FX Owners, what's your OC?

D

Devilpup

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Sep 4, 2002
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Haven't seen a lot of this yet and I imagine that not many people at [H] are going to hit the FX processors, but for those that have I was wondering what you guys are hitting as OC. Specifically, what are you guys running your systems at and how do you like it?

Trying to get an idea of what a "normal" oc looks like on these things.
 
Running a FX-4100 on a Gigabyte GA-970A UD3 motherboard, using a Coolermaster heatsink that has a 92 mm fan.

So far, using stock voltages, I'm at 4.4 GHz, and the CPU stays cool, even under a hefty load. I've read reports of people getting that same overclock with the stock heatsink / cooling fan, so I would guess that I can easily squeeze another 200 MHz out of it with a small voltage boost.

With a decent board, I see no reason why anyone else can't get an 800 MHz overclock.

For me, it's fast enough for now. I suspect that the prices will drop on the 4100 significantly, and soon, since it has a bad rep.
 
Thanks for the info, I guess I'm kind of looking at the situation of Intel's prices not coming down anytime soon but AMD's probably will drop. If you can get a decent enough OC on average out of the FX series, then at some point it might make a decent buy.

Right now though it's hard for me to wrap my head around because I could throw an x6 in my board for a $160-ish upgrade and hit 3.8-4.0ghz. I'm not sure BD would make more sense unless people are getting closer to 5ghz.
 
Not worth it. The newest bios that have the proper options to OC the processor aren't compatible with SteamWorks games like Total War: Shogun 2, Saint's Row, etc. Until they figure out what is wrong then it's a no buy on these.

Unless you like headaches and disappointment. :)
 
It isn't the game engine that is the problem, just steamworks DRM.

I can play Dawn of War 2 and Chaos Rising maxed out @ 1920x1080 with my rig in sig. I get more than 60fps (i've seen 150-200) in both of those titles. I fire up Dawn of War 2: Retribution, I get 7fps. Load times are wretched (read minutes vs seconds).

On Topic:
I run my 8120 at 4.4ghz. I've taken it upwards of 4.7ghz but didn't need the power draw from that.
 
I heard about the steam issue, which is pretty pertinent for me since I just plunked down some coin for Skyrim using steam lol. But the point of posting this wasn't to question which would be a good upgrade now, it's more to compile a collection of different people's experience with OCing the FX processors in order to find some kind of average number.
 
I thought there was an updated BIOS out for the Asus CHV already that addressed the Steam DRM issue?
 
xorbe said:
I thought there was an updated BIOS out for the Asus CHV already that addressed the Steam DRM issue?
Click to expand...

There is.

On topic: I have an 8150 on a CHV. 4.4 seems to be a good balance of performance and voltage/temps.
 
What kind of temps are you all seeing?

I just put a 8120 in and after realizing my AC Freezer 64 Pro AC was not up to the task, hit 65C, I put the stock cooler on it but it couldn't even do 20x200 and temps ran to 50C idle.

All this on a 890GX mobo.

Ordered that new Thermalright TS120, but is this normal? Been some time since I wandered into Overclocking.
 
Bulldozer has been shown several times over to absolutely suck the power down which will make for a warm chip for sure.
 
I have no idea what my temps are tbh. Amd's Overdrive shows a wonderful temperature range of 0C-55C, all in the course of a few seconds.

In the bios my idle temps are in the 40's. I'm watercooling my 8120 with a triple 120 radiator and a dtek fusion v2 waterblock.

Ambient temp is between 76-80F here, so take that for what it is worth.

I downloaded Aida64 and it showed my temps as being 36-37C idle.
 
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xorbe said:
I thought there was an updated BIOS out for the Asus CHV already that addressed the Steam DRM issue?
Click to expand...

The 0813 bios that was released for the Asus Sabertooth doesn't work with the Steam DRM. The 0705 bios works great for SteamWorks titles but the extra OC'ing tweaks aren't present in the 0705 bios like they are in the 0813.

So yes I can get the games to work but I can't shut off the necessary things to OC the way I would like to. So it's a give and take on the Asus Sabertooth at least.

