red-ray wrote on 2025-10-02, 10:03:

For some time I have been wondering why the DDR3 in my AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition (Thuban) system only runs at 1600 ra […]
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For some time I have been wondering why the DDR3 in my AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition (Thuban) system only runs at 1600 rather than 1866 and if 1866 is possible.

In the BIOS when I choose Auto it runs at 800 and 1600 is the maximum offered when the XMP 1.3 profile says 1866 is possible.

Its also strange that time timings are 9-9-9-27-42 when for 1600 MHz, 800 MHz clock, I expected 8-8-8-24-42.

AFAIK the latest BIOS, P1.90 08/04/2015, is installed which has AGESA OrochiPIV1.2.9.0.

Agesa Orochi is for Bulldozers/Wishera (AM3+)
Last AM3 is AGESA V3.7.1.2.

Thuban supports overclocked DDR3 memory up to 2000.
Provided the NB (L3 cache and memory controller) are running at 3000 MHz (since the memory frequency to memory controller frequency ratio should be 2:3). The Hypertransport frequency must not be higher than the NB frequency.
Furthermore, achieving such records requires championship-standard single-sided memory, with one stick per channel.
This means the motherboard only has two sticks.

1333 - is standard, 1600 - is good, 1866 - very cool.
Above is high-performance sport.

So, the memory frequency for the AM3 platform is determined as follows:
- Increase NB voltage by 50 mV
- Set NB frequency to 2.2 GHz
- Run the 3Dmark physics benchmark.
- Set NB frequency to 2.4 GHz
- Test

Divide the NB frequency by 3, multiply by 2.
Set the memory frequency and adjust the timings.
XMP plays no role here. It is not a limiting factor.

shevalier wrote on 2025-10-02, 10:29:

Agesa Orochi is for Bulldozers/WVishera (AM3+)
Last AM3 is AGESA V3.7.1.2.

Thank you for the insight, it looks like 1600 is as good as it will get.

The ASRock 990FX Extreme3 is AM3+ and also supports Thuban and many others.

red-ray wrote on 2025-10-02, 11:30:

shevalier wrote on 2025-10-02, 10:29:

Agesa Orochi is for Bulldozers/WVishera (AM3+)
Last AM3 is AGESA V3.7.1.2.

Thank you for the insight, it looks like 1600 is as good as it will get.

The ASRock 990FX Extreme3 is AM3+ and also supports Thuban and many others.

It doesn't matter.
The BIOS/UEFI for AM3/+ motherboards contains two Agesa modules.
For AM3+, it's Orochi, for AM3, it's version 3.xx + uncompressed microcode.
The firmware changes there were radical, not purely cosmetic.
That's why the firmware size for AM3+ has doubled.
Even for Award PG6.00, which Gigabyte used until recently.

PS page 12.
In general the CPU NB clock should be at least three times the Memory
clock (example in case of DDR3-1600: 3 x 800MHz = 2400MHz NB clock)
I used a Phenom 2 Thuban for a long time.
2.4 GHz for the NB - +50 mV.
2.8 GHz - the NB requires more voltage than the cores.
3 GHz - well, I saw screenshots online. There, the entire processor consumed about 300 W.

This is normal with Phenom II. While my AM3+ board had Phenom II X6 1100T, I used 4x 8GB DDR3 2133 but it ran at 1600. Higher speed was not available in BIOS. From what I know it was possible with 2 sticks only. After upgrading to Vishera FX-8370, more options got enabled in BIOS but again only 1600 was stable. 1866 didn't boot. Despite this, Vishera is a lot better at utilizing DDR3 than Phenom II. Phenom II architecture never fully benefited from DDR3. You could get away with DDR2 1066 even in case of X6. The main advantage of DDR3 is higher memory capacity.

Default NB speed for Phenom II is just 2Ghz, for Vishera it is 2.2Ghz. This is for TDP reasons. If it requires too high voltage bump it means it is bleading too much current.

I have FX-9370 coming in so I can check on another board whether it boots with 2 DDR3 2400 sticks at higher speed than 1600. The only reasonable usage of this CPU is to undervolt and underclock it.

