GA-990FXA-UD5 + F3-17000CL9D-8GBSR + Athlon II X2 250 3.0GHz AM3

[amgalitz]

Asking for some help settung up these components in a M-Bedroom HTPC/Media-Server/Backup sink (Repurposed from the Main HTPC/Server in TV Room). Goal is stablity and using components as best as possible, not really OC since this needs to be quiet. Original motherboard (GA-790xt-UD4) lost USB 3.0 ports after many terabytes of drive dumps and I wanted all sata-3 ports. The memory is likely overkill for the 65w Athlon but it was on sale at NE and keeps future options open.

My understanding is that the Athlon really can't handle more than DDR3 1600 on the memory buss so I locked the memory to 8 x 200 and estimated what a 2133 DDR3 could do at 1600 --

  Memtest86+ v4.20
AMD K10 (65nm) @ 3014 MHz
L1 Cache:   64k 49407 MB/s
L2 Cache: 1024K 17320 MB/s
L3 Cache: none
Memory  : 8167M  4908 MB/s
Settings: RAM : 800 Mhz (DDR1600) / CAS : 7-9-8-22 / DDR3 (64 bits).

So far Memtest has done several clean passes and completes one pass in almost exactly one hour (my crude performance test at this stage). This is a bit faster actually than Main server- A10-5700 + ASRrock FM2A85X-Extreme6 + 2x8G Trident 1600 CL7. Of course Main is 4 core, faster CPU, 40% less power, and is inaubile more than a few feet away.

I have the two modules in slots 2 and 4 per the manual for Dual channel which interestingly is different numbering from the bios screen (haven't rechecked that since fllashing to the latest FB bios).
I've boosted the Ram voltage to the rated 1.65 for these modules.
I've left the other memory timings at auto but perhaps some room for improvement is there as well as the primary timings. I run Ubuntu/linux 12.04.2 and when done installing the OS with stress with MPrime. One of these days I'll have to set up a windows installation on a USB to run CPUz I suppose.

Any suggestions for next steps greatly appreaciated.

cheers

GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD5 AM3+
F3-17000CL9D-8GBSR DDR3 2133
Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz AM3
Case: Silverstone LC13B
400w SilentPc PSU
Noctua Fans

[Tradesman]

Sounds like you have a handle on it, one thing that might help would be to lower the DRAM voltage, at 1600 can prob drop to 1.55, maybe 1.5. Will have to experiment possibly because you have good tight timings on the sticks and don't want to loose that. The lower voltages should keep heat down a bit so less work for the fans, equals less noise

[Redwoodz]

Amgalitz,

Remember Athlon's have no L3 cache,therefore they can run tighter timings than other AMD chips. I would try maybe 6-8-7-21-28 with your current voltage

[Tradesman]

If you would, keep us updated w/ your results, it will prob help others