"The Full Desktop" @ - Trinity + Mini-ITX @ $350

[ivanlabrie]

And max clocks?

 

[BeepBeep2]

I wasn't able to do DDR3-1866 9-9-9 for some reason. 1600 9-9-9 1.25v XMP works fine. I don't want to push voltage much over 1.5v, most ram will just get hot and use more power, plus everything is crowded in there.

I'm at 4 GHz (1.375v) + 4.2 GHz Turbo right now, stock voltage for this CPU is 1.385v and it runs relatively cool. GPU is at 894 MHz, NB is at 1800 MHz. (1600 stock).

I'm getting periodic lockups in Ubuntu with the current settings, and also with CPU at 3.8 GHz so I think either the GPU or NB...I upped voltage for both a little bit and set the CPU back to 4 + 4.2 to see if it does anything.

I only have a 120w PSU, I have to be careful with how much I'm overclocking.

 

[ivanlabrie]

I wasn't able to do DDR3-1866 9-9-9 for some reason. 1600 9-9-9 1.25v XMP works fine. I don't want to push voltage much over 1.5v, most ram will just get hot and use more power, plus everything is crowded in there.

I'm at 4 GHz (1.375v) + 4.2 GHz Turbo right now, stock voltage for this CPU is 1.385v and it runs relatively cool. GPU is at 894 MHz, NB is at 1800 MHz. (1600 stock).

I'm getting periodic lockups in Ubuntu with the current settings, and also with CPU at 3.8 GHz so I think either the GPU or NB...I upped voltage for both a little bit and set the CPU back to 4 + 4.2 to see if it does anything.

I only have a 120w PSU, I have to be careful with how much I'm overclocking.

Yep, you're skating on thin ice...Stock cpu should do fine.
Shame on the ram ocing though, it would benefit your gpu decently.
Good luck and post back with results! You're baws

 

[BeepBeep2]

Turns out the GPU overclock was the issue causing the lockups. I'm just running 800 MHz now (760 stock). 850 was my goal, I'll see if I can raise voltage a bit for GPU and get it there.

Been running CPU at 4 GHz + 4.2 Turbo for about an hour now at 1.375v set in BIOS. BIOS reports ~1.44v though, not going to sweat it.

Peak CPU temp (95-100% load, multitasking) reads 35c. Motherboard CPUTIN sensor reads 50c.

In reality I think CPU load temp is about 55c, I have probes I can use to measure but I think I'm okay

My 12v 10a power brick just gets luke warm.

 

[Anonaru]

Turns out the GPU overclock was the issue causing the lockups. I'm just running 800 MHz now (760 stock). 850 was my goal, I'll see if I can raise voltage a bit for GPU and get it there.

Been running CPU at 4 GHz + 4.2 Turbo for about an hour now at 1.375v set in BIOS. BIOS reports ~1.44v though, not going to sweat it.

Peak CPU temp (95-100% load, multitasking) reads 35c. Motherboard CPUTIN sensor reads 50c.

In reality I think CPU load temp is about 55c, I have probes I can use to measure but I think I'm okay

My 12v 10a power brick just gets luke warm.

Looking good! I think you shouldn't have too much trouble tweaking your way to 840 ish on the GPU side, and your temps are looking pretty darn good Typically your CPUTIN reading is higher than your core temp, especially on Trin / PD. I'm thinking that, if your core temps are off, it is by about 10c rather than 20c

 

[BeepBeep2]

Personally I still think it is 20c or even more on Trinity.

I've had idle temps as low as 3c in a 20c room with the stock cooler and not even the correct airflow across it because I had to remove the stock fan. The two BD CPUs I owned, 10-20c idle was normal...but I've seen a few of these 5x00K's show up with sub-zero ambient core temperatures.

HDD reading is 45c during normal use, sitting above the CPU heatsink and ~30c right after a cold boot.

 

[TsunamiJuan]

Core temp is generally correct for APU's actual temps. Keep in mind APU's are extremely temperature picky. You want to keep them sub 40c if you can under load 36-39C and your pretty golden under full load.

However they flash in temperature really fast The stock heatsink tends to have a problem with the extreme speed that APU's change temperature alot of the time. APU's tend to show 0-10c alot at idle cause the cores go into a rotating parked state for lower power consumption which is completley normal.

As for IGP I dont think that the a75 chipset has the extra controls that the a85x now has for IGP voltage which means you have to attempt to raise the voltage off the north bridge which tends to get ignored by alot of boards since they refrence off the default voltage embedded in the chip.

