AMD FX-8350 performance keeps dropping during high usage.
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- Build
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CPUs
Last response: in CPUs
Brocodo
August 31, 2014 1:37:19 PM
Dear community,
For the past months i've been getting really weird FrameRate drops when playing games that require high CPU usage. I mostly have this when playing Battlefield 4. I have a high end PC build and i don't think this should happen.
My build:
Operating System
Windows 8.1 Pro N 64-bit
CPU
AMD FX-8350
Vishera 32nm Technology
RAM
8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 798MHz (11-11-11-28)
Motherboard
ASRock 970 Extreme4 (CPUSocket)
Graphics
BenQ xl2420t (1920x1080@144Hz)
3071MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 (MSI)
Storage
931GB Seagate ST1000DM003-1CH162 ATA Device (SATA)
111GB OCZ-VERTEX2 ATA Device (SSD)
Optical Drives
No optical disk drives detected
Audio
NVIDIA Virtual Audio Device (Wave Extensible) (WDM)
Issue
When playing BF4 for a few minutes my framerate drops at random moments from 60-80 FPS to 20 FPS or lower. This only lasts for a few seconds (mostly ~5 seconds) and then it goes back to 60-80 FPS. I looking all over the internet for people with the same problem but I never got somewhere as i'm not the most PRO with this all.
I tried playing BF4 in window mode with the windows resource monitor next to it to monitor if anything strange was happening. And there was, my CPU went from 50-60% usage to 20-30% for like a few seconds. This is exactly the moment when also my FPS drop to 20.
The Test
So I thought it was the temperature. I downloaded Prime95 to stress my CPU and Speccy to check the temperature of my hardware. When my CPU gets around 54 degrees I get the weird drop of CPU usage again. I looked up the maximum temperature for an AMD FX-8350 and as long as the temperature stays under 60 I shouldn't notice any problems right?
Could anybody please help me with this. Everything except my motherboard is not older than a year. CPU and RAM 6 months, GPU not older than a week. Any help is highly appreciated and thanks in advance!
- Brandon
For the past months i've been getting really weird FrameRate drops when playing games that require high CPU usage. I mostly have this when playing Battlefield 4. I have a high end PC build and i don't think this should happen.
My build:
Operating System
Windows 8.1 Pro N 64-bit
CPU
AMD FX-8350
Vishera 32nm Technology
RAM
8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 798MHz (11-11-11-28)
Motherboard
ASRock 970 Extreme4 (CPUSocket)
Graphics
BenQ xl2420t (1920x1080@144Hz)
3071MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 (MSI)
Storage
931GB Seagate ST1000DM003-1CH162 ATA Device (SATA)
111GB OCZ-VERTEX2 ATA Device (SSD)
Optical Drives
No optical disk drives detected
Audio
NVIDIA Virtual Audio Device (Wave Extensible) (WDM)
Issue
When playing BF4 for a few minutes my framerate drops at random moments from 60-80 FPS to 20 FPS or lower. This only lasts for a few seconds (mostly ~5 seconds) and then it goes back to 60-80 FPS. I looking all over the internet for people with the same problem but I never got somewhere as i'm not the most PRO with this all.
I tried playing BF4 in window mode with the windows resource monitor next to it to monitor if anything strange was happening. And there was, my CPU went from 50-60% usage to 20-30% for like a few seconds. This is exactly the moment when also my FPS drop to 20.
The Test
So I thought it was the temperature. I downloaded Prime95 to stress my CPU and Speccy to check the temperature of my hardware. When my CPU gets around 54 degrees I get the weird drop of CPU usage again. I looked up the maximum temperature for an AMD FX-8350 and as long as the temperature stays under 60 I shouldn't notice any problems right?
Could anybody please help me with this. Everything except my motherboard is not older than a year. CPU and RAM 6 months, GPU not older than a week. Any help is highly appreciated and thanks in advance!
- Brandon
More about : amd 8350 performance dropping high usage
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Reply to Brocodo
immortalpenguin9
August 31, 2014 2:33:01 PM
Best solution
Sounds to me like a motherboard issue, which would make sense considering you're using it on a 970 chipset, on an ASrock board no less (They can be a bit hit or miss to find a good one).
