[SOLVED] I have an Fx6300 at a stable 4.5Ghz currently, how safe is to reach 4.7Ghz or over?

[rscheetah30]

I have been running my FX6300 at 4.5Ghz without any issue for the last week, now I'm asking myself if it would be safe to bang it up to 4.7Ghz.

My PSU is a Gamemax GP 650W. My cooler is an excellent Cooler Master, my cpu temps rarely exceed 50 ºC at idle, and 70 ºC at heavy usage.

Thanks in advance for any input

 

[USAFRet]

1. No one can predict how YOUR CPU will do.

2. That PSU is a dumpster fire in the making. Please replace it with something of better quality.

 

[rscheetah30]

I used to have a generic 500W psu before and I couldn't get near 4.5Ghz without crashing. This new psu is dealing with that quite easily, judging by the stability at 4.5Ghz.

 

[USAFRet]

I used to have a generic 500W psu before and I couldn't get near 4.5Ghz without crashing. This new psu is dealing with that quite easily, judging by the stability at 4.5Ghz.

That does not change the fact that a GAMEMAX is a problem waiting to happen.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...-is-lit-on-motherboard.3790247/#post-22890754

 

[Crosslhs82x2]

Away from the point of the Psu, My old Fx6350 was at 4.6 stable but I could not get 4.7 to stay stable no matter what I tried.

 

[aldan]

post your complete specs.then we will talk about voltages etc.

 

[rscheetah30]

post your complete specs.then we will talk about voltages etc.

Actually I haven't messed with voltages at all, I simply turned off Turbo Mode, disable C states and upped my multiplier to 4.5Ghz. I guess my Asus motherboard coupled with
my cpu gives easy overclocking.

My rig:

Windows 10
FX6300
MB: Asus M5A78L-M LX V2
R7 240 2GB
8GB DDR3 Ram

 

[logainofhades]

You will fry that board, with that terrible PSU, or by trying to push that CPU, with that board. Those budget 760g boards have terrible power delivery.

 

[drea.drechsler]

...
MB: Asus M5A78L-M LX V2
...

While I can agree you MIGHT fry the board, you might not. There are two reasons you won't, one is because CPU is throttling itself periodically. FX CPU's need APM properly disabled in order to not do that, otherwise it will simply not exceed it's 95W average TDP rating. Asus didn't likely include the necessary BIOS controls to do it on that board.

But if they did, then the VRM's own thermal protection would likely prevent it from burning up. When it overheats it also throttles the CPU to prevent going into dangerous temperatures. FX processors were so easy to overclock even on Asus's low-end boards their VRM thermal protection was about the only reason they didn't all burn up.

I operated my FX6300 on an M5a88m for 6 or 7 years OC'd to 4.5Ghz. I'd found a utility that could be used to disable APM without BIOS controls so that was fixed but the VRM would still throttle under heavy load with overtemp. So I stuck some heatsinks on the FETS, put a fan to blow on them and it would delay throttling but still did it when rendering videos. Rendering time was pretty much the same as clocking the CPU at 4.3Ghz where it never throttled, but I liked seeing the 4.5Ghz. I could get it to 4.7Ghz with enough voltage but the throttling made it irrelevant since it would even throttle when playing a game...I think maybe even just clicking around in Windows or web browsing, or maybe that was if APM wasn't disabled.

I now have the same FX6300 on an old board my son had (Gigabyte FX970-UD3 or something like that) which has a fairly good VRM for the day. It also includes the BIOS control to disable APM so the CPU won't throttle itself. I have it stable at 4.6Ghz with a safe voltage but CPU temps are running about as high as I want during a Cinebench run. If I wanted to try for 4.7Ghz it needs a decent AIO or giant tower (think Noctua DH 14 or 15) to cool it well enough and I'm not sure what voltage it would need. All the parts are used cast-offs from upgrades except for a 16GB DDR3 kit I bought for the thing. I'm not about to lay out the money for a giant cooler just to get 100 or 200 Mhz more out of it when it sits in the closet most of the time.

 

[zx128k]

Gamemax GP 650W PSU sounds like it was free with the case. Add bad VRMs and what could go wrong?