Overclocking Fx6300 on Ga 970a UD3P

GabrielV

Honorable
Jun 13, 2015
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10,510
Hey guys. I wanted to start a thread a long time ago about this but now i'm really out of other options so here it goes.
Cpu:FX6300
Mobo: Gigabyte GA 970A UD3P
Cpu cooler: Arctic Freezer Xtreme Rev 2
Ram: crucial Ballistix 1x8 GB @1600
Psu: Antec Hcg 520M
Case: Nzxt Phantom 240

I've got this Cpu stable @4.2 Ghz with a Vcore of 1.334. All power saving options diasabled.Max temp with prime 95 was 61 Celsius so I thought it was a bit high for only 1.334 vcore. I enabled hpc and Apm mode and my temps were dropped by 10 degrees celsius but also my clocks went down. Cpu-z reports the clock going back to 1.4 and 3.8 Ghz under loadbut also in idle. Is this normal? Cool n quiet not enabled.The vcore does not drop though. I've read that on Gigabyte boards it's often better to leave HPC and APM enabled. I know there are a million threads out there about the fx 6300 but no threads have the exact same problems as mine. Thanks in advance and sorry for the eventual mistakes in my grammar. (Not english native)
 
Solution
Core performance boost (turbo) should be disabled. In the second screenie it is showing auto. If you've left that on because it double boots with it off, go to the gigabyte website and grab the F2g BIOS if you're running a revision 1 board and flash it, that will fix the double boot. (You'll have to redo settings after.)

Turbo boost most of the time pumps more voltage than is needed, you can likely run 4.2 off lower voltage if that's what you went by. Mine for example was around 1.36 with stock settings (turbo on) but when I set it up for overclocking my BIOS was telling me 1.27.

Like yours is showing 1.23, you could either try setting it to the same as that value and see if it remains stable and raise it from that if not, or lower...
Hello there,

Could you please post some pictures of your BIOS settings (voltages and advanced core) and some screenies with monitoring software open (CPU-Z and HWMonitor)?

Disable APM, leave HPC enabled.

Are you overclocking with turbo enabled and raising the boost multi or main multi with turbo disabled?

As an example I've been able to hit 4.4GHz at stock voltages (yes I know each chip is different), you probably wouldn't have needed to add anything for 4.2.
 


Hello, thank you for the quick response. I have made the screenshots
Bios settings
150613172427.png

150613172447.png


Monitoring
Idle
idles_stats_2.png

Load (prime95 after 20 min)
under_load.png


I took your advice on disabling APM and leaving HPC enabled, it worked now my clock remains stable at 4.2. I would also like to reach 4.4 or even 4.5 if possible. I'm am not using turbo boost with my overclock, only main clock.
The voltage I used is almost stock, only one bump in voltage. Bios read 1.344 voltage needed when turbo boost was enabled so I figured it should be that. When I started playing around with the bios settings stock frequency 3.5 GHZ was shown at 1.225 volts, everything on auto of course. Thanks again, hope to "hear" you soon.
 
Core performance boost (turbo) should be disabled. In the second screenie it is showing auto. If you've left that on because it double boots with it off, go to the gigabyte website and grab the F2g BIOS if you're running a revision 1 board and flash it, that will fix the double boot. (You'll have to redo settings after.)

Turbo boost most of the time pumps more voltage than is needed, you can likely run 4.2 off lower voltage if that's what you went by. Mine for example was around 1.36 with stock settings (turbo on) but when I set it up for overclocking my BIOS was telling me 1.27.

Like yours is showing 1.23, you could either try setting it to the same as that value and see if it remains stable and raise it from that if not, or lower the voltage in steps from 1.33 untill it's as low as it can be while maintaining stability. But as you want a higher clock, you could also raise the multi 1st and see if you remain stable with 1.33 and then find the lowest you need for stability.

I don't know how well your specific cooler performs but at a max temp of 52c after 20mins of prime, they are fine.

Aside from that from that, from what I can see it's good to go.

Thanks for uploading the screenies btw, makes things so much easier.
 
Solution
No, no, thank you, you helped a lot. I don't know how come boost mode was on auto, I could swear I disabled it. Anyway, I disabled it for good this time. I will now try to reach 4.3 and 4.4
Seems like HPC mode enabled is a great deal because it dropped my temps but I do not understand what good APM Mode does if it throttles your cpu even at low temps.
So, I'm off to try for 4.4 then I'll post some screens, maybe you can take a look at them if you're okay with it
 
Ok, I think I can't do anything else here as my temps rise too much if I go for 4.4
4_3_ghz.png

This is the lowest voltage i'm stable for 4.3 GHZ. Anything after that causes instability or temps over 61 and I do not want that, anyway, if someone has other advices for better tweaking "I'm all ears" Last night I ran memtest all night long, 4 passes, no errors.
Prime95 has been running for 6 hours at the moment when I took the screenshot so I think i'll call it pretty stable until I get some errors in games or everyday use
I will try and replace the thermal paste again because I'm not very sure if I have not added too much last time I replaced it (1 week ago)
Thanks a lot for your help, Soulage!
 
Ah sorry to hear that dude, that's why it's called the silicone lottery, never know what your gonna get 😛
Glad you were able to get something out of it though.

It could be worth a re paste if you think you used too much (too much paste can act as an insulator, rather than help).
My prefered method is 1 dot in the center of the CPU, slightly bigger than a grain of rice but smaller than a pea, and let the heatsink pressure spread it.
If the heatsink lifts up / comes away from the CPU during application I redo it too (sometimes air bubbles can form and get super heated when running, it's annoying to redo each time if it happens but ensures an even spread).
If your temps are consistant and aren't jumping to extremes when you try to do something it might not need redoing though.

No problem dude, glad to have helped.
 
Yeah, I used the dot method too but I'm not really sure if I haven't put too much paste, anyway, I think I'll get a watercooler to try further overclock, I really want this build to be as near as possible to my other rig with the i5 3770k even if it's a long shot.