Poor AMD 6800K Performance - What could be wrong?

sicmic411

Honorable
Sep 20, 2013
4
0
10,510
I've just put together a system today. It's running a A10-6800K on an ASRock FM2A75M-DGS-R2 motherboard with 8GB Vengeance 1600 RAM and WD 1TB HDD. I've run 3DMark 11 a bunch of times and the performance seems to be quite a bit lower than what I'm seeing from others on the net. I'm getting around 970 in Performance Mode. I notice that many others are getting around 1700 at stock settings. Am I doing something wrong?
 
Solution
For best performance you should be running about 8 GB of DDR3-2133 MHz RAM and 1866 MHz RAM at the minimum.

Also, ensure you are using a 2x4 GB kit and not a single 8 GB stick as that can make as much as 20-30% difference in performance with APUs. They use your RAM for your GPU.

RobCrezz

Expert
Ambassador
Check your RAM is running at the correct speed, and also check the benchmarks you are seeing from others and their RAM speed. RAM speed makes a big difference to APUs as they dont have dedicated high speed DDR5 ram like most discrete graphics cards.
 

8350rocks

Distinguished
For best performance you should be running about 8 GB of DDR3-2133 MHz RAM and 1866 MHz RAM at the minimum.

Also, ensure you are using a 2x4 GB kit and not a single 8 GB stick as that can make as much as 20-30% difference in performance with APUs. They use your RAM for your GPU.
 
Solution

sicmic411

Honorable
Sep 20, 2013
4
0
10,510
Thanks for the replies and the suggestions. I have arranged to get some DDR3-2133. I'm sure it will make a difference as you suggest, but do you think it will make that much of a difference. I mean, the difference between 970 and 1700 odd is massive.
 

8350rocks

Distinguished


You will likely double performance with nearly double the RAM bandwidth.

APUs are hyper sensitive to memory bandwidth.
 

sicmic411

Honorable
Sep 20, 2013
4
0
10,510


Thanks very much. I'll give it a try with the 2133 RAM and post back with my results.

 

sicmic411

Honorable
Sep 20, 2013
4
0
10,510
Ok, so I have an update. I got my 16GB Kit of 2133 RAM. But before installing it I decided to put in another 8GB of the Vengeance 1600 RAM to see if it made a difference having two sticks in there. Low and behold the performance improved massively. My 3DMark 11 score was now getting in the 1500's. So then I decided to run the 2133 RAM. The performance went up slightly, into the 1600's. But then the motherboard died. I have no idea why. So I ordered an Asrock FM2A75-Pro4-M. Now I have a new problem. When I run the RAM on Auto setting, it defaults to running at 1333MHz instead of 2133MHz. It runs fine, just at the lower speed. Now, if I set XMP or try to set the RAM to 2133MHz in any way, the PC will run Prime 95 and then shut down after about 5 mins or so. Somehow, by setting the RAM speed, it also seems to be increasing the CPU voltage. I tried manually setting the voltage lower but it still seems to go up under load?

Any ideas? Should I just forget Asrock and get an Asus board?