OC FX8320, several concerns

[Lucasrio267]

Hi,
I bought a few days ago a FX8320 to replace my Phenom II x4 965 BE. Willing to OC it, first I tested it with stock frequencies and I'm rather disappointed.

Here are my current specs :
-FX8320 @stock
-Asrock 970 Extrem 4 (UEFI updated)
-8 Go Corsair Ballistix PC12800
-Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OC
-Noctua NH NH-U12P SE2
-Antec HCG 620W modular
-Factal Design Define R4 with 6 fans
-SSD Samsung 840 120Go + 1To HDD

There are the charts I get from OCCT :
-Witt large data set, 16 Threads for 2 hours this night :
Frequency : http://puu.sh/6FVJt.png
Temperature : http://puu.sh/6FVJL.png
Vcore : http://puu.sh/6FVJU.png
CPU usage : http://puu.sh/6FVK3.png
FSB frequency : http://puu.sh/6FVK7.png

-As the variations were too big and unreadable, I made a new stress test this morning for 10 minutes, with the same settings :
Frequency : http://puu.sh/6FVWO.png
Temperature : http://puu.sh/6FVX1.png
Vcore : http://puu.sh/6FVX5.png
CPU usage: http://puu.sh/6FW11.png
FSB frequency : http://puu.sh/6FVWE.png

And here are the settings I changed from the UEFI regarding CPU and RAM :
-CIE disabled
-C6 disabled
-Cool n Quiet disabled
-Spred spectrum disabled
-Thermal Throttle disabled
-Turbo core disabled
-Vcore set to 1,4V @stock value
-CPU load line calibration :1/2
-Frequency, multiplier etc... set to their stock value
-Profil XMP 1,3 1600MHz loaded

What I find abnormal :
-Vcore is unstable, are variations from 1,35 to 1,38 normal ?
Yet my PSU and my MB aren't that bad. Although they aren't high end, they shouldn't be in pain @stock frequencies et had no problem rising my Phenom II up to 4,2GHz.
-Why is there this periodic fall in Vcore, frequency and temperature ? Is it a measure bug ?
-Why is the temperature so high whereas my cooler et my case are far from being so bad ?
Room temperature is around 20-21°C. NH U12P is mounted with its two fan with maximum speed, two big 140mm and a 120 expel air from the top and three breathe from the bottom. I use the Zalman ZM-STG1 as thermal grease (maybe not the best but easy two apply).
Also, expeled air from the top is almost cold ! Way cooler than the one I had when my Phenom II was running @4ghz. All this makes my think that the temperatures reported by OCCT, although plausible, are incoherent.
-Beside, since I changed my processor, I don't have the same probes in OCCT anymore : I now don't have the cores' temperatures anymore but I managed to get them back using AMD Overdrive. Still they are quite odd : One is blocked around 85, an other at 125 and the last ones at 29. Also, new probes have appeared : Package, Air Flow, Assembly, and TMPIN0. Is there one that might be important ?

Where could the problem come from ?
Is it possible that the cooler/the thermal paste are poorly mounted ? Still I didn't have the impression to do something different from usual and all the fans are running well.
Can the probes be poorly calibrated ? Can I recalibrate them ?
Is my UEFI well set for OC ?

Thanks for reading, I hope someone will be able to help me .
Waiting for an answer, Lucas.

PS : I tried my best to write proper English as it's not my primary langage, I hope it's understandable.

 

[BiggieShady]

First, going over 60C in burn tests on FX processors is not recommended, going over 70 is slowly killing the CPU.
Although both your old phenom and new fx have same TDP, fx has greater thermal density and is harder to cool.
Second, Are you using Asrock 970 Extreme 4?
If yes, that board has 4+1 phase VRM design and it's not very good for overclocking.
4+1 phases could work for lightly overclocking intel cpus, but AMD FX cpus work on higher voltages and use more power when overclocked.

 

[BarbaricSoul]

while I have almost zero experience with the new AMD FX cpus (I built one system using the FX 6100 but did no OC'ing with it), but I do experience voltage drop like you do. With my 2600k system, with my voltage set to 1.3650 in BIOs, my voltage does fluctuate between 1.344 and 1.352. As for your other questions, I'll leave them to someone with more experience with the FX cpus.

btw, your English is just fine in your post.

 

[Vario]

Hi,
I bought a few days ago a FX8320 to replace my Phenom II x4 965 BE. Willing to OC it, first I tested it with stock frequencies and I'm rather disappointed.

