DEY123

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I got an FX8320 late last week. I am using a gigabyte 990FX UD3 board.
I did a quick OC but before tinkering further I wanted to get a feel for what others were currently getting to for an OC.

I am now at 200 base clock with a 21.5 multiplier (4.3GhZ). I have my Vcore offset to +.05 and I can increment in .025 steps.

I am not too comfortable going to much higher as I have a mediorce CPU Heatsink- "COOLER MASTER Vortex Plus RR-VTPS-28PK-R1 92mm Long life sleeve CPU Cooler"
link to heatsink
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103084&Tpk=cooler%20master%20vortex%20plus%20cpu%20cooler


Basically my current OC is stable. I have seen that 5GHz is possible but it sounds like that was on liquid cooled. Just trying to see what other experiences anyone has had to date OCing the 83XX line.

Edit - Did a couple more tests and found I was not stable at 4.5 with the .05V increase so I have backed it down to 4.3 which seems stable. Question remains on how high people have gotten on air and at what voltage.
 

Radbout

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I'm on air with a CM Hyper 212. I haven't experimented too much but I'm currently stable at 4.2, having only changed the base clock to 210 and the multiplier at 20. I did try pushing both (i.e. 220 and 20/210 and 21/200 and 22) without changing the Vcore. I really need to figure out how to increase that! :)

It has to be noted that I'm using a Crosshair V Formula with voltages set to auto adjust, I am not very experienced with this.
 

stew198269

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whats ya cpu colts at? if you still at auto the take it up to 1.38 volts at 4.6 if it not stable then put volts up to 1.4 volts if ok the bump up another just with multi NOT fsb
 

DEY123

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Actually I am now finding I am not stable on anything over 4.1 (at least based on prime 95 tests. If I increase my voltage over stock I quickly past 60C. I may need to try and re attach my heatsink / thermal paste as it doe snot seem right that without increasing the voltage I am heating up so high. On my old phenom2 with the same heatsink I had a pretty big voltage bump for my OC without issue. Then again that was a 95W chip and this is 125W.

I may need to invest in a new heat sink instead as I don't think I put it on wrong (and I am idling close to room temp) and I have a pretty mediocre heatsink
 

anderl12

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Sorry for bumping but I wanted to say that xD

You either got a bad CPU or you're doing something bad because I see many people going over 4.3GHz with stock cooler with good temperatures.
 

Schython

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I just got a stable overclock of 4.3ghz with +0.05volts (1.452volts) same as you 21.5 clock ratio. this was at 63 degrees C under full load on prime95 for an hour.
 

Awtrace

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This is the first time I am using this forum so I apologize in advance if I don't post correctly or something.

Basically, I also have an AMD FX-8320 and an MSI 970A-G46 motherboard and would like to Overclock to at least 4GHz but will take 3.8GHz if necessary.

I have a Corsiar H100i Liquid CPU Cooler and it works great. It kept my CPU at around 20C max when idle but eventually it wasn't cooling as well. Lately it's seemed to hold between a 30C and 40C temp when idle. I was advised to clean the dust in my case out with compressed air which I did and then it held a nice low to mid 20C when idle.

Now that is not related to the topic at hand but I will get there. Last week I attempted to Overclock my AMD FX-8320 using the AMD Catalyst CPU Overdrive software. Now, it was working fine while testing the frequencies up to 4.1GHz where it held a 63C temp on a max load.

Here comes my question and the interesting part.

When the frequency test switched from 4.1GHz to 4.2GHz, my Corsair temperature program flipped out (yes I kept it open while running the test because I wanted to keep an eye on the temp). It changed from the default Celsius readings and switched to Fahrenheit reading 200F which is approximately 80C and remember, it was JUST reading 63C. After that, my computer shutdown and wouldn't turn back on. I waited overnight and was advised by a friend to listen for HDD spins and look for lights when I go to turn it on. Well nothing happened. Still wouldn't turn on. He believes it to be the motherboard frying which would make sense so I shipped it to MSI for repair and am waiting for it to be fixed.

