Overclocking an AMD FX-6100

[claec]

Hey guys,

I took the plunge and bought an AMD FX-6100 CPU and a Gigabyte 990FX UD3 motherboard with the intention of hitting 4.5-4.75 Ghz on the CPU.

I have Kingston HyperX DDR3 1333 RAM (16gb) and 2x 4870 GPUs. The CPU is cooled by a Xigmatek Dark Knight cooler. I have it wrapped in a Thermaltake V5 case (Don't judge me, it was cheap) powered by a Thermaltake TR2 650 watt PSU.

Basically, I want to overclock the CPU in the BIOS, but, though I have been building PCs for years, this is my first foray into the world of manual overclocking. I would like to know what MOBO features to disable/enable, as well as a good method for determining voltage. I've scouted around for guides, but I really couldn't find any good ones, especially for this CPU/MOBO.

-Any- help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks a lot!

 

[iam2thecrowe]

step 1 - sell fx6100
step 2 - buy Phenom II 1090t and OC to 3.8 - 4ghz
you now have a faster cpu with lower power consumption than a fx6100@4.5ghz.

 

[AstroTC]

^ lol sad but true

 

[manu 11]

step 1 - sell fx6100
step 2 - buy Phenom II 1090t and OC to 3.8 - 4ghz
you now have a faster cpu with lower power consumption than a fx6100@4.5ghz.

+10000

 

[Matrikz]

step 1 - sell fx6100
step 2 - buy Phenom II 1090t and OC to 3.8 - 4ghz
you now have a faster cpu with lower power consumption than a fx6100@4.5ghz.

how do you figured that the Phenom II 1090T or 1100T is a lower power consumption? both of those CPUs are 145W where the FX 6100 is 95W. Not to mention at stock speeds and properly threaded apps the FX 6100 is blowing the Phenom IIs away. Do your research before trying to make yourself seem like you know what you're doing.

 

[ggman]

how do you figured that the Phenom II 1090T or 1100T is a lower power consumption? both of those CPUs are 145W where the FX 6100 is 95W. Not to mention at stock speeds and properly threaded apps the FX 6100 is blowing the Phenom IIs away. Do your research before trying to make yourself seem like you know what you're doing.

The Phenom II 1090T and 1100T are way better than the FX 6100 ..... you should know better before asking people to do their research.....

http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-fx-8150--8120-6100-and-4100-performance-review/1

 

[manu 11]

how do you figured that the Phenom II 1090T or 1100T is a lower power consumption? both of those CPUs are 145W where the FX 6100 is 95W. Not to mention at stock speeds and properly threaded apps the FX 6100 is blowing the Phenom IIs away. Do your research before trying to make yourself seem like you know what you're doing.

-100000

 

[Matrikz]

I do know ggman, I have the FX 6100 and Phenom II 1100T, in games and properly threaded apps the FX 6100 is blowing my 1100T out of the water, again I'll say this... do your research on these things before posting and making yourselves look like idiots

 

[noob2222]

I do know ggman, I have the FX 6100 and Phenom II 1100T, in games and properly threaded apps the FX 6100 is blowing my 1100T out of the water, again I'll say this... do your research on these things before posting and making yourselves look like idiots

too many people around think that any time someone builds a computer, its for gaming and only gaming

As for overclocking the chip

http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/46237-bulldozer-overclocking-guide-performance-scaling-charts-max-ocs-ln2-results-coming.html

 

[claec]

Best answer selected by claec.

 

[claec]

Excellent. That guide is perfect. As to the FX-6100 vs. the Phenom x6... Because of combos and promos, the FX-6100 was about $50 cheaper. Also, I have faith that Windows 8 will fix some of the woes of the FX series Possibly misplaced faith, but who knows. Its treated me well thus far, and I don't regret it.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

I do know ggman, I have the FX 6100 and Phenom II 1100T, in games and properly threaded apps the FX 6100 is blowing my 1100T out of the water, again I'll say this... do your research on these things before posting and making yourselves look like idiots

dude, even in the most threaded apps the 8 core bulldozer cant keep up with an 1100T, it can barely beat the quad core in many things. Can you please show in which application and what difference you are seeing between both chips at their stock frequencies, because i simply do not believe you, all the data does not back up your story. And I don't want to see an OC'd 6100 compared to a stock 1100t, everyone knows the 1100t can be OC'd quite well. And windows 8 wont fix it, the fx cores just dont have the raw FPU power to process any more that what they are doing now.

