FX its tougher than you think.

DISCLAIMER - I DO NOT BELIEVE EVERYONE SHOULD RUN TEMPERATURES AND VOLTAGES AS I DO, AND TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR WHAT YOU DO WITH THE INFORMATION BELOW.

So alot of us have these new FX CPUs and the question comes up alot on what the "max safe" temperature and/or voltage to run on one of these chips. The question if these CPUs start crashing above 55C the way Denab liked to has also come up. I have been countering this idea with the the idea that people who are crashing when the CPU hits 55C are simply using too low of a vCore, and that raising it just a tiny little bit even though it raises temps a bit more will restore stability in many situations.

About two months ago I decided to buy a 2nd AMD FX-8320 and have a go at it. I began my testing with the typical OC approach I take and pushed this much weaker sample up to 5.1Ghz on 1.72 vCore, and ran a few 3d benches just to get a quick idea of stability at 4.4, 4.6, and 4.8 Ghz.

Ok so down to the real deal. This CPU has been running Folding @ Home workload running between 4.62Ghz and 4.84Ghz for approximately two months now. In this time I have shut the computer down less than 10 times, and it has not been off for more than 5 minutes at a time. I have not been pausing F@H while doing video encoding, or while playing games. This CPU has been at 100% load since the 2nd day I owned it.

Now this CPU is particularly uncooperative as modules 2 and 3 have a weak core, and module 4 has 2 weak cores one of which will fail unless I set it about 0.04V higher than it takes to satisfy the rest of the cores. To that end I have to use 1.65V to get this chip F@H stable at 4.84Ghz, and 1.62V to F@H at 4.62Ghz.

And here it is my proof that these CPUs are tougher than people think, and careful and PROPER(not reckless) use of high vCore will keep the CPU stable even in the most extreme circumstances. As you can see my system has been running now for 9 days, 21 hours, 40 mins, and 54 seconds at the taking of this screen shot. Also please take note of the 1.62vCore aswell as the MAX core temp reached 81C at some point, and the socket temp hit 85C. All of this and yet my system is still up and folding happily and based on the data transfer I have going ATM its going to be atleast 3-4 more days before this guy gets a reboot.

Solid chip ! thanks for sharing wizard.

Those max core and CPU temps are rather surprising! Are those being repeated at different intervals or maybe just an aberration? Otherwise the current socket and core temp values showing in your pic are about what we tell folks are max for stability for the FX CPUs.

The 81C temp ive only seen once, it was yesterday when the fans in the loft got turned off for a few hours and both the CPU and GPU were working on particularly tough work units. Before that I have seen CPU core temps as high as 74C sustained for multiple hours with the socket at around 78C. However, the average load temp has been for the most part around 60-64C cores and 70ish on the socket since I began testing this CPU.

Now this CPU is particularly uncooperative as modules 2 and 3 have a weak core, and module 4 has 2 weak cores one of which will fail unless I set it about 0.04V higher than it takes to satisfy the rest of the cores. To that end I have to use 1.65V to get this chip F@H stable at 4.84Ghz, and 1.62V to F@H at 4.62Ghz.

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Thanks for the post ssjwizard, what do you consider F@H stable, I'm curious?

F@H stable means that I can crunch Folding @ Home workunits 24/7 on both CPU and GPU with my case panels on and untouched for a minimum of 7 days without a single crash, or error while I am also using my PC for my daily activities.

Those activities include transcoding on the fly a mixture of SD and 720/1080P content to up to 3 devices at a time, ripping and encoding new media to my NAS, occasional video editing, playing games on single/multiple monitors, coding in eclipse and/or debugging my game engine, using several Adobe CS 4/5/6 applications, and of course everyone's favorite pastime surfing the net. Any or all of these things can be happening on my PC at a moments notice, and I demand ABSOLUTE stability from my computer as it is a tool and not a toy IMO.

ssjwizard said:

I demand ABSOLUTE stability from my computer as it is a tool and not a toy IMO.

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From that list of possible duties your rig is called on to run concurrently, I would say you don't have anything like a toy my man. Good work.
RGone...

See, this is something I'd like to see in reviews. Someone who is just punishing the CPU with work.

I have been hammering these fx processors for quite a while myself and i dont see that they have degraded at all. Rgone has been hammering 2 of them with out issues.
I run big vcore 24/7 also other than being down right stupid the only issue i have had is getting the heat out.
but i surly don't think i would ever tell a guy to do as i do.

caddi daddi said:

i surely don't think i would ever tell a guy to do as i do.

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Why hale no you would n0t. Anybody that will drive an 800HP, 4WD Porsche to the store to buy cigs and then come back to the cabin and smoke 'em in the yard is not going to suggest such a thing to the type of newbs we get in the AMD CPU Forum section. You have more scruples than that.

How in hale you learn to overclock? Yeah, that is right. Hours of reading, personal trial and error and that huge list of parts and pieces in your "Bone Pile" thread. You have scruples but you also have big machismo. You don't have to be held by the hand and told everything over and over. Once is about enough to become EVERCLEAR to you sir.

Hale you even sent board and cpu to me to beat on because you were busy. Did you worry about what I might do to it? Not as much as you would to it your ownself. Hehehe.

There are threads in here referring to X mobo that are probably better than the review sites do and tell more about a mobo overall. What "ssjwizard" has said in this thread is not new for him. He posted up a super thread about comparing his FX-8120 to his FX-8320. One good read thru that thread and there should not even be a question about buying an old FX-8150 over a much better FX-8350. His thread took the task about Vishera and when he finished it was job done.

Probably 16 years ago when I first started to overclock a mainstream board the KK-266R, I was told if I wanted to go fast to look at the sigs of the ones I wanted to go fast like, and use what they used. Why try and RE-invent the wheel? That taught me a huge lesson and how to go fast.

