Did I just get a really lucky M5A97 LE?

[bigjoe980]

So we've had our rig going for roughly six months now, everything is going great with it, including over clocking! Now obviously people will act like they want to flog you if you mention overclocking on this board.. but my experience has been very decent so far.

Now, I'm using an FX 8350 AND the stock cooler as well as a Sapphire Nitro 370 4gb. But I like to push it for newer games, Doom being the most recent example. I was playing around with 4.7ghz/1.45v earlier and my temps were totally reasonable. 55c max on the socket and 45-50 on the cpu..cores..whatever. This was during a very long gaming session. about 12 hours in the 90 degree weather. The best thing is I can reach in and touch my VRMs for a couple seconds before it gets too hot (average skin burn math equates that to roughly 145f or so, well beyond acceptable considering the extra .17v on the FX 8x series) also temp gun. but skin math is more fun.

Let me just say again. the STOCK cooler. not a wraith cooler. the old shitty one with a 7k+ rpm fan that could vibrate a damn house.

The real kicker here? It gets hotter with stock clocks and 1.285v when my wife renders in Adobe Premier, about 65c and 55c respectively. I know that's full cpu usage but still...

Soooo, point being. Did I just get a damn lucky board, or is the whole anti overclock agenda pretty exaggerated with this one? To be fair I've personally yet to actually hear anyone say it had a meltdown. Just that it gets hot... which isn't surprising

 

[N3rdR4ge]

i wouldn't consider it a lucky board. boards in terms of temps and overclockability are pretty much the same within a small % margin. looks like you got a decent chip with ghz/voltage you mentioned.

generally you want to test overclocking by running your cpu on max load with a program like prime 95 for a few hours. this tests stability and max heat. if you haven't done this, you can't really know your oc is stable and temps will consistently be safe. max load testing is completely different than gaming and real world use. in gaming and real world use your temps will almost never get near max load testing. that's why you are seeing acceptable temps now, and not when your wife renders. rendering puts heavy load on the cpu.

you should at least replace your cooler with a $25 hyper 212 evo and not use stock with an overclock like this, no matter how decent your temps are, with or without load. the 212 evo will give a lot better performance and silence than the stock cooler. also, it is better for the life of the chip and lessens your chance of throttling when you have lower temps. most people would say your crazy overclocking that chip with a stock cooler. i'd agree with them.

 

[bigjoe980]

Haha, crazy for using the stock heatsink. I agree with you... but I think it's an impressive result none the less. riiiight? Honestly though at the moment I'm not looking towards a tower cooler.. just silly with am3 to give up the tiny bit of vrm cooling I do get . And to be quite blunt I have a desktop fan that can flat out cool as well as any aio i've been allowed to try. But i've yet to figure out how to finagle a 1 foot fan in there so I just throw it on a stool and point it at the board if I really want to stress it. (We're talking 39-40c under full load, while 4.5ghz) but it throws so much dust in there.. i usually have to clean it within two or three days.. that's a real pain deep cleaning every individual fin for a while

I'm on the fence about going for a super high end low profile cooler or liquid cooling. I like both versus towers. I've had nothing but bad experiences with them *shrug* Waiting to buy a RX 480 or 1060 before I really make up my mind on air or water.

I guess I should have been a bit more specific on being lucky about my vrm temps at a decently high clock on air and not giving up on life... You often hear about people complaining they nearly over heat at stock speeds. I feel good about mine regardless!

By the way I hear you on the rendering load versus gaming. I get that and all. But, it's still somewhat drastic being 7 degrees away from the upper "oh shit" limit while undervolted nearly a tenth of a volt.. It's been awhile since I ran prime though because my clocks tend to be stable for exactly what I'm doing at the time. Gaming. my gpu overclock however. don't get me started. 1mhz off, crash! generally 1070 or 1085/1585-1600 depending on the game. dumb voltage locked card. I'd really like to push it to 1.2v instead of 1.188v - I heard prettygood results from someone who edited their XFX R7 370 bios.