ga970a-d3 rev 3.0 not the best choice for fx 6300?

[bturner45]

So, I built my system a few weeks back. Everything went smooth, almost too smooth. I knew there had to be a catch. First, here are the specs I'm running.

ga970a-d3 rev 3.0
amd fx 6300
cool master hyper eve 212 cpu cooler
gigabyte windforce 7950
G.Skill Ares series Ram 1600mhz 8gb
SeaSonic S12II 620 Bronze 620W
Western Digital Blue 1tb

Okay, so I'm having issues with even a minor overclock. Taking my cpu to anything above 3.8ghz cause it to be rather unstable. Heck, even at stock it wasn't exactly rock solid. I had to to go through the bios, disable some automotive features, just to not make my system lock up every 20 mins. After that, I was able to run it on prime 95 for a solid 8 hours. But, soon as it clock it up, prime 95 will either instantly freeze or I would start having failures in the testing. So, I've been reading around and I guess it shouldn't come to no surprise that my motherboard isn't exactly the biggest fan of overclocking, or even the fx series in general. I was considering getting a new MB(figure it would make a good future investment anyways) Was curious to as to what you guys think of this.

As a side note, I have ran several passes of memtest, my cpu/ram can survive stress testing from prime 95 as long as I stay stock. my temps are rather low. My cpu at idle sits around 19-22 degrees. Thank you guys/

 

[expl0itfinder]

The FX series are AMAZING overclockers, when paired with the right motherboard. But you are correct about the GA970A-D3 not being the best overclocking mobo. It only has a 4+1 Phase VRM design, which is rather poor in terms of power delivery. And because overclocking revolves around changes in voltage, which in turn revolves around the VRM design. So if the VRM design is poor, the overclock will be poor.

 

[ingtar33]

the problem was the letters after ga-970a... the UD3 is an outstanding 8+2 power phase design with heatsinks and everything you need for major overclocking. the d3 is a wimpy little 4+1 power phase design lacking any heatsinks.

You CAN probably overclock on that board a bit better then you're managing if you're willing to go out and find some copper heatsinks to put on your mosfets... maybe even replace the heatsinks on your north and south bridge with something more robust. no promises though. That will take care of the overheating but it won't do anything for the weak power regulation the 4+1 design has.

 

[bturner45]

See, that is what I was reading. I guess I came here to confirm that that issues that I was having would be caused by my mobo. At first I thought maybe it was my CPU, then I thought maybe it was my ram. But, then it hit me. My motherboard just can't handle the awesome I wanna put through this thing. Guess I'm jumping on a new mobo this weekend. Gwah! Just built this thing a month ago! lol Not looking forward to tearing it all down and rebuilding her!

 

[bturner45]

You guys reckon this will get the job done? A GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3? figured I'd be safe if I cross fire in the future as well.

 

[ingtar33]

yep. that board will do. a number of the best benching results come on that board or the ga-990fxa-UD5 or the Asus Sabertooth... so it should do the job well.