FX-8350 @ 5ghz Not yet Stable

Recently I upgraded my FX-6300 to an FX-8350. I had hit a wall with my [email protected] prime stable. This was using a Xigmatek Dark Knight air cooler. I wanted to hit 5ghz on my FX-6300 so I purchased a Kuhler 1250. Unfortunately my chip was already at its limit and would not go past 4.7. Tiger Direct prices for FX-8350 dropped to $169 so I impulse bought. Now I have easily hit 5ghz and can probably go higher. However, I need to get it stable first. I believe I have room to go with voltage and will begin there. My prime temps with all cores is about 47c but 1-2 workers fail within about 5 min.

Prime fails 1-2 workers within 5-6min
Aidas64 runs 9-10 min and fails
Temps on either never run above 47-48c
Idle temps are about 15-20c depending on room temp.

Current voltage is 1.4v. I was able to boot windows at 1.36v.

The reason I am posting here is to make sure my line of thinking is correct. I have been OC'ing since the days of K5/6's, so I do have some experience. Sadly, I hit a wall pretty hard with the FX-6300 and it didn't seem to matter how much voltage I threw at it or what my bus/multi combo was at, 4.7 was my limit. I believe I should just keep edging up my core voltage and my workers will begin to continue working.

I should note that I played BF4 & streamed at 1080p for about 4-5 hours last night with zero issues. Temps never got above 42c gaming/streaming, so I believe I must be close.

System Specs:

CPU: FX-8350
Mobo: Asus M5A99FX Pro R2.0
Ram: 8gig Gskill Ripjaw 1600
Cooling: Antec Kuhler 1250 push/pull
Tower: HAF 932
Power: Corsair TX750
GPU: Gigabyte Radeon 6970

Give it 1.45 vCore and see if its stable.

Honestly if you have an 8350 that'll run 5.0 P95 blend stable with less than 1.5v count yourself lucky. Tha being said you may have issues as well with the 8350 and it'll be the board.
I had that exact same board and Mandrake had it's brother the EVO and they both run out of gas in the 4.6G range give or take a 100 MHz. I don't know what you're using to monitor temps but you'll want to know the socket and core temps since the socket is going to get very hot with that 8 core FX drawing off it.

Johan45 said:

Honestly if you have an 8350 that'll run 5.0 P95 blend stable with less than 1.5v count yourself lucky. Tha being said you may have issues as well with the 8350 and it'll be the board.
I had that exact same board and Mandrake had it's brother the EVO and they both run out of gas in the 4.6G range give or take a 100 MHz. I don't know what you're using to monitor temps but you'll want to know the socket and core temps since the socket is going to get very hot with that 8 core FX drawing off it.

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This +1.

I think as long as the voltage stays decently low (1.45V and under) he shouldn't have an issue if the socket temps are in check.
The issue most people had around 4.6 with this board was the jump in necessary voltage.

For temperatures I use AMD overdrive and core temp; I also have hwmonitor. My core temps are about 47c max and my socket is 55-56ish when running either aidas64 or prime95. I have not yet put a fan on the back of the mobo yet, which I may do.

To help us help you we need to see a few things. A shot of CPU-z Main, memory and SPD tabs plus a shot of HWmonitor while P95 blend has been running for about 20 minutes. This will show us max temps and voltages.

Capturing a whole screen results in images with text to small to read at our end most of the time.

This is what we need to see for sure and a real good starting point.

Normally during setup and testing we disable C1/E, C6, Cool N Quiet, APC, TurboCore and in windows performance manager itself we set to "performance" mode. That way there are not "other" settings messing with the overclocking process. Some of those settings are not available on all models of cpu but where in evidence we disable for setup of overclock process.

CPU Tab in CPUz from CPUID com


Memory Tab in CPUz from CPUID com


SPD Tab in CPUz from CPUID com


And this is screen capture of HWMonitor (free version) from CPUID com
HWMonitor has been scrolled enough and large enough to show Min/Max of Voltages and includes the CPU CORE TEMPS / "package" temps fully visible. Latest versions of HWMonitor show the CPU Core Temp as " a Package Temp" and is only shown as a single temp since there were never multple, individual core temp sensors anyway.

This capture is made of HWMonitor after it has been open and running on the desktop logging Min/Max temps and voltages while Prime 95 was running Blend Mode test on all cores for at least 20 mins and then the capture of HWMonitor was made and it shows the Min/Max temps and voltages before P95 Blend was started and while running P95 Blend mode and gives much greater insight into how the system is performing without guessing.



In order to attach screenshots of INDIVIDUAL images as suggested, first crop and capture the images with Snipping Tool found in Windows Accessories or equivalent. Then click on Go Advanced, a button at the bottom of every new post window. Then click on the little paperclip tool at the top of the Advanced post window when it opens. Clicking on the paperclip tool brings up the file browser/upload tool and the rest is fairly obvious.

