FX-8150 - disabling cores 1, 3, 5, 7.

[Suspicious_Package]

Hey all.

I read that disabling FX-8150's first, third, fifth and seventh cores can yield greater gaming performance and reduce the CPU's temperature. However, I am unsure how to do this.

Firstly, can it be done with the AMD Overdrive program? If not, how would I go about doing this?

I have an ASUS M5A99X EVO R2.0 motherboard. The motherboard has the default drivers which came with Windows 8.

Thanks in advance. Give me a shout if you need any more specifications.

 

[barto]

Where did you hear this? It doesn't make sense if so.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

All disabling cores is going to do is give you fewer cores. That will not increase performance. It will give you an FX 4100. And if you wanted one of those you should have bought one. Reduce temps? Sure, but if you are having temp problems get a better cooler. The one thing FX 8xxx series CPUs have going for them is the 'cores'. Most games are much more dependent on your video card than CPU anyway. Overclock that 8150 as far as it will go and have fun playing. If that's not enough for you sell it and buy an i7.

 

[Suspicious_Package]

I 'heard' it on a thread on this very forum: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/350978-28-single-thread-performance-boost

I'm looking to run a few benchmarks.

Thanks for the responses so far.

 

[barto]

Well, before the thread went into a flame war, the user "sarinaide" explained why the information was false. And then so in the flame war. You can't just read the title.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

^ Yep. The intelligent people in that thread point out why it's a bad idea. That was when the FX series was first released and people were doing anything they could to avoid calling them the fail for AMD that they turned out to be. There was some crying about Windows 7 in specific not being able to use the FX series effectively due to the way it handled threads. Microsoft put out an update than in fact caused worse performance than before they tried to fix it :lol:

 

[Suspicious_Package]

Heh. I'm not the best with all of this stuff, so I didn't know if what he said was an opinion or an objective fact. There's a lot of conflicting stances on this, it seems. Some people have said it gives quite a boost.

 

[barto]

Well, in your defense, for a first time reader most of the info in there wouldn't make much sense. When reading posts, take a look at the direction the majority of the people are pointing. There's a good chance they're right.

So yeah, don't do it. If you want more performance, check your motherboard to see if it supports the 8320 or 8350. Of make a jump to an Intel i5.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

The best thing you can do is overclock as high as you can get safely ( ~4.5Ghz range with good cooling ) and pair it with a higher end video card. Leave the cores alone. Overclocked to ~4.5Ghz the FX series will roughly equal an Intel i5 at stock speed in gaming performance and is capable of running any game out there very well. Now the AMD chips are much closer to equal to Intel when rendering or editing video. But not at gaming. The IPC is ....well really just not very good. The FX series are actually slower clock for clock than the older STARS architecture chips ( Phenom II ) they replaced. That's why you see such high clocks from AMD compared to Intel. They have to clock them crazy high to get decent performance.

Edit: Well people are actually having a hell of a time with AC Unity and AMD hardware but that's more Ubisoft's fault than AMD's.

 

[Suspicious_Package]

Cheers guys. I'll leave it alone. I'm thinking about grabbing a FX8350 sometime around the New Year. Should be nice with my R9270X.

Thanks for that information, Anort3. Do you have any idea what kind of speed for that CPU I could get with a stock cooler?

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Stock speed Seriously don't overclock with stock cooling.

 

[Suspicious_Package]

Heh, thanks.

I'll look into grabbing a cooler for the CPU for now. I'll save up for a FX8350 later!

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Glad to help!

 

[Beezy]

In theory yeah, fewer cores sharing X amount of voltage means each one should be able to clock higher, as opposed to having all 8 cores demanding juice. But it isn't quite that simple, and will depend greatly on the game. I think the best balance for a strict gamer is 6 cores (3 modules) and clock them as high as you can. Enough for most games 2/4/6 cores and enough to run the OS in the background with ease.

 

[barto]

Monitor those temps! The magic numbers are 62 and 70. Make sure an individual core doesn't exceed 62C or the socket temp doesn't exceed 70C. Beyond those temps and you risk damaging components.

http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

 

[Suspicious_Package]

Thanks for your answer, Beezy. I'll take that into consideration!

I'll check out that link, Barto.