I hope the MSI boards get a bios update soon. It's pathetic that you'll are still stuck at 7 fps over a month after launch.
 
My 8120 will do around 5.1ghz under a decent water cooler, but for 24/7 I think 4.8-4.9 is more realistic as it requires too much extra voltage to get that last few hundred mhz.

The chips will overclock well, but you will need excellent cooling to get it.
 
kirbster said:
The chips will overclock well, but you will need excellent cooling to get it.
Click to expand...


That is the realization I've come to as well. I've been pretty busy so I haven't had much time to muck with it, but I have tried 4.2GHz with no voltage change and it works, however....

My full load temp at stock speeds is 54C with a CM 212, so as soon as I overclock the cpu starts to throttle. Even if I set it to 3.6GHz it constantly throttles down to 2.8GHz or lower. This absolutely kills gaming performance; BF3 turns into a slide show. I don't think it's the lower clock necessarily, but the constant switching back and forth.

I am very close to ordering an Intel combo, I'm just not sure what yet. There might be some credit card abuse tonight :D
 
You can completely disable throttling by using AMD overdrive and enabling turbo, then disabling. It's works.
 
I disabled turbo in my bios because I didn't see where it did much of anything tangible. I think it is on the 2nd page of the advanced section near the top for your Sabertooth.
 
cageymaru said:
I disabled turbo in my bios because I didn't see where it did much of anything tangible. I think it is on the 2nd page of the advanced section near the top for your Sabertooth.
Click to expand...

not sure that matters as i disable turbo in bios as well. i suggest you give it a try.
 
5 GHz here. Water cooled FX-8120 @ 1.525v/Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 motherboard.

I'm happy with it. There's an awful lot of unnecessary FUD going around about these chips... that and a lot of amateurs whining when they don't set the CPU voltage high enough and their games crash.

Roman79 said:
Well I'll be damned! Thanks for that!

Now down to business....
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I mentioned the throttling issue/workaround in your "maybe I'm a sucker" thread...
 
DeathFromBelow said:
5 GHz here. Water cooled FX-8120 @ 1.525v/Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 motherboard.

I'm happy with it. There's an awful lot of unnecessary FUD going around about these chips... that and a lot of amateurs whining when they don't set the CPU voltage high enough and their games crash.



I mentioned the throttling issue/workaround in your "maybe I'm a sucker" thread...
Click to expand...

So what are you setting your bios at that allows you to run SteamWorks games on the new bios without crashing? I can run them all on the old 0705 bios, but you're suggesting that we need to set the voltage higher even when running at stock speeds? They crash at 1.5v by the way also.
 
kirbster said:
not sure that matters as i disable turbo in bios as well. i suggest you give it a try.
Click to expand...

BF3 runs fabulous on my Sabertooth with everything on Ultra except AA Deferred. Never seen throttling before as I've never had Turbo enabled in the bios. So what you're saying is that there's more to get out of these chips by doing the OverDrive trick even if Turbo is disabled in the bios? Kinda cool if there is.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
5 GHz here. Water cooled FX-8120 @ 1.525v/Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 motherboard.

I'm happy with it. There's an awful lot of unnecessary FUD going around about these chips... that and a lot of amateurs whining when they don't set the CPU voltage high enough and their games crash.



I mentioned the throttling issue/workaround in your "maybe I'm a sucker" thread...
Click to expand...

WOW...not to thread crap but my core i7 870 at stock speeds with turbo on idles at 0.744v and under load at 1.112v. That is undervolting btw to get the lowest stable voltages possible.. I can overclock the snot out of it with 1.20V.

Congrats though on the massive OC's the BD's can do!
 
cageymaru said:
So what are you setting your bios at that allows you to run SteamWorks games on the new bios without crashing? I can run them all on the old 0705 bios, but you're suggesting that we need to set the voltage higher even when running at stock speeds? They crash at 1.5v by the way also.
Click to expand...

I haven't had any game crashing/stability issues at all with my UD3, as I mentioned in another thread. The only problem I've had is the throttling bug.

