cheti

Honorable
Apr 6, 2012
573
0
10,980
Gonna get some new parts for my budget 450 euro build. I want to overclock it, so here are my parts:

MOBO: https://www.galador.ee/catalog/product/134861
CPU: https://www.galador.ee/catalog/product/157917
CPU HEATSINK: https://www.galador.ee/catalog/product/158803
THERMAL GREASE: https://www.galador.ee/catalog/product/108622
SSD: https://www.galador.ee/catalog/product/152169
2x120mm front intake fans: https://www.galador.ee/catalog/product/175013


Existing parts:
CASE: bitfenix merc beta
GPU: gtx 560 925mhz OC
PSU: corsair gs600
HDD: wd 320gb 5400rpm sata2
RAM: corsair vengeance 2x4gb 1600mhz ddr3


So my questions are:
1) Can i overclock this to atleast 4.5ghz or something.
2) What BIOS will my mobo have ? It needs to be atleast F2 to support my cpu and i cant flash it without bios.
3) Will all these parts work and will my cpu bottleneck my gpu even if i get it in sli ?
4) Is that thermal grease good ?
5) Will that heatsink fit in my case and will it block my ram?
6) Should i put the heatsink fan on push or pull ? I have 1x120mm rear outtake.
 



1. Yes, many people get FX-8120s up to 4.5 GHz. Go much beyond 4.8 or so and they start to get very very hot though.

2. You would need to ask the distributor what BIOS your board has. If you have a BIOS too old for the FXes, you can either borrow an AM3 chip and flash the BIOS, or you can send your BIOS chip to somebody to flash it for around $20 (search for "BIOS Man" online.)

3. These parts will work together. The FX-8120 has plenty of performance to drive two GPUs in SLi at any resolution high to warrant SLi (2560x1440/2560x1600 or some multi-monitor setup.)

4. I can't read the language of that Web page well enough to tell exactly what thermal grease that is. Most thermal grease is decent enough though, you just have to not put too little or too much of it on your heatsink.

5. The heatsink should fit the board okay, it's a very common heatsink and your board is a performance-oriented board that is designed for larger heatsinks. However, that RAM has big tall heatsinks and you might end up with clearance issues. If you are worried about clearance, perhaps look at one of the self-contained liquid cooling setups as the water blocks are small and you can locate the radiator any number of places.

6. Pushing is generally better than pulling for heatsink fans.
 

cheti

Honorable
Apr 6, 2012
573
0
10,980
I have a 430 euro budget and i need:
mobo, cpu, ssd, molex fan header, 2x120mm fans, 8gb usb drive.
So yeah, i could get 2500k + z68 mobo and stock cooling or fx8120 and hyper 212 cooling.
 

cheti

Honorable
Apr 6, 2012
573
0
10,980
and also. why is amd so very bad ? i mean yeah: the bd was a disappointment, but its not like it performs gamebreakingly bad or that much worse than 2500k.
It also has 8 cores so it should be better when livestreaming guild wars 2 or dota2 or so.
 



Some people just cant help themselves.... They have to answer the question that wasn't asked.

You should be aware though that it isn't a true 8 core CPU. But absolutely yes, it will provide smooth gameplay in any game you can imagine if paired with an appropriate video card such as a GTX 560. Having said that, the 2500k does perform better, however, the difference will not be noticeable , the difference is "on paper" especially when you're talking about pumping it up over 4.0GHZ.

As mentioned, yes it should be able to hit 4.5GHZ, and yes thats a pretty decent Heatskink assembly.



 

cheti

Honorable
Apr 6, 2012
573
0
10,980
sorry for triplepost, but i also will be doing lots of lets play videos and gonna encode videos, multitask, answer stream questions etc etc. run skype/steam/mirc/msn/itunes and everything while playing etc etc.
 

cheti

Honorable
Apr 6, 2012
573
0
10,980
Yes, but how does it perform in guil wras 2 world vs world once its optimized ? Can it handle that ? :)
Also, i read the cores are pretty weak seperatley, will the fx8120 run into any trouble playing older games that use 1-2 cores, like hon, league of legends, minecraft, terraria etc. ?
 

Robi_g

Distinguished
Jan 28, 2012
510
0
19,010
get the FX8120 there have been too many threads over FX or i5 that've ended in argument and away from the OP so just get what you were getting or what's cheaper.
Rest of the build looks good, you won't have clearance issues with the cooler listed
 



Good question. I honestly haven't seen any sites that ever attempted to benchmark games like LOL, Minecraft, (I'm a Runescape player myself). All of these games using 1 core. My educated guess is that with an overclock such as the goal you're trying to reach that yes it will do fine. Most of these games only use 1 core, but thats because thats all they need as they aren't resource intensive. The theory I think behind Bulldozer was that if you overclock them enough, it doesn't matter if the individual core performance isn't that high.
 

cheti

Honorable
Apr 6, 2012
573
0
10,980
So i should just go with the fx8120, get my hyper 212, overclock it to 4.2 or smth and play any game at 60+fps (prob not bf3 cause my gpu is weak).
I wouldnt have any bottlenecking(?), i would stream and multitask easily without a heartbeat(?).

