Professional Help: Getting The Best Overclock From AMD's A8-3870K
We recently hooked up with overclocking guru Sami Mäkinen to get his take on the best way to overclock AMD's A8-3870K APU. Using his advice, we tweaked five retail -3870Ks and compared their overclocked gaming performance to a discrete Radeon HD 6670.
Test System And Benchmarks
In an effort to best demonstrate multiple configurations, we first tested our system at stock frequencies using 800 MHz memory at 8-8-8-24-2T timings. Those are the same settings used in February's Llano-based overclocking story. Then, we overclocked Corsair's Vengeance kit to 933 MHz (the architecture's highest official data rate) using 9-9-9-24-29-1T timings, but kept stock CPU and GPU speeds.
We're also including a standard overclock using the same 933 MHz memory setting, changing only the CPU and GPU multipliers, but not the reference clock. This gives us 3.6 GHz processing cores and a 960 MHz GPU.
Finally, we include the highest memory overclock, a 117 MHz reference clock, 3627 MHz CPU cores, a 936 MHz GPU, and 1092 MHz (2184 MT/s DDR3) memory at 10-10-10-27-35-2T.
We're ultimately interested in how our all-out overclock compares to a discrete Radeon HD 6670 DDR3. So, we installed it in the overclocked system and disengaged its on-die GPU.
Interface | Socket FM1 |
---|---|
CPU/APU | AMD A8-3870K (Llano), Stock: 3.0 GHz, Overclocked To 3.627 GHz @ 1.5 V |
Motherboard | Asus F1A75-V Pro, Socket FM1, Chipset: AMD A75 |
Integrated Graphics | Integrated Radeon HD 6550D, Stock: 600 MHz, Overclocked To 960 MHz @ 1.3 V |
Discrete Graphics | Radeon HD 6670 DDR3800 MHz GPU, 900 MHz (1800 MT/s DDR3) memory |
Networking | On-board Gigabit LAN controller |
Memory | Corsair Vengeance CMZ4GX3M2A2000C102 x 2 GB, Max rating: 2000 MT/s, CL 10-10-10-27-2T,Max overclock: 2184 MT/s @ CL 10-10-10-27-2T |
Hard Drive | Western Digital Caviar Black 750 GB, 7200 RPM, 32 MB Cache, SATA 3Gb/s |
Power | ePower EP-1200E10-T2 1200 W, ATX12V, EPS12V |
Software and Drivers | |
Operating System | Microsoft Windows 7 x64 |
DirectX | DirectX 11 |
Graphics Drivers | Catalyst 12.7 Beta |
Benchmark Configuration | |
---|---|
3D Games | |
Battlefield 3 | Version 1.0.0.0, Operation Swordbreaker, Fraps Runs |
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim | Version 1.4.21.04, Fraps Runs |
DiRT 3 | Version 1.2.0.0, Built-In Benchmark |
StarCraft II | Version: 1.4.2.20141, Tom's Hardware Guide Benchmark |
Synthetic Benchmarks | |
3DMark 11 | Version: 1.0.1.0, Benchmark Only |
SiSoftware Sandra 2011 | Version 2011.1.17.15, CPU Test = CPU Arithmetic / MultiMedia, Memory Test = Bandwidth Benchmark |
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Current page: Test System And Benchmarks
Prev Page Dialing In Our Overclock Using The Right Components Next Page Benchmark Results: Synthetics-
buzznut This is pretty cool, this addresses most of the questions I would have about gaming with a LLano part. But it seems Trinity is right around the corner so I would still have reservations about recommending it. Except for the fact I just saw one of these quads for $90 at the egg, which does make a compelling case for folks on a tight budget.Reply -
EzioAs Interesting read. Can't wait to see how much of an improvement the desktop Trinity APU brings seeing Llano is better than what I imagine it would beReply -
peroludiarom Hi Don, you have wrote great article!Reply
I have just one question - do you try to overclock the memory controller as well, because its not mentioned in the article? Thanks in advance -
Wife's pentium intel g620 and amd 7750 on budget board and 8 gb budget ram .....only pulls 150 watts max !!!!!!!!lcost less and performs much better. Apu is a epic idea, alas still useless maybe trinity will save the day. Until then the hype and misleading performance promises will still make them money.Reply
-
Fokissed On page 2 there is a reference to hwbot.com, which seemingly doesn't exist anymore.Reply
Thanks for catching that, fixed to hwbot.org! -
freggo FokissedOn page 2 there is a reference to hwbot.com, which seemingly doesn't exist anymore.Reply
Makes you wonder how old the article is that a dead domain link made it into the text :)
-
csbeer "So, we installed it (6670) in the overclocked system and disengaged its on-die GPU."Reply
I don't get why all these major sites don't test the dual graphics nature of the asymetrical xfire that Llano supports? Marry that APU with a 6570 or 6670 for maximum performance, that's the whole point of the Llano experience imo! I have a Llano notebook and am so hungry for info on other's experiments and results with the APU+DGPU. -
biggerbooger Excuse the noob question, but if you had say 2 x 4gb sticks rather than 2 x 2 and you put on a corsair H40 contained water cooler for example could you get much better OC performance? This is looking like a viable option.Reply