Help Needed Overclocking FX8350 on Asus Sabretooth 990FX R2.0

[Zorton_Maverick]

Hi Johan,
Ok, will do.
Failed again after 51 mins on Worker 7 @ 1.44375v.

Some silly questions so forgive me -
1. Where do I see the current DRAM Voltage when in Windows. The SPD tabs always have 1.5v listed even though been up'd to 1.55v in the BIOS.
2. At what temps should I stop testing (know the ceiling is 62 and 70), before reaching max.?

Ok, so going to pop the DRAM V up to 1.6 now and run a test.
Cheers

 

[Johan45]

That's something I've never really checked, I think Aida will tell you but not sure. The ram voltage typically stays where you set AFIK if you set the current capability higher than 100% it will rise over bios settings this much I know. Your temps are OK for now. Sorry gotta take off

 

[Mandrake4565]

I think it all depends on the motherboard, my CHV allows Hwmonitor to read the Dram voltage, I do not see it on the Hwmonitor reading on the Sabertooth.

 

[Zorton_Maverick]

Ok..So I have not yet started testing by up'ing the DRAM Volt as per Johan - will do that next.

Just wanted to continue on the path of up'ing the Core V so on my last test, up'd it to 1.45v.
P95 Blend ran successfully for 1hr and 5mins and failed on Worker 2 this time (as opposed to Worker 7 all other times failing).

The Temps reached 62 at times on the Core and 69 on the socket.

Does this mean that 4.6GHz is not achievable on my FX8350 using the Noctua NH-D15 ??

So what next, do I decrease the Core V and increase DRAM V and where should I start testing from next ??

Going to leave it for now as not sure how to proceed ??

In conclusion can get a 2hr Stable 4.5GHz P95 Blend test at Core V of 1.4. But even up to 1.45 (or 1.476 on HWMonitor), can't get a stable 4.6GHz ??

Have new RAM ordered "G.Skill F3-14900CL8D-8GBXM Arbeitsspeicher 8GB (1866MHz, CL8, 2x 4GB) DDR3-RAM" -[F3-14900CL8D-8GBXM] - but that won't be here until the 10th September.

Lost .....

 

[Mandrake4565]

I would think since you are not changing the FSB to Oc to 4.6 and have a known stable OC at 4.5 that the DRAM wouldn't be causing an issue. Though funnier things have happened so bumping the Dram voltage could make a difference.

The Temps reached 62 at times on the Core and 69 on the socket.
Does this mean that 4.6GHz is not achievable on my FX8350 using the Noctua NH-D15 ??

It looks that way, if you look at your Hwmonitor ss the Max voltage for the Cpu V is 1.476, I would say it's likely that you're at the end of the road with Air cooling. The hotter the chip gets the more voltage it will need for X Mhz, so if you can find a way to get the ambient Air inside the case cooler you may be able to achieve the 4.6 OC. Try taking the side panel off the case and see if the temps drop. You have a pretty good case for airflow but the dust filters may be restricting air enough to get it warm inside the case.

Another option may be to drop the Multi to 19.5 and raise the FSB again and see if you can pass prime with it like that, sometimes we can get a little higher on the Oc using the FSB as opposed to the Multiplier, with less voltage.

 

[Zorton_Maverick]

Wow - was just looking through Oldies thread and when he was at 205*22 @ 1.45v (DRAM V 1.55) - at P95 Blend - Socket was only 57deg C ??
I am assuming that he was running Blend and not Large FFTs ??
Going to read through that whole thread again tonight...

May just go back to 4.5 now and try to tighten things up as 4.6 is beyond me it would seem.
Just ran MEMTEST for 1hr + and passed with no errors - did one full pass. Should I do more - or leave it running overnight ??

 

[Johan45]

You should be doing your testing with P95 blend Zorton. That's the only way to know if everything is meshing properly

 

[Mandrake4565]

Wow - was just looking through Oldies thread and when he was at 205*22 @ 1.45v (DRAM V 1.55) - at P95 Blend - Socket was only 57deg C ??

