So, initially I'd been reading a much older thread that was dealing with an overheating 8150 chip. I found this because I was looking for voltage settings based upon how high the OC was, which to a point were there. I did however see a reply there that I felt I needed to answer. Aside from that, I'm looking for feedback on my current OC settings.
The original reply
At one time, I would have agreed with them on this subject. Lately, however, I have a difficult time in doing so. I had to disable turbo core on this system within the 1st couple of months. Turbo core would bring this 8150 up to 4.2ghz.....but...it would significantly bump up the voltage. When I was running folding@home, the cpu temps would get to within 3c of the shutdown temp...which as it is, was over the 61c max operating temperature suggested by AMD. I OC'd to 4.2ghz using 1.2875v ... as I got a clock interrupt bluescreen when it was at the next lower (.0125v less) selectable voltage bracket. It has been stable at this setting so far, as this is day 2. ..and has been running folding for over 7 hours. The cooler is not stock and hasn't been changed. I sit ~50c under full load as it stands.
I think my major issue with considering 'turbo boost' advanced, was that it was bumping the voltage up to a point where the cooling system wasn't keeping up, and to a higher voltage than necessary (obviously if I'm at less and less heat) in order to operate under full load while remaining stable. This could be specific to this board, or it might not. Regardless, I think that at least in this case..the turbo boost management is flawed enough to warrant a straight OC instead. I have the Gigabyte GA-990fxa-ud3 rev 1.
I'm not sure I'm comfortable OCing it any further, at least on air cooling. Assuming I get an 8350 later this year, I might try for 4.4/4.6 at most, but any time I push past 4.2 with this one, the thermal cutoff threshold simply gets too close for comfort at full load. Any thoughts on this...if it should perform better are welcome.
The original reply
There's nothing to worry about. The Turbo Boost technology used in the Bulldozer CPUs is very advanced. Basically the processor can trigger any multiplier it wants and in ultra low voltages too. And the frequency change is done because of the multiple workloads. The CPU is designed such that it can ACTUALLY operate at a HIGH frequency without the need of much voltage. There is also a technology called "core parking". Maybe the reading you got for 4445 MHz at 0.9V is only for say 1 or 2 cores. The other cores are turned off. So in that case, 0.9V is enough for only 1 or 2 cores to run at 4445 MHz for a low workload and keeping in mind that the manufacturing process is 32 nm only.
At one time, I would have agreed with them on this subject. Lately, however, I have a difficult time in doing so. I had to disable turbo core on this system within the 1st couple of months. Turbo core would bring this 8150 up to 4.2ghz.....but...it would significantly bump up the voltage. When I was running folding@home, the cpu temps would get to within 3c of the shutdown temp...which as it is, was over the 61c max operating temperature suggested by AMD. I OC'd to 4.2ghz using 1.2875v ... as I got a clock interrupt bluescreen when it was at the next lower (.0125v less) selectable voltage bracket. It has been stable at this setting so far, as this is day 2. ..and has been running folding for over 7 hours. The cooler is not stock and hasn't been changed. I sit ~50c under full load as it stands.
I think my major issue with considering 'turbo boost' advanced, was that it was bumping the voltage up to a point where the cooling system wasn't keeping up, and to a higher voltage than necessary (obviously if I'm at less and less heat) in order to operate under full load while remaining stable. This could be specific to this board, or it might not. Regardless, I think that at least in this case..the turbo boost management is flawed enough to warrant a straight OC instead. I have the Gigabyte GA-990fxa-ud3 rev 1.
I'm not sure I'm comfortable OCing it any further, at least on air cooling. Assuming I get an 8350 later this year, I might try for 4.4/4.6 at most, but any time I push past 4.2 with this one, the thermal cutoff threshold simply gets too close for comfort at full load. Any thoughts on this...if it should perform better are welcome.
