piledriver - Official AMD FX4300,FX6300 and FX8350 review thread

[mmj_uk]

Well I got my 8320 Prime stable at 4.6ghz on water, not tried any higher yet.

I've just come across an interesting post on overclockers.net, it basically says that the "CPU temp" is nothing but a socket temperature and can be affected by ambient temperature (which certainly explains why watercooling shows so little improvement over air) and that "Core Temp" is actually the most accurate reading but ONLY at load.

I think my Crosshair CPU temperature shutdown limit is set to 90C so perhaps the CPU temp is to be ignored.

Here is another thread:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1095360/straight-from-amd-the-correct-temp-to-read-for-your-processor

Response and Service Request History:

Thank you for contacting AMD. The core temperature is the correct temperatures. For your processor the safe temperature is 62 C. There are so many applications for processor temperature monitor and may not be accurate. We recommend Core Temp software to monitor the temperature of your cores. Its a free utility online. If your core's are running at 61.6 or 62 C, then they are running hot and you may have a defective processor.

In order to update this service request, please respond, leaving the service request reference intact.

Best regards,

Francine

AMD Global Customer Care

There seems to be a lot of confusion on the subject but I'm inclined to believe that "CPU temp" is not to be taken too seriously.

On the Core Temps I'm getting around 48C.

 

[Martini1991]

Well it's not really correct temperatures when it's sub ambient .
Gareth E-mailed AMD once and got told to monitor CPU temp and that Core temps were incorrect.
It's always the same, one says X, another says Y.

It's a problem.

That said, I'm not saying CPU Temp is 100% either, I know on my WC'ed set up on my CH IV it was fine though, under water it reported a lower temperature than on air, also easier to handle at 62, although AMD's temperature guide was upto ~71c.

The theory is to assume core temp is an offset temperature, so 62c might actually be 80c or something, and the 48c it's running at could be actually 60c etc, but then you're assuming they're all offset the same amount.

 

[Hagar]

In reality from what I have read on the web there seem to be a lot of people getting high overclocks of ^4.8GHz but cannot do prime95 stable. They are passing IBT and AIDA64 torture testing but prime95 on eight threads is a no.
I do not see this as a problem as in real life, number crunching, gaming whatever, you are unlikely to stress a cpu to these levels for continuous lengths of time on eight threads and if you can prime on a lesser number, that is still good in my view.
Most people clocking the 8320 are getting 4.5GHz fairly readily which is a 1 GHz overclock using all threads, useful. I do not know whether the 8350 would be better, I will have to wait and see (GRRR) but 4.5GHz would suit me as an overclock unless I was benching or going for the max but not day to day, too noisy and stressful.

 

[humbug]

can you do a x264 HD benchmark im downloading now to try it

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=520&pgno=0#download

I have one of those

 

[PCZ]

In reality from what I have read on the web there seem to be a lot of people getting high overclocks of ^4.8GHz but cannot do prime95 stable. They are passing IBT and AIDA64 torture testing but prime95 on eight threads is a no.
I do not see this as a problem as in real life, number crunching, gaming whatever, you are unlikely to stress a cpu to these levels for continuous lengths of time on eight threads and if you can prime on a lesser number, that is still good in my view.
Most people clocking the 8320 are getting 4.5GHz fairly readily which is a 1 GHz overclock using all threads, useful. I do not know whether the 8350 would be better, I will have to wait and see (GRRR) but 4.5GHz would suit me as an overclock unless I was benching or going for the max but not day to day, too noisy and stressful.

Most of the big overclocks are only bench stable,
On this Forum folks generally only show Prime stable clocks.

Most of those 4.8Ghz overclocks are not stable at all and those CPU's would most likely only pass prime tests at 4.6Ghz or so

 

[Hagar]

Well it's not really correct temperatures when it's sub ambient .
Gareth E-mailed AMD once and got told to monitor CPU temp and that Core temps were incorrect.
It's always the same, one says X, another says Y.

Incidentally, it is Gareths old 1090T in my desktop quite a nice clocking CPU it is.

now on my netbook while x264 runs.

 

[PCZ]

FX 3820 4.6Ghz

Some aida64 screenies.
I ran mem at 1600, 1866 and 2133.
NB is 2400Mhz.
Added a x264 bench

 

[humbug]

That x264 Bench is pretty impressive ^^^^

 

[PCZ]

Well we have found something PD doesn't suck at

 

[Martini1991]

Incidentally, it is Gareths old 1090T in my desktop quite a nice clocking CPU it is.

now on my netbook while x264 runs.

Launch day 4.2GHZ if I recall.

Well we have found something PD doesn't suck at

Even Bulldozer never really sucked at those type of situations, they offered very good value, Piledriver offers unbeatable price/performance in some cases, and in others unbeatable performance in those same situations as proven with your benchmark result.

 

[Hagar]

Launch day 4.2GHZ if I recall.

Would not surprise me, I have always run it at 3.8 but it easily runs at 4.1+ with sensible volts.

 

[Davedree]

http://itsoapbox.com/images/cachemem-1600.jpg[/IMG]

thanks for these pics pcz !! Still see the memory controller is broken then, read speeds are quite low and the write speeds suck and the 1st gen of fx cpus had the same fault, l2 cache read is pretty poor too. Wasn't expecting miracles but they haven't touched the imc. And they've had a year and it just feels like they've reduced power increased latency a bit and just clocked it another few hundred mhz.

g540

 

[badcompany]

so which of these new cpus is the best power per value then?

 

[Hagar]

so which of these new cpus is the best power per value then?

Depends to some extent on what you want to do and what hardware you have or want to buy.

The hex core at £110 seems good value for a general purpose machine, gaming on AM3+ and also crunching numbers.

The octo core will not add much value to gaming above the hex but will add plenty to encoding etc. Personally I am buying the 8350 which i think was quite marginal in terms of value compared to the original 8320 price but now that has edged up, the £25 difference MAY be worthwhile.

There is not really enough data on all the processors to make a definitive judgement but more results are coming through by the day.

 

[Martini1991]

so which of these new cpus is the best power per value then?

I think the 8320 depending on your work load, or the FX6 again depending on your workload.
Really tempted to get one for the times I encode, either that or go full hog and get a 3930k

 

[passey89]

I think the 8320 depending on your work load, or the FX6 again depending on your workload.
Really tempted to get one for the times I encode, either that or go full hog and get a 3930k

bit of a price difference between 8320 and 3930k though lol

 

[Martini1991]

bit of a price difference between 8320 and 3930k though lol

Oh yeah, definitely, the FX8350 is magnitudes better value, it's just I've got the money

 

[passey89]

y do I think my mobo might be playing up.

CPU running at 15C after 30 mins of being on. room temp is around 20C

 

[mmj_uk]

y do I think my mobo might be playing up.

CPU running at 15C after 30 mins of being on. room temp is around 20C

It's not accurate at idle according to a few sources.

I think the best way to monitor AMD temps is to see if it's stable or not, none of their readouts appear to be all that accurate.

 

[passey89]

my x264 benchie at stock speeds