Is this normal for FX 6350?

Tazz4795

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Apr 19, 2014
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Hi i have recently started OCing my amd fx 6350. However i have noticed that for a very low OC im having to up the voltage quite a bit to get it stable. At 4.3 ghz i have to raise the voltage to 1.4v just to pass hour long OCCT and prime 95 tests. When i push it to 4.4ghz i must use 1.42v.

My temps are perfectly fine however, never going above 50c and around 22 idle. I have all power saving settings turned off with HPC mode on and LLC set to auto. I was expecting to get at least 4.5ghz out of this cpu with barely touching the voltage. Are these expectations too much? I am only adjusting the multiplier. I guess what i am asking is are these normal results for a 6350 and should i push it farther?

My specs

Amd fx 6350
Gigabyte ga-970a-ud3p
8 gb ram
Corsair cx600(multimeter tested for reliability)
Gtx 770

Also would it be too much on the system if i were to OC my gpu aswell? Like can the two OCs mess each other up?

Suggestions are welcome thank you!
 
Solution
Very normal, especially considering that the CX cannot filter much in the way of ripple.

You can OC your GPU, but it would be pointless as your CPU is going to be the limiting factor in most modern games unless you turn AA up up up.

Overclocking both will also put major stress on that 12v rail. Considering CX is only built to withstand general office use, you risk component failure.

Ugh...I sound like such a Debbie Downer.
Very normal, especially considering that the CX cannot filter much in the way of ripple.

You can OC your GPU, but it would be pointless as your CPU is going to be the limiting factor in most modern games unless you turn AA up up up.

Overclocking both will also put major stress on that 12v rail. Considering CX is only built to withstand general office use, you risk component failure.

Ugh...I sound like such a Debbie Downer.
 
Solution
With that CPU I would expect to hit 4.2 without any voltage change. So yeah, beyond 4.2 I would expect to increase voltage a bit.
I would recommend using AMD overdrive. This will allow you to make quick changes on the fly, dial in some good settings, then you could make the changes in BIOS that work well.
Beyond the multi, most folks will also adjust the reference clock but that will also affect the ram. Voltage tuning can also be useful and in overdrive you can adjust the northbridge, memory, and other voltages.

As far as the GPU goes, try msi Afterburner software for tweaking the video card.
 
Hey buzznut, I've been hearing some things about amd overdrive, that its auto-tune is blowing the processors and stuff, is it even reliable?

If that's is really the case, then I'm not so certain you should recommend it for OC's.
 


No I have not heard about this, but anyone overclocking should realize that you're taking a risk. It isn't any more dangerous than fooling around in the BIOS..

I have found autotune to be less than helpful unless you want to see when your computer will crash. I don't recommend using that ever.

This serves as a good reminder though that any overclocking efforts should only be done if you've A) Done your research, B) Have adequate cooling, and C) are not afraid to lose the CPU.

And as always, your mileage may vary. A chip that's been binned as a FX 6350 should clock pretty well, but its already clocked pretty high. No guaranty that it will perform any faster once you start to monkey with it.

What I would recommend is not going above 1.4V on that chip unless you are very experienced with overclocking and know exactly what you are after. For instance a one shot just to see what your max OC is.

Day to day overclock, 4.2Ghz at standard voltage is just what I ran on my FX8120 for over a year. The last two years its been running at standard clocks in my wife's PC. I expect it to continue to run just fine for the next 10 years. Because I wasn't stupid. I took care of that chip like it was a $200 CPU.
 
Thanks for all the replies guys. I would like to add that this will be an OC for everyday use so i would like to keep the voltage as low as possible. So if 4.2 is as high as i can go without touching the voltage, should i just leave it at stock speeds since it turbo boosts up to 4.2 or is it worth it to keep it at 4.2 all the time?
 
Good question. It sounds like turbo is all you'll need, unless running benchmarks and testing. Most of us that want to keep our processors don't run them at 5.0Ghz all day just so we can brag.
But for testing, go ahead and see what you can reasonably do. Run some benchmarks like 3d mark and see where you sit. Perhaps you'll find that with some tweaking that 4.3 or 4.4 is doable. Or perhaps you can up your NB frequency or Hypertransport freq, both of which can improve performance. This is why I recommend AOD, because it has a built in benchmark that takes 30 secs to run and can give an idea about if a change has a performance boost.
 
Ok thankyou. What does the northbridge freq change exactly? Ive heard not to mess with it before but i've also heard that it can up single core performance. Im not exactly sure how it could do that but I play alot of mmos so more single core performance would be nice.
 
I guess i'll just leave my CPU alone as it seems to run all games fine(except Wildstar because its not optimized for shit) and just OC my gpu a bit for some extra fps in Metro LL and BF4.
 


CPU NorthBridge Performance Tuning

The CPU NorthBridge (CPU NB) clock speed determines the efficiency and bandwidth capacity of the Memory
controller. L3 cache runs at this frequency as well. CPU NB performance tuning gives a measurable boost for
overall system performance. In particular it can reduce the Memory latency and improve L3 cache bandwidth
and latency. In some scenarios the CPU NB should be tuned in order to take the full advantage of overclocked
Memory frequency and bandwidth. In general the CPU NB clock should be at least two times the Memory clock
(example in case of DDR3-1600: 2 x 800MHz = 1600MHz NB clock).


In terms of power delivery and voltage regulation the latest AM2+ and AM3/AM3+ motherboards have a
dedicated power plane for the CPU NB Voltage rail. The voltage level of CPU NB power plane (CPU NB VID)
can be set independently from the CPU Core Voltage rail (CPU VID).

The frequency of CPU NB is determined by the CPU NB Multiplier (CPU NB FID) and by the HT reference clock
(HT ref. clock, 200MHz by default). CPU NB Multiplier can not be changed on the fly (as various memory
parameters and memory training is based on the NB clock value). A reboot is required in order to adjust the
CPU NB Multiplier. Therefore the performance tuning of CPU NB is mostly done thru the BIOS menu. Note that
CPU NB Multipliers are integer values and therefore the adjustment will be in steps of 200MHz or more
(depending on HT ref clock value). The combination of “HT ref clock” and the “CPU NB Multiplier” adjustment in
the BIOS menu will allow finer steps.

HT reference clock adjustments can be done on the fly via the AMD OverDrive™ utility or via the motherboard
vendors utility and this allows finer granularity for CPU NB Performance tuning and may reduce the time
required for tuning (as there is no need to reboot the system between different HT ref. clock values).

http://sites.amd.com/us/Documents/AMD_FX_Performance_Tuning_Guide.pdf