 

[BeepBeep2]

Core temp is generally correct for APU's actual temps. Keep in mind APU's are extremely temperature picky. You want to keep them sub 40c if you can under load 36-39C and your pretty golden under full load.

However they flash in temperature really fast The stock heatsink tends to have a problem with the extreme speed that APU's change temperature alot of the time. APU's tend to show 0-10c alot at idle cause the cores go into a rotating parked state for lower power consumption which is completley normal.

As for IGP I dont think that the a75 chipset has the extra controls that the a85x now has for IGP voltage which means you have to attempt to raise the voltage off the north bridge which tends to get ignored by alot of boards since they refrence off the default voltage embedded in the chip.

Still disagree. 3c idle isn't accurate...full load 30-35c isn't either. Idle temps are about 30-40c in reality for any CPU, especially one with bad air cooling.

The rapid change in temperature happens on all AMD 15h+ CPUs, BD+PD. Happens on FX-8150's and such and with any type of cooling. In any case, the power gating of BD and PD CPUs simply can not be the reason why they show 0-10c idle, with all power saving features off I can still manage a very low idle temperature.

This board supports IGP overvoltage separate from NB voltage with the latest BIOS, release BIOS didn't offer it.

Either way, it seems to me like I'm fine thermal wise. I'm comfortable with the real temperature being up to 70-75c and I don't think I'm near that yet.

 

[Anonaru]

Still disagree. 3c idle isn't accurate...full load 30-35c isn't either. Idle temps are about 30-40c in reality for any CPU, especially one with bad air cooling.

The rapid change in temperature happens on all AMD 15h+ CPUs, BD+PD. Happens on FX-8150's and such and with any type of cooling. In any case, the power gating of BD and PD CPUs simply can not be the reason why they show 0-10c idle, with all power saving features off I can still manage a very low idle temperature.

This board supports IGP overvoltage separate from NB voltage with the latest BIOS, release BIOS didn't offer it.

Either way, it seems to me like I'm fine thermal wise. I'm comfortable with the real temperature being up to 70-75c and I don't think I'm near that yet.

Trin calibrated to be accurate beyond the 30's so of course ambient temps are way off. My PD temps report 2-12c in ambient, doesn't mean my top temps are also 20 off.

Thinking your core temps are warmer than your socket temps on trin or pd is silly, I'm maintaining that 10c is far more realistic than 20c, especially in this case.

 

[BeepBeep2]

Trin calibrated to be accurate beyond the 30's so of course ambient temps are way off. My PD temps report 2-12c in ambient, doesn't mean my top temps are also 20 off.

Thinking your core temps are warmer than your socket temps on trin or pd is silly, I'm maintaining that 10c is far more realistic than 20c, especially in this case.

Alright. It doesn't really matter to me anyway as long as temps aren't 80c+.
I'd pull out a probe and make some measurements like I have before for FX-8150's but why bother... They were rated for 61c and would hit ~60c on the stock cooler but if you were to check them with a probe real temperatures were 75-80c. At that time, AMD said the same BS about how "they are calibrated for load".

Things seem to be going really strong at 4 GHz + 4.2 Turbo. It doesn't seem that Turbo is working properly right now though.

 

[Anonaru]

Alright. It doesn't really matter to me anyway as long as temps aren't 80c+.
I'd pull out a probe and make some measurements like I have before for FX-8150's but why bother... They were rated for 61c and would hit ~60c on the stock cooler but if you were to check them with a probe real temperatures were 75-80c. At that time, AMD said the same BS about how "they are calibrated for load".

Things seem to be going really strong at 4 GHz + 4.2 Turbo. It doesn't seem that Turbo is working properly right now though.

Nah, turbo has never worked quite rigth for me, I usually just disable it :\

My probe measures are usually within 1-5c on my 8350 and 8320, I thought they had addressed the terrible BD sensors? Trin and 83xx all on PD

At any rate I'm pretty impressed you got such a nice little OC-- Have you gamed on it yet?

 

[ivanlabrie]

What screen are you using?
Any game benchies yet?

 

[BeepBeep2]

Nah, turbo has never worked quite rigth for me, I usually just disable it :\

My probe measures are usually within 1-5c on my 8350 and 8320, I thought they had addressed the terrible BD sensors? Trin and 83xx all on PD

At any rate I'm pretty impressed you got such a nice little OC-- Have you gamed on it yet?

No gaming yet, any gaming I'll be doing for now will be on Ubuntu - unfortunately Valve has not added me to their Steam Beta for Linux program so I am unable to play my games (I only play a few games, like Counter-Strike variants, L4D atm).

