Fx-8120 Overclock Voltage and Clock throttling?

crawlver

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Hello all!

I bought the FX-8120 when I was new to PC building almost 4 years ago, but I didn't bother optimizing my half-assed overclock until today. I've been messing around with several clock settings and reading ways to optimize everything.

I managed to get a stable clock at 4.0Ghz with a voltage of 1.35 (a kind of high voltage from my understanding). However, using Prime95 I began to notice severe throttling issues once I passed the 10 minute mark on a Blend test. At this point in Prime95, each core had passed the "test". However, after that, it would go from whatever my overclock was to 1.4GHz and .900V every 10 seconds or so. This number that it throttled to stayed constant no matter what my overclock was set to. The CPU load percentage never changed while this took place. I began to go backwards decreasing my voltage and clock speeds, until I could find something to stabilize this throttling I'm seeing, but I had no luck.

I've disabled, one by one, the power saving features, but that didn't solve my problem. I changed my Loadline Calibration to different intervals, but no luck. A big suggestion, especially for my motherboard, was to disable APM, which I did with no luck.

Here's my setup:
Gigabyte 970A-D3P with BIOS v. F5
FX-8120 (now clocked at 3.7GHz and 1.33V)
Coolermaster Evo 212 (I think that's what it's called)
EVGA GTX 1060 SC
650W CX650M

Hopefully that's enough info. I've read just about every article under the sun regarding this issue, but none of the solutions seemed to help.

Also, here's a picture of my latest HWMonitor info from the last test I did. My temperatures look great from what I understand as well.

02eab6c703.png


Maybe this throttling (especially under a full load) is a normal thing to cool itself off? Maybe my motherboard just isn't up to the task of overclocking? Maybe I'm just going past the time limit of what I should on a Prime95 blend test? Hopefully someone here can lend me some help!

Thanks again,
Cameron

EDIT: During long sessions of gaming, I haven't experienced any lowering of the clock frequency whatsoever. It only happens when I perform any Prime95 Test!
 

l1ghtm4st3r

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Mar 3, 2012
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Hi Cameron,
I wouldn't worry too much about it. You're exactly right, the throttling is a normal thing. If the CPU didn't throttle itself would have to shut itself down so rather than that it just drops the voltage (which induces your heat) until it cools off a little.
If you watch your temperatures you can see this kick in at a certain temperature.
My CPU also does the same.

Thanks :)
 

crawlver

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Thank you for the reply! You're right, because once that TMPIN1 temp hits 58 degrees, the throttling starts to happen. I asssume that's the Northbridge on the motherboard or something? Thank you for easing my mind!

To be clear, too, this throttling doesn't happen in CPU intensive games, just on Prime95, so I'm a happy camper now!
 

jp95

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Throttling is NOT a normal thing. There is a setting called HPC in bios i believe that will prevent your cpu from throttling. Although it will make your pc run hotter. I suggest finding an overclock that does not throttle your pc. Also find out the max temperatures for your cpu core and socket. I think the 58c reading is from the socket. Throttling at 58c is a little bit conservative imo.
 

the_trademark

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I have the same problem on my FX8350 above 1.4V. The VRMs on my GA 990X Gaming Sli overheat and its starts throttling. The heatsync gets burning hot like 90C+. I put a fan blowing directly at them and from ~1min of stress testing before throttling at 4.6Ghz at 1.45v i got up to 10 mins. Check if its that.
 

l1ghtm4st3r

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Just had a look up of this and I think you're right. Unselecting my solution as the correct one.

Also, yes, 58 will be at the socket but I wouldn't say it's conservative for throttling down at that temperature. From what I've found the 8120 has a max spec temp of 61C so it's not too far off.
 

jp95

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The 61c rating is for the core of the processor, or the package reading of 48c in your case. you want to keep this temperature below 61c max and below 55c for prolonged usage. My motherboard states 72c for max socket temperature, it may be different for yours. In your case I believe your socket is 58c which ok. The problem might be your vrms's are overheating causing the throttling. I dont think your motherboard is suitable for high overclocks since its the 970 chipset. I
 

crawlver

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Mar 25, 2014
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My heatsink isn't abnormally hot to the touch let alone 90C.
 

crawlver

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I've tried just about every setting under the sun in BIOS. I'll try HPC mode right now to double-check though.
 

crawlver

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Thank you for the information! Was not aware of the 8120's max temps!
 

crawlver

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UPDATE: HPC mode didn't have an impact. Started to throttle after 10 minutes again. I'm stumped!
 

l1ghtm4st3r

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I be perfectly honest mate, I can't really see why it would work. I'm sure as jp95 stated, HPC would work in some scenarios but I can't see why the CPU would NOT throttle itself in order to preserve itself from being damaged by heat.
 

crawlver

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Okay then, thanks!
 

crawlver

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Was never able to solve it. I don't experience any throttling in games, which is the important thing, but I think you are right - my motherboard is just not up to the stuff for overclocking. Unfortunately I've had some problems with AMD, and I've been looking at 7th Gen Intel stuff, with a new Z270 board.

I appreciate the reply!