Newbie Question - AMD 4300

[loz2014]

Hi there peoples,

Excuse me for my lack of processor knowledge, but I've just put together a bundle, consisting of :

Asrock Extreme 3 R2.0
AMD FX 4-Core Black Edition FX-4300
Corsair Memory Vengeance Black 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz
Thermaltake 850w toughpower
Hyper evo 212 Cooling

My question is, using CPU-Z, there's are my readings... The clock speed doesn't look correct.



Can someone tell me if this correct. Thank you

 

[bob4933]

Its correct. You have bios settings that are allowing it to basically throttle pc performance as it sees fit. See your "multiplier"? When that reaches 20 it will be 4ghz.



Are you planning on overclocking?

 

[loz2014]

Its correct. You have bios settings that are allowing it to basically throttle pc performance as it sees fit. See your "multiplier"? When that reaches 20 it will be 4ghz.



Are you planning on overclocking?

wow, thanks for a fast response. All my bios settings are set to default/auto.

I did try changing the multiplier to from 19 to 20 to see if it would go to 4ghz, which it did for about 10 seconds on CPU-Z, then reverted back to the reading I have in the screen shot.

Yes I'm planning on running the machine at its full potential, 4.5ghz if possible. But don't know where to start.

 

[bob4933]

wow, thanks for a fast response. All my bios settings are set to default/auto.

I did try changing the multiplier to from 19 to 20 to see if it would go to 4ghz, which it did for about 10 seconds on CPU-Z, then reverted back to the reading I have in the screen shot.

Yes I'm planning on running the machine at its full potential, 4.5ghz if possible. But don't know where to start.

Be careful with that mobo, I had a similar one crap out on me not too long ago.


Take it slow and easy. If things start getting warm, tune it down. I would set a goal of 4.2ghz, maybe even 4.0ghz, and go from there. 4.5 ghz is probably not happening unless you have won the chip lottery. I noticed on my boards and overclocks, you can tune it up a lot at first without adding much, if any voltage at all. Then somewhere it hits a point where you need to add tons of voltage to get small gains. Bear in mind, the difference in performance between those two settings is going to be minor, and not really noticeable in gaming. Im running 4.2ghz on my 8320, but dinked around with 5.0 ghz, and although "cool", I didn't really notice any differences.



To start, read this. Theres a guide on here, but its not as thorough.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...nce-Scaling-Charts-max-OCs)LN2-Results-coming!

this guy does a pretty good job explaining things

 

[loz2014]

Thanks bob4933, I'll bear that in mind. I don't suppose you or anyone on here knows the correct procedure for changing cpu settings on a Asrock mobo? I know I'm supposed to disable certain settings, change multiplier and voltages??

Any advice is greatly appreciated

 

[bob4933]

Thanks bob4933, I'll bear that in mind. I don't suppose you or anyone on here knows the correct procedure for changing cpu settings on a Asrock mobo? I know I'm supposed to disable certain settings, change multiplier and voltages??

Any advice is greatly appreciated

read my edit

 

[loz2014]

read my edit

cheers, I must have posted as you were editing.

The video guides are a good help, but I tend to get a little lost when trying to cross reference the settings from a ASUS mobo to a Asrock mobo or any other come to that.

 

[Johan45]

Welcome to the forum loz
Bob is correct when he says your board may be an issue. The CPU speed shown is becaude you have Windows in balanced mode, set it to performance mode and it should clear things up. My first bit of advice would be to run the board at default. Download and run P95 in blend mode with HWMonitor free running at the same time. This will give us a pretty good Idea as to whether or not you'll be able to OC at all. Just keep an eye on you package temp( keep below 60) and youe CPU/socket temp keep this below 70. Let P95 run for about 20 minutes and while it's still running take a SS and post it up here.

 

[loz2014]

Ok am doing that now, will post results in 20 mins

 

[loz2014]

Ok here we are. The first reading are before running any tests, the second after 20 minutes

 

[bob4933]

You have room to grow my friend


20 minutes is NOT a great indicator of long term stability. I'd recommend 2-4 hours, although some around here will run for 10-24 hours before they declare "stability" *shakes head*, albeit Im pretty green to this whole thing haha.


You may actually have a LOT of room depending on how your core takes voltages. Your core didnt even warm up on p95 at stock frequency, thats a great start.



There shouldn't be much of an issue between boards. The settings are pretty standard.




I also recommend getting "intel burn test". Its a quick "go/no-go" test. run at "standard" for 1 test just to verify your computer is handling everything. Doesn't replace p95 long term testing, but its faster to get quick checks.


edit: simple quick greenback rules I've learned

- For that board, stay under 1.45 "cpu" volts. In fact, I would stay as low as possible.
- leave NB voltage alone
- CPU-NB and NB are not the same thing
- stay under 1.4 CPU-NB volts
- try to stick to multiplier over clocking, keep fsb at 200 for now, helps with stability on everything else. FSB overclocking seems to be an entirely different game
- You need to find a baseline clock first. You're 3.8ghz stock, I would try to get a 4.0ghz stock baseline.
- since you are on air cooling, and on a lower end board... STOP when you see diminishing returns. I.e. if you need to add .3 volts for 100mhz, its probably not worth it to go further
- DO EVERYTHING IN BIOS. Yes it sucks. Those "tuning programs" are garbage though.

Fwiw, I was thinking fx4100 stock speeds, not fx4300. You may very well get 4.5ghz easily.

 

[Johan45]

For now that's good enough , if you're going to push the CPU I would suggest some fans for the VRM you already have a pretty good temp spread between the package at 33 and the CPUTIN at 47.So from here I would turn off cool&quiet, C1E, C6, EPU, APM in bios, set the V_Core to 1.4 and start upping the multiplier. Keep going up by .5 on the multi until it's unstable or those temps get too high. 60 package and 70 CPUTIN. Next time you post up give us a CPU-z main tab, memory tab and SPD tab.

 

[loz2014]

Ok, Multiplier set to 21.0mhz or 4.2Ghz clock

Here are the results after 55 minutes. Stable for 30 mins at 51.c

 

[bob4933]

Download geekbench 3 so you can see your gains as you move up. Its a pretty good indicator of "Real world" usability as well (i.e. it will crash if your overclock is flawed).

 

[loz2014]

Here's the results from GeekBench : http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/368015


Just wondering from the results and temps I've got if I can push for a bit more?

 

[Mandrake4565]

Loz you're running your DDR3 1600 ram at 800 mhz. You may want to adjust that up to 1600 and set the ram timings according to the XMP-1600 profile.

 

[bob4933]

Here's the results from GeekBench : http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/368015


Just wondering from the results and temps I've got if I can push for a bit more?

Yeah you can push for a lot more imo.

 

[loz2014]

Ok I'm gonna run it 4400mhz. Have adjusted my ram to 1600mhz. Will post results later

 

[bob4933]

Be sure to run your games and programs as well. If you're not getting anymore improvements to things you run, then a higher clock speed is simply a **** measuring contest.

 

[loz2014]

Seems I can get my ram to run at 1600mhz even with xmp profile loaded or set to manual DDR3-1600. Still reads 800mhz in CPU-Z