Question Core Performance Boost not working with FX-6300 on Biostar A960D+V3 6-X ?

[augusto44]

Hello.
Thanks for reading my topic.

That mainboard Biostar A960D+V3 6-X start using AMD FX-6300.
OS and softwares work correctly.
However the AMD FX core performance boost feature ( single core to 4,1 GHz and all cores to 3,8 GHz ) not work.
The mainboard BIOS is AMI version 8.00.15 and mainboard BIOS version is 2.61 2019-01-10.
In BIOS CPU settings have correct details about AMD FX-6300 , but the core performance boost is in gray color not being possible enable it.
I have tried contact in Biostar support and the reply is that problem was flaw from Biostar not adding the data about FX-6300 in the BIOS.

Have any Bios moding for that mainboard A960D+V3 6-X fixing that bug ?
Have any other solution to fix it ?
I use Linux Ubuntu 20.04.5.

Thanks for reading.
Have an nice day.

 

[drea.drechsler]

...
I have tried contact in Biostar support and the reply is that problem was flaw from Biostar not adding the data about FX-6300 in the BIOS.
...

Have you tried the latest BIOS?

https://biostar-usa.com/app/en-us/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=911#download

Biostar motherboards don't seem to have broad popularity and with a 3+1 VRM that one also isn't suitable for overclocking 8 core CPU's so it's probably not going to draw much interest from a modding community. What is curious on the support page for your board is it states the board support FX8300, FX 4300, FX 6100 and even an FX 6200...but nothing about FX 6300. I have to think that's just an omission but if the latest BIOS (released in 2019 btw so fairly modern) doesn't provide full support for your FX processor then you might consider just overclocking your 6300.

Even a 6-core should reach a steady 4.1, 4.2 or maybe even 4.3Ghz making core turboing to 4.1Ghz pretty much pointless. I wouldn't push much past that, though. Even pointing a fan at those naked FET's to provide cooling might not help if the VRM is poorly designed and doesn't throttle the CPU when it overheats.

 

[augusto44]

"Have you tried the latest BIOS?"

Yes .. I have used the latest BIOS and unhappily Biostar not had fixed that flaw.

"What is curious on the support page for your board is it states the board support FX8300, FX 4300, FX 6100 and even an FX 6200...but nothing about FX 6300"
Biostar support had replied saying was an flaw from own Biostar.

"Even pointing a fan at those naked FET's to provide cooling might not help if the VRM is poorly designed and doesn't throttle the CPU when it overheats"
Well ... BIOS have options about VRM and CPU protection overheat.

I have an damaged Gigabyte mainboard GA78LMT the core performance boost really works and is an secure overclock not having high temperature with 15 % better performance.

 

[drea.drechsler]

...
Well ... BIOS have options about VRM and CPU protection overheat.
...

That's good...but the way they work is to throttle the CPU clocks to maybe 800Mhz or so to protect the VRM. So you don't really want to rely on that as it kills performance to worse than leaving it stock with no turbo. Besides, I think your interest is to just get the 4.1Ghz "turbo" clock speed, so if your motherboard allows you to set that speed than that's all I'd suggest going with.

How is the Gigabyte board damaged though? If it doesn't affect how you use it then it may be the better option.

 

[augusto44]

@drea.drechsler
"but the way they work is to throttle the CPU clocks to maybe 800Mhz or so to protect the VRM"
All FX cpus the minimum clock are 1,4 GHz ? 6300 and 8XXX are 1,4 GHz minimum.

"I'm running an FX6300 at 4.6Ghz quite comfortably, well within safe temp and voltage limits"

Which are the settings ?

"But I do agree the "low-end" AM3+ boards typically built around 700 and 800 series chipsets can be a problem. But not because of the chipset: it's the VRM's they had as so many had no over-temp protections and would burn up when overloaded for too long"

Correct !
That A960D+V3 6-X have 4 phases and 12 mosfets in VRM area being much hot even not using any overclock. The VRMs and phases are so hot that I put aluminum heat sink in VRMs and in mainboard fan connector using an wire allowing plug 2 fan coolers being :

• An DeepCool Ice Edge Mini FS 2.0 2 copper pipes wire 3 pins in FX-6300 ... in 3,5 GHz 100 % usage the temperature is 58C.
• An Athlon 2 stock cooler wire 4 pins in VRM area. Not any hot temperature.

About my others damaged mainboards the GA-78LMT-USB3 6.0 have 5 phases and I not remember the number of mosfets possible more than the A960D+V3 and the GA-78LMT-S2P 5.0 have 4 phases and 12 mosfets in VRMs area being both much less hot than A960D+V3 6-X at point only using the stock heat sink vrm without cooler is enough. However both mainboard work core performance boost and not have any setting to control the fan cooler.

