MSI 970A-G46 with the FX 8320

[Sephirothx]

I have had this combo for a while now, and I've had fps issues since the dawn of time. I know there's issues with the motherboard handling 125W TDP processors, could this be the reason I get crappy frames on most new/recent games? I've OC'd to 4.0GHz with the stock cooler in the past but don't seem to see much improvement. I'm also using an R9 280 Dual-X 3GB GPU with 1366x768 resolution.


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MSI 970A-G46
FX 8320
R9 280 Dual-X 3GB
8GB RAM

 

[DonkeyOatie]

1. Stock cooler is not very good for an overclocked FX8320. What Thermal Margin does AMD Overdrive show?

2. the G46 power delivery and VRM overheats quite easily with FX 83xx CPUs and even overclocked FX6xxs so you get thermal throttling of power delivery which makes your CPU limp.

These two likely explain your history.

 

[Sephirothx]

1. Stock cooler is not very good for an overclocked FX8320. What Thermal Margin does AMD Overdrive show?

2. the G46 power delivery and VRM overheats quite easily with FX 83xx CPUs and even overclocked FX6xxs so you get thermal throttling of power delivery which makes your CPU limp.

These two likely explain your history.

I'm back to stock 3.5GHz now as I saw no noticeable increase in performance, and so essentially upgrading my motherboard could help my fps issues? I have read of a few that work well with an 8320, like the Asus Sabertooth 990FX and the MSI 990FX

 

[DonkeyOatie]

You could stay with a Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 or UD3P and there are a couple of ASUS M597 boards and the MSI 970 Gaming if you want to save some coin.

Any 99FX will do except the ASRock 99FXA Extreme3.

 

[Sephirothx]

You could stay with a Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 or UD3P and there are a couple of ASUS M597 boards and the MSI 970 Gaming if you want to save some coin.

Any 99FX will do except the ASRock 99FXA Extreme3.

Ah thank you, I've also been looking to upgrade my GPU, I've had my eyes on a GTX 970, budget isn't too much of an issue so I may settle on a MSI or Sabertooth as I want a 970 soon-ish