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Visiblegorilla's new A10 with DDR3-2400

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visiblegorilla

Member
Joined
Oct 30, 2012
Hi everyone, I look forward to being an active member here! I'm really excited about my new build using the "Trinity" A10-5800K APU. The price/performance ratio of this new chip is completely unheard of! I'll be focusing first on the closely tied RAM and GPU component of the chip through the CPU Northbridge. As you probably know by now, the graphics performance scales linearly (directly) with the RAM speed. I want to find out what kind of performance can be had when running at DDR3-2400 with an overclocked GPU core, and then later pairing this APU with a GDDR5 6670 card.

System Build:
RAM: G.SKILL Trident X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 2400 Model F3-2400C10D-16GTX
APU: AMD A10-5800K Trinity 3.8GHz (4.2GHz Turbo) Socket FM2 AD580KWOHJBOX
MB: ASRock FM2A85X Extreme6 (Hudson D4)
HSF: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1
SSD: OCZ Vertex 4 VTX4-25SAT3-128G
PSU: COOLMAX ZX Series ZX-500
Case: XCLIO 320 ATX Mid Tower
DVD: ASUS 24X DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS
Fans: 2x Rosewill RFX-120BL 120mm, 2x XIGMATEK CLF-F1453 140mm

Side_resized.jpg

View1_resized.jpg


Overclocking the RAM and GPU was so simple I thought I was doing it wrong. Just a couple mouse clicksand the RAM went to 2133, GPU to 1013. No other adjustments needed; Auto voltages, Intel XMP taking care of the RAM timings, and it ran OpenGL and Direct3D games all day long with no issues.

I've played around a bit in the BIOS trying to run this 2400 RAM at 2400. Windows wouldn't boot stably until the Northbridge voltage was raised to 1.21875 (from 1.175 stock), and Firefox kept crashing until 1.28125 volts were applied. CPU and GPU clocks were kept stock through all this. (EDIT: the latest 1.50 BIOS fixes this issue under Auto voltage settings).

This hardware is phenomenal, and the manufacturers want to impress (thanks ASRock). Look for some more benchmarks soon.
 
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WEI and Prime95/HWMonitor Results

WEI score
WEI.jpg

Prime95 running after 20 minutes, HWMonitor running
Prime95small.jpg

Idle after Prime95 run
Idle.jpg

The CPU and MB temps seem correct. I have no idea what the 63 C reading was for. The idle pic above shows the CPU temp drop down after the run, so that checks out.
 
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Cinebench scores and updated WEI

Just did a few Cinebench 11.5 runs, here's the current settings:
Core Speed 3.8 GHz
Turbo Core 4.4 GHz
vCore Up to 1.44V
RAM DDR3-2400
GPU Clock 1169 MHz

And the results:
Cinebench.jpg

Got another point in WEI after boosting the RAM from 2133 to 2400 and GPU core to from 1013 to 1169!
WEI_2.jpg

And believe me, there's more room in this chip, just how much is the question. Everything is still on "Auto" in the BIOS, and it seems to be providing ample voltage at this point, but I should be able to eke out a little more MHz with some manual settings. At 4.4GHz, I observed a couple cores downclocking to 3.8 and even 3.4GHz at times while running Cinebench. vCore never went above 1.44 volts though, so first I'll try increasing that and see if I get more stability there before trying for 4.5GHz and beyond. I'm comfortable with NB voltage where it's at; here on Auto it's pegged at 1.437V even at idle. Not trying to push that too much right now, at least until I can figure out which of the 37 overclocking utilities this system came with is keeping it pegged instead of allowing it to drop to 1.2 at idle like it used to...
 
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I am not sure how much airflow your fan has, but you might consider a rear case fan by the rear I/o ports. The VRM heatsink on this board gets incredibly hot under load. Hot enough that I measured 68c other other day. after i burned myself on it.
 