There seems to be a handful of people going around all the tech sites spouting FUD like BD can't play Steam games... is this an issue with ASUS motherboards or are we being trolled?
 
they are very vocal about their problems and can't imagine that everyone else isn't having them.

they throw out absolutes about FX not working with games, and they do it over and over.
 
It's not Steam games. It's certain SteamWorks games. There's a huge difference in the two. Try Saint's Row Initiation Station. I believe you can still get it here. When it was on Steam it would crash our BD really fast. Tell us what your FPS is also.

Saint's Row retail + 0813 bios = BSOD. Saint's Row + 0705 bios which is missing the OC'ing tools runs great!
 
stealthy123 said:
they are very vocal about their problems and can't imagine that everyone else isn't having them.

they throw out absolutes about FX not working with games, and they do it over and over.
Click to expand...

It's certain SteamWorks titles. Just because a game is on Steam doesn't make it broken with Bulldozer.
 
look man, I feel your pain, you actually own the processor and are having issues, and as I recall you returned one processor only to continue to have issues.

there are a few folks who took your story and ran with it, saying in every thread they can that bulldozer doesn't work for games.
 
stealthy123 said:
look man, I feel your pain, you actually own the processor and are having issues, and as I recall you returned one processor only to continue to have issues.

there are a few folks who took your story and ran with it, saying in every thread they can that bulldozer doesn't work for games.
Click to expand...

Not mad at ya. Just trying to explain to people that we aren't talking about Steam games. We're talking about games that use Steam DRM integrated into the game. That DRM is what we call SteamWorks.

Just downloading a generic game like Civ 5 isn't going to make BD crash as it doesn't use the full SteamWorks DRM suite. Yes the game requires Steam, but it's still not 100% using Valve's DRM. Saint's Row and Deus Ex are two games that do crash your system fast.

Some motherboards have a workaround that generates about 5 - 7 fps for those games which is just as unacceptable to me. Asus supposedly fixed the Steam DRM issues but at least on my Sabertooth those two games still crash. Can't vouch for the CHV.
 
And I'm not hating on AMD as I actually own their products. I ordered my 8120 the same day it came out. And besides a 555BE sitting around here gathering dust, I don't have a fallback system to play what I paid for on. Unless you count the 0705 bios with that is missing tweaks for OC'ing which is another huge reason I purchased this chip in the first place.
 
This is my 24/7 OC, I'm not much of a gamer but I do a fair bit of PhotoShop and video encoding and this CPU is a BEAST. I consider the money well spent.
FX-8150Validation2.jpg
 
oldbrave said:
This is my 24/7 OC, I'm not much of a gamer but I do a fair bit of PhotoShop and video encoding and this CPU is a BEAST. I consider the money well spent.
FX-8150Validation2.jpg
Click to expand...

Yes, I was rendering some gaming video for youtube and I agree with you on how fast it is for doing things like that. I haven't done much Photoshop since my niece died, but nice to know it's great for that also!
 
@ Stealthy and DeathFromBelow. The new Asus CHV bios has the same problems it seems. Here is the thread on the Asus official ROG forums and starting at post #16 they explain what the problem is. This problem persists on other manufacturers motherboards also.

On the Sabertooth using the new bios we get BSOD instead of the 5 fps. I think I like the BSOD as the 5 fps bios I tried took me 10 minutes to maneuver to the exit game menu.
 
cageymaru said:
@ Stealthy and DeathFromBelow. The new Asus CHV bios has the same problems it seems. Here is the thread on the Asus official ROG forums and starting at post #16 they explain what the problem is. This problem persists on other manufacturers motherboards also.

On the Sabertooth using the new bios we get BSOD instead of the 5 fps. I think I like the BSOD as the 5 fps bios I tried took me 10 minutes to maneuver to the exit game menu.
Click to expand...

Hmm I'm basically getting the problem they describe in the Asus forums when I play BF3, but ONLY when I overclock. It's better now that I've disabled turbo, but still not playable. This is freak'n weird.
 