Do you have an aftermarket cooler on your CPU? Going by what you said it doesn't sound like temperature is an issue, but if it's on a stock cooler it could be.
The best way I can think to check if it is you board is to run Prime again, this time keeping the program CoreTemp open and monitoring the frequencies across all cores.
Also open HWMonitor and keep an eye on the CPU VCORE node, this will give some indication of any voltage drops that may also be occurring as a result of VRM throttling. I believe the stock voltage for the FX-8350 is 1.3625v. Keep an eye if it goes any lower.
You may need to upgrade your board to a decent 990FX chipset, of which there aren't many that don't also share the same inherent problems. Fortunately, given the age of the FX lineup now, the decent ones can be found for fairly cheap. I recommend the ASUS Sabertooth, ROG or UD5 from Gigabyte (UD3 if you can find revision 4.0).
There is also a blue board from ASUS slightly below the Sabertooth, starts with M, for the life of me I can't remember its full title.
Good luck dude!
Do you have an aftermarket cooler on your CPU? Going by what you said it doesn't sound like temperature is an issue, but if it's on a stock cooler it could be.
The best way I can think to check if it is you board is to run Prime again, this time keeping the program CoreTemp open and monitoring the frequencies across all cores.
Also open HWMonitor and keep an eye on the CPU VCORE node, this will give some indication of any voltage drops that may also be occurring as a result of VRM throttling. I believe the stock voltage for the FX-8350 is 1.3625v. Keep an eye if it goes any lower.
You may need to upgrade your board to a decent 990FX chipset, of which there aren't many that don't also share the same inherent problems. Fortunately, given the age of the FX lineup now, the decent ones can be found for fairly cheap. I recommend the ASUS Sabertooth, ROG or UD5 from Gigabyte (UD3 if you can find revision 4.0).
There is also a blue board from ASUS slightly below the Sabertooth, starts with M, for the life of me I can't remember its full title.
Good luck dude!
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Reply to Distello
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Brocodo said:
Dear community,For the past months i've been getting really weird FrameRate drops when playing games that require high CPU usage. I mostly have this when playing Battlefield 4. I have a high end PC build and i don't think this should happen.
My build:
Operating System
Windows 8.1 Pro N 64-bit
CPU
AMD FX-8350
Vishera 32nm Technology
RAM
8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 798MHz (11-11-11-28)
Motherboard
ASRock 970 Extreme4 (CPUSocket)
Graphics
BenQ xl2420t (1920x1080@144Hz)
3071MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 (MSI)
Storage
931GB Seagate ST1000DM003-1CH162 ATA Device (SATA)
111GB OCZ-VERTEX2 ATA Device (SSD)
Optical Drives
No optical disk drives detected
Audio
NVIDIA Virtual Audio Device (Wave Extensible) (WDM)
Issue
When playing BF4 for a few minutes my framerate drops at random moments from 60-80 FPS to 20 FPS or lower. This only lasts for a few seconds (mostly ~5 seconds) and then it goes back to 60-80 FPS. I looking all over the internet for people with the same problem but I never got somewhere as i'm not the most PRO with this all.
I tried playing BF4 in window mode with the windows resource monitor next to it to monitor if anything strange was happening. And there was, my CPU went from 50-60% usage to 20-30% for like a few seconds. This is exactly the moment when also my FPS drop to 20.
The Test
So I thought it was the temperature. I downloaded Prime95 to stress my CPU and Speccy to check the temperature of my hardware. When my CPU gets around 54 degrees I get the weird drop of CPU usage again. I looked up the maximum temperature for an AMD FX-8350 and as long as the temperature stays under 60 I shouldn't notice any problems right?
Could anybody please help me with this. Everything except my motherboard is not older than a year. CPU and RAM 6 months, GPU not older than a week. Any help is highly appreciated and thanks in advance!
- Brandon
Your board is well know for its thermal throttling with the six and eight core FX cpu's. A good cheap board is a GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3P. It has the same power delivery system as the 990 Gigabyte boards like the UD3.
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Reply to bmacsys
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Brocodo
September 3, 2014 9:35:56 AM
Thanks everyone for the quick feedback!
Do you have an aftermarket cooler on your CPU? Going by what you said it doesn't sound like temperature is an issue, but if it's on a stock cooler it could be.