So THAT must be the sensor that always reads 60-63c in HWMonitor. Well, if you look at the first pic on the top post there, you'll see the two green 140mm fans; they're actually aimed downward pushing air into the case, and the back edge of the rear one lines up perfectly over the VRM heatsink, giving it plenty of fresh air. The two blue 120mm fans in the front are also pushing air inward. The air just exits the case through the huge grilles in the side panel and the empty fan slot in the back. It works out to 250 CFM for the four fans at full speed. The PSU fan pulls air from under the case and blows out the back, so it's basically isolated and doesn't factor in.

I just did some math: The interior volume of the case, minus the PSU, DVD, and HDD, is about 1.45 cu. ft. At 250 CFM (theoretically anyway), that means the entire case is filled with fresh air 2.9 times per second! I know, that would only really be accurate if I had 250 CFM intake AND 250 CFM exhaust...

PS thanks for the post! It was getting lonely talking to myself in here. I'll have some more benchmarks and overclocks in a little while, I'm experiencing quite a bit of FAIL trying to get the CPU stable at 4.5 GHz. I know it's all this different software screwing around, because even setting voltages manually, disabling C'n'Q, Thermal Throttle, Turbo Boost, yadda yadda in the BIOS, the **** magically turns back on because SOMEONE (looking at you, AMD OverDrive, AMD Fusion, and AXTU) decides it should really stay on anyways, and what I meant by 1.475 volts was surely 1.44 volts at the very most. So there's that.
 
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Disable Core Boost, and turn off the C6 state in BIOS, then set your CPU multiplier manually. This will keep the CPU at a constant level of your choosing.
 
manual multipliers dont current work on that board lvcoyote, its borken in the current bios revisions, unless you want to go into the oc software and constantly fix the power states, even then for 2400mhz ram on this board the NB frequency is wrong aswell. Asrock is in the process of fixing this currently should be resolved in the next stable release.

As for the sensor there is none that reports that, I used a external IR probe to get that temperature. The VRM doesn't have an externaly monitored line on it. Just one that is watched by the driver chips, which don't spazz till they they hit around 90c. Which already affects the voltage output curve traditionaly on most mosfets.

Hopefully I will have some time tomorrow to bench, this week has been out of control busy. Then I;ll pop up some pages of known good settings for that board for getting around stuff that doesnt work. Ie nb frequency bugs and FCH PLL instability on a85x chipset.
 
I must admit that I left C6 on in the BIOS; I'm a little ignorant sometimes. But TJ, man, you're kicking *** over there! It's thanks to you we have this 1.50 BIOS with the "improve memory compatibility" or whatever they call it. Cheers! Also, I'm sure I'm not the only one who was disappointed with the 512MB share for video memory, but I'd like to think they're listening to me too ;)
 
I must admit that I left C6 on in the BIOS; I'm a little ignorant sometimes. But TJ, man, you're kicking *** over there! It's thanks to you we have this 1.50 BIOS with the "improve memory compatibility" or whatever they call it. Cheers! Also, I'm sure I'm not the only one who was disappointed with the 512MB share for video memory, but I'd like to think they're listening to me too ;)

I can't take credit for this, they did that on their own, the only things they added to that bios for me, is that it shows the memory frequency when playing with the bclk instead of it just showing the default number. That and it kinda works with multipliers now if you leave the powermanagement on (not clean and quiet)
 
Hey I ran into something interesting about this board today Visibile that I thought you would be interested in, Turns out the Board likes to default the IGP voltage to extremely low. IE at times sub 1.2v (which is often the spec voltage, but can be set differently by the Internal settings from the cpu).

Ran into this while trying to get Heaven to to run at default settings 800mhz/1200mhz. Stock voltages. Which should yeild a effective run. Not a bsd which was resulting in. Quick easy fix was to up the voltage in the bios. I know for a fact that the internal IGP voltage of this chip is suppose to be closer to 1.27v not 1.19-1.20v.
 