An good detail about A960D+V3 6-X is in BIOS is possible set when the coolers power on. The CPU begin to be hot in 45C. Thus you configure to power after 45C and having maximum speed before 60C.
The fan cooler maximum watts allowed in that mainboard is 6 watts. The 2 coolers use less of 6 watts.

"So the most correct is the stock voltage with BIOS settings at defaults"
The FX-6300 core performance boost not was added in that BIOS. However good voltage settings are there.

A960D+V3 with an CPU 6 cores the VRM area is much hot ... with cpu 8 cores possibly will be extremely hot.
I only see 2 or 3 % performance gain using some settings and DDR3 between 1066 to 1600 MHz. Memory is an Hyper X 1600 MHz.
Thus is better run that cpu in minimum voltage settings and memory not above 1066 MHz.
I not understand if is related with the mainboard northbridge. If using HT Link between 1,8 and 2,2 and CPU NB 1,8 and 2,2 is the same performance.

Perhaps that bit performance gain is wrong memory settings ( CAS latency ) ?

 

[drea.drechsler]

...
All FX cpus the minimum clock are 1,4 GHz ? 6300 and 8XXX are 1,4 GHz minimum.

"I'm running an FX6300 at 4.6Ghz quite comfortably, well within safe temp and voltage limits"

Which are the settings ?
...

There are several "safety" down-clocks. I'm not really sure which is which as it's been a while since I was pushing my 6300 on an M5A88m motherboard. The 1.4Ghz speed, if I recall correctly, is the Cool-n-Quiet (CnQ) speed which the CPU's APM will also use to keep it within it's TDP rating. That will engage even if an overclocked CPU is extremely well cooled but simply exceeds it's TDP for a bit of time. I believe it's also a throttle speed the CPU uses when the VRM overheats and signals the CPU to slow down. The 800 clock speed is the first of the true safety limits, a thermal trip. The CPU probably also has something called an HTC, or High Temp Cutout, which completely shuts the system. Although, the VRM overtemp may trigger the thermal trip speed (800Mhz) on some motherboards or maybe even the HTC.

If you're seeing 1.4Ghz frequently when it's basically idle or light processing it's just to keep a cool CPU and quiet the fans (CnQ), if it's working really hard it's the CPU's APM keeping it in it's TDP range.

This is probably the primary reason more processors (especially the 8 cores) and low-spec motherboards didn't burn up more frequently. Back in the day I remember reading about people gaming with 5Ghz OC's (these things are extremely overclockable) on their 4300 and 6300's yet complaining about stuttering in games. Their processor was probably bouncing off the APM limiter and constantly down-clocking to 1.4Ghz.

Disabling CnQ will only disable it at lower utilization, there needs to be a setting in BIOS to disable it for the higher utilization, it's usually called HPC (High Performance Computing) which is enabled to disable it. If you don't have it then your CPU will try to maintain an average TDP of 95W as AMD intended. It's pointless pushing clocks higher than that because it will just throttle itself ever more frequently. If it does have it and you enable it then you have to be very careful as this is the way to burn up your CPU or VRM or both.

As far as other settings: I keep the BIOS APM setting enabled (that has nothing to do with the 1.4Ghz throttling, at least on my boards) as well as Cool-n-Quiet and Advanced C-states. You can disable them but all it serves to do is keep the processor unnecessarily warm when it could go into power saving modes at low utilizations. Any other settings are pointless to share since motherboards work so differently and CPU silicon quality varies so greatly. My current board (GA990FX-UD3) is a bit up-market with good heatsinking on a relatively strong VRM (certainly, there are much better). It has the HPC setting.

Cooling your FET's with heatsinks is a good idea. Also locating a fan to blow on them. I'd suggest checking their temperature with an IR thermometer. While FET's are safe at 115C to maybe as high as 125C it's always better to run cooler for voltage stability.

For you, I'd suggest setting clock speed to 4.2Ghz and then raise voltage until it stays stable for at least 10 minutes of Cinebench 20. Monitor clocks, if it's not throttling to 1.4Ghz you're still in it's average TDP. If FET temp is OK (no more than 90-95C for margin) push it a bit more to 4.3Ghz or even 4.4. Raise voltage to keep stable, of course. At 4.4Ghz you'll likely see occasional throttling to 1.4Ghz in CB20 but gaming shouldn't be much affected.

When adjusting voltage use this limit as a hard and fast one: never exceed 1.55V with a reported CPU temperature of 70C. But definitely maintain as low a voltage as will remain stable for 10-20 minutes of Cinebench20.

And BTW: use HWInfo64 or Overdrive for checking processor temps. FX processor temps are not accurate but HWInfo at least works pretty well as a reference and uses the same temps that Overdrive uses but without the rest of the baggage Overdrive requires. HWInfo provides a lot more useful information than Overdrive does while remaining completely out of the way when it's not running.

Obviously you'd want the lowest CPU temps possible. But reported temps of 60-65C tops in CB20 (5C-10C thermal margin in Overdrive) should be achievable. Or better, depending on CPU cooling.