FX-6200, A little chronicled journey

[RGone]

I'd like to try for 4.5 or 4.6 just to say I got there, but reading what you said about a few extra mhz kind of puts it all in perspective....why tax my cpu so much for so little gain?

Hehehe. What is not so well known is that when I was furnished some parts to bench as it were like ram and worked for a mobo company...well it was pedal to the metal. Do a bench and use one of my other computers for daily tasks.

There is a giant difference in doing it that way and being what we used to call a closet overclocker. Back then that was one who ran normal or near normal all week and honked on it over the weekend. That is tough to do super effectively, mostly due to cooling and parts purchased.

4.2Ghz is not anything to sneeze at if you have low voltages and low heat 24/7. Nothing to sneeze at, at all.

 

[skpwn]

Hehehe. What is not so well known is that when I was furnished some parts to bench as it were like ram and worked for a mobo company...well it was pedal to the metal. Do a bench and use one of my other computers for daily tasks.

Haha, wow, that sounds like that wasn't a half bad job. I work as a tech now, fielding questions, but I like to dabble when I get home. But I'm a BIG gamer...so when I saw the 6200 I had stars in my eyes. Battlefield 3 uses all the cores: I MUST OVERCLOCK!

4.2Ghz is not anything to sneeze at if you have low voltages and low heat 24/7. Nothing to sneeze at, at all.

And from what I hear, the 6xxx series is like a whole new beast @ 4.2. I'm sure I could hit 4.5 on air, with a ton of tweaking, but nearing 1.5 vcore scares me.

 

[tym64]

I was able to get the fx series 6100 to 4.5 Stable on 1.32 V. Using sabertooth motherboard. I used a combination of AMD overdrive, AI Suite. Of course I had liquid cooling. Had to tweak a few Bios Settings but not much.

I did it just to learn how to do it. I backed it down to 3.8. If you look around for overclocking the fx 6100 I put how I did it and had screen shots. IMHO, I found no difference in my gaming experience. I play all the latest greatest games. I know for some overclocking made a difference in there computer. For me and my usage I simply found no benefits. The biggest gain I got from changing my hardware around was a Solid State drive. That REALLY kicked windows 7 speeds up.

Found I am NOT a fan of liquid cooling. Someday that may change. For now, Air is fine. System runs cool, never comes close to over heating.

 

[skpwn]

I was able to get the fx series 6100 to 4.5 Stable on 1.32 V. Using sabertooth motherboard. I used a combination of AMD overdrive, AI Suite. Of course I had liquid cooling. Had to tweak a few Bios Settings but not much.

Hey Tym,

I went through some of your old post history and found your specs for the 6100. I thought it was really odd that you could hit 4.5 at 1.38 vcore when I've seen others with way higher vcore, and no offense, but you're not stable @ 4.5 with 1.38 vcore. You say you're doing all of this in AMD overdrive and then running OCCT for an hour.

As RGone pointed out,

. NOTE: A minimum of 2 hours of error FREE P95 would be the least time frame of stressing done to begin to consider an overclock as stable. You might use a short 20 minute run to give clue to whether or not a particular overclock may survive stabily and it takes at least 20 mins to see how far CPU CORE temps will rise. END NOTE.

you need to stress test with Prime 95 for at least two hours before it is considered stable. Prime will tell you if cores blow out and WHY they blow out - it's not stable because you're running 6 cores but 3 died during the process.

I would re-consider your overclock and go into the bios to change frequency settings while running Prime 95. Soon after...post your specs to this forum like we did

 

[tym64]

Hey Tym,

I went through some of your old post history and found your specs for the 6100. I thought it was really odd that you could hit 4.5 at 1.38 vcore when I've seen others with way higher vcore, and no offense, but you're not stable @ 4.5 with 1.38 vcore. You say you're doing all of this in AMD overdrive and then running OCCT for an hour.

As RGone pointed out,


you need to stress test with Prime 95 for at least two hours before it is considered stable. Prime will tell you if cores blow out and WHY they blow out - it's not stable because you're running 6 cores but 3 died during the process.

I would re-consider your overclock and go into the bios to change frequency settings while running Prime 95. Soon after...post your specs to this forum like we did

I ran both OCCT and LINPAK. I ran both about a hour. IMHO, think the trick to getting that way was the settings I did in the A.I suite. Think I ran it about a week that way. Played games, used the computer. So yea. Like you No offense intended. It was stable. It can be done. I did it.

