Overclock AMD FX-8150

[auror]

I'm essentially a newbie to overclocking. I'd like to know what settings to play with in the bios and what kind of an OC I could achieve with good air cooling. As of now I have a push-pull setup with 3 120mm 2000rpm fans bringing in air and a 120mm and 140mm blowing air out. I'm using the stock heat sink and fan that came with the processor. I'm not looking for a huge jump in performance, only an increase from 3.6Ghz to 3.8-4.0.

System Specs:

ASRock 990FX Extreme4 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

Gtx 560 Ti video card

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)

Corsair Force Series GT CSSD-F120GBGT-BK 2.5" 120GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650M 650W ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V v2.92

AMD FX-8150 Zambezi 3.6GHz Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core Desktop Processor

Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower

 

[EarthDog]

Welcome!

In my signature is a link to a bulldozer overclocking guide. Check that out. Im not an AMD guy but reading that guide while waiting for others that know more than me on this subject should get you on your way nicely until they swing by the thread.

 

[ssjwizard]

It might be possible to get up to 4.0 full clocks on an 8150 on the stock HS/F, but honestly if you want to pursue overclocking on an FX you are really going to want a better heatsink.

That said the first steps are going to be disabling cool n quiet, APM(application power management), C states, and CPB(Core Performance Boost). You want to get your vCore, CPU-NB voltage, and vDIMM(memory voltage) set to manual values. You are also going to want to set LLC to something other than auto, I use the lowest or second lowest setting for these FX chips.

Bump your multiplier up to 19 and run 20-30 mins of Prime95 64 bit while monitoring temperatures with HWMonitor or CoreTemp. You want to limit your core temps to 60C. If you dont get any errors and your temps are still in order try 19.5 and then 20. When you get to the highest point you want to reach let P95 run for 6-8 hours to verify stability.

If you need better descriptions for what the different parts are and how to overclock them check out Dolks guide to PhenomII.

 

[auror]

If I was to go with an aftermarket cooler could you recommend one that wouldn't break the bank and would fit in a mid tower?

 

[ssjwizard]

That case is 7.5" wide so most 120mm tower heatsinks should fit. According to results from a quick google search say that yes a CoolerMaster Hyper 212+ will fit, so anything in that size profile should work. The 212+ or the True Spirit(120mm) are excellent heatsinks in the ~$30 range.

 

[auror]

Amusingly the 212 was the first heatsink/fan combo that popped up on newegg. Thinking I may pick up one of those

 

[trents]

ssjwizard, I hope you're right about the cooler fitting into that case. It will be very marginal.

 

[ssjwizard]

The only reason I even said it is because I found reports at OCN that say that it fits. I imagine it probably comes pretty close to the far side.

 

[RGone]

. I imagine it probably comes pretty close to the far side.

You can say that again.

 

[auror]

As an update I finally got around to buying the Hyper 212 and trying an OC with my system. Tried fiddling around with with the settings manually but I couldn't get my OC stable over 4Ghz doing it myself (undoubtedly lack of experience). That said after a good deal of frustration I tried using one of the built in OC profiles my motherboard came with. After turning off two of the cores on my processor and using the 4.3 Ghz profile my MB came with I managed to achieve a stable overclock hitting only 46C max after a 8 hour torture test on prime. Had to remove one of my case door fans to get the heat sink to fit but as it was the same size fan as the cooler I just attached that to the sink which is probably for the best anyway. Thanks for all the great advice, I couldn't have done it without you guys

 

[RGone]

Good show man. Glad you got it going.
RGone...