GA-990FXA-UD3 and FX-9590 PSU recommendation.

[riggers2]

I'm in the process of upgrading my pc and whilst I consider myself competant enough to build one I don't know anything about OCing and only really know the basics. I'm not looking to OC as I just want a fast reliable stable pc. I'm a photgrapher so my primary usage is in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop hence I run 16GB RAM minimum. I also do some live video streaming (not editing just streaming) via Ustream with multiple cameras.

Lightroom supports multi-core CPUs so I'm looking to upgrade from my 4 core to the 8 core FX-9590.

My main question is whether this kit is going to run ok on a 750w PSU. I blew my 500w so purchased a 750w with a view to upgrading to a FX-8350 (draws 125w) but am now looking at the 9590 (draws 220w). I don't really want to have to replace a 1 week old PSU if I don't have to.

This is my current set up and in brackets what I'm planning to change to:
GA-990FXA-UD3 Rev 4.0 - F2 Bios (changing to latest BIOS)
AMD FX-4170 (FX-9590)
Corsair H60 Water Cooler (H100i)
4x4GB DDR3 1866Mhz Corsair Vengance CML8GX3M2A1866C9R Radeon H7770 GPU
Blackmagic Express PCiE card
TP-Link PCIE Wifi
Startech 4 port USB 2 PCI card
3 x SSD HDD

My second question is about the RAM. I've read quite a lot of posts about the FX processors not supporting 1866 unless its one stick in on DIMM. Apparently 1600 is supported if 2x8 and if you have more than 2x8 or you use all 4 slots you are stuck with 1333 unless you try some hit and miss tweaking to try and get it up to 1600. I've read about bad things happening when trying to do this and I don't think I can justify the expense of swapping 4x4 for 2x8 for what sounds like a small increase in speed from 1333 to 1600. So my question is simply whether this rationale makes sense? Will I see get the benefit out of a fast CPU with slow RAM?

I hope I've provided enough info and thank you in advance for any advice you can give me.

 

[madmatt30]

hi mate,dropped another 8gb of vengenance in mine for testing

best timings I can get for 1600 dual channel with a 4 stick kit (this is a 1600mhz but essentially the same as yours - Ive had 2 sticks runnning at 1866 with no issue)




bios settings copy these








images 3 & 4 are the same - you just need to mirror a+b channel timings.

on power on in future you may get a twin or triple boot thing in future - an apparent purposely done thing by gigabte to do with the bios twin boot when ram is overclocked - its an annoyance but just ignore it.

 

[riggers2]

That's really helpful if you Matt and much appreciated. I'll try it tonight and let you know how I get on.

 

[riggers2]

You're a star Matt. Thank you.

So just out of curiosity how did you arrive at those numbers? I'm guessing it wasn't random guesswork on your part

 

[riggers2]

Also I noticed your CPU clock is set to 21 but mine is set on Auto (20). On the 8350 should I also set this to 21 and if so do I need to adjust any other settings?

 

[madmatt30]

^ that's because mine is an 8320 oc'd to 4.2ghz not an 8350 ;-)

Done a lot of builds ,those timings are stuck in my head from somewhere in the past ,I know timings for the 4 or 5 mainstream 1600/1866mhz bands off by heart,just a case of loosening timings a bit, first one I tried with rcas at 34 failed boot instantly - tried at 43 as its pretty much a dead cert .I'll have a play at the weekend see if I can get them down a bit more,or maybe even drag 1866 out of it. although to be fair you should just be happy having dual channel at 1600 with a 4 stick kit - plenty people think & will insist its impossible ,but obviously not ;-)

 

[riggers2]

Yep I'm very happy. You're a genius! Thank you.

 

[riggers2]

For info I changed my tRC value to the recommended default (33) and it booted fine.

 

[madmatt30]

Good stuff mate - the ram I used is only rated at 1600 so you may get better timings.
Save the profile in bios though so if you ever get problems you won't have to enter everything again.

 

[riggers2]

I must have spoken too soon because after my next wedding when I started to process the pics in Lightroom and PS I noticed it seemed really sluggish and then I got BSODs. I don't have all the details now (I panicked and had to act quickly to get it all working again) but the 2 BSODs I saw IIRC were firstly Memory Management and then Page fault in non-paged area. I instantly assumed it was due to the ram. Changing the timings back to auto didn't fix it straight away.so I ran memtest then tested each DIMM separately. MemTest didn't reveal any issues and eventually I don't know what I did but it started working again on the default timings at 1333 speed.

At this point I feel disappointed I'm not getting anywhere near the advertised speed from my RAM but on the other hand its better than instability. Is it worth trying again on more conservative settings with the timings or will this not be much faster than the defaults at 1333?

 

[madmatt30]

It won't be a lot faster BUT I'm still running on 16gb with those same timings I originally gave you.
Tightening the bct may have caused issues mate - at 33 I get stability issues.

 

[riggers2]

Thanks. What does the BCT do exactly? I mean is it a case if just trying numbers between 33 and 43 to find the optimum level?

 

[madmatt30]

Essentially I think its the minimum cycle time allowed before rewrites are allowed to a memory block that was previously in use (I'm sure tradesman may drop in & correct me as he seriously knows much more about this sh1t than me)

If an application tries to write to memory that is already in use then you will get a page error or bsod.

Lower TRC = theoretical better performance.
Higher TRC = more stability.