The best way I can think to check if it is you board is to run Prime again, this time keeping the program CoreTemp open and monitoring the frequencies across all cores.
Also open HWMonitor and keep an eye on the CPU VCORE node, this will give some indication of any voltage drops that may also be occurring as a result of VRM throttling. I believe the stock voltage for the FX-8350 is 1.3625v. Keep an eye if it goes any lower.
You may need to upgrade your board to a decent 990FX chipset, of which there aren't many that don't also share the same inherent problems. Fortunately, given the age of the FX lineup now, the decent ones can be found for fairly cheap. I recommend the ASUS Sabertooth, ROG or UD5 from Gigabyte (UD3 if you can find revision 4.0).
There is also a blue board from ASUS slightly below the Sabertooth, starts with M, for the life of me I can't remember its full title.
Good luck dude!
As you all suspected my board I did the HWMonitor thing when playing BF4, as Prime doesn't reproduce the issue. And indeed my CPU VCORE went down to ~0,8/0,9 at the same time when my CPU usaged reduces to half and my FPS drop to 20.
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So I guess the only option is to buy a new board? Wich one do you recommend the most? Also, how much does the price matter. As my whole PC was kind of an investment to atleast last a few years. What price is minimum to let everything run smoothly with the hardware I have now so that it won't bottleneck?
Distello said:
Sounds to me like a motherboard issue, which would make sense considering you're using it on a 970 chipset, on an ASrock board no less (They can be a bit hit or miss to find a good one). Do you have an aftermarket cooler on your CPU? Going by what you said it doesn't sound like temperature is an issue, but if it's on a stock cooler it could be.
The best way I can think to check if it is you board is to run Prime again, this time keeping the program CoreTemp open and monitoring the frequencies across all cores.
Also open HWMonitor and keep an eye on the CPU VCORE node, this will give some indication of any voltage drops that may also be occurring as a result of VRM throttling. I believe the stock voltage for the FX-8350 is 1.3625v. Keep an eye if it goes any lower.
You may need to upgrade your board to a decent 990FX chipset, of which there aren't many that don't also share the same inherent problems. Fortunately, given the age of the FX lineup now, the decent ones can be found for fairly cheap. I recommend the ASUS Sabertooth, ROG or UD5 from Gigabyte (UD3 if you can find revision 4.0).
There is also a blue board from ASUS slightly below the Sabertooth, starts with M, for the life of me I can't remember its full title.
Good luck dude!
As you all suspected my board I did the HWMonitor thing when playing BF4, as Prime doesn't reproduce the issue. And indeed my CPU VCORE went down to ~0,8/0,9 at the same time when my CPU usaged reduces to half and my FPS drop to 20.

So I guess the only option is to buy a new board? Wich one do you recommend the most? Also, how much does the price matter. As my whole PC was kind of an investment to atleast last a few years. What price is minimum to let everything run smoothly with the hardware I have now so that it won't bottleneck?
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Reply to Brocodo
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Tried and true boards for AM3+ are:
Gigabyte:
UD3 (Revision 4 or later/might not be any later models)
UD5
UD7 is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay expensive.
ASUS:
M5A99X <- Best budget one I would say.
Sabertooth R2.0
ROG Crosshair V Formula-Z <- Represents pretty much the highest end 990FX board, UD7 also.
ASRock:
990FX Fatal1ty Killer <- May not support 9000 series, going by reviews.
I'm sure there are others, such as from MSI, but I've never been a huge fan of their boards.
I personally love my Sabertooth, with the ROG Crosshair, you're basically paying for the SupremeFX sound chip and colour scheme - Everything else is roughly the same as the Sabertooth.
The M5A99X would be my recommendation on a budget, it's a good board all-round, doesn't have quite the same quality components as the boards above it, but it's very similar in terms of power delivery, heatsink size etc... Heard nothing but good things.
Keep in mind you will need a new license of Windows for a board replacement. You will also need to reinstall.
Gigabyte:
UD3 (Revision 4 or later/might not be any later models)
UD5
UD7 is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay expensive.
ASUS:
M5A99X <- Best budget one I would say.
Sabertooth R2.0
ROG Crosshair V Formula-Z <- Represents pretty much the highest end 990FX board, UD7 also.