Now, the MSI 970A-G46 manual says it can withstand extreme heat and is overclockable and has a nifty little feature call "1sec overclocking". Now if this were true, why did it fry? And is it safe for me to Overclock? If it is, I would like to be given suggestions because I have no idea how multipliers and volt counts work in this instance.

I would also like to Overclock my RAM and GPU( Kingston 4 x 4GB 1333 MHz RAM and a Gigabyte Radeon HD 7850 GPU). Is that safe? I would like to get a cooling system to cool EVERYTHING (CPU, GPU, RAM and anything else I can use it on) but I also want to be safe.

So here are my main questions. What went wrong in my process of testing overclocking frequencies? What's a safe OC frequency for my setup? How do I set it up? And what advantages am I getting out of OC-ing anything other than my CPU? And finally, any advice in general?

Thank you for your feedback!
 


My best guess is that you pushed the overclock too hard. Your motherboard is a lower end MSI board (anecdotal evidence suggests that these boards have higher failure rates when overclocking) and it only has a 4+1 power phase. The more power phases you have the further you can safely push an overclock without frying your voltage regulator module. For more extreme overclocking i would go with a 990fx chipset board with at least 6+2 (like the asus M5A99FX Pro) or better yet an 8+2 like the ASRock 990FX Extreme4. Even then with these boards I wouldn't push the cpu too hard. With your board I'd stick to maybe a 3.8ish overclock on the 8320, with the upper limit of 4gzh (but that might be pushing it). Really the power phases have nothing to do with the clock speeds, but rather the voltages. I'm not too sure how many volts each power phase can safely handle.
 

Anthony Hidalgo

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Jul 22, 2013
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Are you prime stable and if so for how long? I am currently playing with some settings. I have a XSPC EX360 Rad setup running pull only with an xspc block. I have hit 4.7 @ around 1.475 volts prime blend for 23+ hours. my temps hover around 43.
 

Awtrace

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I have no clue what you are saying lol. I have put my computer back together and used OC Genie II to OC it to 3.76GHz but i'd like to take it to 4GHz because my idle temps are about 17C with a corsair h100i.

what settings should i use in the bios and voltages and what not because i have no clue
 

Schython

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there are some good guides out there. this guy explains the basics of the bios settings pretty quickly - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MckeAmnDeTk&list=WLBBz7ToumbyANUoS0aeK8y7wGH8DlqRcU

When Anthony Hidalgo is talking about "prime stable" he means running the program Prime95 for a predetermined amount of time.This tests the stability of your overclock and it also allows you to monitor temperatures under full load.
 

metalgun2000

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With these AMD FX chips, your overclocking potential really comes down to which motherboard you use because of the fact that they are so power hungry compared to the 22nm Intel chips. If you want a good stable overclock, you need to find a board that has a lot of power phases. I've had my FX 8320 since March 2013 and originally paired it with a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 and a CM Hyper 212 Plus. With this board I was limited to bumping up the multiplier only as it wouldn't boot with the reference clock at anything higher than 207mhz. I had a huge problem trying to overclock with this board. I couldn't go past 4.2ghz without the power phases getting too hot and trying to constantly throttle back the CPU. Then I bought an ASUS Crosshair V Formula Z and a Corsair H100i. Boy, what a difference.

First I tried pushing up the multiplier only. I couldn't get it stable at 4.4ghz or higher with the voltage pushing 1.462v which seemed high to me for being at just 4.4ghz. Then I put the multiplier back down to stock (17.5) and bumped up the FSB. Quite a difference there as well. This 8320 of mine very much preferred the FSB overclock. At 4.4ghz it was stable at stock voltage. I now have 4.6ghz (17.5 multiplier, 265mhz base clock) as my every day overclock with 1.425v. The load line calibration does bump that up a little under load but it's only 0.003v more than what I set it to, which is 1.428v total. It is both prime95 and OCCT stable. At 4.6ghz, my temps in prime95 and OCCT were mid 60'sC on the socket and upper 50'sC on the package. I did get it stable at 4.7ghz @ 1.512v but the temps were getting a little higher than I liked plus I had to add a pretty good amount of volts on the Vcore just to get there which that didn't make much sense to me to stay there. I'm pretty satisfied at 4.6ghz.

