What is the maximum 'safe' voltage for the amd a10 5800k apu??

[NewbieGeek]

So as some of you may know I have an a10 5800k... It was recommend to me during my first build as I wasn't buying a gpu at the time... Anyways now I have a gpu and I realized my 5800k often bottlenecks it (~~30-50% gpu usage in minecraft, sometimes modded, and world of warplanes). Only one game I play maxes the gpu. Sooooo I've resorted to overclocking till I can buy a new cpu, which might be a year or two.

So, my question is, how high can I raise the voltage without frying my cpu?

Specs,

Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper T4
Gpu: MSI r7 370 4gb
Psu: Corsair CX600m 600watt psu


Thanks all and suggestions/comments welcomed.

 

[clutchc]

It's hard to believe the A10-5800K even at stock would bottleneck a R7-370. I have had both that APU and that card.
But to answer your question, 1.50V is the accepted safe max for that and most AMD processors. You can go higher, but you do so at your own risk. Make sure your m/b is designed for OC'ing and can handle the added stress to the components.
I would start by disabling turbo mode and increase the multi as high as possible (one click at a time) before messing with the core volts.

 

[NewbieGeek]

Thanks. Yeah I've already overclocked it a bit but I was wondering how high I could go.

MSI Afterburner shows my gpu usage at around 30-50% on those games... I assume this means cpu bottleneck, yes or no? If not then I'll just overclock the graphics card lol.

 

[clutchc]

MSI Afterburner show me gpu usage of around 30-50% on those games... I assume this means cpu bottleneck, yes or no?

Not necessarily. That simply shows that the card is not working full out. CPU bottleneck would be determined by what usage the CPU was at.

 

[NewbieGeek]

Cpu usage seems to range from around 50-90%... Is this a cpu or gpu bottleneck ?

 

[clutchc]

If the CPU is hitting close to 100%, then it would indicate CPU bottleneck. But if the CPU is sitting at 50% usage, it is not bottle necking that card. And it shouldn't. The R7-370 should be a great match for the APU. My A10-500K was beginning to show some bottleneck with my R9-280, and then only occasionally.

But if you find this happening when playing online mainly, it could be that the CPU is not able to handle all the extra work involved with playing on a busy 64 player server with high end games. Then yes, CPU bottleneck could be a factor.

 

[NewbieGeek]

Yeah I like playing online. Thanks for the help!

 

[ZachyBeat]

The reason you're seeing the CPU bottleneck is because of the games you're playing. This is true for the one game you say doesn't bottleneck as well. Minecraft is the definition of a CPU bound game. Overclock your CPU as much as you can. This guide is a good place to start. http://www.overclock.net/t/1348623/amd-bulldozer-and-piledriver-overclocking-guide-asus-motherboard This video he overclocks using bus speed and not the multiplier, but feel free to do both (multiplier to max then fine tune with bus) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MckeAmnDeTk
As Clutchc was saying about larger games running into bottlenecks; this is true. If you're playing BF4 (and the way it's optimized) it will run a lot better on lots of strong cores. If you're playing Black Ops 3, well not so much. The maps are small and will run fine on many CPUs. Tomb Raider and many single player games are the same way.

When you buy a new CPU, depending on your budget, try and get a quad core with strong single threaded performance or a very overclockable CPU; i5s, fx 83xx series. Keep in mind recommended CPUs will change in a year or two (if AMD ever makes new ones) 😛