Overclocking on a MSI 970 mobo, with water cooling for the CPU?

FuturDreamz · 03 Nov 2016

Long story short, seems the motherboard for my system (parts list) is supposed to be terrible for overclocking, but I want to see what the most is possible. Does anyone have any experience with this Mobo, and should I be okay as long as I'm careful and pay extra attention to the voltage modifier? I do have a good PSU (upgrading to a Cooler Master V1000 for crossfire) and a really good cooling system so I don't think heat will be a problem, but does disabling IOMMU and SVM really make any difference? I'd like to keep them in case I find a use for a VM.

Thnaks.

CountMike · 08 Nov 2016

"Gaming" version is pretty good for OC but cooling only processor may not be enough. VRM and NB may need some attention too.
My guess is easy 4.5GHz on that setup.

FuturDreamz · 10 Nov 2016

Thanks, I'm not entire sure how to add cooling to the north bridge and vrm though. It seems the more visible issue is that the BIOS doesn't give me clear control over the voltages used, but I don't know how much of the complaints are that and how much are for something else entirely.

RoadBlaster · 23 Nov 2016

I had one of these mobos & tried overclocking & it did not seem very stable to me, bios has a good user screen for overclocking & fan control as I remember ?

MSI include bundled software to overclock at O.S. point ?

To cool the mobo to will need fans on the door to blow straight down at the mobo & the S/B heatsink gets really hot anyway !

CountMike · 23 Nov 2016

RoadBlaster said:

I had one of these mobos & tried overclocking & it did not seem very stable to me, bios has a good user screen for overclocking & fan control as I remember ?

MSI include bundled software to overclock at O.S. point ?

To cool the mobo to will need fans on the door to blow straight down at the mobo & the S/B heatsink gets really hot anyway !

SW seldom works for OC, gotta do it in BIOS.

RoadBlaster · 23 Nov 2016

CountMike said:

SW seldom works for OC, gotta do it in BIOS.

I did but still had to reset bios even with a small overclock I have found the Gigabyte 990FX Gaming a lot more stable but Bios settings take time to understand properly.

CountMike · 23 Nov 2016

SW for overclocking is inherently unreliable because it depends on many factors including OS, drivers etc. AMD Overdrive has all BIOS applicable settings but doesn't change it directly. It could be a starting point to copy settings directly to BIOS.
In my case I wasn't able to get stable over 4.2GHz thru AOD but using BIOS settings it's sitting pretty at over 4.8GHz.

FuturDreamz · 24 Jan 2017

UPDATE:

My video cards were overheating, so I moved everything into a new case and got an air cooling heatsink. Futurdreamz's Completed Build - FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core, Radeon R9 290 4GB TWIN FROZR (2-Way CrossFire), Challenger S ATX Mid Tower - PCPartPicker Canada

the $20 cooler has proven more than enough to keep the CPU below 60c without it throttling.

I'm currently trying to sell the old case and heatsink, but since I want to sell it as a complete kit I'm not getting any takers.

I'm actually thinking of using it for a Vega/Ryzen build if i don't sell it by then. I assume the heatsink will still be compatible. However, I'd rearrange the radiators: I'd move the front one to the top, the top one to the back, and get a 240mm water cooling setup for the GPU. All I'd have to do is flush the coolant and re-shape the hoses (and preferably get different color hoses). Does that sound viable?

CountMike · 25 Jan 2017

Do not assume that CPU cooler will be same for Ryzen, by everything I read, it will have different mounting.

FuturDreamz · 25 Jan 2017

Well ok then. To be honest I'm still leery about watercooling period.