Here are my current specs :
-FX8320 @stock
-Asrock 970 Extrem 4 (UEFI updated)
-8 Go Corsair Ballistix PC12800
-Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OC
-Noctua NH NH-U12P SE2
-Antec HCG 620W modular
-Factal Design Define R4 with 6 fans
-SSD Samsung 840 120Go + 1To HDD

There are the charts I get from OCCT :
-Witt large data set, 16 Threads for 2 hours this night :
Frequencie : http://puu.sh/6FVJt.png
Temperature : http://puu.sh/6FVJL.png
Vcore : http://puu.sh/6FVJU.png
CPU usage : http://puu.sh/6FVK3.png
FSB frequencie : http://puu.sh/6FVK7.png

-As the variations were too big and unreadable, I made a new stress test this morning for 10 minutes, with the same settings :
Frequencie : http://puu.sh/6FVWO.png
Temperature : http://puu.sh/6FVX1.png
Vcore : http://puu.sh/6FVX5.png
CPU usage: http://puu.sh/6FW11.png
FSB frequencie : http://puu.sh/6FVWE.png

And here are the settings I changed from the UEFI regarding CPU and RAM :
-CIE disabled
-C6 disabled
-Cool n Quiet disabled
-Spred spectrum disabled
-Thermal Throttle disabled
-Turbo core disabled
-Vcore set to 1,4V @stock value
-CPU load line calibration :1/2
-Frequencie, multiplicator etc... set to their stock value
-Profil XMP 1,3 1600MHz loaded

What I find abnormal :
-Vcore is unstable, are variations from 1,35 to 1,38 normal ?
Yet my PSU and my MB aren't that bad. Although they aren't high end, they shouldn't be in pain @stock frequencies et had no problem rising my Phenom II up to 4,2GHz.
-Why is there this periodic fall in Vcore, frequencie and temperature ? Is it a measure bug ?
-Why is the temperature so high whereas my cooler et my case are far from being so bad ?
Room temperature is around 20-21°C. NH U12P is mounted with its two fan with maximum speed, two big 140mm and a 120 expel air from the top and three breathe from the bottom. I use the Zalman ZM-STG1 as thermal grease (maybe not the best but easy two apply).
Also, expeled air from the top is almost cold ! Way cooler than the one I had when my Phenom II was running @4ghz. All this makes my think that the temperatures reported by OCCT, although plausible, are incoherent.
-Beside, since I changed my processor, I don't have the same probes in OCCT anymore : I now don't have the cores' temperatures anymore but I managed to get them back using AMD Overdrive. Still they are quite odd : One is blocked around 85, an other at 125 and the last ones at 29. Also, new probes have appeared : Package, Air Flow, Assembly, and TMPIN0. Is there one that might be important ?

Where could the problem come from ?
Is it possible that the cooler/the thermal paste are poorly mounted ? Still I didn't have the impression to do something different from usual and all the fans are running well.
Can the probes be poorly calibrated ? Can I recalibrate them ?
Is my UEFI well set for OC ?

Thanks for reading, I hope someone will be able to help me .
Waiting for an answer, Lucas.

PS : I tried my best to write proper English as it's not my primary langage, I hope it's understandable.

You have to remount the processor if you want to rule out bad thermal paste. Might as well just get around to it and see if it fixes it before you do anything else.

It might be that your motherboard's 4+1 power phase design cannot supply enough consistent power to the 8320. I had a 970 Extreme 3, it could overclock a phenom II fine but my understanding was the FX chips need at-least a 8 phase design.

 

[Johan45]

These guys all have hit the nail on the head. That motherboard just can't handle the power draw of an 8 core FX. Plain and simple. Get a decent 8 phase motherboard and you'll be much happier. If you can find the Giga 990fx UD3 Rev.4 it's your best bang for your buck at the moment but it has to be revision 4. The rev3s throttled terribly.

 

[Sempron Guy]

Same sentiments with that board. I got the 970 Extreme 3 w/c got the same 4+1 power phase design. Can't even handle my FX-6300 @ 4.5ghz w/o throttling. Get at least a gigabyte 990fx-ud3.

And btw I got the Phenom II X4 965 BE running at 4ghz fine before upgrading to the FX-6300. The FXs just love beefy vrms.

 

[Johan45]

Nice some of those 965 are real pigs, mine needs 1.5v for 4.0G.
The FX more than loves it's power it needs it. I have 3 of them and wouldn't even run the 6350 on anything less that 6 phase, prefferably 8 but the M5A99FXpro can handle it without the VRM overheating at 4.6G

 

[Lucasrio267]

Thank you for your many answers !
So the problem is my MB. Actually, I thought the FX would be easier to cool because of the 32nm and the new architecture...
I should have been more carefull when I bought it a year ago, the UD3 is only 20 more bucks...
Now, I don't think the boost brought by the OC worth spending 110€.
Do you think the current temperatures are a problem to run @stock frequencies, given the fact that IG, they will be lower ?

 

[Durvelle27]

Actually this Is incorrect. The max safe temp for the FX-8320/50 has been confirmed to be 70°C

First, going over 60C in burn tests on FX processors is not recommended, going over 70 is slowly killing the CPU.
Although both your old phenom and new fx have same TDP, fx has greater thermal density and is harder to cool.
Second, Are you using Asrock 970 Extreme 4?
If yes, that board has 4+1 phase VRM design and it's not very good for overclocking.
4+1 phases could work for lightly overclocking intel cpus, but AMD FX cpus work on higher voltages and use more power when overclocked.

