[section_title title=”Overclocking”]
Overclocking
Overclocking on the motherboard which was supplied was somewhat a challenge as there was no voltage control. Unfortunately, the most I could get out of the board was 1.337 volts (seriously … L33T!) which allowed for a maximum of 4.2 GHz to be attained out of the CPU. It was able to boot up at 4.4 GHz but it wasn’t able to run any intensive tests which rendered it useless. 4.2 GHz didn’t crash in any tests which means it was pretty much good to go. While 4.3 GHz was a little touch and go, it just wasn’t stable enough to deem a good overclock which is why I settled on the clock speed that I did.
Unfortunately, I was unable to locate any options to increase the GPU clocks on the APU in the BIOS. While I know it is possible, and it would have been nice to test, it just wasn’t meant to be. I know that they can overclock by a fair whack which further increases your bang for buck, but by how much is anyone’s guess.
I can fully understand why some options were left out of the BIOS and why I had zero voltage control. The motherboard has no VRM cooling and that’s asking for trouble when you start to increase clocks and voltages. It’s a shame really, as I believe that the APU could really fly with a bit more voltage. The APU has a lot of potential to pack a hefty punch for its price and considering what it really is – a CPU and GPU in one – when you have some voltage options.
The maximum I could push the RAM was also only as far as 2400 MHz without touching the base clock (BCLK). It is however a very touch and go sort of affair whereby you will only gain approx. 7 MHz on the BCLK before things start to go wrong anyway, which would give me roughly 150 MHz more on the RAM.