Had a hard core overclocker in another fourm help me do it. Learn it. For my computer needs, the way I use my computer, Overclocking the cpu was pointless. I just did it to learn how to do it. After I figured it out, Set it back to stock overclock of 3.8.

Now it could be I just got lucky, got a decent chip. I don't know. I did post pics to prove I did it. Was honest with the tests I ran. Really not sure what the big deal is. I learned using the A.I suite from youtube videos of guys overclocking.

I have seen some swear you need to run prime95 for 8 hours. Dont agree with that. After talking to the hardcore clocker, He told me he thought I over tested my computer to much.

Think to many get stuck on it has to be done with way or that way. You can take many roads and still end up at the same destination. In the end, you can choose to believe or not believe. I respect that. Think I am full of hot air. I respect that as well. I simply post a step by step on how I did it. Hope it helps someone reach there desired overclock.

Seen a few people swear 20 min of LINPAK is all that is needed. So I went a hour, Did the same with OCCT.

If you google "get the fx 6100 to 4.5 Ghz on 1.38v" You will see others have reaced that goal as well.

 

[skpwn]

I have seen some swear you need to run prime95 for 8 hours. Dont agree with that. After talking to the hardcore clocker, He told me he thought I over tested my computer to much.

I've talked with another over clocker about how you're supposed to do it and he said I can reach 4.5 on 1.28 vcore. See what I did there?

In the end, you can choose to believe or not believe. I respect that. Think I am full of hot air.

Please post your screen shots of a 2 hour Prime 95 blend, HWMonitor during the blend, as well as the 3 tabs of CPU-Z.

 

[skpwn]

I did a little more testing on the 6200 and got to 4.5ghz on 1.49 vcore but the temps got as high as 61c after 20 minutes of blending, and that's when I pulled the plug.

I brute forced the processor to 4.2ghz using multiplier, on stock vcore, and it blended for 20 minutes so I decided to give it a try in a few games. It felt like there was some something slightly wrong with the way they were playing...so tonight I plan to brute it again and Prime for the entire 2 hours. I have a feeling that something just isn't right and I'll need to nudge the vcore just a hair.

 

[PaperGrape]

Load Line Control

What's up guys? I'm new here, was attracted by this thread as I am on the same journey. Hope you don't mind if I jump in.

Saw you were talking about LLC before. First off, my CPU OCed to 4300mhz 2hrs P95 stable at stock voltage! Pretty sweet. Only thing I moved up was northbridge to just under 1.25 per your suggestion Rgone.

So, after improving my rig to specs below, I got 4500mhz 2hrs P95 stable but was at 54c the whole time, sometimes 55.

So I started experimenting. Since I didn't know what LLC was all about (and the mobo manual had no info on it!!), I just went from 'Auto' which it was on the whole time to 'Extreme' just to see what was would happen at 4500, same voltages.

Initially I saw this and was giddy.

Vcore maxed at 1.50 instead of 1.52 (btw, this is with it set in BIOS to 1.425) and temps dropped during 20min p95 (Xed it out before I got screen shot) to 50c max!!!

But then I observed this ...

Kept automatically dropping multiplier to 17.5, effectively dropping the cpu clock 1ghz ... only happens under load of course, but not desirable. So, I don't know if this is news to anyone (or if I did the images right for that matter), but I'll be setting it back to auto.

I'll also be posting my next solid p95 settings, hopefully at 4600 if temps don't press much past 55.

BTW, thanks for the help so far!

 

[PaperGrape]

Oops, my rig is:

MOBO - Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+

CPU/Heatsink - AMD FX6200 with Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO (with coolermaster thermal compound it came with AND extra 120mm 79cmf airflow fan attached and pushing out)

RAM - 16gb Gskill Ripjaws 240pin 1600 DDR3

HDD - 1x Wester Digital 450gb Velociraptor

GPU - Sapphire Radeon HD 6870

PSU - Rosewill Capstone 750W 80Plus Gold

OS - Windows 7

Did I miss anything?

 

[PaperGrape]

OK, turned LLC back to Auto. Currently 20+ minutes into 4600mhz P95. CPUz is still showing regular drops to 3500mhz. Is this supposed to be happening? Did I forget to turn something off? The only thing I didn't find to turn off was APM. What is it and where do I find it to turn it off?

MOBO - Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+

CPU/Heatsink - AMD FX6200 with Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO (with coolermaster thermal compound it came with AND extra 120mm 79cmf airflow fan attached and pushing out)

RAM - 16gb Gskill Ripjaws 240pin 1600 DDR3

HDD - 1x Wester Digital 450gb Velociraptor

GPU - Sapphire Radeon HD 6870

PSU - Rosewill Capstone 750W 80Plus Gold OS - Windows 7

 

[skpwn]

I think the difference between our cases is that you're doing push/pull on the 212+. Mine is currently just doing push to the top of the case, where there is no extra room for the air to go anywhere.