ASRock:
990FX Fatal1ty Killer <- May not support 9000 series, going by reviews.
I'm sure there are others, such as from MSI, but I've never been a huge fan of their boards.
I personally love my Sabertooth, with the ROG Crosshair, you're basically paying for the SupremeFX sound chip and colour scheme - Everything else is roughly the same as the Sabertooth.
The M5A99X would be my recommendation on a budget, it's a good board all-round, doesn't have quite the same quality components as the boards above it, but it's very similar in terms of power delivery, heatsink size etc... Heard nothing but good things.
Keep in mind you will need a new license of Windows for a board replacement. You will also need to reinstall.
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Reply to Distello
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absxiith
September 3, 2014 11:09:12 AM
Hi Brandon,
I faced a similar issue with my FX 8350 and ASRock 970 Extreme4. Here is my thread -
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2188545/upgrade-...
A couple of questions before you go for a new motherboard-
1) Which CPU Cooler are you using?
2) Is it possible for you to slot in a fan over the ASRock Motherboard's VRM section? Could you please check (with the fan) if the same issue occurs?
I am currently using an MSI 990FXA-GD65 v2 with my FX and I am yet to notice any CPU core voltage/Core Frequency drops.Although,there is a possibility that your situation may repeat itself even with a new motherboard (it did in my case) ,but I will come to that,once you have posted the name of your CPU's cooler.
I faced a similar issue with my FX 8350 and ASRock 970 Extreme4. Here is my thread -
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2188545/upgrade-...
A couple of questions before you go for a new motherboard-
1) Which CPU Cooler are you using?
2) Is it possible for you to slot in a fan over the ASRock Motherboard's VRM section? Could you please check (with the fan) if the same issue occurs?
I am currently using an MSI 990FXA-GD65 v2 with my FX and I am yet to notice any CPU core voltage/Core Frequency drops.Although,there is a possibility that your situation may repeat itself even with a new motherboard (it did in my case) ,but I will come to that,once you have posted the name of your CPU's cooler.
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Brocodo
September 3, 2014 11:21:38 AM
absxiith said:
Hi Brandon,I faced a similar issue with my FX 8350 and ASRock 970 Extreme4. Here is my thread -
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2188545/upgrade-...
A couple of questions before you go for a new motherboard-
1) Which CPU Cooler are you using?
2) Is it possible for you to slot in a fan over the ASRock Motherboard's VRM section? Could you please check (with the fan) if the same issue occurs?
I am currently using an MSI 990FXA-GD65 v2 with my FX and I am yet to notice any CPU core voltage/Core Frequency drops.Although,there is a possibility that your situation may repeat itself even with a new motherboard (it did in my case) ,but I will come to that,once you have posted the name of your CPU's cooler.
Hi, thank you for your reply.
1) I use the "Cooler Master Hyper 412S"
2) I'm don't think it's possible for me to do that. Also, my the VCORE thing also happens when I'm not even stressing my CPU alot. It doesn't matter if my CPU is 40 degrees or 60 degrees, it happens anyway randomly. It does use to happen more when playing BF4 ofcourse.
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Reply to Brocodo
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Brocodo
September 3, 2014 11:31:29 AM
Distello said:
Tried and true boards for AM3+ are:Gigabyte:
UD3 (Revision 4 or later/might not be any later models)
UD5
UD7 is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay expensive.
ASUS:
M5A99X <- Best budget one I would say.
Sabertooth R2.0
ROG Crosshair V Formula-Z <- Represents pretty much the highest end 990FX board, UD7 also.
ASRock:
990FX Fatal1ty Killer <- May not support 9000 series, going by reviews.
I'm sure there are others, such as from MSI, but I've never been a huge fan of their boards.
I personally love my Sabertooth, with the ROG Crosshair, you're basically paying for the SupremeFX sound chip and colour scheme - Everything else is roughly the same as the Sabertooth.
The M5A99X would be my recommendation on a budget, it's a good board all-round, doesn't have quite the same quality components as the boards above it, but it's very similar in terms of power delivery, heatsink size etc... Heard nothing but good things.
Keep in mind you will need a new license of Windows for a board replacement. You will also need to reinstall.