 

[Lucasrio267]

I tried to enable the Turbo UCC :

Turbo UCC technology provides you an all-in-one solution to unlock the hidden cpu cores in the CPU, get the amazing system performance boost by auto-overclocking, and running the system in a certainly lower power consumption level as well. When you press "X" when switch on the computer, the system will automatically reboot itself, after that, the system will execute the Turbo UCC function. Enabling Turbo UCC, it will automatically help you to unlock the extra CPU core to enjoy an instant performance boost, and the system performance will boost up by overclocking CPU frequency, memory frequency and all related voltage settings! Different from normal high-energy consumption for overclocking or system upgrading process, ASRock Turbo UCC can allow an energy-saving overclocking or system upgrade computing operation!

And I ran a stress-test :
FSB : http://puu.sh/6GaKH.png
Frequency : http://puu.sh/6GaKV.png
Temperature : http://puu.sh/6GaL8.png
Vcore : http://puu.sh/6GaLw.png

You can see that Turbo UCC increased FSB by 15MHz but decreased Vcore by 0.1V, and the strange falls disappeared ! Temperature has also gone down of 1°C.
Paradoxically, it put down the multiplier to x16.5 which means that the frequency only raised of 50MHz....
Does this mean that I could eventually undervolt my CPU ?

I too read that the max safe temp for the FX8320 was 70°C for the overall but 62 for each core.

Edit : I just went to the UEFI and checked what changes were made :
-FSB is set to 215MHz
-Multiplier is set to x16.5
-NB multiplier is set x16 -> 2150MHz (2000 previously)
-Vcore is set to 1.275V (1.4 previously !)
-NB voltage is set to 1.125V (I don't know the previous value)
-XMP 1.3 profile is still loaded but the RAM frequency is down to 1145MHz (1600 previously) !
-Every other voltages are set on auto
-AMD Application Power Management is disabled
-Cool n Quiet, C1E and Core C6 are enabled (I had them disabled previously)
-Every other settings including Turbo Core, Spread Spectrum, CPU load Line Calibration and Thermal Throttle are set on auto (They were disabled previously but I think auto mode disable them anyway)

 

[newtekie1]

The high VCORE is causing the VRM on the motherboard to overheat and the board is throttling. Turning on UCC lowered the vcore, which makes the VRM work less and so the VRM stopped overheating.

I'd turn UCC back off and just manually adjust the VCORE to undervolt the processor.

 

[Lucasrio267]

Ok, so the MB was Throttling, that's why disabling the CPU throttling was ineffective.
Thank you, I'll try undervolting the processor.

 

[BiggieShady]

Actually this Is incorrect. The max safe temp for the FX-8320/50 has been confirmed to be 70°C

When it comes to AMD FX CPUs, I don't believe it's incorrect to advise someone not to be that close to throttling temperature.

 

[Lucasrio267]

Well, I managed to stabilize the Vcore and the frequency around 3.6GHz and 1.2625V. I let a Prime95 torture test run the whole night, there was no problem.
Above that the VRMs are throttling.
This huge overclocking improved my Cinebench score of 1.50% !

I'd like to enable the Turbo Core, but how can I make a stress test with only 4 or 2 cores to see if the turbo causes throttling (I mean forcing the CPU to enter Turbo mode) ?
I've tried to run a 4 threads stress test on Prime 95 and OCCT but the load was split between the 8 cores and the frequency didn't rise...

 

[BarbaricSoul]

Don't bother with turbo-mode. Just set an OC to the speeds your happy with.

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

These guys all have hit the nail on the head. That motherboard just can't handle the power draw of an 8 core FX. Plain and simple. Get a decent 8 phase motherboard and you'll be much happier. If you can find the Giga 990fx UD3 Rev.4 it's your best bang for your buck at the moment but it has to be revision 4. The rev3s throttled terribly.

I have to agree here. I am running a 990fx Ud3 with a Fx8350 and I have it clocked at 4.4 right now crunching under 100% load 24/7. The giga board is great.

 

[Pill Monster]

Actually this Is incorrect. The max safe temp for the FX-8320/50 has been confirmed to be 70°C

HTC limit was 90c last I checked. Do u have a source for this confirmation?

As for OP I can't see the problem tbh.....seems like a normal result if the test includes checking transient response. If not then it could be something like throttling.........

4+1 isn't really ideal for a 16hr stress test on Vishera as mentioned.

 

[Lucasrio267]

Thank you for your answers,
I don't remember where I read the max safe temp. Unfortunately, with the new AMD website, I can't find them anymore.

 

[Pill Monster]

Thank you for your answers,
I don't remember where I read the max safe temp. Unfortunately, with the new AMD website, I can't find them anymore.

They aren't available except under NDA (non disclosure agreement). Which means engineers or devs or testers or other groups who need the specs for whatever reason.

But you're quite safe.

Btw the number of threads used should equal the number of cores, you had 16 threads running when it should have been 8. Why did u run a stability test at stock clocks? was it to check vrm's?

You could try another app like....idk Cinebench or POVRay or HyperPi pr whatever and see if the results are similar. Don't get crazy tho and run P95 for 24hrs etc or you may fry the board. lol

 

[flmatter]

I have my 8320 OC'ed to 4.33ghz under water with no issues. My mb is a gigabyte 970-ud3 listed in my specs tab. SO if you get a good mb you will be happier with OC'ing it.