Advice needed for overclocking the AMD FX 4300

[TheXenonMyth]

Hey guys hope you're all doing well!
I recently bought myself a gtx 960 graphics card and to my shock and dismay it seems that it is being heavily bottlenecked by my CPU (AMD FX 4300). So I tried overclocking it but it just wont go past 4.0 GHz no matter what Vcore(or wahtever CPU-NB setting or voltage) I provide to it. (I have tried uptil 1.5v for 4.2 GHZ!) Nothing seems to work. I disabled all the power saving defaults for the mobo (an ASROCK 970 Pro2). And it seems that i am the only person with this mobo as well.
It seems there is a problem with mobo as well. Whenever i update my bios to any of the new versions. The system just wont start up properly(e.g. AERO would be disabled in windows 7 and the PC would perform like ****), i would have to then restart it to get it wrking properly and VOILA! everything would be back to normal.
Currently on BIOS version 1.3.
Other PC Specs-
4GB X 2 Corsair Vengeance 1600 MHz
Antec VP450 450 Watts PSU

Any help would be really appreciated as I really cant afford to change my mobo or my CPU(having just bought the expensive GPU)

 

[trents]

What are you cooling the CPU with? Have you monitored temps while stress testing? Is your instability caused by a thermal issue?

 

[TheXenonMyth]

What are you cooling the CPU with? Have you monitored temps while stress testing? Is your instability caused by a thermal issue?

Hey thanks for the fast reply man. I am pretty sure that temps are not the reason for it. Because at stock 4.0 GHz it would idle at 27 something degrees and with prime95 blend running for about an hour it would cap out at about 43-45 degrees. All this while using the stock cooler that came with the CPU.

 

[OptyTrooper]

4.0GHz is all your going to get on air and quite frankly I'd be surprised if it's stable @ that even since your using the OEM heastsink.

 

[Kenrou]

What are your LLC options in BIOS ?

 

[trents]

I suspect even though your package temps are okay that the VRM section of the motherboard is overheating. It has no heatsinks on the VRM and only has 4+1 power phase.

 

[TheXenonMyth]

4.0GHz is all your going to get on air and quite frankly I'd be surprised if it's stable @ that even since your using the OEM heastsink.

is that it?? i've seen people push upto 4.8 GHz on air alone. I agree they were not using stock heatsinks but i just want it to stop bottlenecking my card so much...

- - - Updated - - -

What are your LLC options in BIOS ?

There are none. I checked the BIOS inside out for it but could not find any option even remotely similar to LLC

- - - Updated - - -

I suspect even though your package temps are okay that the VRM section of the motherboard is overheating. It has no heatsinks on the VRM and only has 4+1 power phase.

That is what i had suspected but VRMs also seem fine. I'll post screenshots with the 4.0 GHz overclock. And if i really cant overclock any further than this. Then, what do you suggest are my options to remove this bottleneck??? Would it be better if i just returned the card and get a GTX 750 TI instead? Or should i sell this board and get a better board?? Or should i just go bananas and completely replace the AMD CPU+MOBO combo and buy an i3 combo instead (which is not even possible for me in the current state as i just dont have the required funds)

- - - Updated - - -

4.0GHz is all your going to get on air and quite frankly I'd be surprised if it's stable @ that even since your using the OEM heastsink.

I can only get it stable at 4.0 GHz if i bump up the Vcore to 1.4375

 

[Kenrou]

is that it?? i've seen people push upto 4.8 GHz on air alone.

I am assuming that said people have a better motherboard I think OptyTrooper is correct in that is the best you are going to get if it does not go any higher with such low temps. If indeed it is a 4+1 the motherboard itself cannot give anymore power to the CPU to overclock further because it simply cant or you got really unlucky with the CPU

 

[TheXenonMyth]

I suspect even though your package temps are okay that the VRM section of the motherboard is overheating. It has no heatsinks on the VRM and only has 4+1 power phase.

can you please tell me what does the 4+1 power phase mean? I cant really seem to understand it...

