Help with Overclocking AMD FX8350 on Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 MoBo, please

[KidAce]

Greetings fellow Overclockers,

After numerous attempts at trying to OC my FX8350, on an Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 MoBo, to stabilize at 4.6MHz, I was saddened to have to settle for 4.5MHz. Thanks to the advice/suggestions of experts like "toddybody", "ingtar33", "coolcole01", "phaseonedsm", and others, though, I learned a lot about that M5A78L-M/USB3 MoBo and what it's capable of.

Deciding to follow the suggestion from "phaseonedsm", to put that FX8350 chip on a true FX board, I decided to shell out $180 and bought an Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0, to see if this new MoBo can get me to 4.6MHz or beyond, but as soon as I got a glimpse of its Bios, holy cow!!! I immediately realized I'm out of my element, and didn't even know where to start to OC this "beast".

Help!!

So, here's a list of my components:

Mother Board: Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0
CPU: AMD FX8350
OS: Windows 7 Home Edition, 64bit
CPU Cooler: Corsair Liquid Cooler H80i
RAM: 8GB

Any suggestions, recommendations, and/or advices are more than welcome.

Thanks guys,
KidAce

 

[Rapajez]

This should cover it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpupfeMTzkE

 

[Guest]

Ooo, nice build. *ahem*.

Right then, first things first, use this as reference:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1348623/amd-bulldozer-and-piledriver-overclocking-guide-asus-motherboard

It pretty much goes into as much detail as I ever could, but I'll summarize a few points for convenience.

- Disable TurboCore, and, for the time being; all of the power saving features found in the CPU menu. Such as Core C6 State etc... You can enable these after you've found your overclock, it's just more convenient for stress testing to have the chip not try to throttle-down during these tests. I noticed that HPC caused mine to freeze so I left that off even after.

- Set the voltage for your chip manually. In the 8350's case the stock would be 1.3625v.
Start by upping the mutiplier right at the top in the AI Tweaker menu. With the Sabertooth, have it set to D.O.C.P mode; this gives you all the same options as manual, but your RAM's factory profile will be listed in that section rather than having to punch it in manually. (Should just be called Profile#0 or Profile#1).

- Run a 10-20 minute stress test every time you up the multi. Prime95, OCCT or Intel Burn Test are generally the favourites.

- Do this until something fails. When it does, up the voltage. The voltage is what adds heat and power consumption the most, so tread lightly. Continue with this method until you reach your temp limit (62c on the core).

How far you get depends on your chip. As that article states, I can also confirm that with a CPU LLC setting of Ultra High on this board you can have a clock of 4.4 or 4.5 (4.5 in my case) without any 'changes' to the stock voltage (I say that, it overshoots and gives an effective load voltage of 1.38v, still not much). CPU Load Line Calibration compensates for Vdrop/Vdroop - Overshooting is generally better than undershooting for stability.

Pushing past 4.5GHz usually requires a voltage of over 1.4. For me that would be right into the temp limit. I would strongly recommend that you don't go higher than 1.46 - That's a lot of power going through the poor thing after that.

Good luck!