FX 8350 overclock & cooling

maffa1982 · 26 Aug 2014 at 19:30

Recently upgraded my cpu and motherboard to an fx 8350 and asus m5a99x evo r2.0. Ran into a few issues when i decided to overclock it a bit and noticed a few things.

I looked at a couple of guides on overclocking on this board as im new to the UEFI bios so i only disabled the spread spectrum, cool&quiet etc left volts stock and upped the multiplier to 22. Booted into windows fine and ran prime 95 only i noticed in cpuz when prime95 was running the volts for the cpu dropped to 1.287 i think it was and the temp rose to 68 after a couple of minutes.

i have an akasa venom air cooler with 2 fans in push/pull wich kept my previose cpu quite cool even with it overclocked to 4.0ghz.

Dropped everything back to default and ran prime95 again and same happend with the votz dropping under full load and temp not goin over 60 this time. just seems a bit dodgy how a 400mgz overclock can raise the temp so much at stock volts.

was thinking could it be the cpu cooler not being so good with fx cpu's?
or am i missing somthing while overclocking etc?

anthony566 · 26 Aug 2014 at 23:12

What OC have you been putting on it ?

I used this guide it does sound like you are not controlling the volts manually I know this is not the same MB but the settings are almost the same.

As for cooling I didn't go with an air cooler but people do use air cooling very well with an overclock so maybe some one else can offer help with your cooler just make sure you are exhausting as much heat out of your case as you can ... extra intake and exhaust fans etc and you PSU is taking cooler air from out side of the case and exhausting out of the case and not into it things like that will all help with temp control.

My CPU temp atm without load is 28c, the room I am in is quite warm and my PC has been on since 8:30 this morning

At the start of this he tells you how to set everything to manual do that first with the CPU at stock and run the test.

maffa1982 · 27 Aug 2014 at 10:54

cheers for the reply. Thats one of the guides i followed to overclock lol. I've only put it to 4.4ghz and the temp rises to 68 in prime95. I've tried a couple of times at 4.5 and 4.6 with more volts but it crashes but then for some reason it doesnt revert back to default but changes the bios settings to fsb 216, pci @ 100 and multiplier @ 20.

temp at the minute is 36c at stock clocks. I think i can sort the overclock issue out with a bit more tweaking and learning the bios better, plus maybe might have to go for a water cooler if the temps are going as high as they are with the cooler i got now, wich i thought is a pretty good cooler in the first place.

Tuvoc · 27 Aug 2014 at 14:08

I just installed an 8350 a few weeks ago. Initially I overclocked it to 4.3 on standard volts (Gigabyte board) and the voltage under load was not drooping. VID 1.325v but under 100% load the voltage was actually higher, 1.344 or 1.36v. And yes, under Prime it would get to around 68C, this with a Gelid Tranquillo V2 cooler. But under 100% load 24/7 for several days, there was a definite smell in the room, which was the coating on the heatsinks on the northbridge and VRMs which were very hot. I dropped back to stock 4.0, put an Antec spot-cool fan in that area, and that smell went away after a while, and has been running fine since. At 100% load these CPUs put a lot of stress on the motherboard !! I did nothing but change the multiplier and turn off turbo clock. The voltage was left at "normal".

I've just ordered and received an Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 and will be fitting that this weekend, and that should enable me to get back to a 4.3 or higher overclock. The ASUS motherboard has much better cooling and will be quite OK with that. It will be my first taste of a UEFI BIOS, so I'm expecting a learning curve... I will run at stock for a few days before then applying an overclock.

Damo667 · 1 Sep 2014 at 11:55

I have the m5a99fx pro r2.0 with custom watercooling and at 4.5ghz or more the vrm/nb heatsink overheats and throttles the CPU. To run at 4.8ghz I have to remove the windowed side panel and cable tie a 120mm fan pointing directly at it. Under ibt it will be fine unplug the fan an 2m later throttles, fan back on clocks back up again. For 4.5ghz mine needs 1.4v stock voltage is 1.375v. I've learnt these chips hammer the crap out of the power phase section on the motherboard and mine is one of the better amd boards.

Settings wise I turned all the power saving stuff off like c1e, cool n quiet etc then set the current to 130% and load line calibration to high. That should then run more or less voltage you ask without any droop. 4.4ghz should be attainable on stock voltage. Mine only just fails ibt at 4.5ghz at stock voltage and mine isn't a great chip. It needs 1.5v for 4.8ghz and 1.55v isn't enough for a stable 4.9ghz. A good chip will get to 5.1 or even 5.2 on that voltage.

Tuvoc · 1 Sep 2014 at 12:06

Thanks for the info. I haven't fitted the ASUS board yet, I'm waiting on a new backplate and screws from Gelid for the cooler. Probably this weekend.

I tested the FX8350 on the Gigabyte board at 4.3, and it is IBT stable at 4.3 which is good. The Gigabyte board doesn't have an LLC setting, so I don't know what the board is doing with that. But there is no droop, and the CPU wasn't getting throttled despite the high VRM temps. I think my CPU might be a decent one, I'll find out when I use the ASUS board and push it to 4.4 and 4.5. I'll post again when the ASUS Sabretooth board is in.