Every chip is different that's why we can't just tell you use X voltage for X OC. When Johan had his Fx 8350 his OCed on a lot more voltage then mine and ran a lot hotter.

You should be doing your testing with P95 blend Zorton. That's the only way to know if everything is meshing properly

This^^^^^^

 

[Zorton_Maverick]

Johan - "You should be doing your testing with P95 blend Zorton." - I've done all my testing using P95 Blend - apart from some testing using Small FFT's near the start of the process which I documented ..
Mandrake - "Every chip is different that's why we can't just tell you use X voltage for X OC." - feel robbed now. Why couldn't I have one of those high OC low Core V chips - it's just not fair

Ok - so think I am going to call it a day on trying to hit a stable 4.6 and look at locking down a nice 4.5 for daily use.
Will need help with regards what options to turn back on but will post when I need aid if that is ok.

Thanks guys !!

 

[Johan45]

I guess I misunderstood Zorton. At this point like manny said drop back to 4.5 then I would raise the NB speed to 2500ish. Stabilize that then I would up the FSB one notch at a time till I reach my thermal margin.

 

[Mandrake4565]

feel robbed now. Why couldn't I have one of those high OC low Core V chips - it's just not fair

Don't feel robbed most of the low leakage chips, meaning they will Oc to higher Mhz on lesser voltage will hit a massive wall around 4.8. You're seems to be a higher leakage chip which isn't good on air but if you experiment with cooling and do some thing like sub ambient water you may find your chip will Oc a lot higher.

My chip is similar to yours, when I tested it on air if I wanted to keep the temps below the "recommended max" I couldn't go above 4.5. On water I run mine at 4.7 daily at 1.46875 with my temps maxing out at 55 on the socket and 49 on the package while running prime. I have a darn good H2O loop cooling it though. You may want to read this thread, RGone did some testing with his chip and switched it to Air from his H2O loop. He found that he needed .00625 more voltage for every 100 Mhz higher OC when compared to his H2O loop. I believe around page 11 he shows his testing with the 8350 on Air. It's a good read if you spend the time to read through it.

 

[Zorton_Maverick]

Thanks Johan - you, RGone, Mandrake and the others have been a big help as always - so its much appreciated. All of you are a credit to this site !!

Feel a bit deflated and beaten - it's a bit of a bummer because I can't do anymore.
If I was to be honest, not really interested in the OC per se, just the process and fun. Would have been nice to break 4.6 and beyond.

My understanding is still rudimentary so will continue to read up.
Was tempted to buy an AIO Water Cooler and try that as opposed to the NH-D15, but according to a lot of the reviews and test results, wouldn't make sense.

Building another PC at the moment for the kids. The idea was to pick up a cheap CPU and Mobo (maybe FX 4100 - selling for £39 at the mo) to finish the build - but am tempted to get something that I can try Overclocking - a little ??
Maybe the FX6300 or one of the new CPU's ?? Or maybe an Intel chip..

Anyhow, I stayed up till 03.30 - 04.00 last night running various P95 tests, so off to bed early tonight and will work on my 4.5GHz settings tomorrow night and post again.
Night

 

[Johan45]

Just a suggestion, for the kids maybe grab an FM2+ with the APU , should keep them happy unless they're heavy gamers the you'd need a GFX card as well. Then just concentrate on your 8350.. Like Manny says there appears to be room for that one to grow if it's cooled. As for theAIO I have one and it's decent but I still had to stop at 4.64 for 24/7 temps were good in the high 40s.
IF you like the OC process, you're in trouble man! That's what gets people like myself and Manny caught up in the benching. We have the cooling that can be applied to just about any platform currently and buy cheap stuff to just plain overclock to it's limits. The cool thing is, it doesn't matter too much. On some older platforms you can get CPUs for $10. Then you just kick the crap out of it and it doesn't hurt so much if you break it. I'm messing with Intel 775 stuff right now and for the motherboard and 12 CPUs it cost me under $200 and one of the CPUs was $60 but I know it'll clock better than most. Either way that OC bug is addictive. I'm just showing you alternatives.

