M5A97 LE to OC or not to OC?

[moozilbee]

So hi.

About a month ago, I bought a ASUS M5A97 LE, thinking it was the regular version because the title was about 20 words long and I missed out those two letters....

But anyway, to the point, can I overclock my FX 6300 (with a CM Hyper 212 evo), and if so, how much?
I know this board has a 4 pin connector and doesn't have any VRM heatsinks on it, if I overclock on this board anyway, what extra bad effects will there be? Will overclocking without VRM heatsinks greatly shorten the mobo's lifespan?
Currently I've managed to get a stable overclock @4.3GHZ, in HWmonitor it has two different readings for the CPU, one is the CPU temperature under the motherboard tab which is at around 60C-65C, and the other one, which I assume is the right one, is under the FX-6300 tab, and reads about 50C-55C (this is all whilst running Prime95). There are two other temperatures under the motherboard tab, one is the "Mainboard" which is around 38C, and the other is "TMPIN2" which is constantly at 128C.
Without any OC, I get around 40C on the CPU temperature when running Prime95 (so around a 10C-15C increase).
Is the last temperature, "TMPIN2", the temperatures on the VRMs?

So to sum it up,
1: Should I be OCing at all without VRM heatsinks, and what negative effects will it have on any of my hardware
2: Should I buy aftermarket VRM heatsinks to attach, if yes which do you recommend?
3: are any of these temps dangerous?
4: is "TMPIN2" the VRM temperature?

Specs:
Mobo: M5A97 LE (of course...)
CPU: AMD FX-6300
CPU cooler: CM Hyper 212 Evo
RAM: 2x2GB Crucial Ballistix Tactical
GPU: AMD XFX R9 270
PSU: XFX Pro Series 550w bronze rated PSU

 

[clutchc]

It all depends on how high you want to take the OC. Yes the board will handle OC'ing. But not as well as a beefier board with the specs you mentioned. But Asus builds good boards and uses solid Japan caps. If the board has good airflow and the temps stay safe, you can get good OCs. Just don't go crazy. Add-on heat sinks will help a little, but the components are still medium grade. And a few MHZ isn't all that much worth it anyway.

If you use the newest version of AMD overdrive to monitor temps, it will show the thermal margin instead of core temp. That is actually more important with AMD chips than core temp because AMD doesn't have individual core sensors. http://www.techspot.com/downloads/4645-amd-overdrive.html
Thermal margin will tell you how close you are to reaching the point that the CPU will throttle down or shut down to save itself.

 

[moozilbee]

Hey Clutchc, thanks for the response, so you think I'm safe even with a 700Mhz overclock like this? What kind of maximum limit do you think I have before the board will start to degrade/overheat lots quicker, I mean if I overclocked it to 4.5Ghz, 1Ghz increase, it's not really a tiny OC, would it be damaging to the board to go that far?

 

[clutchc]

If you are disabling Turbo, OC'ing by multiplier alone (and if necessary a small vcore uptick), and running the CPU at your present OC with Windows Power set to allow the CPU to reduce its multiplier for normal/idle usage, you should be fine. I'd hate to put a limit on the board because there are so many other variables. Length of time the CPU is at max speed, ambient temp, air flow, quality of the PSU's output (ripple), etc. Let's just say that if I had that board and CPU, I would be OK with what you have now. Much higher and it may be too much. Keep from raising the vcore any more than you have to. Remember, even the best boards will deteriorate to some extent when the voltage is increased. Lesser boards quicker.

 

[tiny voices]

Try to keep the Northbridge below 70ish if you can as well.

 

[moozilbee]

Thanks for the new responses guys,
Clutchc, I followed this guide for the OC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9uXysmgPi8
And so I did increase the voltage a little as was shown in the guide. The person in the video has an identical CPU/Mobo/CPU cooler setup as me, but with the regular board instead of the LE.
Also, how do I change Windows to allow the CPU to automatically reduce the multiplier when idle?


Tiny voices, are you talking about the Northbridge temp? Where can I measure the northbridge temp?

 

[clutchc]

I wouldn't go too sophisticated with my OC'ing with that board. Stay with the multi increase and maybe a small vcore increment if necessary. You have a major OC going on for that MB right now. Don't push it any more. It's the voltage that will kill the components more so than anything else.

Or grab a new MB if you have to have more freq.

 

[moozilbee]

Okay thanks, I'll try dialing back the voltage a little just to be safe.