FX-9370 - 220W TDP

Hello Everyone,

Looking into updating my hardware a little and well to be honest I am a little confused by the newer FX 9### chips. Several show TDP in the 220w range but most boards are only supporting 140, even my ASUS Sabertooth 990 version 1 board is an 8+2 digi at 140.

Does this mean at this point we are restricted by the board to really push these chips?

Thanks as always.

220W is about what an 8350 will suck at 5+ Ghz so theres really nothing to worry about. Honestly though buying a 9xxx series AMD cpu is for people who dont know about overclocking, or simply want to waste money.

So what you are saying is better off sticking with an 8 series? At that point I am not sure I will gain much overall considering where my OC is sitting at with my 1100. . .

Taipei, Taiwan (2 September, 2013)
The ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z, Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 and M5A99FX Pro R2.0 motherboards all feature AM3+ Socket with full support for AMD’s extreme-performance FX-9370 and FX-9590 processors. With eight-cores and unlocked clock speeds up to 5GHz, the FX-9000 Series requires incredible amounts of power and generates considerable heat — AMD recommends a 1200W power supply and liquid processor cooling.

Bijiont said:

Hello Everyone,

Looking into updating my hardware a little and well to be honest I am a little confused by the newer FX 9### chips. Several show TDP in the 220w range but most boards are only supporting 140, even my ASUS Sabertooth 990 version 1 board is an 8+2 digi at 140.

Does this mean at this point we are restricted by the board to really push these chips?

Thanks as always.

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I believe your board is OK for it.
Johan45 is running a 9370 with a Sabertooth 2.0 - Maybe he'll see this thread and pop in. I know your board should be able to handle it even if it's a V1.0 board. Only hangup could be a BIOS update might be needed and that's about it that I can think of.

BTW Johan has said his 9370 in some instances seems capable of outpacing his 8350. Could be a slight advantage in having a 9xxx chip but not enough for me personally to pick one up here, I'll just make do with my 8320.

That is the confusing part because I am pretty sure the Sabertooth 990FX Gen3/R2 boards are using the same 8+2 digi that the Gen1 is.

Dr. McCoy said:

I believe your board is OK for it.
Johan45 is running a 9370 with a Sabertooth 2.0 - Maybe he'll see this thread and pop in. I know your board should be able to handle it even if it's a V1.0 board. Only hangup could be a BIOS update might be needed and that's about it that I can think of.

BTW Johan has said his 9370 in some instances seems capable of outpacing his 8350. Could be a slight advantage in having a 9xxx chip but not enough for me personally to pick one up here, I'll just make do with my 8320.

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This is kind of why I am asking because if the 9 series isn't bring more to the table than say 8 series I will see a small gain over my current clocks considering most applications I have aren't utilizing 8 cores.

Bijiont said:

That is the confusing part because I am pretty sure the Sabertooth 990FX Gen3/R2 boards are using the same 8+2 digi that the Gen1 is.

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I believe they do as well, it's just the newer versions are well.... Newer. More or less the newer boards are updated models like the CHV vs the CHV-Z and I can tell you the Z board is probrably a more capable performer BUT it's also harder to tweak properly. My original CHV is much easier than my Z board is to squeeze the last bit from it but again that could be just me.

EDIT: You can ask Johan his opinion on that for your particular planned use of the chip whether it's really worth it or not.

Bijiont said:

That is the confusing part because I am pretty sure the Sabertooth 990FX Gen3/R2 boards are using the same 8+2 digi that the Gen1 is.

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Stay far far away from the sabertooth gen3 R2.0 its a piece of junk.

Sabertooth R2.0 original can push that load just fine. I have taken my 8320 up to ~5.6Ghz just to see if I could do it. It was absolutely unstable mind you but it is possible. The sabertooth 1,2 gen3, chv, and chv-z all use the same VRM design so the main difference is color / options / bios.

AMD 1100T BE | MoutainMod Ascension | 4.5Ghz [200x22.5] @ 1.48v | 16GB 1600 DDR3 [7-7-7-24-2T] @ 1.652v

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1100T at 4.5ghz?? I don't think AMD has anything to offer that can take this and make it better. Nor is there a particular chip that you could consider upgrading to.

Fact is that 4.5ghz on that 1100T should multi task just about as well as an 8 core FX at 5ghz.

