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***official amd 83x0 overclocking thread***

I'd basically just go for any Asus board depending on budget: under £100, the 970 EVO R2.0. £100-£130 the 990FX Pro R2.0. £130-£160 the Sabertooth. £160+ the Crosshair Formula Z.

The only other one I'd consider is the cheapy Gigabyte 970 board with VRM heatsinks which was recently updated, it's about £60 and is fine for running at stock clocks, so is a decent budget option.
 
alex_123_fra said:
Thanks Andy, Teppic and MxOrange. The Gigabyte site states that the UD3 Rev 3.0 has an 8+2 phase power design. Pretty poor I think for it to start throttling literally after around 2-3 minutes of heavy load. I am only OCing to 4.5GHz and the chip is not thermally limited and only takes around 1.38V to get there. If I want to watercool to get to 5GHz in future, it doesn't look like this board will cut it.
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The UD3 is quite cheap though mate, so I guess it could be said you get what you pay for? I've seen them for £100 even when looking hard enough.

The saber is a great board as is the other one (blue and stuff lol,the one he said ^) but from looking around it's worth the £30 more for the CHVFZ due to it having the best power stages on any 990 board.
 
The UD3 isn't too expensive, but the 970 Asus board overclocks far better, and is typically only £85 or so. If you want 16x16x dual cards, the 990FX Asus board's around the same price of the UD3, but I've never seen a single issue with throttling reported.
 
Thanks guys, the PC is for my son and although I don't think he'll even know if I left it as it is, I know that when he starts playing games like BF4, the cores will start getting loaded pretty heavily and he will run into issues. The sabertooth sounds like a good option. It is on offer this week at £138 so I'll go for that. Is the R2.0 the latest version of this?
 
alex_123_fra said:
Thanks guys, the PC is for my son and although I don't think he'll even know if I left it as it is, I know that when he starts playing games like BF4, the cores will start getting loaded pretty heavily and he will run into issues. The sabertooth sounds like a good option. It is on offer this week at £138 so I'll go for that. Is the R2.0 the latest version of this?
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It is yes. I would think about spending £160 on the CHVFZ though. £22 buys you a lot more than the power stages. The heatsinks are absolutely massive. Supreme FX sound, gigabit Intel pro NIC etc.

It might even get a bit cheaper soon :)
 
R2.0 is the latest, yes. It's just a refresh really, some updated bits, extra USB 3 ports, etc.

The Crosshair Formula is worth it if you want really high clocks, but on a tighter budget the difference could be put on a better cooler or better graphics card.
 
Hmm the CHVFZ sounds tempting. It would be rude not to watercool the CPU properly on that though. Currently the 8320 only has an antec Kuhler 620 which isn't too bad but not man enough for 5GHz. I have a spare XSPC Dual Slot D5 Res/Pump combo and a Phobya Xtreme 200 rad I could use to cool the CPU.

OCUK are a bit steep on the CHVFZ though.
 
alex_123_fra said:
Hmm the CHVFZ sounds tempting. It would be rude not to watercool the CPU properly on that though. Currently the 8320 only has an antec Kuhler 620 which isn't too bad but not man enough for 5GHz. I have a spare XSPC Dual Slot D5 Res/Pump combo and a Phobya Xtreme 200 rad I could use to cool the CPU.

OCUK are a bit steep on the CHVFZ though.
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I'm using a H100.On my old 8320 I needed it just to run 4.2ghz lol.

I was using a H60 before that and single rad with single thickness are useless for the 8 cores tbh.

Yeah OCUK and others haven't reflected the recent price drops tbh.
 
My main worry about the Crosshair Formula is that there may not be any more CPUs after Piledriver for the board, given that Piledriver is getting on a bit now and Steamroller is out very soon on the APUs. If AMD confirmed Steamroller for AM3+ I bet a lot more people would be interested.
 
teppic said:
My main worry about the Crosshair Formula is that there may not be any more CPUs after Piledriver for the board, given that Piledriver is getting on a bit now and Steamroller is out very soon on the APUs. If AMD confirmed Steamroller for AM3+ I bet a lot more people would be interested.
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if steamroller was confirmed id jump on a new asus crosshair.. i shouldnt of sold my formula 3 tbh :(

id really like to get 1 just to push for the 5ghz that im sure this cpu will do.. but i cant justify it without knowing the future of AM3+
 
mx0range said:
if steamroller was confirmed id jump on a new asus crosshair.. i shouldnt of sold my formula 3 tbh :(

id really like to get 1 just to push for the 5ghz that im sure this cpu will do.. but i cant justify it without knowing the future of AM3+
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You'll be fine. Your CPU will be supported all of the time the new consoles are around. You'll probably find you don't even need Steamroller.
 
To stop the throttling I found in my Gigabyte UD3 I had to disable the High Performance option in my bios set the overclock, boot to Windows, restart and enable the High Performance option again. It's supposedly a well known fault in these boards
 
They're soldered yes.

I got my board for £163. Checked it again, £168.

It's sooo nice though lmao. The sound card's traces light up on the board :D

Couple of pics. Pretty much the best board you can buy on AMD though :)





TRI SLI :D



I fitted the Molex to mine. It saves brown outs on the ATX connector when pulling juice in SLI :)



Missed a pic..



I used a red paracord Bitfenix extension so it accented the VRM cooling instead of looking like a dog's dinner :)
 
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