Despite the bad image Vishera gets, I found out FX-8370 is about 20% faster in Crysis than Phenom II X6 1100T. The problem is the performance is inconsistent. In 3d mark 2006 the score is actually very slightly lower. Memory bandwidth in Aida64 is a lot better but memory latency is 10ns higher.

I didn't find Phenom II X6 1100T to be worth it. Too many slow cores to be useful for gaming and too many for OC.

AlexZ wrote on 2025-10-02, 12:17:

I have FX-9370 coming in so I can check on another board whether it boots with 2 DDR3 2400 sticks at higher speed than 1600.

I didn't find Phenom II X6 1100T to be worth it.

Thank you for the info and I don't really care about gaming, I got the Phenom II X6 1100T mainly so I could use it to test my SIV utility. I also have Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition (Deneb) + Athlon II X2 245 (Regor) + FX-8300 Eight-Core (Vishera) CPUs that I use in this board. They all end up with the same 1600 MHz memory speed and timings.

I have never tested my SIV utility with a FX-9370, please will you try it on an NT/XP or later system? Ideally send me the two Menu->File->Save Local files so I can check all is as it should be.

AlexZ wrote on 2025-10-02, 12:17:

I didn't find Phenom II X6 1100T to be worth it. Too many slow cores to be useful for gaming and too many for OC.

It was a great processor that required manual tuning.
The AM3/+ platform has 3 problems
1. AMD didn't tighten motherboard power requirements, but simply increased core voltage. The result is excessive heat generation and low clock rates.
2. AMD did not force BIOS manufacturers to automatically change the NB frequency with the RAM frequency.
3. Idiot overclockers. The standard advice for the Phenom 2—set Core voltage to 1.55V and 4GHz. The NorthBridge is a complex topic, and we won't touch it. ~Oh, it's heating up, but it's not shoot. Why?
Several reviews have measured power consumption versus frequency. 3.7 GHz is the inflection point for the Phenom 2. Anything higher is meaningless, as it's the limit of the process technology and architecture.

Therefore, a practical guide to configuring AM3/+ boils down to a simple procedure:
- reduce the core voltage by 100 mV;
- check stability (sometimes with this voltage you can even get an additional 500 MHz);
- overclock the NB;
- set the memory frequency in a 2:3 ratio for Phenom.
And, for example, the same stutters in games magically disappear.
1866+ memory is generally desirable for FX, but it's incompatible with the desired capacities.
Too many chips load the signal lines.

PS
Incidentally, Windows 7 had a broken core parking feature, preventing Turbo Core from working at all.
However, Intel's Turbo Boost also didn't work for the same reason.

shevalier wrote on 2025-10-02, 13:58:

PS
Incidentally, Windows 7 had a broken core parking feature, preventing Turbo Core from working at all.
However, Intel's Turbo Boost also didn't work for the same reason.

It was one of the reasons I replaced it with Vishera. The turbo core on Phenom II X6 1100T and Windows 7 simply didn't work. I almost never saw it working. It was quite bad, given that it was the primary OS used at the time and we also need it for running games from Vista era (2007-2009) in dx10. On Vishera turbo works in Windows 7. We can call the 3.7Ghz turbo basically temporary factory overclock, same as with Vishera.

I bought the FX-9370 only because it was very cheap and brand new with box. The FX-8370 I already have could be actually better TDP wise at the same clock speed as it's one year later product and could be on refined process. I may just keep FX-9370 in drawer until I can compare power consumption of both at the same clock speed and voltage. FX-9590 is also sold locally but sellers want too much.

Phenom II X6 1100T was a weird product in hindsight, it couldn't benefit from DDR3 and the turbo barely worked. As you say it required tuning to make it work well.

In my experience memory speed is limited by your motherboard and / or chipset. For example, my Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H allows for 1833Mhz memory speeds out of the box, and with overclocking I can run my phenom X6 1055t's memory over 2128Mhz (FSB 266, HT link and Northbridge running at 7x multiplier for 1862MHz, CL11 using Corsair Dominator DDR3 2133Mhz CL9-11-10-27). Memory performance is fantastic, but I did notice the 785G northbridge will get very hot - over 80C (using an Asus tower cooler) so active cooling is indicated when running fast ram and high FSB. I used a silentium PC 40mm fan bolted to the stock heatsink. My MSI 770-G45 can do 1600mhz out of the box, and it allows for running ram at 1833mhz when overclocking, less then the 785.

