Worth disabling cores on 8120?

necrovamp · Jul 25, 2012

3 questions, first, I have a stock cooler on my 8120, and the temps run high (50-56c) on full workload, I've heard that disabling cores might lower temps, is that true, and how might it affect my applications performance that take advantage of all 8 cores?

my 2nd question is, if I do disable cores, should I try and over clock the rest, for example, if I disabled, every other core (1,3,5,7), woud the other 4 automatically ramp up?, should I ramp them up, and if I do by how much?

final question. I know apps have trouble handling the multithreading of 8-cores
and there is a game that I enjoy, however, it is poorly designed
so poorly in fact that it uses 100% of one core (and then if I turn on multi-core support in the game options) if might use some of the 2nd core
Plainly put....it sucks at multithreading more than any other game I've played in the last 10 years

lol
anyways, discounting my first 2 questions, would it help to disable 6 cores, and ramp up the other 2, to improve performance in the game?

trents · Jul 25, 2012

necrovamp said:
3 questions, first, I have a stock cooler on my 8120, and the temps run high (50-56c) on full workload, I've heard that disabling cores might lower temps, is that true, (Yes) and how might it affect my applications performance that take advantage of all 8 cores? Significant negative effect, obviously.

my 2nd question is, if I do disable cores, should I try and over clock the rest, for example, if I disabled, every other core (1,3,5,7), woud the other 4 automatically ramp up?, (No, the remaining cores would not automatically ramp up.) should I ramp them up, and if I do by how much? (No one can answer this question for you. You just need to experiment. Overclocking or "ramping up" the remaining cores will drive temps back up, maybe more than not disabling cores at stock.)

final question. I know apps have trouble handling the multithreading of 8-cores and there is a game that I enjoy, however, it is poorly designed
so poorly in fact that it uses 100% of one core (and then if I turn on multi-core support in the game options) if might use some of the 2nd core
Plainly put....it sucks at multithreading more than any other game I've played in the last 10 years

lol
anyways, discounting my first 2 questions, would it help to disable 6 cores, and ramp up the other 2, to improve performance in the game? (I'm guessing it probably would if it only utilizes two cores.)

Rather than asking us a bunch of theoretical questions you should experiment with your own ideas and then report back to us the results.

necrovamp · Jul 25, 2012

What question about overclocking is not theoretical?
I asked this simply to find out if someone mightve done something similar and wanted to know their results.
If nobody gives a relevant response, I probably will test it myself, but hey whats the harm in asking? (besides meaningless responses

)

trents said:
Rather than asking us a bunch of theoretical questions you should experiment with your own ideas and then report back to us the results.

BeepBeep2 · Jul 25, 2012

I <3 trents.

necrovamp, by disabling every other core as overclocking masters "Shamino" and "chew*" have done/talked about, you will increase the multithreaded scaling for apps that take advantage of 2 to 4 threads.

If you play games a lot, then it is in your interest to disable every other core.

Even BF3 uses only 4 threads and scales nicely when each Floating-Point Unit in Bulldozer is assigned to only one thread.

However in previous experience, disabling every other core can hamper overclocking efforts a little bit.

trents · Jul 26, 2012

necrovamp said:
What question about overclocking is not theoretical?
I asked this simply to find out if someone mightve done something similar and wanted to know their results.
If nobody gives a relevant response, I probably will test it myself, but hey whats the harm in asking? (besides meaningless responses )

Sorry if I came across as rude in my reply. I was reacting to an endless string of people entering the forum who want plug and play numbers for overclocking rather than committing to learning the art of overclocking. I trust you are not one of them. Every system is unique to an extent and the best way to find what is best for your system is to carefully, patiently and systematically experiment with different settings and ideas, changing one thing at a time, in so far as is possible, to eliminate as many variables as possible so that you can pin down what causes what to happen. Trial and error triumphs over authoritative, pat answers in this case. It is a very hands on activity.

There are a lot of things the community can answer pretty definitively because there is a large data base of people who have done that/tried that. Some of the questions you were asking about probably don't fit that category.

caddi daddi · Jul 26, 2012

if you kill a core it is only idle, if the heat os 8 core bothers you perhaps try a true 6 core.

Aldakoopa · Jul 26, 2012

On the FX processors, I don't think it's really possible to disable "every other core" as there are two cores per module, and I think you have to disable the entire module.

Not sure though, I know my BIOS reports them as pairs and I can't select individual cores.

Psykoikonov · Jul 26, 2012

Some motherboards support disabling every other core (1,3,5,7) or modules (2,3 and/or 4,5 and/or 6,7).
I've noticed that the system "feels" faster when 1,3,5,7 are disabled (also drops temperature), however running software that utilizes more than 4 cores suffer.

caddi daddi · Jul 26, 2012

if you kill a core it is only idle, if the heat of 8 core bothers you perhaps try a true 6 core.
idling cores still draw voltage and still create heat. I just ran A multi threaded program under linux that i normaly run with my 8 core using a friends six core processor and the outcome of that is that i will be sticking to my 8 core processors and press on with the heat battle.

Worth disabling cores on 8120?

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