My FX-8370 Overclocking Adventure

[gabessdsp]

So my computer was giving me issues and so this week I decided to go out and get a new system. Upgraded the MOBO, RAM, Processor and just for the heck of it the GPU's as well. There was a great deal on the FX-8370 so I decided to get that and just overclock it for my needs and deal with this until AM4 comes out hopefully in 2016


So currently my system is:
Coolermaster HAF-X Case
FX-8370 x8 Black Edition
MSI R9 380 4G x2
ASUS Crossfire Forumula V Z
32GB 1866 Kingston RAM

OS runs off of an SSD, and I have 3 HDD's of various sizes for all of my other stuff.

I figured I would get into liquid cooling as well and so I purchased the EVGA360 starter kit, which surprisingly seems to do very well. I am just cooling the CPU for now, and maybe next year when I do my AM4 build I will look into also liquid cooling my GPU's. I just don't want to spend $240 to get custom blocks made for my MSI 380's. If anybody else has a cheaper option to provide or suggest pelase let me know and maybe I will cool them sooner.

I've been reading around and am starting my adventure today and plan to keep everything in this thread so I can see my progress and others can share in it with me and/or offer suggestions.

Running Prime95 for 20-30 minutes here are my base temps:


Base 3DMark Scores. Nothing Special. (Not sure why it thinks I have an 8370E)


AMD Overdrive Benchmark Base Scores:

 

[Mandrake4565]

gabessdsp, welcome and keep the posts coming. If you need help just ask. When posting Hwmonitor include the Voltage as well as the Cpu temps. It gives us a better look under the hood, so to speak.

 

[gabessdsp]

Isn't what I posted the CPU temps? It's 8370 and then the temperature. I forgot about voltage though

 

[Mandrake4565]

Package temps are the Core temps the Cpu is the socket temperature, both are important. AMD doesn't actually have a temp sensor in the cores from what I know. My understanding is it's an equation AMD came up with to determine temps above 40-45c under load. This is why you will see idle temps below ambient, which is impossible unless using Sub ambient cooling.

The actual temp sensor is in the motherboard socket which would be the temp that isn't shown. A lot of times when one is using H2O to cool the processor the Cpu/Socket temp will be a lot higher then the Package/Core temp. This because the Air that would normally be flowing over the socket area as well as the Vrm heatinks from an Air heatsink is removed. Most of us overclocking these Fx 8xxx chips will mount a fan directly to the Vrm heatsink as well as on the backside of the board. This isn't 100% necessary but will help to keep the Socket temp closer to the core temps and therefore give you a bit more headroom temp wise when Ocing. I'd bet your Socket temp as is will be about 18-20c higher then the Package temp, with fans on the heatsinks it will usually be 8-10c higher.

 

[gabessdsp]

Ahh I see, I wasn't thinking about that but I will post those as well.

I'll have to look around at how some people are doing those fans, to me it just doesn't seem like there is enough space for that. It might take some case modification.

 

[Johan45]

Here's a couple I have put behind the socket, first one I got a 120x 15mm slim fan and mounted it to the door. Drilled all the holes myself. The second sits inside the door. 50mm chipset fan, the one on your stock cooler will do held on with double sided tape.

 

[gabessdsp]

For the back one to work for me I would probably have to cut some exhaust vents on the back side panel of my HAF-X. I don't mind doing that for now because it doesn't really have any resell value anyway. As for the other side of the case there's actually a bunch of fans still pulling air. I should probably make a diagram just so I can make sure of the airflow and I'll have to post some pictures as well.