Overclocking FX-6300, AsRock 990fx-extreme3

Jura12345

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Aug 23, 2015
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I have this pc for about 2 years, so basicly I read a lot of comments and things about fx6300, everyone suggests that its stupid not to overclock it, my temps at idle is 20 degreese celsius, and after playing some games(like GTA V, Witcher 3) my temps are around 43 defreese celsius(HW monitor) , so I was thinking what is safe voltage and how far can I go to OC ( I watched some guides but no1 explained how much voltage should I put), I overclocked before, but my CPU is at stock for about 5 months, since AMD gpu drivers update from catalyst to crimson, It removed my overclock that was previous set with amd drivers (to 4,3 I belive). So what voltage and how much ghz. And for how long I should let Prime95 stresses my CPU

My rig: FX-6300 @3,5 Turbo clock ON
AsRock 990fx-exetreme3
12gb ddr3 1333mhz Corsair(2x2 and 2x4 and it's working for 5 months no error)
XFX R7 260x Core edition 2gb GDDR5
600W Zalman PSU, 80+ Bronze
Zalman CNPS10X optima(in my opinion, is the same as my friend 212 evo, I find it even better, we use same fans)
 
Solution
Seeing as your CPU is just under 100 watts and your board is only rated to deliver 140 watts, I wouldn't recommend overclocking on that board... AMD FX series CPUs get pretty power hungry when overclocked. Also, overclocking the CPU probably won't yield a huge performance increase because of the low speed of your RAM. I recommend having RAM clocked at at least 1866MHz if you want to overclock the CPU, so that the RAM can keep up with the CPU.

I just don't think it's the best idea with that system.
 

And there seams to be something wrong with the temps as well. 20°C at idle means max 5°C room temperature!
 
He brings up a valid point that I somehow forgot about... HW monitor has given my problems in the past, I recommend a program called CoreTemp, but SR-71 Blackbird (a very knowledgeable user) recommends Hardware Info

For a forced air cooler, the idle temperature seems a little low, I think HW monitor is screwing with you.

I can't get to social sites like imgur through my firewall, can you please put the image on Google Drive and set it to public? Thanks
 


https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByDpWTUcLejqRDNDMXdYTTJtcEU
So basicly OC-ing my CPU won't give me any boost (atleast maybe in gaming)

 
If it's accurate, then that's a great temperature for the FX series. But like I said, the CPU is not the only bottleneck in that system, if you overclock it and reduce its affect as a bottleneck, you will likely increase the effect of the bottleneck of the low RAM speed.

Plus I'm not sure that your VRMs would stay cool at the higher wattages that come from overclocking... You risk possibly bricking your board if you overload the power delivery system
 


I downloaded core temp as you said , there it says 24 degreese celsius
 


thats socket temp so it is actualy capable to be low 20's while idling in my experience.
theres some misinformation above aswell.

Both your board & cooler are eminently capable of fairly big overclocks mate- no doubt at all.

You should though be using amd overdrive & its thermal margin readout for core temps - its by far the most accurate & reliable software anywhere.

http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-technologies/technologies-gaming/over-drive

just dropping in bios,disabling turbocore & setting multiplier to 20 for 4ghz will give you a straight & noticeable performance improvement ,in gaming & other apps without touching any voltage etc
it will barely increase temps at all & will stop those irregular clock & voltage drops under load that turbocore causes.

straihgt prime blend test I would expect the thermal margin to be 30c or above while its running (the thermal margin actually works backwards from the cpu's max temp of 72c)

You probably have headroom up to & around the 4.5ghz mark with your components although 4.2/4.3ghz tends to be the optimum without increasing voltage exponentially.
& yes 4.2ghz will give you a noticeable boost in gaming performance although the 260x is more of the weak link in your system imo.

You also havent stated psu model which can also be important??

edit - seen the psu - not great quality but its enough & isnt really a concern,
 
Yes it can overclock, and may do it just fine, but I don't recommend overclocking on a board that's not rated for at least 75 watts higher than the TDP of your CPU... There's no real way of telling exactly how much power your CPU will draw when overclocked because of the "silicon lottery" which means that two processors coming off of the assembly line right after each other may not have the same microscopic defects as each other even though they're the same make and model.

