over...

Page 6: ...frequencies component temperatures should be kept as low as possible With proper cooling overclocking is highly attainable The most commonly cooling techniques are air cooling with fan mounted heat si...

Page 7: ...ncy It is 200 MHz nominally Multiplier Multiplier for your front side bus FSB Multiply this value by the speed of your FSB to get the end CPU clock speed CPU Clock Speed Multiplier x FSB Prime95 Progr...

Page 8: ...ween the last read and the subsequent READ command to the same physical bank tRC Row Cycle time is the minimum time in cycles it takes a row to complete a full cycle This can be determined by tRC tRAS...

Page 9: ...peeds are the main contributing factors to boosting overall system performance This section describes how to adjust settings for the major chip interconnects and components that affect performance Fig...

Page 10: ...NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI Technology Chipset Overclocking DU 02451 001_v01 6 05 17 06 Figure 1 High level System Diagram...

Page 11: ...The AMD Cool n Quiet technology must be disabled in order to enable stable overclocking without limiting maximum achieved CPU performance Use the following procedure to disable this feature 1 Set AMD...

Page 12: ...erTransport bus CPU frequency memory interface PCI Express and MCP HyperTransport link are done in the SBIOS Some system settings such as CPU multiplier and memory drive strength parameters can only b...

Page 13: ...erence clock MHz CPU multiplier HyperTransport bus speed CPU reference clock MHz HT multiplier Change System Clocks Before you can find the maximum CPU reference clock the NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI mother...

Page 14: ...Technology Chipset Overclocking DU 02451 001_v01 10 05 17 06 Figure 3 shows the proper configuration in preparation for overclocking the CPU reference clock Figure 3 System Clock Setup for CPU Referen...

Page 15: ...01_v01 11 05 17 06 Set Memory Timings Set memory frequency as low as possible from the Memory Timings BIOS menu as shown in Figure 4 1 Set Timing Mode to User limit 2 Set Memory Clock Limit to DDR2 40...

Page 16: ...oltages Go to the System Voltages BIOS menu and change the following to match the values shown in Figure 5 1 Change CPU core voltage CPU 2 Change HyperTransport interface core voltage HT CPU nForce SP...

Page 17: ...bility Figure 6 Adjusting CPU Reference Clock using NVIDIA nTune 5 0 Tip In nTune use Left and Right keyboard buttons to make small increments or decrements for the CPU Reference clock HTT slider valu...

Page 18: ...lity Test for at least two hours as seen in Figure 7 Additionally running 3DMark Prime95 or a GPU intensive game like Serious Sam II for an extended period of time allows you to get a sense of overall...

Page 19: ...more CPU HTT bus speed has a tremendous impact on memory performance Use the following procedure to overclock CPU HyperTransport bandwidth 1 Eliminate all sources of instability by configuring System...

Page 20: ...trol panel shown in Figure 9 The CPU HTT interface of NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI motherboards can support much higher speeds Adjusting the voltage can help you reach increases of 50 to 60 You can achieve m...

Page 21: ...g voltages so they have exactly the same values as shown in Figure 5 CPU core voltage HyperTransport interface core voltage HT CPU nForce SPP NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI SPP core voltage nForce SPP and nFor...

Page 22: ...FX 62 CPU runs at 2 8 GHz nominally When you increase the reference clock for instance to 246 MHz from 200 MHz you have overclocked the CPU to 3 07 GHz 256 MHz 12 You can reach a higher CPU frequency...

Page 23: ...performance will be Your two basic options are a faster clock with longer CAS latency like tCL 5 or a slower clock with shorter latency like tCL 4 For example 5 CLK1 might be smaller than 4 CLK2 The...

Page 24: ...eature in the Memory Configuration BIOS menu as shown in Figure 11 Figure 11 Disabling SLI Ready Memory in BIOS 2 Go to the System Voltages BIOS menu shown in Figure 12 to increase the Memory voltage...

Page 25: ...hange CPU nForce SPP multiplier to x3 4 Go to the Memory Timings BIOS menu shown in Figure 13 and set the values to match Enhanced Performance Profiles EPP Technology provides a baseline for overclock...

Page 26: ...g signals and helps increase frequency Note If you use different memory types you may discover other tricks and optimizations by experimenting For instance raising the drive strength may be more a mor...

Page 27: ...rclock memory Adjusting memory timings drive strengths and possible memory and CPU voltages ever so slightly might be necessary to achieve higher overclockability Note that the Clock Drive Strength is...

Page 28: ...erence clock 400 MHz 277 MHz 200 MHz 1 108 MHz Since all three variables have different CPU HTT reference clock settings to achieve independent overclocking a value for the reference clock must be sel...

Page 29: ...Defaults option 2 Go to the System Voltages BIOS menu to change the following voltages so they have exactly the same values as shown in Figure 5 HT nForce SPP MCP nForce SPP nForce MCP 3 Use the NVIDI...

Page 30: ...NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI Technology Chipset Overclocking DU 02451 001_v01 26 05 17 06 Figure 16 Overclocking PCI Express using NVIDIA nTune 5 0...

Page 31: ...CPU HyperTransport interconnect The NVIDIA LinkBoost technology increases this bus bandwidth by 25 Bandwidth increases help with overall system performance MCP HyperTransport HTT is designed to overc...

Page 32: ...adjust SPP MCP Ref Clock setting in System Clocks BIOS menu as illustrated in Figure 18 Gradually increment MCP HTT clock to determine the highest passing value MCP HTT clock can run at 300 MHz and hi...

Page 33: ...IDIA nTune 5 0 as shown in Figure 19 Although increasing 2D core frequency does not affect 3D applications and gaming performance the setting impact 2D applications such as DVD playback The GeForce 79...

Page 34: ...e system configuration The order of component overclocking importance relative to performance is as follows 1 CPU core frequency 2 Optimizing memory performance 3 GPU core and memory frequencies 4 CPU...

Page 35: ...the NVIDIA nTune 5 0 Profiles feature shown in Figure 21 The Profiles feature lets end users save overclock settings Once the settings are configured properly in nTune save a profile as an nsu file o...

Page 36: ...VIDIA nForce 590 SLI Technology Chipset Overclocking DU 02451 001_v01 32 05 17 06 Figure 21 Storing Profiles in NVIDIA nTune 5 0 Figure 22 Loading Automated Settings Using NVIDIA nTune 5 0 Custom Rule...

Page 37: ...IDIA nForce 590 SLI chipset has been engineered with enthusiasts and overclockers in mind An entire platform solution is designed to provide gaming enthusiasts and overclockers the necessary means to...

Page 38: ...mation or for any infringement of patents or other rights of third parties that may result from its use No license is granted by implication or otherwise under any patent or patent rights of NVIDIA Co...

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