Upgrading for fun of it, well by all means, FX is really a great way to go.

Does this mean at this point we are restricted by the board to really push these chips?

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There's a little more to overclocking than can my board handle it....

Really what it mainly boils down to is how well the chip responds to voltage on X and X overclock. Binning is a big factor. So FX-9xxxx will ALWAYS clock 4.7-5.0ghz stable. This is not a promise on any FX-8xxx series chip.

In short about your board.... It'll be just fine. If your clocking an 1100T to 4.5ghz (likely near 220w) It'll very likely handle an FX-9xxxx processor and you will very much enjoy yourself and overclocking the cpu as well. In some ways you may not be impressed at all......

my 2 pennies....

ShrimpBrime said:

1100T at 4.5ghz?? I don't think AMD has anything to offer that can take this and make it better. Nor is there a particular chip that you could consider upgrading to.

Fact is that 4.5ghz on that 1100T should multi task just about as well as an 8 core FX at 5ghz.

Upgrading for fun of it, well by all means, FX is really a great way to go.



There's a little more to overclocking than can my board handle it....

Really what it mainly boils down to is how well the chip responds to voltage on X and X overclock. Binning is a big factor. So FX-9xxxx will ALWAYS clock 4.7-5.0ghz stable. This is not a promise on any FX-8xxx series chip.

In short about your board.... It'll be just fine. If your clocking an 1100T to 4.5ghz (likely near 220w) It'll very likely handle an FX-9xxxx processor and you will very much enjoy yourself and overclocking the cpu as well. In some ways you may not be impressed at all......

my 2 pennies....

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Thanks for the reply, yeah this is why I held off on the 8 series when it came out because the 1100T is keeping up with them in most respects. Granted that higher L2 would be nice but honestly, meh. Just wasn't sure if the jump from 1100T to 9 would be worth it in most cases with the major exception of better IMC (1866) on the 8 and 9 series chips.

Yeah I apparently got a golden 1100T because this thing OC's like a crack fiend and keeps coming back for more. I have it at 4.5 stable right now 24/7 and can push it close to 4.9 but can't get a verify off it (trust me I have tried).

Ya, even the 9 series chip are a loose on single threading performance. Being your OS for example only runs 1 thread, it's senseless even to get a 5ghz 9 series turbo chip. As RGone stated, they are very power hungry and produce MAD amounts of heat. Usually on regular liquid, Not Johan super chilled ice pack set up, 1.5v and beyond is a real difficult creature to tame and call stable at the same time.

I'd be afraid to say you'll find a 5.4ghz stable 9 series chip on a standard un-chilled water loop. It's not really the board, it's the heat issue. These chips love the cold. Cold good, Fire bad!

The FX-8320 I de-lidded is indeed a 5ghz daily runner. But it took the ability to remove the heat straight from the cores rather through the IHS plate. Just to give you an idea of how hot they are..... seeing a spike at core 0 to 70c is such a bad thing. You'll loose stability even on a stock chip.

But they are great fun. The OC headroom Loss does not justify the higher price over the 8 series chips. So I'd say an FX-8350 would be a better buy based on the experience of having a 800mhz overclock rather than possibly 200mhz on the 9 series. Basically the 9 series is a 5ghz NO challenge chip. If your up for that, then ya buy it. Otherwise I feel the OC experience may not be all what it "should' be cracked up to be.

As far as performance goes during gaming. Very little difference. Not enough to justify 150-300$ worth of Cpu imo.

Don't get me wrong , I love my FX-cpus but going from that 1100t @4.5 really would be a bit of a wash. Unless you run software that's heavily multithreaded I don't think you would see any benefit at all to be honest.
That being said , I don't see any reason why your board wouldn't work. If it can run a Pildriver it should handle the 9xxx series as well. I still run an older bios on my board so there is no need for a "special" bios for these chips.
The biggest advantage my 9370 has over the 8350 is lower volts for the same clocks. At 4.8 I'm using 1.428v on my 9370. The 8350 can't even come close but as the clocks increase they both top out in the mid 5s at pretty much the same point. The only difference is I'm using less power again on the 9370. Heat and cooling are the limiting factor on these CPUs whether it's the 8 or 9 series.

an 1100t at 4.5, keep that sweet little puppy and forget fx.