If the newbs would be researching newbs they could see this:
These go fast>
rig #1 cooler master haf x/ASUS crosshair v formula/fx4170/ULTRA X4 1050WATT/ phobya 9x120/XSPC raystorm/8GIG DDR3-1600/video card, gigabyte gv-r5450c-512i.

rig #2 CPU, AZZA HURRICAN/ AMD PHENOM 2x4 965BE/MOTHERBOARD, ASUS SABERTOOTH/XSPC raystorm/ SWIFTECH 3x120/ PSU, ULTRA X4 500 WATT/ WINDOWS 7 HOME PREMIUM 64 BIT/ 4gig ddr3 1600/ video card gigabyte gv-r545od2-512d/

This goes fast >>
Green Gorilla, CM 690-II nVidia, FX 8320, GTX 670, liquid cooled
Liquid Fusion, CM 690-II, A8+6670 Dual GFX, liquid cooled

This goes fast >>
Silverstone Temjin TJ07/ Asus Crosshair V Formula
Amd FX 8350/ Ati Radeon HD 5850 1000/1145
OCZ Vertex 4 128g SSD
G-Skill Sniper X 8g @ 1866/ SeaSonic X650
EK Supreme HF/ Thermochill PA 120.3
Jingway dp 1200/ EK Multioption Res 2 advanced.
6x Yate loon 120mm 2200rpm push/pull
Windows 7 64bit

And I could go on and on. Go look at "Old Braves" signature. He hauls booty too. Go look at Bassnut's signature he hauls major booty as well. Check out Anonaru's signature since I know he hauls the mail as well.

Everyone of the one's listed above has darn good cooling from the get go. Most everyone of them has a mobo listed in the top 4 or 5 we sort of have here in this forum section. Why? Because they want to go fast. And n0 I do not ask them how much Vcore they use or any of that mundane stuff. I know how much " I " am going to use.

Each of us that really go fast do so after hours and hours of research. After hours and hours of trial and error. If I see the parts and pieces in the signature of those that are not asking why is my cpu running so hot, those are probably about 90% the stuff to have. It is just almost that simple. Then I know my stuff has a better than 95% of being fast and the parts aside, the rest is up to me. It is that way now and has been from my viewpoint over the last 18 years or so.
RGone...

I just thought you would make a better presentation on the data and i was so very right and ssjwizard has made a very good display of data and info.

thank you very much guys.

What Do You Think ?

I have been a little uneasy about pushing this chip above 4.5ghz. On my 8350 , It takes a min. of 1.5v , with llc set to extreme to stabilize Prime 20 min @ 4.7ghz. I have attached Pics. Does anyone see anything that would throw up red flags. I have been treating this chip the same as if it were a Phenom II.
Meaning , The max safe 24/7 temps and volts are 62c on the socket and 55c on the cores and a max 1.5v. After reading the above posts , I am starting to think that these chips just may be tougher, So I pushed it up from 4.5ghz to 4.7ghz and these were my results. I have not done a 2 hour run with Prime yet ,But It is stable on a 20 min. run.

The one thing I remember about running AMD was that their chips were tough, and durable, but the motherboards weren't. I can only assume the ocing boards are built a lot better these days

Jshake, not that it's totally off topic, but you'll probably be better off starting a new thread if you want input on your overclocks. That said your temps look fine, in the past we have preached 70c on the socket and 60c on the cores for max, though that may have to be revisited now. On my board I don't like to use the extreme setting on CPU LLc because it overshoots my target voltage by way too much for my liking. I'm not sure if the extreme setting is the same on the Sabertooth as it is on the CHV. I usually just set the Cpu V core higher and run it at "High" below 4.8ghz and "Very High" above it. A ss of your cpu-z spd tab would be helpful to see what your timings should be set at.

Thanks , Mandrake4565
Did not mean to highjack. Will start a new thread.

Very encouraging, thanks ssjwizard and the rest.

I've taken my 6100 and pushed 1.6v through it for about 24 hours just to see how it would do with my BOINC crunching. So for those 24 hours the CPU was at 100% just crunching along doing well.

Heat was my battle but I tell you what, I was quite shocked that I was able to actually push that voltage for that long.

ssjwizard do you run F@H at full folding power?

Im not completely sure what you mean full folding power, but I run F@H SMP-8 no flags, and GPU -1 no flags under Windows V7 client 24/7. I pause GPU folding ONLY if I am playing a very demanding game. Most of the time if im playing an offline game, or something with simple graphics like league of legends I will just leave it running while I game. CPU folding NEVER gets paused regardless of what other stuff Im doing.

On the topic of LLC on the sabertooth I run high LLC on this board. I started out with extreme LLC but it overshoots by far to much and very high hits in about 0.03V less. High pushes about 0.01V past what I set in BIOS and has a more stable pattern of voltage rise and fall IMO.

One of the main reasons I wanted to discuss this topic is I have been telling people for a while now that if the CPU is failing out or BSODing at 60C its not the temps directly that are the issue. The real issue is your just not using quite enough vCore to maintain stability when the resistance across the die goes up as a result of the temperature.

in the past we have preached 70c on the socket and 60c on the cores for max, though that may have to be revisited now

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I would have to say for the average user this is good advice still. Though I also believe these CPUs will not let you harm them in a meaningful way. IMO if the system is not crashing who cares what the temp is. Still most people would probably be better served overall to keep the temps within AMD spec which is 62C sustained and 70C peak core temp.

I'm with ssjwizard when it comes to other peoples gear, I'm going to feel real bad if i toast someones gear but, what risks I take with my own gear is my own issue eg; what goes on behind your backs you don't know about and can't hurt you.