Run Cinebench and see if one of your cores is lagging behind the others when OC'd. There is a point where the heat generated by your processor makes a core run so slow that the other cores will have to basically finish Cinebench for it. The cure for this naturally is a bigger cooler as the core isn't defective; it's just overheated.

I hope that makes sense as I just took some Tramadol. :)
 
DeathFromBelow said:
5 GHz here. Water cooled FX-8120 @ 1.525v/Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 motherboard.

I'm happy with it. There's an awful lot of unnecessary FUD going around about these chips... that and a lot of amateurs whining when they don't set the CPU voltage high enough and their games crash.



I mentioned the throttling issue/workaround in your "maybe I'm a sucker" thread...
Click to expand...

You do realize that this problem has been officially acknowledged by AMD, and has been fixed on some boards, in some BIOSes, right? I haven't seen any of this FUD, as I abandon my BD build, and went with a sandy bridge, but at one point, not too long ago, people's feelings and experience were very valid. My MSI 990fxa-gd80 was among those that, while these particular games wouldn't BSOD, they would get no more than 10fps. Stock, overclocked, underclocked, over volted, under volted...Didn't matter. Perfectly stable in all other tests, but there is/was a BIOS issue on certain boards, affecting certain games.

Anyway, I've not been able to get more than 4.5ghz out of my 8120 100% stable. Using y-cruncher stress test, anything past that starts to throw consistency errors, despite seeming stable in other stress tests.
 
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I am sitting at 4.43GHz on all 8 cores on a FX-8150 with voltage sitting at 1.42v. I can and have gone higher, but I don't feel like increasing voltage any higher.

Also, fixed BIOS might help me overclock as the AMD Overdrive workaround on the Gigabyte boards caused unpredictable voltages. It also means that I can play all my games now too.
 
Running 4.6ghz, fx8120, ASUS Sabertooth 990fx, volts 3.815, prime stable. Prime stable up to 4.9ghz so far, benchmarked up to 5.2ghz. CPU really start to heat up past 4.8ghz meaning I need a bigger cooler to push it further. ASUS has outstanding voltage droop settings for the cpu and northbridge so reason for the rather low voltage setting. I am able to get all cores to remain at a given OC up to 5.2ghz with bios 705, disable all the C state stuff, cool and quit and set current limits to 130% etc. seems to do it. Tested 4.9ghz with prime 95 for over an hour and all cores stayed at 100% and at OC speed. Couldn't test highter due to temp issues.

So far I am rather happy with setup, CPU/mobo combo and is miles ahead of what I had before.
 
cageymaru said:
@ Stealthy and DeathFromBelow. The new Asus CHV bios has the same problems it seems. Here is the thread on the Asus official ROG forums and starting at post #16 they explain what the problem is. This problem persists on other manufacturers motherboards also.
Click to expand...

I just read through the thread you linked to, I'm not not seeing that at all. The later posts even mention that the stuttering problems were a GPU driver issue that has been fixed...
You do know that AMD and SR3 makers all explained that the game stuttering was GPU Drivers problem, and there are a new release of 11.11a performance drivers since 2 days ago that make the game smooth as butter now
Click to expand...
I hope all the anti-FX FUD going around isn't coming from Intel...
 
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DeathFromBelow said:
I just read through the thread you linked to, I'm not not seeing that at all. The later posts even mention that the stuttering problems were a GPU driver issue that has been fixed...

I hope all the anti-FX FUD going around isn't coming from Intel...
Click to expand...

Actually there is mention of a GPU driver issue causing the issue, then people saying that they updated their drivers and it didn't fix the issue. I've updated my (AMD) video drivers to 11.11 and I still get a slide show in BF3. The last post mentions something about a beta bios fixing the issue. Unfortunately I don't see anything newer for the Sabertooth than 0813, so no fix for me.

In my opinion people ARE really having issues; I know I sure am.

Either way I snagged a 2600K on a Black Friday sale, so as soon as I decide on a motherboard I'm throwing in the towel. Maybe I'll build a BD gaming box for the big screen in a few months once this is all sorted out.
 
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