All of the numbers and temps you're posting look to be about what I'd get if I could do that push/pull....so I did this:



The mod isn't done because I've got to add a dust filter, but I'll be tossing two 120mm cooler masters on the top of my case followed by a pull on the 212+.

Thanks for the information! Have you tried changing the FSB a bit instead of brute forcing the multiplier? I've been able to get a stable with less vcore doing it that way (not much less, like .1)

 

[skpwn]

I don't know where the APM is on the Gigabyte board, btw. But look for it and disable it a long with all of the other cooling options. C6, Cool N Quiet, all of the good stuff:

A. Turn-off/Disable APM, TurboBoost, C1E, C6, CoolNQuiet and in Win7 performance modes set to performance mode and not balanced or power saving.

That'll stop any fluxing...but I believe the FX processors like the flux vcore either way. You saw that I would set it at 1.42 and it'd use that to boot then default for anything passed that. So odd...

 

[RGone]

F10g BIOS onto the 990xa-ud3 adds 1 core per module mode, core enable disable, and the all important Master APM mode.

 

[PaperGrape]

BIOS

Ugh, that might be a problem. I have the 990fx not the 990xa. They have up to F6f beta bios. Am I missing something?

On another note, while I didn't take a screen shot because it was only 20 min, I did get a 4700mhz 20 min prime95 with CPU NB at 1.26 (it only goes slightly over or under 1.25 with manual settings) and 1.475 CPU. On one hand, CPUz still showed regular fluctuation down to 3.5/3.8 mhz.

On the other hand, those fluctuations don't occur with the games I am playing right now, and the computer is REALLY FAST. I'm loving it. I didn't run longer than 20 minutes because temps were at 59c. I have arctic silver 5 thermal compound on the way to see if it makes much of a difference.

 

[PaperGrape]

That's a pretty cool mod Skypwn With what you said, you must have the Cooler Master horizontal, huh? That might actually work better with the push pull too, since the 140mm is on top of my case. I'll see if it fits that way when I apply the AS5

 

[RGone]

1.475 CPU. On one hand, CPUz still showed regular fluctuation down to 3.5/3.8 mhz.

On the other hand, those fluctuations don't occur with the games I am playing right now, and the computer is REALLY FAST. I'm loving it. I didn't run longer than 20 minutes because temps were at 59c. I have arctic silver 5 thermal compound on the way to see if it makes much of a difference.

Honestly I cannot see diddly wrong with that. No slowing when stressed, but why be running wide open when doing nothing? Sort of sounds like the way things really should be. No sense in idling at 4.7Ghz when there is nothing to do and you are already having heat problems when clocked, so keep it slow and cooler as long as possible.

 

[IronHead]

AMD FX-6200 @ 4285.0 MHz

I am new to this Thread and have read alot so far this is what i have gotten out of mine so far please reply and let me know still running P95 to see how stable at 30 min stable we will see @ 2hrs


MB Brand : Asus
MB Model : M5A88-V EVO
NB : AMD 880G rev 00
SB : AMD SB850 rev 40
GPU Type : Radeon HD 6870
DirectX Version : 11.0
RAM : 6144 MB DDR3 Dual Channel
RAM Speed : 766.7 MHz (3:10) @ 9-9-9-24
Slot 1 : 4096MB (10700)
Slot 1 Manufacturer : Hyundai Electronics
Slot 2 : 2048MB (10700)
Slot 2 Manufacturer : Samsung

 

[RGone]

"IronHead" it is actually better to begin your own thread. We comment mostly on what the original poster refers to and other things are best handled in a poster specific thread.

Yes, looks pretty good but that is about all can say since if there are other issues to refer to; then you really lose exposure for your situation.

 

[skpwn]

That's a pretty cool mod Skypwn With what you said, you must have the Cooler Master horizontal, huh? That might actually work better with the push pull too, since the 140mm is on top of my case. I'll see if it fits that way when I apply the AS5

Hyper 212+, but it has to go horizontal thanks to the brackets on the M5A97.

Your specs for 4.7 are interesting. I'm going to try to emulate them in the next couple of days.

 

[skpwn]

Who says I don't have room to OC? This is 20 minutes at 4.2 with push pull on the processor.

Interesting enough, the pull fan is doing full bore. I should probably connect that to my fan controller.