fx8150 thoughts

[Mooncatt]

hi! wasnt quite sure where to put this as i have a couple of questions. i decided to overclock this cpu, knowing the kind of heat this thing throws out i bought a Thermalright Archon to remedy this as my old vendetta 2 just wasnt coping even at stock clock speeds.....it was getting up towards the 60C mark.
the Archon is a much better cooler and ive had the cpu to 4.6Ghz, but again temps become an issue, i cant run the CPU at full load. it just hits 60c in no time at all. i can game with it and temps are still a worry (hitting around 56C)
I took the side off the pc to see if it would help......it might have saved me 2c and that was it.
my case is nothing special at all. it has x1 120mm intake at the front, x1 120 exhaust at the rear and a 90mm rear exhaust that i bodged on and thats it!!
so i am wondering of i bought a better case would that put the temps down? or am i wasting my time? i would have thought if there was heat build up inside the case causing the high temps the removal of the side would have reduced the temps quite a lot?

im a fairly seasoned overclocker and know what im doing pretty much. for now i decided to just let the cpu run at clock speeds with the turbo core enabled......it seems to run at 4.2ghz all the time no matter what. i was under the impression it was supposed to run at 3.6 then jump to 4.2 when under load? anyway its sat idle at 33C at the moment.
so id be grateful for any thoughts and advice on the case thing and any other advice you guys have on this cpu!
cheers!

system specs
FX8150
AsRock 990fx extreme 3
8 gig DDR3 Corsair XMS3
Viper bronze rated 850w PSU
Gainward GTX470

 

[caddi daddi]

case model, and your general location (nubian desert or antarctic) please

 

[Johan45]

Welcome to the Forum Mooncatt

You say you set the machine to default in BIOS and all 8 cores are still at 4.2??

 

[Mooncatt]

hi, im in the UK so temps are low and my living room ambient is around 20c

yes in bios its all stock apart from the energy saving stuff which ive turned off.
ive also turned off spread spectrum too. turbo core is enabled.

 

[Johan45]

Most likely it's the turbo core accelerating single threaded apps. If you shut that off I'm pretty certain that would stop. Can you improve the airflow through your case or is it just time for an upgrade?? When I had my FX's in a box I pushed 300+ CFM through the case to aid in cooling.

 

[Mooncatt]

well this is what im asking mate.
will improved air flow decrease those temps? like i said i removed the side cover only to find it made 2C difference and nothing more. so is it a case of thats just how hot the cpu is getting and no amount of airflow is gonna reduce it or is a better case gonna pay dividends? ive been looking at the Zalman Z11 plus.

also isnt the turbo core only supposed to run the cpu at 4.2 under load? i thought it should run at 3.6 until it needs the boost then run at 4.2

 

[ShrimpBrime]

Your heat sink is acting like any air cooler you'd use within a few degrees.

I'd say spend the money on an All In One liquid cooler and then be happier with my temps instead of buying a PC case that won't make the air cooler any better.

GLHF!

ŞɧʁɨmǷβʁɨmЄ

 

[Johan45]

S_B is correct though , the limit in most cases for Air Coolin is 4.5-4.7 depending on CPU and setup.

 

[Mooncatt]

ok, so really hitting 4.6 with a 57C temp when gaming is about right then.

 

[Johan45]

Ya it's about right, if you can get more air through you current case it never hurts. Taking the side off is an indication when the temps drop a bit but not Ideal. If you were to point a desk fan at it with it open and see a dramatic drop then airflow is an issue. You may just want to back it down to 4.5 bring up your Htref a bit to get 4550 with lower volts and call it a night.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

ok, so really hitting 4.6 with a 57C temp when gaming is about right then.

Oh yea, your right on the moneys. The cooler is doing OK in my book..... but why ever settle. You could be gaming 4.9ghz.

here in my opinion again, overclocking you cpu for modern games is useless. Your video card is the bottle neck in your system.... I know cause I run a 480 and my DX 10 and 11 scores get clobbered and have much lower frame rates playing newer titles. EDIT EXAMPLE http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7628403#post7628403

Maybe save up some dollas for a GTX 760 or something around that nature?!

 

[bassnut]

A tough question to answer in its own. I really feel that anytime you can remove heat from the case its time well spent. Back a while ago I did the same thing installing a custom loop in my Coolermaser Cosmos II the results were disappointing to say the lease. After going back in the case and playing around with different fans and getting a proper arflow going in the case I ended up with a 20*C difference in my temps. Others have tried working with airflow in their cases here as well with mixed results.

Although I cant tell you for certain that you will see such drastic changes in your temps as I did I feel there is a good chance you will be able to get better temps with your system with the proper case and good airflow.

EDIT....

Johan makes a good point with the limits to what kind of an OC you can expect with air cooling even an AIO cooler as you have pretty much come to your limits with your cooler.

 

[RGone]

You may just want to back it down to 4.5 bring up your Htref a bit to get 4550 with lower volts and call it a night.

That actually may well be very sound advice. I can remember now that "ssjwizard" and myself tested 81xx cpus and their most bang for the heat was actually right at 4.3Ghz and going faster and faster made very minimal increase in cpu peformance with the 81xx series of FX.

That FX-8150 like all AMD processors still responds well to tight ram timings. Tight ram timings and CPU_NB of at least 2600Mhz with ram at DDR3-1800-ish would pickup some gaming ooomph. Maybe not a lot but certainly should be measurable with some benchmarks.

RGone...sterski.

EDIT:
I had meant to write about this in the text above but forgot it. AsRock 990fx extreme 3 board has shown itself overtime to have problems with 8 core cpus when pushed hard. The cpu voltage supply circuit (VRMs) was not as robust as it might need be for 8 cores when really pushed. Some of the boards actually did fail over time when trying to reach stable speeds beyond about 4.5Ghz.

Because of the overall nature of the beast, heat and board combination, it might be well to pull the clock back some, tune-up the ram and put a much more powerful video card into the system mix. That might be the most sane project going forward overall.
END EDIT.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

Because of the overall nature of the beast, heat and board combination, it might be well to pull the clock back some, tune-up the ram and put a much more powerful video card into the system mix. That might be the most sane project going forward overall.
END EDIT.

+1 At least with that cooler. Add some air flow to the current VRM set up and see if that helps longevity of life and OC.

 

[Mooncatt]

some awesome advice there guys thanks very much!

one more thing for you.....
i swapped out my 1055t for this 8150. i had the 1055t clocked at a stable 3.8...i did try 4ghz but the return in performance was so small it was pointless.

in benchmarks ive tried my 1055t outperforms the 8150 in wprime its 2secs faster. in the futuremark benches the 1055t is slightly better.....what gives?

 

[Johan45]

The 1055t has a better per clock performance than the 8150. That's what gives. The 8 core really only shows it's goodness if you're using all 8. Great for video work and such but gaming your 1055 will probably work better.

 

[Mooncatt]

so its back to the old 6core then for me, oh well it was worth a try. thanks for all the help guys!

 

[Johan45]

The only way to compete against that thuban would take an 83/63 series FX and OC the pee out of it which would take great cooling. If you're just gaming get that thuban a bit colder and up the speed a bit, you'll be good for a while.

 

[Mooncatt]

Yeah sounds like what im gonna do. Never had any heat issues with thuban and vendetta2 cooler. My new thermalright should keep it very cool indeed.
One thing I did notice about my thuban when I tried to push it over 4ghz in bios it didnt register those clocks. ...I could input 4.2 4.4 or whatever i wanted but when it came to desktop every program I had still said 4ghz :/

 

[Johan45]

Not sure what might be doing that, maybe an APM setting or something??