Stock FX-8120 way too hot?

[usery]

Am new to the forum and OC'ing, apologies for any homework not done.

I have a new build with FX-8120 on Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3 bios F12, with Xigmatek Aegir S128264 1-fan, all in an Antec 300 4-fan case. Cooler was properly seated on FX-8120 heatcap with ArticSilver 5, following Artic's guidelines for exposed heat pipe cooler and cpu cap bead. CPU fan is running at ~1950 rpm. It's ~20 hours into Artic's recommended ~200hr break-in period, with daily power on/off thermal cycles, and bios is saying 38C CPU temp at ambient room temperature of 76F. Is that normal/to be expected? Am I just seeing heatcap temp as reported by the bios? Note don't have OS installed yet so no other monitor sw available. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Bobnova]

Gigabyte rather stupidly has the BIOS default to "Core Performance Boost" enabled.
This OCs to 4.2GHz and gives it an extra 0.2v or so.
It also causes wild overheating.

Disable that and I bet your temps improve.

That said, idle temps don't really mean much.
As long as it's under 60c or so at full load you're good.

 

[usery]

Bingo: CPB was enabled, was OC'd to 4.0GHz. Disabled it, save/restart, CPU temp dropped -5 to 33C. Thanks a bunch.

 

[Bobnova]

You betcha. I gave 'em hell about that in a review I did on that board some time ago. The marketing end was frightened by that much vcore at "stock", but never actually did anything about it despite sending me two or three new BIOSes. Seems awfully simple to just default CPB to disabled, but whatever.

 

[TollhouseFrank]

another thing to do is ditch the arctic silver 5. One time long ago, it was top notch. Now, it is bottom of the barrel and often has temps 5-10c higher than other, more modern TIM's.

 

[usery]

good to know. any particular compound you recommend?

 

[Bobnova]

5-10c on AMD? Really?
Can you provide links to back that up please?

 

[usery]

I found this, fwiw: http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...k=view&id=150&Itemid=62&limit=1&limitstart=12. AS5 seems to stand up well against the other options.

 

[trents]

I found this, fwiw: http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...k=view&id=150&Itemid=62&limit=1&limitstart=12. AS5 seems to stand up well against the other options.

That article is a little dated. There are TIMs that will outperform AS5 but most of the are either way more expensive or require some exotic application method. And you are talking about very small temp improvements even at that. It's splitting hairs. As far as cost to performance ratio goes, AS5 and MX2 are hard to beat. And AS5 is widely available. It can typically be found in local computer stores whereas some of these more exotic TIMs cannot.

 

[CoSmA]

As the original poster asked watch thermal compound do you guys recc ?

 

[caddi daddi]

I use as5
#1 cheap
#2 get all i want at local radio shack
#3 works well enough

 

[bassnut]

I also use the as5 compound ........ works great.

 

[Serby]

I'm new to overclocking and this forum so hello to everyone my 1st post here, although i have been working with PC's for 18 years i know almost nothing about overclocking.

AMD FX-8120 Zambezi 3.1GHz Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core

GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX (Ver. 1.1)
BIOS:F9

(One Kit) CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CML8GX3M2A1600C9B

(One Kit) CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9

CORSAIR Hydro Series H100 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler

MG Chemicals 860-150G silicone heat transfer compound (It's prob 12 to 15 years old and works great)

First things first shout-out to Bobnova thanks for the help with the "Core Performance Boost" enabled thingy.

Next is the stock CPU cooler TRASH it thats how bad it is. I dont know how AMD could send it out with the new CPU's. Even with Core Performance Boost turned off still could not keep the chip under 61c for me in Prime95 or AMD Over Drive stability test. With the new H100 installed I pumped the CPU up to 4.4GHz @53c i would think that is good overhead.

A little about memory it seems every one is having a prob with on this board.
Out of the box the GA-990FXA-UD.X boards default to 1333mhz so you will have to overclock the memory to get the ratted speed altho you are not really over clocking it if it's ratted at that speed. My memory timing is 9-9-9-24 1600mhz to set this up use the BIOS settings below.

In Bios under (MB Intelligent Tweaker)
Set Memory Clock -> 8 ; 8*200MHz(FSB) = 1600MHz
Then go under (MB Intelligent Tweaker>DRAM Configuration)
Set
DDR3 Timing Items -> Manual
Then set the timing
1T/2T Command Timing -> 2T ; 2N = 2T = 2
CAS# latency -> 9 ; per my kit
RAS to CAS R/W Delay -> 9 ; per my kit
Row Precharge Time -> 9 ; per my kit
Minimum RAS Active Time -> 24; per my kit

And then to save ur self some money as you can see i have two memory kits, the CMZ kit is supported by GIGABYTE the other kit CML is not in the supported memory list however i checked with CORSAIR and it is the same memory the difference is the heat sink. CML memory was almost half price for me. CML is also better if you use air colled, it is low profile memory.