So the heatsink wont block my case or ram ? What temps are dangerous for my CPU, so i know how far i can push it.
 
I have Corsair Vengeance, I can say that while the RAM is higher profile, it doesn't get in the way of my cooler. The Hyper 212 evo is very similar to the hyper520, so no you shouldnt have a problem.

And yes, the 8120 is capable of 60FPS for most games. Although, most people will not notice a difference over 40, and your computer monitor cannot show more than 60 anyway.
This is what it does at 3.6GHZ (since the 8150 and 8120 are the same except for the clock speed), yes the 2500k plays games better, but again, both will provide smooth gameplay. Bulldozer actually does better at heavily CPU intensive work, so games that run heavy on the CPU like Battlefield 3 multiplayer are where it will shine. Its the light-duty jobs where Bulldozers fall flat on their face.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4955/the-bulldozer-review-amd-fx8150-tested/8

And the 560 TI is powerful enough to handle Battlefield 3 at most resolutions
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-560-ti-448-core-benchmark,3082-4.html
 

cheti

Honorable
Apr 6, 2012
573
0
10,980
Alright, so basically - FX8120 or FX8150 will demolish anything that uses theyr 4 module 2 core technology properly (bf3) and will perform worse on applications that use 1-2 cores or so.. but these applications usually arent resource hogs (i have a pentium dual core e6500 atm and i can play lol, minecraft etc good, and fx8120 has even better per-core performance than my cpu atm.) so i have basically nothing to worry about.

One change tho:
i decided to go with the stock cooling and get an 990fx mobo that supports sli and i heard asus is a great overclocker, so:

1) How much can i OC my cpu on stock cooling ?
2) What bios does this MOBO come with (the vendor at galador.ee cant tell/doesent know) cause i dont want to get a mobo that has old bios version and cant run fx8120..
 
Correct. But even so, like I said, with that kind of overclock, you shouldn't have a noticeable problem with light applications.

Theres a big long article about the Bulldozer architecture if you want to read it, it explains the theories behind it. I found it an interesting read, even though as a first year IT student, some of it is over my head. But I get the gist of it. Just so you're aware of the Jeckel and Hyde nature of the Bulldozers before you make a purchase, which you should have enough information at this point.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/10/can-amd-survive-bulldozers-disappointing-debut.ars

Which Asus board are you looking at? I have the Sabertooth 990FX, its a great board, I'm very happy with it. But it is expensive.

Any motherboard you buy that is 990FX chipset and AM3+ socket is going to support Bulldozer out of the box. At least its supposed to.

As far as how high you can overclock on the stock fan, I can't find one for the 8120, but I did find this from legit reviews on the FX-4100 showing they got it to 4.6GHZ and 5.0 with 2 cores shut down on the stock fan, I would assume you should be able to get close to that with an 8120. My advice is, since these CPUs are built to handle massive overclocks to consider a water cooler at a later point in time if you can't afford one now. Something like a Corsair H100.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1766/16/
 

cheti

Honorable
Apr 6, 2012
573
0
10,980
Yeh, im gonna go with the fx8120, asus sabertooth and overclock it later while i get money for a h80 :)

And i shouldnt worry about the bios that i get on the mobo out of the box ?
 
You shouldn't worry about that no. While I did read some reviews that originally there was a problem with Sabertooth boards originally not having support for FX when the board first came out, there has since been enough time for that to be corrected. Every review I read said that Asus was very good at getting people out the BIOS chips with the version needed. Even if not, you can always flash your BIOS to get it working.

The board I bought 2 months ago came with the latest BIOS already out of the box. Looking at the Asus website, any board shipped after 10/2011 should have the correct BIOS. Beta 0810 was the fix.
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3Plus/SABERTOOTH_990FX/#download
 

cheti

Honorable
Apr 6, 2012
573
0
10,980
yeah but lets say it doesent come with the latest bios that supports fx. I dont have a seperate am3+ cpu... what will i do then ?
 

cheti

Honorable
Apr 6, 2012
573
0
10,980
alright, well basically:
asus sabertooth 990fx, amd fx8120 ( stock cooler till i get h80 and then OC 4.5 atleast ), 2x gtx560TI, 8gb of ram and 90gt sandforce corsair ssd will perform excelelnt in all games and applications ? :)
 

cheti

Honorable
Apr 6, 2012
573
0
10,980
Thanks for your help and time ! :)
Is there anything else i should know when installing my new OS and installing parts ? :) Hows this fan placement:
2x120mm intake in the front and 1x120mm at the top rear for exhaust
 
Nothing that I can think of, if you have any questions, you can shoot me a PM.

The fan placement seems fine to me, that would give you sort of a "wind tunnel" effect I think. You could also have your power supply with the fan facing into the case, the fan on power supplies are exhaust fans. They pull in and push the warm air out of the back.

And you're welcome.