Athlon64 X2 5000+ Overclocking

The new DDR-2 Athlon64 X2 5000+ CPU is AMD's top of the line mainstream processor, and it slides in exactly where we would expect it to - as a great dual core chip for workstation and content creation applications.

It's interesting to note that the previous dual core socket 939 Athlon64 X2 4800+ processor had a clock speed of 2.4 GHz with 2MB of total L2 cache; whereas the AM2 X2 5000+ comes clocked at 2.6 GHz with 1MB L2 cache (512KB per core). The processor is built on AMD's 90 nanometer manufacturing using Silicon on Insulator technology, and contains 153.8 million transistors.

The Athlon64 X2 5000+ runs with a default voltage ranging between 1.3-1.35V, with Max Icc at 66.2A. This AM2 processor outputs a maximum thermal power of 89W, and for the purposes of this review will be tested with the AVC Z7U7410001 socket 939/AM2 heatsink. Max ambient case temperature is 55-70 degrees Celsius.

Now, let's overclock this AMD Athlon64 X2 5000+ to the hilt!

Overclocking Results: AM2 Athlon64 X2-5000+

stock max. oc processor speed: 2.6 ghz 2.92 ghz if you're new to Overclocking and not sure what to do, check out these two excellent Guides for some pointers: Overclocking the CPU and Memory Overclocking the Videocard

The Athlon64 X2 5000+ comes clocked at a default speed of 2.6 GHz, but that won't spare it from being pushed faster! With the clock multiplier locked at 13x, the only way to increase the CPU speed is by raising the motherboard reference clock speed. The reference clock generates the source signal to drive all components on the motherboard, and with Athlon64 processors it always runs at 200MHz.

For example:
200 MHz (reference clock) x 13 (set by X2 5000+) = 2.6GHz (CPU and memory controller speed).

To start, the motherboard frequency was overclocked in 2-3 MHz intervals since we don't want to go too fast for the processor. The socket AM2 Athlon64 X2 5000+ easily rose to 216 MHz, yielding a processor clock speed of just over 2.8 GHz. That's the same CPU speed as the Athlon64 FX-62 you'll note. At 218 MHz, the processor voltage had to be increased from 1.35V to 1.4V to keep the core stable.

CPU-Z 1.32 does not recognize the Socket AM2 Athlon64 X2 5000+ properly.

Continuing up towards 223 MHz, the X2 5000+ processor again started to become unstable, and sure enough we noticed 3D benchmarks crashing back to desktop and the odd blue screen every now and then. Increasing the CPU voltage to 1.4125V (the Asus M2N32SLI-DLX motherboard's max value) solved this and allowed the Athlon64 X2 5000+ to overclock just a tiny bit further.

In the end, the socket AM2 AMD Athlon64 X2 5000+ processor maxed out with an overclocked frequency of 2.92 GHz, or 225 MHz motherboard reference clock speed. We tried a few settings above this, but stability could not be guaranteed. The Athlon64 X2 5000+ didn't quite make the magical 3.0 GHz frequency, but it's still plenty fast!