4+1 phase power and 125W FX-83xx CPU

[mlscrow]

Community, I have an 870 AM3+ Chipset with 4+1 power phase (ASRock 870 iCafe R2.0) and I am looking to upgrade from a 955BE@3.8GHz (which should be drawing around 170W at load) to an FX-83xx CPU. My motherboard boasts that it can handle 140W CPU's and as of it's most recent BIOS update, supports both the FX8320 and FX8350 CPU's (I would also think the FX8370 as in most of the reviews I've read, it seems to use less power than the FX8350, probably due to a more mature process and better binning by that point), but I know all about just how well any 4+1 motherboard handles a 125W CPU as well as how much more power the FX CPU's use than the advertised 125W. That damn AMD marketing team from back in those days were horrible with all their misleading.

In any case, I've seen people running overclocked FX8350's on these boards, so I know it can be done, even if it's a bit of a crap shoot in terms of whether or not I have "golden" parts that will handle it. And with that said, that is why all I want is to run 4.0GHz, which is stock for an FX8350 and FX8370. I don't care to push past 4.0GHz even with their turbo settings (I'll turn turbo off or down). There will be no overclocking unless I end up getting either the FX8320 or one of the 95W chips, ie; fdsFX8320E, or FX8370e and with those, I will simply OC them to 4.0GHz.

With such modest goals, will this be possible? I'd like to hear from people who actually have a 4+1 board and are running FX-CPU's if possible. I want actual data rather than theoretical if possible. Thanks all!

 

[mgallo848]

I agree with everything you said. There was waaay more confusion about which motherboards could properly handle the 8000 series chips than what AMD would actually say.

I HIGHLY reccomend not going any higher than an FX 8320e. Even then, don't be surprised if it doesn't run that chip at the proper speeds.

I upgraded my nieces PC from an Phenom II x840 to the FX 8320e and I could not get it to run stable at all stock settings. Making a long story short I had to disable 2 cores and run it as an FX 6300 until I get some time to get her a proper motherboard. I'm not at home right now so I can't say what MB I had these problems on.

To sum things up:

1: Don't go over an FX 8320e
2: Even then it may not run properly at stock speeds.
3: 4+1 phase power phase was a nightmare for so many people trying to upgrade to an 8000 series chip.