 

[Matrikz]

iam2thecrowe it's called google, there are a TON of benchmarks out there showing how well the FX Bulldozers are doing... try using it

 

[iam2thecrowe]

iam2thecrowe it's called google, there are a TON of benchmarks out there showing how well the FX Bulldozers are doing... try using it

all the benchmarks from reputable sources say the opposite, and most people know this that arent amd fanboys. the fx cpu's are slower than equivelant Phenom II cpu's and a hell of a lot slower than equivelant priced intel cpu's. heres jsut the first few reviews from google, maybe you skipped these, but there are plenty more with same conclusion:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2011/10/12/amd-fx-8150-review/13
conclusion - "Whether or not we’re correct about Bulldozer really being a server and workstation CPU, it’s terribly unsuited to the kinds of software we’re currently using on consumer PCs. This software is still heavily reliant on single-thread performance, and the FX-8150 just doesn’t have that. As such it’s woefully slow in a range of everyday applications.

Worse still, it merely had mediocre performance in well-threaded desktop applications that should have played to the more parallel design of the CPU."

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8150-zambezi-bulldozer-990fx,3043-24.html
conclusion - "Ironically, consistent, scalable performance is one of the attributes that AMD claims it gets from its Bulldozer module. The issue we see over and over, though, is that it relies on software able to exploit scalability in order to compete. When it doesn’t get what it wants, performance steps back relative to the previous generation."

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/amd_fx8150/13.htm
conclusion - "Running the FX-8150 at 3.2GHz (1866MHz memory) with two cores disabled against a 1090T at 3.2GHz (1600Mhz memory) for a direct six-on-six core processor comparison, the FX-8150 ran roughly 10% (at least) slower, based on our benchmarks."

http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-fx-8150-processor-review/21
"You have been able to see that the FX 8150 mostly is competing with the Core i5 2500 (which costs 180 EUR by the way). Once multithreading kicks in well, performance quickly rises and you'll see Core i7 2600 (260 EUR) performance. Surprisingly enough, even the Phenom II X6 1100T (170 EUR) stands ground and is mostly on par with the FX 8150 a lot of the time, that complicates things even more. So where do we need to position the FX 8150 then? I mean, this is supposed to be AMD's fastest processor."

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4955/the-bulldozer-review-amd-fx8150-tested
conclusion - "Unfortunately the same complaints we've had about AMD's processors over the past few years still apply here today: in lightly threaded scenarios, Bulldozer simply does not perform. To make matters worse, in some heavily threaded applications the improvement over the previous generation Phenom II X6 simply isn't enough to justify an upgrade for existing AM3+ platform owners. AMD has released a part that is generally more competitive than its predecessor, but not consistently so. AMD also makes you choose between good single or good multithreaded performance, a tradeoff that we honestly shouldn't have to make in the era of power gating and turbo cores."

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/AMD-FX-8150-vs-Core-i5-2500K-and-Core-i7-2600K-CPU-Review/1402/18
this conclusion sums it up best - "We can summarise the AMD FX-8150 in one word: "disappointment""

now given these are not all specifically fx6100 reviews, its pretty clear that if the 1100t is faster than an 8 core bulldozer in the majority of situations, its also faster than the 6 core bulldozer. please don't bother to argue your point any longer, its simply not valid and is only a biased opinion. Good day.

 

[Matrikz]

and if you notice in just about all of those quotes there, everything they're using to test is single threaded meaning the FX cpus which is a multi threaded cpu will not perform well....

 

[Matrikz]

too many people around think that any time someone builds a computer, its for gaming and only gaming

As for overclocking the chip

http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/46237-bulldozer-overclocking-guide-performance-scaling-charts-max-ocs-ln2-results-coming.html

noob you might want to read what I said a few times... I didn't not say that it was strictly a gaming computer, I said about properly threaded apps as well

 

[benikens]

Matrikz is a troll. (noone can be THAT wrong...)