 

[Kenrou]

From a very basic standpoint the power phases are like the firing order of the cyclinders in your car.
For instance, if the board (or graphics card) has eight phase power, then the incoming voltage from the PSU is made available to eight buck converters* (each being a transistor to take the voltage load from the PSU, and 2 switches that alternately charge and discharge the load from an inductor) - so these eight converters fire through one cycle (i.e. at 45° if one cycle equals 360°) through their seperate switches, and are rejoined into a single board input. Technically, dividing the incoming current through seperate switches/phases reduces heat and voltage drops... So, the more converters (or phases) then, theoretically, the cleaner the input power since you have incoming power more times per cycle -less opportunity for current drop between discharges.
Using the car spark plug analogy, it would be akin to an 8-phase board being a V-8 engine, while a 4-phase board would be an in-line/V-4. The +2 part of the equation (8+2, 12+2 etc.) refers to the same principle, but in this instance the current is going to the memory controller (either chipset, or in the CPU if the controller is part of the CPU package).

* this converts the load from the PSU into a load that the CPU and board can utilise (a DC-to-DC converter).

For a more in-depth without analogies : http://www.overclock.net/t/891696/a-short-power-phase-design-explanation

 

[TheXenonMyth]

I am assuming that said people have a better motherboard I think OptyTrooper is correct in that is the best you are going to get if it does not go any higher with such low temps. If indeed it is a 4+1 the motherboard itself cannot give anymore power to the CPU to overclock further because it simply cant or you got really unlucky with the CPU

yeah i understand that is a possibility..

- - - Updated - - -

From a very basic standpoint the power phases are like the firing order of the cyclinders in your car.
For instance, if the board (or graphics card) has eight phase power, then the incoming voltage from the PSU is made available to eight buck converters* (each being a transistor to take the voltage load from the PSU, and 2 switches that alternately charge and discharge the load from an inductor) - so these eight converters fire through one cycle (i.e. at 45° if one cycle equals 360°) through their seperate switches, and are rejoined into a single board input. Technically, dividing the incoming current through seperate switches/phases reduces heat and voltage drops... So, the more converters (or phases) then, theoretically, the cleaner the input power since you have incoming power more times per cycle -less opportunity for current drop between discharges.
Using the car spark plug analogy, it would be akin to an 8-phase board being a V-8 engine, while a 4-phase board would be an in-line/V-4. The +2 part of the equation (8+2, 12+2 etc.) refers to the same principle, but in this instance the current is going to the memory controller (either chipset, or in the CPU if the controller is part of the CPU package).

* this converts the load from the PSU into a load that the CPU and board can utilise (a DC-to-DC converter).

For a more in-depth without analogies : http://www.overclock.net/t/891696/a-short-power-phase-design-explanation

thanks for that really awesome explanation!
coming back to the bottlenecking problem at hand. What do you suggest i do with my system then? As I would really like to utilise the full potential of my GPU and my system in general.

 

[Kenrou]

Well besides the obvious new motherboard, depending on your budget a 6300 wouldn't hurt you, OR you can try to overclock your 4300 to at least 4.5ghz (more if you can, i had one that went all the way to 5.2ghz on a nh-d15 cooler).

 

[trents]

Higher power phase rating means there are more power producing components to share the load of making power for the CPU. Since there are more of them, each one doesn't have to work as hard and therefore they run cooler. Thus, an 8+2 power phase motherboard will tolerate higher voltages in overclocking and will allow for higher overclocks of the CPU. The power phase components lie between the CPU socket and the I/O ports at the back edge of the motherboard.

 

[TheXenonMyth]

Higher power phase rating means there are more power producing components to share the load of making power for the CPU. Since there are more of them, each one doesn't have to work as hard and therefore they run cooler. Thus, an 8+2 power phase motherboard will tolerate higher voltages in overclocking and will allow for higher overclocks of the CPU. The power phase components lie between the CPU socket and the I/O ports at the back edge of the motherboard.

So that must be the reason why, providing more and more voltage the CPU is not helping my overclock

- - - Updated - - -

Well besides the obvious new motherboard, depending on your budget a 6300 wouldn't hurt you, OR you can try to overclock your 4300 to at least 4.5ghz (more if you can, i had one that went all the way to 5.2ghz on a nh-d15 cooler).