Your Asrock 990fx should also allow for 2133Mhz ram - my 970 Extreme 3 does.

AlexZ wrote on 2025-10-02, 16:23:

The turbo core on Phenom II X6 1100T and Windows 7 simply didn't work.

It works, but it requires editing the registry.
The problem isn't with the processor, but with the Windows task allocation policy by cpu cores.
I don't remember the details, but it eventually helped me.

Socket3 wrote on 2025-10-02, 16:38:

In my experience memory speed is limited by your motherboard and / or chipset. For example, my Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H allows for 1833Mhz memory speeds out of the box, and with overclocking I can run my phenom X6 1055t's memory over 2128Mhz (FSB 266, HT link and Northbridge running at 7x multiplier for 1862MHz, CL11 using Corsair Dominator DDR3 2133Mhz CL9-11-10-27). Memory performance is fantastic, but I did notice the 785G northbridge will get very hot - over 80C (using an Asus tower cooler) so active cooling is indicated when running fast ram and high FSB. I used a silentium PC 40mm fan bolted to the stock heatsink. My MSI 770-G45 can do 1600mhz out of the box, and it allows for running ram at 1833mhz when overclocking, less then the 785.

Your Asrock 990fx should also allow for 2133Mhz ram - my 970 Extreme 3 does.

The chipset doesn't matter: the L3 cache and RAM controller are located in the processor.
More expensive chipsets were simply installed on more expensive motherboards.
I also had (and still have) this very Gigabyte motherboard - GA-MA785GT-UD3H rev1.0.
Excellent board.
By default, the RAM frequency is set to exactly 1333 MHz.

(FSB 266, HT link and Northbridge running at 7x multiplier for 1862MHz

So your L3 cache was running at a frequency even lower than the default?
Congratulations, that's what "paper overclocking" is.
When the RAM frequency increases dramatically, but the overall performance only improves by a few percent.
I used FSB 250 (1055T has a locked multiplier for cores), with a 10x multiplier for L3 (2.5GHz) and a 6.5x (1625) multiplier for memory.
Overclocking the L3 cache beyond this point my CPU is impossible, so the 1866 memory frequency was useless.
Well, maybe by 2%.
And with four double-sided 4GB modules, overclocking the 1866 was impossible.
Of course, if two single-sided 4GB modules are enough for you, you can play around with the "high-performance sports" modes.
For the sake of 2%.

Heatsinks on these old motherboards need to have thermal pad replaced. The old pad has likely solidified and needs scraping off. The only board where I didn't check is my Asus 990FX.

Not sure Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H is a good choice for Phenom II X6 with its weak VRM design. It's a budget board. My Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 has VRM lined up and holes in PCB to allow addition of heatsink.

There is an interesting discussion on reddit that is Ryzen related but it seems the advice given in that thread could apply to Phenom II X6 turbo as well https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/601828/ … de_is_limiting/ . When I used Phenom II X6 I used performance mode. It seems you don't need to tweak registry settings these days, just use RightMark PPM Panel.

AlexZ wrote on 2025-10-02, 18:08:

Heatsinks on these old motherboards need to have thermal pad replaced. The old pad has likely solidified and needs scraping off. The only board where I didn't check is my Asus 990FX.

Not sure Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H is a good choice for Phenom II X6 with its weak VRM design. It's a budget board. My Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 has VRM lined up and holes in PCB to allow addition of heatsink.

Look, I don't know what to say. 😀
Official support for the Phenom II X4 965 140W

Its worked with the X6(winch was reasonably overclocked) for 10 years, even without heatsink.
Although all the Crosshair Formula are already dead.

By the way, the 785, 760, and 880G are the only chipsets made using 55nm technology.
All other 7xx/8xx/9xx chipsets are 65nm.
Including the 970 and all 990 chipsets.