 

[iam2thecrowe]

and if you notice in just about all of those quotes there, everything they're using to test is single threaded meaning the FX cpus which is a multi threaded cpu will not perform well....

your right, they do perform well in well threaded apps, the few of them that are available, but as i said, the 1100t 6 core equals or bests the fx 8 core, let alone the 6 core even in threaded apps, your just too ignorant to see that. if you read any review you would see that is the case.

 

[Matrikz]

I'm a troll for doing my homework and OWNING BOTH processors? you kids really need to get on some reputable sites and do your research well before trying to sound like you know what you're doing

 

[iam2thecrowe]

I'm a troll for doing my homework and OWNING BOTH processors? you kids really need to get on some reputable sites and do your research well before trying to sound like you know what you're doing

are you blind? i just posted a bunch of reputable sites all showing that the fx6100, and even the fx8150 is slower than the 1100t in most applications. You are in fact posting on one of the sites showing the poor performance of the FX cpu's. you have failed to produce one ounce of proof showing otherwise. I'm sorry if you feel bad that you "upgraded" to a slower processor and wasted your money, but please stop trying to make people believe the fx processors are something they are not, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence to say otherwise. If you own both cpu's, please post a valid comparison of them at their stock speeds that shows the fx6100 doing a better job. not just "it feels faster" crap, im talking factual evidence. you can't because its just not there unless you fudge the results. Im really over trying to set people strait about the true performance of these FX cpu's. Enjoy your trolling.

 

[Matrikz]

and any Intel FANBOY would only point out the benchmarks that show AMD not performing well

 

[iam2thecrowe]

and any Intel FANBOY would only point out the benchmarks that show AMD not performing well

i have an AMD video card and have only had AMD cpu's (k6-2, duron, athlon, athlonxp, athlon64) up until intel released the core 2 architecture, so no, im not an intel fanboy, i just buy the best processor out for the money i have at the time. The reason all the benches show amd not performing well is because it doesn't perform very well. i know there are about 2 reviewers out of 50 that show the amd cpu's performing better, but 2/50 is a very low percentage and suggests that they are botched reviews. So no, I'm not a fanboy, i just dont like people getting misinformation and buying a crap product based on lies.

 

[noob2222]

i have an AMD video card and have only had AMD cpu's (k6-2, duron, athlon, athlonxp, athlon64) up until intel released the core 2 architecture, so no, im not an intel fanboy, i just buy the best processor out for the money i have at the time. The reason all the benches show amd not performing well is because it doesn't perform very well. i know there are about 2 reviewers out of 50 that show the amd cpu's performing better, but 2/50 is a very low percentage and suggests that they are botched reviews. So no, I'm not a fanboy, i just dont like people getting misinformation and buying a crap product based on lies.

and you follow aournd any bulldozer thread and try to convince everyone they are idiots for using the cpu for software that it runs faster on.

So if your going to be running wprime, Cinebench on 1 cpu, or lame encoding, ya the 1100T is a better option.

If your encoding x264, using winrar, or 3dmark11, BD is a better option

all other cases its pretty much a tie.

Why are the review conclusions a fail? because they don't know what else to say, so please the Intel crowd instead of sticking with the facts. IT DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU WANT TO DO WITH IT. period.

 

[benikens]

I'd take a i3-2100 over a BD.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

and you follow aournd any bulldozer thread and try to convince everyone they are idiots for using the cpu for software that it runs faster on.

http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/mac/reviews/AMD/Bulldozer/AMD_FX-8150-201.jpg

So if your going to be running wprime, Cinebench on 1 cpu, or lame encoding, ya the 1100T is a better option.

If your encoding x264, using winrar, or 3dmark11, BD is a better option

all other cases its pretty much a tie.

Why are the review conclusions a fail? because they don't know what else to say, so please the Intel crowd instead of sticking with the facts. IT DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU WANT TO DO WITH IT. period.

your comparing an 8 core bulldozer with a 6 core phenom......people expected more from 8 cores........and not to mention intel i5 2500k is faster than both and comes with on-chip gfx for those that don't want to use a dedicated card and just need a fast cpu, saving a bit extra cash right there........ bulldozer makes no sense for anyone to purchase right now. period.