Ideas for boosting performance on an FX-8350
Ideas for boosting performance on an FX-8350
Hey everyone,
I'm currently using an FX-8350 with a Hyper 212X. It's running smoothly at around 4.3ghz, though setting the VCore accurately is tricky because the MOBO doesn't allow precise adjustments (just MSI Gaming 970). Since the CPU isn't too outdated and I don't want to replace everything just yet for extra FPS, I'm wondering if anyone thinks it's worth spending on liquid cooling. Would someone know of a good option? I was considering the Corsair H100i, but it seems a bit old. Any suggestions would be great!
Thanks,
Joey
The cooler is suitable for reuse with a different CPU, making it a worthwhile investment. Putting money into a 990FX setup solely to test AMD's chipset impact on overclock stability seems unreasonable. It would be more sensible to sell the CPU and MOBO, using the proceeds to purchase an Intel platform instead.
Yes a Corsair H100i is a little bit old but it gets the job done and does a reasonable job of keeping an FX-8350 cool.
The limiting factor to the amount you will be able to clock the 8350 to will be partly down to the chipset used on your motherboard.
The 970 is not a bad chipset, but the 990FX chip set gives better results at overclocking.
On about average, or with most FX cpus your looking at about an extra 800Mhz over the default clock speed of the cpu when overclocking.
The core voltage for the cpu at that point is about 1.36v.
At about 900Mhz to 1ghz overclock of an FX cpu you are looking at a core voltage from 1.4v to 1.45.
That is a rough estimate as not all FX- 8350 chips will overclock well.
Near the 900Mhz range on a overclock you will see the temperatures rise quiet rapidly from about a 1.45v setting of the core to 1.5v so you must keep a close eye on it.
It is not recommended that you go above 1.5v to 1.55v, and never set the core to 1.6v tempting as it may be the temp rockets very quickly.
Even with a good water cooler fitted Joey.
Do everything in small amounts, like half multiplier settings and core voltage changes.
If the board can do Mv Milli volt setting for the core voltage raise it by 0.250 increments.
And test the system each time for stability and keeping a close eye on the cpu temperature.
Run a prime 95 test checking for stability under cpu core load.
When your happy it`s stable and temps are right.
Back to the bios and move a half multiplier value up test again.
If it falls over during a prime 95 test.
Add another 0.250mv to the cpu core. test again, and so on.
Just because something is old doesn't mean it's useless. Large coolers such as the h100i are still available since they perform well enough. Remember, unless you're using a specific type of phase change cooling, water in a custom or closed loop system remains air cooling. The advantage of bigger radiator coolers is their increased surface area for better cooling. You might want to check the article here for a solid closed loop recommendation: Tom's Best Liquid Coolers
The cooler is suitable for reuse with a different CPU, making it a worthwhile investment. Putting money into a 990FX setup solely to test AMD's chipset impact on overclock stability seems unreasonable. It would be more sensible to sell the CPU and MOBO, using the proceeds to purchase an Intel platform instead.
The cooler can be used again with a different CPU, making it a worthwhile investment. Putting money into a 990FX platform to try and improve stability through AMD's chipset is not sensible. I think the cost would not justify it. It would be smarter to sell the CPU along with the MOBO and use the proceeds, rather than buying a new board and switching to Intel.
I agree with you about the transition, but I’ll hold off until Dx12 has more experience. I’m hoping my GCN-based system will reach 1,000,000 fps, which would save me the trouble of overclocking. In the meantime, it’s just a bit of experimentation. A liquid cooling setup would also look good to me. Probably only a few others will see it...
LOL, I understand your point. I paid extra for the window panel on my case that I never even check, and the side panel was never installed.
I use AMD in over 60% of the machines I work with personally, including my gaming PC. It's great that a single CPU upgrade can help several systems lately. That's not true for Intel.
DX12 has shown some good improvements on GCN, around 20%. I wouldn't expect much more. There are many other factors at play, like NVIDIA's role in the market.
Even if I switched to Intel, I'd still use GCN-based graphics.