Yeah, it seems under Auto the NB voltage would usually idle at 0.9V and jump up to about 1.3-1.4 under load. Ran this way for awhile, but it was a bit unstable. Now I have it manually set at 1.45V. It's the only way I can play Skyrim without it crashing. Got temps up as high as 50C at one point; VCore is at 1.45V too most of the time, although it is still Auto with turbo boost set to 4.5GHz. The instability I experienced was not a heat problem, it was a power problem, with too big a dip in voltage resulting in Skyrim having a massive coronary and kicking me to the desktop. LLC has been set at 80% for both CPU and NB for a few weeks now. OHM is showing a Max vCore of 2.04V last night while gaming, I'm a little worried about bringing LLC down to 60% and basically hitting the CPU with a defibrillator when load jumps up... Seems a little drastic...
 
I'd jump the IGP voltage up more rather than push the nb at this point on your setup. Thats probably the source of the voltage problems. You could also use Stilts TCIK2 interface to enable what he calls "powermode" which prevents the IGP on the card from changing power states. Which will reduce stuttering in games.
 
BENCHMARKS!

4.5GHz CPU, 1250MHz GPU:
3dmark1145CPU1250GPUSingleMonitor_zps2c34b908.jpg

4.5GHz CPU, 1230MHz GPU:
3dmark1145CPU1230GPUSingleMonitor_zps86a1c9fc.jpg

4.5GHz CPU, 1215MHz GPU:
3dmark1145CPU1215GPUSingleMonitor_zps05ff0bab.jpg

4.5GHz CPU, 1200MHz GPU:
3dmark1145CPU1200GPUSingleMonitor_zps8b1a8e02.jpg

4.5GHz CPU, 1166MHz GPU:
3dmark1145CPU1166GPUSingleMonitor_zps9923e6fc.jpg

4.4GHz CPU, 1150MHz GPU:
3dmark1144CPU1150GPUSingleMonitor_zpse0830afe.jpg

4.4GHz CPU, 1133MHz GPU:
3dmark1144CPU1133GPUSingleMonitor_zpsfe5610d8.jpg

4.5GHz CPU, 1100MHz GPU:
3dmark1145CPU1100GPUSingleMonitor_zps940864ca.jpg

4.4GHz CPU, 1100MHz GPU:
3dmark1144CPU1100GPUSingleMonitor_zps6f453919.jpg

4.4GHz CPU, 1100MHz GPU, Dual Displays (extended desktop):
3dmark1144CPU1100GPUDualMonitor_zps62a2982f.jpg

The most interesting thing about all this is how identical the scores were for slightly different clocks. ANY graphics clock from 1100-1166 MHz produced identical scores, and ANY graphics clock from 1200-1250 MHz did too.

Another important thing is that the best physics score was obtained with the CPU at 4.5GHz and the GPU at 1200MHz. 1200+MHz GPU was where the highest NB/GFX voltage was used, so apparently that helps curb memory errors as well as graphics errors (duh).

I've been running the GPU voltage at 1.435-1.44 almost all the time now. Buuut Skyrim really loves 1.45V to the NB/GFX, so since these benchmarks that voltage has been pegged at 1.450 and GPU is set to 1200. I just turn the GPU clock down to 800-1000 when not playing games.

EDIT: The CPU clock is a Turbo Core setting. Base clock is 3800, level 0/1 Turbo Core set to 4400 or 4500. Could not get 4600 stable (yet!)
 
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not bad, its a tiny bit above my review score of 2062, @ 1267/4600 Though the bclk and lower memory timings will sure contribute to that (running 2666mhz ram at the the wrong speed with the high timing allways adds up somewhere.

results here

If your jumping IGP frequency without using the bclk to change the increments your not actually setting the speed. Most of the time the frequency jumps in 100ish mhz incrments increments at 100mhz bclk outside the first step from. First steps like 800 - 967ish i think.
 
from what i've seen about this chip, it really responds well to great ram. This might be something to look into... what ram it works with better, and so forth. Some of the numbers i've seen indicate the right ram can contribute to a 30% improvement in Graphics scores on those benches.

Which only makes sense, since the GPU does use the system memory it will need faster ram to work better. One of the features of the duel graphics is no matter what your version of the 6670 you've got, it will default the system to use the video ram on the card. So a 6670 with 1gb of GDDR5 ram would be an ideal mate to this system to pull the most performance out of the graphics engine.
 
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