Thanks for the reply again
I can't choose wich one from ASUS. Is it worth it to buy the ROG Crosshair V Formula-Z? Or should i just get the Sabertooth R2.0. Also, how long do you think it will last for my rig. If it would last atleast 2/3 years then i'm willing to pay a little more.
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Reply to Brocodo
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absxiith
September 3, 2014 11:42:56 AM
Quote:
Hi, thank you for your reply.1) I use the "Cooler Master Hyper 412S"
2) I'm don't think it's possible for me to do that. Also, my the VCORE thing also happens when I'm not even stressing my CPU alot. It doesn't matter if my CPU is 40 degrees or 60 degrees, it happens anyway randomly. It does use to happen more when playing BF4 ofcourse.
Hi,
1) Ok.I just wanted to confirm something,but it should not apply in your case.I am using Corsair Link to monitor my Corsair CPU cooling kit's temperatures and weird as it may sound,this problem used to occur as long as I kept Corsair Link running,on my new MSI motherboard,as well..Though it's been some time I left Link open long enough for that to happen..Just checking if you were using the same cooling setup.
2) I can understand that,as well. I had a tough time fitting a small fan over the VRMs ,even without a large air cooler. It must be impossible for you.
One more thing - Have you turned off all power saving features of the motherboard ? Though I assume that won't help because in some time,the VRMs would again get too hot for the motherboard to handle.
I think you can check VRM temps with HWiNFO,though it's not labeled as such.While gaming,I used to notice that the minute CPU temps reported by the motherboard (Not CPU 0 reading) got close to 60,the CPU used to throttle down to lower frequencies.You could try checking that,as well,but I think you are essentially looking at a new motherboard,since the CPU temps as reported by the ASRock 970 motherboard are quite off the mark,causing some power saving feature to kick in.I know you can disable some power saving features,but I don't think it's possible to disable all of them .
All the best!
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Reply to absxiith
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Brocodo said:
Distello said:
Tried and true boards for AM3+ are:Gigabyte:
UD3 (Revision 4 or later/might not be any later models)
UD5
UD7 is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay expensive.
ASUS:
M5A99X <- Best budget one I would say.
Sabertooth R2.0
ROG Crosshair V Formula-Z <- Represents pretty much the highest end 990FX board, UD7 also.
ASRock:
990FX Fatal1ty Killer <- May not support 9000 series, going by reviews.
I'm sure there are others, such as from MSI, but I've never been a huge fan of their boards.
I personally love my Sabertooth, with the ROG Crosshair, you're basically paying for the SupremeFX sound chip and colour scheme - Everything else is roughly the same as the Sabertooth.
The M5A99X would be my recommendation on a budget, it's a good board all-round, doesn't have quite the same quality components as the boards above it, but it's very similar in terms of power delivery, heatsink size etc... Heard nothing but good things.
Keep in mind you will need a new license of Windows for a board replacement. You will also need to reinstall.
Thanks for the reply again
I can't choose wich one from ASUS. Is it worth it to buy the ROG Crosshair V Formula-Z? Or should i just get the Sabertooth R2.0. Also, how long do you think it will last for my rig. If it would last atleast 2/3 years then i'm willing to pay a little more.
The ROG really isn't worth it unless you like the red/black theme.
The Sabertooth has very quality, long-lasting components, it's about 10-20£ more expensive than the M5A99X, but I think it's worth it.
It, along with the ROG, are one of the few boards that correctly support the 9000 series - Those chips consume nearly 220w of power, and about 1.5v under turbo clocks. If the board can handle one of those things, it's safe to assume it will handle the 8350.
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Brocodo
September 3, 2014 12:33:30 PM
Thanks for your help all
But I've made my decision to buy the Sabertooth R2.0 board. A big thanks to @Distello for the quick and accurate replies. I really didn't think this forum would help me so quick, it's really great
I will pick the solution after I installed my new board and confirm the issue is fixed. I will get my new board tomorrow.
But I've made my decision to buy the Sabertooth R2.0 board. A big thanks to @Distello for the quick and accurate replies. I really didn't think this forum would help me so quick, it's really great
I will pick the solution after I installed my new board and confirm the issue is fixed. I will get my new board tomorrow.
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Reply to Brocodo
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Brocodo
September 9, 2014 8:31:11 AM
!