Wine for Linux 1.5.17 is installed though and things seem to be going well. I've got steam installed and I'm installing a few games to test through Wine.

What screen are you using?
Any game benchies yet?

Right now it is hooked up to a 22" 1680x1050 screen through VGA out. None of my displays support HDMI out and I don't have an HDMI-DVI adapter.

I'm running Ubuntu 12.10 as I said right now so I can't really run any popular games or bench them accurately since Wine at best is slower than native Windows.

 

[BeepBeep2]

Quick update - sorry for the double post.

I was able to run the ram at 1600 8-8-8-24 1.5v, I haven't tried a lower voltage. Also, the CPU is now up to 4.2 GHz + 4.4 Turbo at 1.4v set in BIOS. GPU won't budge past 800 MHz with 1.25v, not going to push it. Not sure if the CPU is stable or not, haven't put any hard loads on it yet but it's been going about an hour of normal use now.

 

[visiblegorilla]

You'll have to raise your NB voltage to get your GPU past 1000MHz. I've been running the NB at 1.45V for a few weeks now; it's the only way to get the RAM to run at 2400 and the GPU at 1150 (at the same time). It does produce more heat, though, for me maybe +5C compared to the stock 1.18V. Have you tried relaxing the RAM timings to get it to run at 1866? The GPU would love it.

TJ's spot on with his ascertation regarding temperature; the CPU stopped boosting some of the cores while running Cinebench at right around 37C. Now whether or not 37C actually means 57C is anyone's guess at this point, but these are the sensors we have to work with.

 

[BeepBeep2]

The GPU now runs fine at 1084 MHz 1.35v. This board has a separate GPU voltage control, like most A85 chipset boards...come to think of it, your board should have it too.

As far as 1866 ram, yes I've tried even CL11-12-12-35 @ 1.65v, doesn't work. I guess I can try using more NB voltage. I'm at 1.28v right now, haven't gone higher. I think 1.45v is way too much for long term.

 

[Anonaru]

The GPU now runs fine at 1084 MHz 1.35v. This board has a separate GPU voltage control, like most A85 chipset boards...come to think of it, your board should have it too.

As far as 1866 ram, yes I've tried even CL11-12-12-35 @ 1.65v, doesn't work. I guess I can try using more NB voltage. I'm at 1.28v right now, haven't gone higher. I think 1.45v is way too much for long term.

I concur that 1.45v NB is pretty unhealthy for this chip. Good to see you broke 1GHz on the GPU haha, now you just needa get some darn games onto that sucker

 

[ivanlabrie]

Win 8 perhaps? You could rig a touchscreen panel to a smallish 10" monitor and make a pseudo all in one thingie.

 

[visiblegorilla]

I got to wondering about how much extra power was used when overclocking this stuff, so I made a graph:


This shows in Watts how much power the CPU cores use at various clock rates and voltages. This does NOT include the GPU part of the chip; that part uses about 13W by itself. This is a very rough estimate and assumes that the CPU and GPU together use 100W max at default voltages and clocks and that no other components of the chip contribute in any way (which I'm sure is wrong).

The formula I used is
(Voltage^2) * Clock Speed in GHz * 11.4

11.4 is just a constant that I needed to get the scale to line up at 100W TDP at stock settings. Don't worry, the math is pretty sound. I think.

So, to calculate the GPU's power usage:
Stock = 1.18V, 0.8GHz, 12.7 W
OC = 1.35V, 1.084GHz, 22.5 W

Using the graph:
CPU at 1.38V, 4.2GHz = 91.2 W

The A75/A85 SB uses max 4.7W per AMD. To sum it all up:
22.5W(GPU)+91.2W(CPU)+4.7W(SB) = 118.4 Watts

If that's correct, I really hope you're using a SSD!
EDIT: I'm going to have to fix this. I completely left out the RAM, which has its own voltage and clock and uses the NB too.

 

[visiblegorilla]

I concur that 1.45v NB is pretty unhealthy for this chip.

Why would 1.45V be healthy for the CPU part and unhealthy for the NB/GPU part? Is it simply because it's 23% more voltage than stock? Perhaps the reason the voltage was kept that low is for power consumption reasons, not longevity reasons. Don't forget that the Trinity series were designed primarily as mobile chips that had max 100W TDPs. What if 1.18V just happens to be the minimum voltage to be able to run DDR3-1600 and an 800MHz GPU core? As far as my testing has gone, it IS absolutely the minimum.