Johan45 said:

Honestly if you have an 8350 that'll run 5.0 P95 blend stable with less than 1.5v count yourself lucky. Tha being said you may have issues as well with the 8350 and it'll be the board.
I had that exact same board and Mandrake had it's brother the EVO and they both run out of gas in the 4.6G range give or take a 100 MHz. I don't know what you're using to monitor temps but you'll want to know the socket and core temps since the socket is going to get very hot with that 8 core FX drawing off it.

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I concur!

I'm at work now but will post the info when I get home after tweaking the settings to get it at least 20 min stable. Thx for the input.

I see that more users are posting results at higher clocks. I have no idea if chips are now better or just those who got good chips are sharing on the forums.
When I had FX8320 then I couldn't make it run at 4.7-4.8GHz. My FX8120 was much better and I remember that more FX8320/50 had similar results as I had. Now all are showing higher clocks or at least the same clocks but at lower voltages.

Welcome, I had an 8350 on that same board & could only get it prime stable at 4.7GHz on good air.

Woomack said:

I see that more users are posting results at higher clocks. I have no idea if chips are now better or just those who got good chips are sharing on the forums.
When I had FX8320 then I couldn't make it run at 4.7-4.8GHz. My FX8120 was much better and I remember that more FX8320/50 had similar results as I had. Now all are showing higher clocks or at least the same clocks but at lower voltages.

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Woomack, it seems as if some of the newer Fx 8 series chips coming out will do X overclocks at less voltage then the earlier ones. I have also heard of some chips that will OC on low voltage but will not do really high clocks, ie above 4.8. It's possible AMD is binning the chips and saving the ones that will do 4.8 + for the Fx 9xxx chips.

In this case it is very possible that the motherboard just doesn't have the guts to do upper 4's stable. Myself, Johan and Papadan are examples of it. Speaking for myself, having my Fx 8350 on an Asus M5A99X Evo on the loop in my signature, when I first purchased it. I could not get it Prime stable above 4.5, it would just lock up the second I hit the start button for prime. After changing to the CHV I have now, I was able to get it to 5.1 2 hours prime stable and it has run as high as 5.6+ on cold water.

I had CHV with modded BIOS which was great board. I was running memory up to 3100 and was stable at ~310FSB with [email protected] ~1.32-1.35V but FX8320 was pretty bad and everything was working lower while voltage had to be higher than on 8120.
I would back to FX if I had cheap LN2 around and free dewar but I don't so I stick to Intel. SS is not enough for these CPUs and results are about the same as on good water.

I would back to FX if I had cheap LN2 around and free dewar but I don't so I stick to Intel. SS is not enough for these CPUs and results are about the same as on good water.

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I hear ya!

I didn't have time last night to take screenshots as I've a 2yr old and he pretty much nixed that time slot. However, once he was asleep I was able to run some aida64 and prime95. Aida64 runs a full 20 min and socket temps never go above 59. However, prime95 my socket temps rocket to 70c and then workers fail/comp stops responding. Next steps I have planned are mounting a fan on backside but I have to drill some holes in the side panel. HaF932 doesn't have any opening to the backside so a fan wont really do much until that is done. Once this is done, I will try again for 5ghz.

I had a thought... does anyone know if a flushmount metal backplate has been coupled with water cooling for the backside? Would it do me any benefit?

Items on ToDo:

Screenshots!
Backplate fan/cooling
Mod HAF932 for air intake access to back of mobo

Also, I dropped vcore to 1.392 and I had no issues running aida64 for 20 min. I can pretty much run aida64 for hours and temps dont skyrocket like prime95. Is aida64 more/less efficient at FPU calcs? Why are temps so drastically different?

Because P95 is just a lot harder on the CPU, that's why it's the preferred stability test here. I can pass Aida64 and AMD OD stability with a lot less voltage that it takes to pass P95.
As for the fan the holes in the case aren't necessary , I didn't alter mine and it dropped 10c of my socket temps.

I also have the haf932 & have a fan mounted behind the mobo without drilling any holes. As Johan said it will do wonders for cooling the socket temps that way.

Johan,

That pic you posted in the other thread with the chipset fan on backplate. Is that just double sided tape holding it on?

That's what that is steenkiee. Just make sure that all the tape is away from the blades. Take my word for it , it can get on your nerves in a hurry. The worst part was it only did it once in a while till finally I had to rip it out and fix it.

Johan45 said:

That's what that is steenkiee. Just make sure that all the tape is away from the blades. Take my word for it , it can get on your nerves in a hurry. The worst part was it only did it once in a while till finally I had to rip it out and fix it.

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Didn't like the tic tic tic....... johan