Several problems are occurring; Prime95 is displaying an immediate core failure, and SLI appears to be running slowly.
Several problems are occurring; Prime95 is displaying an immediate core failure, and SLI appears to be running slowly.
I built this system with the following components:
AMD FX-8350 at 4.4GHz (about 4 years old)
ASUS Crosshair V Formula Z (around 3 years old)
G. Skill Ripjaws Z 16GB (4x4) @ 1866 (2 years old)
EVGA 970 SSC ACX 2.0 4GB SLI (each nearly 1 year old)
Antec 850W PSU (about 2 years old)
Corsair H100 (about 2 years old)
AMD R7 240GB SSD (about 2 years old)
WD Black 2TB (about 2 years old)
Seagate Barracuda 2TB (less than a year old)
Windows 10 Home 64 Upgrade (from version 7)
I’m including the age of each piece of hardware, in case anyone assumes it’s related to age.
The main point is that Prime95 is indicating core 8 failure almost right away, with a SUMOUT warning until it times out and stops working. However, my system doesn’t crash in Prime95—actually, the other six cores have been running smoothly for nearly an hour. But occasionally (more often during gaming), I experience a BSOD, system kernel error, or service exception.
I’m wondering if these blue screens are connected to this single core that struggles to keep up with its teammates. Despite being 4 years old and running at 4.4GHz under the H100, it hasn’t ever reached over 60°C. My SLI setup hasn’t been particularly stable either; in FPS games, I’m getting 60–80 FPS, but in Rocket League, it’s around 40, and I notice a lot of frame lag when playing games like Rocket League.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Using an i7 processor works well. An 8350 offers less performance compared to an i7. Stock clocks for the 8350 are 4.0GHz base and 4.2GHz boost, so adjusting it back to 4.2 might not be necessary.
If you enable SLI for a game, it will try to run in that configuration. The only solution to prevent it is to turn SLI off for that particular game.
This indicates your overclocking isn't stable. Either increase the voltage or adjust the overclock settings. BF4 isn't a light game, but compared to GTAV it's significantly less demanding, particularly for the CPU. If you're consistently around 40 FPS in GTAV, try disabling your SLI and test if the issue persists. GTAV can easily limit CPU performance.
You likely don't need to play Rocket League with SLI active, do you? The game isn't very demanding and you have a GPU well above its recommended capabilities.
Alright, I'll give it a shot when I get home. I've seen builds like that with an i7 running the game at 4K and 60 FPS on GTA, which left me confused. I plan to adjust the overclock back to 4.2 and check the performance. If nothing improves, I'll revert it to stock settings. For Rocket League, I expect it won't run worse with an SLI because I used to play one and it worked perfectly. Probably when I play that, I'll turn it off, as I didn't realize it would use both cards—some games leave the second card idle.
Using an i7 processor works well, but an 8350 still outperforms it. The stock clocks for the 8350 are 4.0GHz base and 4.2GHz boost, so adjusting it back to 4.2 might not be necessary.
If you enable SLI for a game, it will try to run in that configuration. To prevent it, disable SLI for that particular game.
I plan to reset it to 4, adjust the sliders, and tweak some game settings. I'll share an update soon.