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Help Please A8 3870k Overclock

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AdmiralAdama

Registered
Joined
Mar 6, 2012
Location
Canada
First AMD build so not sure what the best way to overclock it is. Only overclocked once before a Q9300 from 2.5GHz to 3.0GHz by raising the FSB to 400. It had a locked multiplier of 7.5.
Since this is a K CPU it should be more fun to play with. My question is should I use the bios or would the ASRock eXtreme tuner be good enough? What is a safe voltage for this chip? Also since this GPU is unlocked as well how to you go about overclocking that?

Specs are
AMD A8 3870K running dual graphics with Sapphire 6670
ASRock A75 Pro 4 motherboard
G.Skill Ares 8GB 1866 Ram - Timmings -9 10 9 28
Gelid Tranquillo cooler

Pictures idle and load
IdleCPUz.png
CPUzload.png
 
I'm going to tag onto your thread Adama :)

Just got all the parts in to build an A6-3670k, which will be my first APU build, so I'd be appreciative of any knowledge nuggets anyone has on clocking these APUs as well.

Only difference is my iGPU will be standalone. No discreet card added to it.

MSI A55M-P35 motherboard
8GB Corsair Vengeance 1600 9-9-9-24 1.5v memory
 
I would disable power saving featues for now (CnQ in BIOS and high power mode in windows) this will prevent downclocking to 800 MHZ like you are seeing now. Software programs are nice for fine tuning, but all overclocking should be done in the BIOS first.

Up the multiplier till you lose stability increase voltages to make it stable rinse and repeat.

I would stick with discrete GPU only until you find your happy place then work on getting dual mode grpahics to work (if it will at all, I am not sure)
 
I have 2 APU Systems 3850 and a 3870 both under water.An easy overclock on the 3870 3300mhz at your 1.36 volts next 3500 1.425 volts next MAX 3600 mhz 1525Volts Hot No gain Speed!
 
I have 2 APU Systems 3850 and a 3870 both under water.An easy overclock on the 3870 3300mhz at your 1.36 volts next 3500 1.425 volts next MAX 3600 mhz 1525Volts Hot No gain Speed!

Thanks I had similar results to you.
 
"No gain speed?"

There was a bug initially where multiplier looked adjustable in BIOS but was not actually changing CPU clocks (CPUZ reported it as overclocked though) is that what you were referring too?
 
Was referring to speed vs volts. Didn't try 3600mhz only took it up to 3500mhz.

Have you had any luck OCing the iGPU?

On the CPU side, sounds like these might bug out on volts a little early with iGPU enabled. I've heard of pretty high OCs on APUs from benchers but they were usually with iGPU disabled, which defeats the purpose of APU for me. My build will most likely be limited by the stock cooler anyway though. I just want to see what it's capable of before it goes to my sister to live out its life as an email checker/youtube viewer :p

It'll probably be a few days till this one's built, but I'll post results when it's done. If they're anything like I think they'll be, they're spot on for most people I build for so probably do a lot of them in the future.
 
Haven't tried OCing the iGPU yet.
However it did exceed my expectations. Running dual graphics with the 6670 and the APU at stock 3GHz I can play BF3 with all settings on high and get a steady 45-50 fps and on Mass Effect 3 about 60 fps again with all settings on high. Not to bad at all considering the APU was $145cdn and the 6670 was $60cdn for a grand total of $205cdn. Pretty good bang for the buck in my opinion.
Will look into OCing the iGPU as I'm curious what it will do.
 
Very good bang for the buck.

I used a A6 series and was quite impressed with it, running windows 7 with VMs of XP and Linux going while blending and playing youtube videos. (I saw the PR multitasking article showing how smooth everything was and it really was!)
 
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