 

[Mandrake4565]

Either way that OC bug is addictive. I'm just showing you alternatives.

Or warning you, however you may look at it

 

[RGone]

Been trying to make up my mind about looking into another forum...

...I hate looking at posts that look like columns instead of pages. Messed with sentence structure on my long thread in the mobo section, so am just a tad miffed.

Z_M has been a good forum goer and deserves a third opinion so he can decide if he wants to do more. So I post.

1. > Now that we have seen the release of the FX-9xxx cpus we have seen some FX-8350s that will NOT overclock as they did previously. I think that is because most of the fast cpus are going toward the FX-9xxx series. Here in the forum we see a neighborhood inside a box. Things we see are somewhat known to us as "how it is". We can spend time going thru other forums and try to make that 'picture' more far reaching. We have not seen your listed P-States but as "mandrake" is speaking toward, if you have a very low P-state FX-8350, the odds increase astronomically that the cpu will not overclock a lot on air. Frozen is another story though usually. Frozen is not useful in the course of day to day use.

2. > I remember some months ago when we had two or three users come thru with Noctua D-14s and though that cooler has had awesome results most of the time...those two or three guys had such problems getting to 4.6Ghz that we all had to think the D-14s had a factory defect. Now we see a D-15 and the problem on the surface seems a lot like what we saw with the D-14s. Thinking back now...maybe we were seeing the fall-off in amount of overclock that might be easily reached with an FX-8350 because of the release of the FX-9xxx cpus. No way to know for real since we would never have a way to know what AMD is doing binning wise.

3. > A year ago 4.5Ghz was an awesome 24/7 cpu speed. Still is. What happens though with a cpu that will not go any beyond that speed, even if for only playing around is that one feels somewhat deflated. I know that feeling. C_D bought his 4th or 5th FX-8350s back about the first of the year. The first one he tested would not budge ANY beyond 4.8Ghz on water NO matter how much voltage he put on it and we know C_D is not afraid of Vcore. Hehehe. He sold that cpu to someone going to game only on air and the guy was ecstatic. That FX-8350 had a very low P-State on the order of 1.2915V at x20, 4.0Ghz speed. Even pretty good water cooling had C_D still stuck without being able to buzz into the 5.0Ghz play range as he had done previously. He sold that cpu.

Then the second cpu he bought at the same time had a x20, 4.0Ghz P-State of 1.3125V which was higher than the other one and it was a GEM. C_D was able to game at 5.2Ghz on d*mn good water. C_D checked about 5 cpus 'before' he bought those 2 and his results were Day and Night different. This was NOT the situation until the FX-9xxx cpus were released by AMD. At least not in our "window" that we see here in this forum and with an effort made to look at other sites as well.

4. > So it is not likely the motherboard. So it is not likely the ram although other ram seems easier to adjust. So is it the cpu cooler? No way to know. Is it the Cpu? Probably. If it is the cpu, a choice has to be made. Is 4.5Ghz enough? Probably a good spot for daily use. If it is not then sell that FX-8350 to a gamer that runs only air and wants a low temp and low voltage and ROLL the silicon dice again with the purchase of another cpu. IN my gut this seems likely where you are Z_M. I think it feels like a fact. Knowing something though is good. Keeps us from continuing to just bang our heads hoping for better with where we are. My head gets sore after a bit.

Yes, I heard the drop the multplier a little and add more HT Ref Freq to try and get some higher overall without adding much more Vcore. That ploy worked on the average FX-8350 we were seeing a year ago. Back when we were not seeing cpus with such low P-State voltage at x20, 4.0Ghz.

