Need help with OC, and is core temp legit?

[Zobbar]

Hello,
I'm getting low GPU usage with 2x7950 on bf3 and bf4, and I think it may be a CPU bottleneck (I have a stock FX 8320). So what I'm doing is I'm overclocking it, I have a asrock 970 extreme 3 R2.0 motherboard and a be quiet shadow rock 2 CPU cooler. My OC settings are 4.375V and 4.2GHZ, I'm just guessing and I don't know if I should lower the voltage. Any advice? Also I'm using core temp to monitor my temps, the problem is on a cold boot it says 58C in my BIOS which is insane, and in core temp it idles at around 33C.

Thanks for any help!

 

[Eximo]

You have to be careful, some of the temperature monitoring software read case, junction, or core and don't implicitly tell you which it is. You want to keep your cores below 61C. (I'm going to assume you mean 1.375 volts, which is fairly safe)

My understanding is that the sensors on the FX chips don't work well at low temperatures, that may explain your coldboot readings. I usually bounce around between coretemp and realtemp and hardware monitor. CPU-Z is also useful.

 

[Zobbar]

You have to be careful, some of the temperature monitoring software read case, junction, or core and don't implicitly tell you which it is. You want to keep your cores below 61C. (I'm going to assume you mean 1.375 volts, which is fairly safe)

My understanding is that the sensors on the FX chips don't work well at low temperatures, that may explain your coldboot readings. I usually bounce around between coretemp and realtemp and hardware monitor. CPU-Z is also useful.

Oh, can I get it to 4.5ghz, what settings do I need, as I want my CPU to not bottleneck my two cards.
Thanks

 

[Eximo]

I don't think you have too much of a bottleneck now. Two 7950 is a lot of GPU horsepower. If you aren't running maximum settings at a high resolution you may not see them saturated.

Settings vary by chip, safe voltage range (depending on adequate cooling) goes all the way up to 1.5 volts. Probably wouldn't take it that high myself. I would shoot for your desired frequency and see if you can get it to boot. Then do stress tests while monitoring temps, and slowly lower the voltage until it becomes unstable. When it does raise the voltage back up a little bit and call it done.

Places like overclock.net will have comprehensive guides for fine tuning, but the above process is quick and dirty to see what the chip can handle with your cooling.

 

[Zobbar]

I don't think you have too much of a bottleneck now. Two 7950 is a lot of GPU horsepower. If you aren't running maximum settings at a high resolution you may not see them saturated.

Settings vary by chip, safe voltage range (depending on adequate cooling) goes all the way up to 1.5 volts. Probably wouldn't take it that high myself. I would shoot for your desired frequency and see if you can get it to boot. Then do stress tests while monitoring temps, and slowly lower the voltage until it becomes unstable. When it does raise the voltage back up a little bit and call it done.

Places like overclock.net will have comprehensive guides for fine tuning, but the above process is quick and dirty to see what the chip can handle with your cooling.

Aha, because when I lower my settings in BF4, I get NO FPS boost! All it does is it lowers my temps, and gpu usage. So far my OC is 4.5GHZ and 1.4V. Is this good? And can you explain BF4, behaviour? Also bf3 is at 70-90fps! Should'nt it be higher?

 

[Eximo]

As long as your temperatures stay below 60C then 1.4v is fine.

Make sure you don't have V-sync on in game or in Catalyst. If you want to see values higher then 60fps (on a 60Hz monitor), anyway.

 

[Zobbar]

As long as your temperatures stay below 60C then 1.4v is fine.

Make sure you don't have V-sync on in game or in Catalyst. If you want to see values higher then 60fps (on a 60Hz monitor), anyway.

Okay I have issues with my sound in games... Its stopping stuttering and making beeping noises. Why is this. PCI freq. is 100 CPU freq. is 200.

 

[Eximo]

Hmm, interesting symptoms, not sure on that one. I don't use onboard sound usually because I've always gotten static, poor microphone performance, and I could usually pick up the motors of my spinning drives in the audio. Don't have spinning drives in my main anymore, but I haven't switched back.

If you haven't gotten the latest drivers for your sound card, go with that as a first step. It could be temperature related, ie the motherboard getting too warm, a fan pointed at the chipset and audio chip might help.

Might start a new thread to get this one answered.