Like I said though, through the hours and hours of research and from my own experience, your overclocking potential really comes down to 2 things, how good the chip is (every CPU overclocks differently) which will determine how much voltage you need to add at which frequencies and which motherboard you use. If you play around with your parts, you'll find out what your chip likes and dislikes as well as what your motherboard likes and dislikes. Also remember, it's not heat that will kill a CPU, it's volts. For your everyday overclock though I wouldn't go past 1.500v on the Vcore, but that's just me. Lastly the maximum temps that you would get out of Prime95 or OCCT are not the temps you will see with most real world applications or games. Programs like prime95 are designed to completely load up the CPU and caches to get maximum heat to see if there are any errors. The more heat there is, the more potential for errors/instability. Most programs won't produce anywhere near that much heat, even programs that will use all your cores.
 

Toophat82

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There are plenty of boards with 4+1 power phases that you can safely overclock in fact I am overclocking my gigabyte GA-78LMT USB 3 without any issues and have a stable overclock of 4000mhz on my fx 8320 without no issues and btw i have kept it stable as low as 1.3125 volts till as high as 1.4215 volts and what I found to matter the most for me was to make sure I have the right cooling and a good PSU and to make sure your mobo is ok to be over locked, not the power phases. I have 2 intake side panel fans, 2 rear exhaust, and 1 intake in front along with an arctic pro 64 cpu cooler w/92mm fan which is old as shit but still great and does the job.

So as long as you have a durable board that is ok to be overclocked whether its 4+1 power phase or higher it should not matter at overclocks that low. So your issue has nothing to do with power phases and if your motherboard is on the list below as being ok to overclock then its something else. Below is a link to a page that has a list of motherboards with power phases low and high that can be overclocked and also shows which ones can't and also show a amazon review from someone with my same 4+1 power phase board that also successfully overclocked his and btw I found all this out thanks to another member here that told me all this and gave me the link.......

There is a whole bunch of different AMD motherboards listed in this database. http://www.overclock.net/t/946407/amd-motherboards-vrm-...

Also there is an Amazon review where someone talks about overclocking.

"4.0 out of 5 stars Running Overclocked @ 4.5GHz w/ FX 8350, March 21, 2013
By David R. (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Gigabyte AM3+ AMD DDR3 1333 760G HDMI USB 3.0 Micro ATX Motherboard GA-78LMT-USB3 (Personal Computers)
I got this board for almost nothing during a CPU/Mobo combo sale. I have this board paired with an.FX 8350 AMD FX-8350 FX-Series Eight-Core Processor Edition, Black AM3 FD8350FRHKBOX and running OC'd at 4.5GHz on air with a Hyper 212 EVO. Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120mm PWM Fan (RR-212E-20PK-R2) I have 16gb of Ballistix sport 1600 DDR3 RAM Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB kit (8GBx2) DDR3-1600 1.5V 240-Pin UDIMM BLS2CP8G3D1609DS1S00 running at 1600 even though the board only says 1333+...I don't know maybe it configured itself....just happy it did! I'm also runnning a GTX 550i graphics card."

 

MrVic87

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Wow. I have never seen an overclock past 4.9 til seeing your screen shot. Meanwhile I'm sturggling trying to get a stable 4.3 oc. I have the same cpu and board as the op. Ran a couple prime 95 torture tests and I get an error.

I only increased the clock (x21.5) and voltage (1.4). Hopefully it's stable.

 

Richyse7en

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Couldn't agree more, I have a stable 4.4ghz @ 1.39v on an FX6300 78LMT configuration with excellent temps using the 212 evo.

 

Richyse7en

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There are a lot of stable 5ghz stable clocks at on this config. Personally though I wouldn't be happy with the voltage going across the board at those clocks... I have read people using anything from 1.47 to 1.55 to stabslize, a lot of people are happy with this. it is a heavy vcore bump which obviously carries a greater risk to your mobo.