A cpu upgrade is quite frankyl out of the question for me right now. The most I can do is to hold off for some time and get me new MOBO. And supposing I do get myself a new motherboard in the next two months or so, how much future proof my system would be assuming I do get the 4300 to 4.5 GHz or so? Or would it be better to wait for the next six months and replace the cpu-mobo combo with a core i3 or a core i5(the most entry level one, if at all)???

 

[OptyTrooper]

Lets say you get 4.5GHz+, it's not likely it will alleviate your bottleneck. All the overclocking in the world won't compensate for poor architecture. Say your nickels and dimes and spring for an i5 system.

 

[Mr.Scott]

A cpu upgrade is quite frankyl out of the question for me right now. The most I can do is to hold off for some time and get me new MOBO. And supposing I do get myself a new motherboard in the next two months or so, how much future proof my system would be assuming I do get the 4300 to 4.5 GHz or so? Or would it be better to wait for the next six months and replace the cpu-mobo combo with a core i3 or a core i5(the most entry level one, if at all)???

New board will not help you if you can't cool the CPU.
And if you can't cool a 4 core, you'll not be able to cool a 6 either.

 

[Kenrou]

My old 4300 4.7ghz was JUST over the bottleneck with a heavily overclocked MSI 660 Ti, the 960 does around 60% more workload maybe ? so its not a lot if you think about it and will keep you going well until the funds arrive for new parts. It is still a decent gaming chip and worked well for me over the years if you can "stretch hes legs"

If it were up to me, i would get a new motherboard 1st, maybe a M5A99FX PRO R2.0 (for "future-proofing") but you will have to hold off on the overclocking until you get the cooler, you cant go wrong with the Hyper 212 EVO with 2 fans its very cheap, which will give you the overhead you need for much larger overclocks.

If you're on a tight budget and don't want to get a new CPU just now, a cheaper motherboard like the M5A97 EVO R2.0 will be absolutely fine until you can upgrade.

 

[TheXenonMyth]

My old 4300 4.7ghz was JUST over the bottleneck with a heavily overclocked MSI 660 Ti, the 960 does around 60% more workload maybe ? so its not a lot if you think about it and will keep you going well until the funds arrive for new parts. It is still a decent gaming chip and worked well for me over the years if you can "stretch hes legs"

If it were up to me, i would get a new motherboard 1st, maybe a M5A99FX PRO R2.0 (for "future-proofing") but you will have to hold off on the overclocking until you get the cooler, you cant go wrong with the Hyper 212 EVO with 2 fans its very cheap, which will give you the overhead you need for much larger overclocks.

If you're on a tight budget and don't want to get a new CPU just now, a cheaper motherboard like the M5A97 EVO R2.0 will be absolutely fine until you can upgrade.

The problem really is that I'm from India and it really is NOT a country for a budget PC gamer because technology is quite expensive here. I've seen prices of MOBOS, CPUs and GPUs on Newegg and NCIX and all. And even after we take into account the average exchange rate of Indian currency against USD (just for the sake of it) which is 1USD equals ~ 62 INR, the prices are almost double of what we should be getting the part for. That is why i just cant go the whole mile and get myself a new PC. But yes, as you just said that its a decent gaming chip as far as she can extend her legs. So yeah, I'll probably run it for a year or so and then get myself a Shiny new Core-i5 as i think I'm quite done with AMD for the foreseeable future.

- - - Updated - - -

Thank You so much for all the help guys. Thanks to you all, I'm a wee bit smarter about the whole overclocking thing now. Keep revving those clocks!!

 

[Johan45]

Yes , I've heard that about India before, which to me seems so off. You're so close to China, where 90% of this stuff is made and headquartered. It's not so much that AMD is bad, your motherboard and cooler are the ones not up to task. What kind of price can you find on a board like this one localy GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3P on Amazon it was 11,000 ri but amazon is always over priced.

 

[Kenrou]

The problem really is that I'm from India and it really is NOT a country for a budget PC gamer because technology is quite expensive here.

Can you not have it sent from another country ? my 980 Ti for example came from Germany and i live in the UK, Amazon does good deals in postage most of the time.