But your deal is low temps and low cpu voltage "until" the cpu walls out at 4.5Ghz and even adding 0.05V to the cpu will not stop one weaker core from erroring out when really stressed. That is not the same situation that caused many of to drop the multiplier and bump up the HT Ref Freq, so I don't hold out for you having much success doing such maneuver. Try it? Sure! Actually expect greater succcess? Not really.

If I 'needed' a buzz-it-up FX-8350 like we used to see and did for a year...sell and roll the cpu dice again. Might keep you from shortening your life-span and taking on gray hair early. Now I hope you may see more clearly. Luck man.
RGone...ster.

EDIT:
There is one other thought. DISABLE the offending core #7 and even that entire module and run the cpu as a 6 core. You will get more speed is my guess. Some anyway. Might satisfy that bug to go faster to an extent. Heck you really have to be doing heavy duty work to need the 8 cores. Might save a little effort in selling current cpu and rolling the dice on another piece of silicon.
END EDIT.

 

[Zorton_Maverick]

Monring -
@RGone - great write up as always - read through it twice and has me thinking. What if I keep my FX8350 and put it in the Kids PC ? That way I can keep my Sabretooth 990FX R2.0 in my main PC and get a new CPU of my choosing ?? Little more expensive but works all around ??
If I do that, what would be the cheapest most reliable Motherboard I could get to put in the Kids PC with the FX8350 that I currently have ?
Also, what new CPU should I get for my main build ? Looking at the FX8370 or would I dare try one of the 9*** CPU's ? Would say that might be a tad dangerous with my current cooling ?

That leads me on to my cooling - I have often thought about trying my hand a full Custom Watercooling system but never had the courage.
Maybe now is the time to try it? It's one of the reasons I went with the HAF 932 Adv case a year ago. So I could get a new CPU and apply WC.
Hmmm -my brain is going overload...lol

- "Might keep you from shortening your life-span and taking on gray hair early" - would love to go gray but unfortunately that would entail having hair and that's missing from the top of my head lol...

A lot to think on and decisions to make. ...
1. Do I leave FX8350 at 4.5 with the D15 in current case?
2. Do I buy a new AMD FX CPU and play around with it in current case on same motherboard with D15 ?
3. Will I look at getting a good WC loop for the CPU first ? Play around with WC loop on FX8350 and work from there..?

Wow - loads to think on ..

Anyhow, as a final note for now, I got my P-States from CPU-Z and they are as follows --

P-State FID 0x1A - VID 0x0A - IDD 13 (21.00x - 1.425 V)
P-State FID 0x19 - VID 0x0B - IDD 13 (20.50x - 1.412 V)
P-State FID 0x18 - VID 0x0F - IDD 12 (20.00x - 1.362 V)
P-State FID 0x12 - VID 0x17 - IDD 10 (17.00x - 1.262 V)
P-State FID 0xC - VID 0x20 - IDD 8 (14.00x - 1.150 V)
P-State FID 0x5 - VID 0x2A - IDD 5 (10.50x - 1.025 V)
P-State FID 0x10C - VID 0x34 - IDD 4 (7.00x - 0.900 V)

PS - Thank you guys !!

 

[Mandrake4565]

A list of our P-States

It looks like you have a chip with the same P-States as RGone, which is a pretty good chip with the right cooling.

A lot to think on and decisions to make. ...
1. Do I leave FX8350 at 4.5 with the D15 in current case? 4.5 is a darn good OC for 24/7 usage
2. Do I buy a new AMD FX CPU and play around with it in current case on same motherboard with D15 ? If you're going to stick to Air I wouldn't get another Fx8 or 9 series chip, they just run too darn hot, if you're looking to really push them on Air.
3. Will I look at getting a good WC loop for the CPU first ? Play around with WC loop on FX8350 and work from there..? If you're really looking to push any chip then Watercooling is the first big step.

 

[RGone]

Wanted someone else to respond first...