AMD in general tends to get rather power hungry when overclocking.

However, I'm always looking forward to learning new things... If you can provide link(s) that prove that that board will overclock without power delivery problems then I'll be happy to take back what I said earlier.
 


Ok, so my cpu is now at 4ghz, I am gonna run prime95, for how long should I run it?
 




single standard run mate,4ghz isnt really anything - itll pull about the same voltage as at stock wth turbo enabled.

You are doing this in bios ?? please dont use software for overclocking at all,it pushes unrealistic voltages.

in all honesty looking at the board I am going to agree upto a point with weberdarren97 - it is not a great quality board,& ive wrongly assumed it has a 6+2 vrm set when it doesnt,it has the same setup as the old 970 extreme 3.

However 4ghz is entirely safe imo,Its still not going to go past a 105w tdp threshold .
I would be dubious about going past that without any added vrm cooling

Just keep an eye on amd overdrive for any signs of throttling,all clocks should stay 4ghz solid with no fluctuation.

I would also put cpu-z up onscreen & let us know cpu voltage under load while prime is running - there may be the opportunity to actually drop voltage a little even at 4ghz.
 
Solution


After looking at the board specs Im going to at least half-apologise & half- agree with you mate.
However 4ghz will be entirely safe on that board.

a 75w rating over the installed cpu for overclocking is unrealistic though,the 6300 is not even close to being a power hungry cpu & its power draw at small overclocks is has always been wildly overstated.
You will rarely see a 6300@4ghz actually pull more than 90w max


 
voltage most likely ,drop down to 19x multiplier
turbocore pushes a lot more voltage to hit those boost clocks,disabling it will keep the cpu at a lower voltage than normal - most 6300's will manage this,yours obviously wont.
drop the multiplier to 19x (3.8ghz)
run tests again ,let me know the voltage shown in cpu-z while the prime test is running.

what were your temps looking like in overdrive?
 
That would mean that your overclock is unstable, something is not happy...

Please try reducing clock speed by just a few dozen MHz and lowering voltage .005 volts at a time until system is stable. If the problem gets worse, you may need to add voltage. It's kind of a shot in the dark for me here since I can't see a screen with stats on your current clock in MHz and voltage measured to the thousandth of the volt.

Edit: Yes, temperature... What was the temperature right before the crash? Once it crashes, reboot into BIOS and post the temperature in BIOS which shouldn't be more than 40 Celsius.
 


Thermal margin was droping really fast from 38-45, so I am gonna drop to 3,8 ghz and run prime
 


any thermal margin above 30c is absolutely a non-issue mate - as long as its above 10c in all honesty its entirely acceptable under a 100% prime load.

the normal stock p-state voltage for 3.8ghz is a whopping 1.4125v
you are probably only running at 1.3-1.33v under load which obviously is not enough for you cpu.
the cpu voltge on the main tab of cpu-z will tell you the load voltage while prime is running - keep it onscreen.
 
I have no idea whats going off with your voltages mate,if would appear your board has the worst vdroop I have EVER seen.

Have you messed with voltages either in bios or in amd catalyst/overdrive at all in the past??

You absolutely need to bump voltage mate.Im honestly surprised its sitting stable at stock or at 3.8ghz there under the 1.112v its running at.
it also explains your insanely low load temps.

1.275v is a safe point to be at,that should get you your 4ghz stable.
while youre in bios just look at the llc settings & let me know what the options are.
 


touchng llc is the last thing id personally do - its nice to see just how much vdroop is there first.
High or some board is medium on others - some boards have percentages,gigabyte boards normal actually means high - its a mess of confusion hence why I asked what option were available under the llc tab in bios before suggesting anything .

& you can burn an asrock extreme 3 & the msi g series boards out hitting em with 1.5v from the off.
 


still massive vdroop - what options do yu actually get under the llc tab in bios??

also voltage is reading at 1.2375 in overdrive - is this what you set as I actually said 1.275

if you have an option for normal under llc then by all means try it

what youre actually after is that core voltage in cpu-z to be fairly close to the vid shown in amd overdrive - at the minute its not even close.
somewhere between 1.23-1.30v in cpu-z under load will get you stability on all cores..