...now that is out of the way and "manny" thinks similar to myself and I will build on seeing his answers.

1. Do I leave FX8350 at 4.5 with the D15 in current case?
If you can live with that speed and are finance limited and just want to get by on the cheap with the "kids" unit, then yes you could remain right where you are and build the kids a relatively inexpensive AMD APU unit for their web surfing or whatever. Would not even have to get a video card unless they are into big time gaming. Cheapest route for sure.

2. Do I buy a new AMD FX CPU and play around with it in current case on same motherboard with D15 ?
I doubt I would since the air cooling no matter how good would NeVeR satisfy my need for playing around speed. You could buy another cpu and test with the D-15 but it would hardly redeem me completely since the air is not going to allow that +5Ghz play land. Hehehe.

3. Will I look at getting a good WC loop for the CPU first ? Play around with WC loop on FX8350 and work from there..?
Even pretty fair water-cooling will not fix that bow wow cpu you have. It stops far far short of what most have done. That does not say you cannot buy very good cooling and play with it but I think if you are not fairly certain your cpu sucks, then when you spend for good cooling and the cpu still sucks...it is too easy to say i wasted my money on heavy duty water cooling. That is human nature. [/color[

The final decision is going to hinge on whether you can put together a cheaper rig using the FX-8350 you have now and not have to really overclock it by much. Get them a case big enough for the D-15 to fit and the FX-8350 you have and hold it to about 4.3Ghz with the ram you have now and you could get by with a fairly inexpensive mobo, but when you bust on over 4.3Ghz the demands go up and your current board is plenty., But we get a lot cheaper and things could get iffy.

Tell us what you really want to do! From where I sit, I am not in anyway inclined to give up my 4.8Ghz for video editting. When I jumped from 4.3Ghz to 4.5Ghz the time to compile video dropped enough to really notice. THEN I decided to try and gain stability for Editting at 4.8Ghz and the time to compile/render dropped greatly again. A 100Mhz does not show off much but you get that 200 to 300Mhz jump and I prefer 300Mhz jump...then you can tell the difference in doing real work. Gaming does not change much but real live work is done much quicker for me at 4.8Ghz than 4.5Ghz. Not that 4.5Ghz is a slouch but if you have never experienced 4.8Ghz then all is good, but ever get er on upair and U never want to go back. Hehehe.
RGone...ster.

 

[Tetrall]

Hey Zorton,

Just wanted to perk you up a little.

As much as hitting the "wall" is discouraging, part of the huge fun of this I think is the issues that we run into along the way.

My first worries were, "What's safe? What's stable? How do I undo stupid? Will I burn my house down? Will I toast my chip? What's all this CE6, ABC, XYZ, stuff?"

All these questions were answered over time, and you found those answers as well. I learned a lot by reading what the other guys wrote in reply to your questions.

So from another newbie, thanks a lot and I hope you find a way around the heat problems!

 

[Zorton_Maverick]

@Mandrake & RGone - thanks guys. Have been looking at cost of Custom WC Components today and would be about £300(ish).
Think I am going to give it a bash as it's something I've always wanted to try and spoke with a friend of mine today (Steve) who said he would do it with me (has done 2 before).
Also, I am going to go the cheap option for the kids PC and keep my FX8350 in my case for now and add the Watercooling. I understand that it might still not help in regards to the OC but would enjoy the experience of doing it.

@Tetrall - cheers mate. I popped in to see how you were getting on as well. You seem to be more fortunate than I.
Completely agree with the fun factor and learning experience. It has been a blast. Will be wanting to do it again soon...

Back on topic - going to start going back to my 4.5 OC profile and try to tweak. Will get a stable 2hr run on P95.
Will be back to ask a few final questions about restting options in the BIOS and Win Perf Manager for day-to-day use and then will close off the thread (don't know the process in doing that either) ??

Cheers guys. Booting up the BIOS now ...