Safe VRM Temps

85c is hot but the VRM's can take a little more abuse than that. Maximum operating temperatures for VRM's are dependant on their quality and are often given by manufacturers to be between 100'C and 130'C depending on the manufacturer. These temperatures are not a 'safe guideline' where you would aim to be, to get your most from the board but rather a warning to not let your VRM temps near there. Before your temps reach the maximum operating temperature, you will start to see it affecting performance and you will find that your board may automatically lower and clock your maximum voltage of your CPU. Worse than that you might find that the voltage of your CPU to be unstable and will find your bus speed flying up and down, having a huge affect on system stability due to variation in clock speeds under load (have a crazy screenshot of when i was testing the fx8150 after its release, with CPU-Z reporting 4.8ghz, voltage being at 1.23v when it was meant to be at stock speeds. Speeds were flickering between a 155MHz bus speed up to 250MHz).

Your board has only 4+1 power phasing which will be enough for most if not all CPU's at stock but some of the power hungry fx chips will be hard to push far past stock because of how hot the VRM's may get. Usually if you have an air cooler on your CPU, your VRM's are almost always fine since air is constantly circulating. I had most of my VRM problems on ambitious overclocks on cheaper boards with low power phasing and just a CPU waterblock. These problems were usually resolved when i switched to higher end boards, directed some air toward the VRM's or put a waterblock on them.

I would say 85'C is fine, although you would want it lower, its not causing any problems at the moment.

What CPU do you have?
What is your voltage?

PS. Don't consider my waterblock solution as a suggestion since it is overkill and overpriced. My main reason for putting a waterblock on the VRM's was aesthetic reasons. Air flow in that area of your case or sticking on RAM heatsinks if you are really bothered by the temperature.
 
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Avenged7Fold said:
85c is hot but the VRM's can take a little more abuse than that. Maximum operating temperatures for VRM's are dependant on their quality and are often given by manufacturers to be between 100'C and 130'C depending on the manufacturer. These temperatures are not a 'safe guideline' where you would aim to be, to get your most from the board but rather a warning to not let your VRM temps near there. Before your temps reach the maximum operating temperature, you will start to see it affecting performance and you will find that your board may automatically lower and clock your maximum voltage of your CPU. Worse than that you might find that the voltage of your CPU to be unstable and will find your bus speed flying up and down, having a huge affect on system stability due to variation in clock speeds under load (have a crazy screenshot of when i was testing the fx8150 after its release, with CPU-Z reporting 4.8ghz, voltage being at 1.23v when it was meant to be at stock speeds. Speeds were flickering between a 155MHz bus speed up to 250MHz).

Your board has only 4+1 power phasing which will be enough for most if not all CPU's at stock but some of the power hungry fx chips will be hard to push far past stock because of how hot the VRM's may get. Usually if you have an air cooler on your CPU, your VRM's are almost always fine since air is constantly circulating. I had most of my VRM problems on ambitious overclocks on cheaper boards with low power phasing and just a CPU waterblock. These problems were usually resolved when i switched to higher end boards, directed some air toward the VRM's or put a waterblock on them.

I would say 85'C is fine, although you would want it lower, its not causing any problems at the moment.

What CPU do you have?
What is your voltage?

PS. Don't consider my waterblock solution as a suggestion since it is overkill and overpriced. My main reason for putting a waterblock on the VRM's was aesthetic reasons. Air flow in that area of your case or sticking on RAM heatsinks if you are really bothered by the temperature.
Click to expand...

Hi mate i have the fx 6300

And thanks for the detailed explanation :)

Also, i dont suppose you know the safe temps for the piledriver cpus do you mate?

Ive had a google around and cant find any solid info :(
 
Don't go above 60 degree's for fx chips, the sensors are a little off. They will operate above 60 but chances are, their life will be reduced.

But to be honest, it sounds like your not getting any problem's and 85 degree's on VRM's is still safe, so you don't have to change. If you pumped a little more voltage through, you would probably have to start looking at maybe changing the motherboard though.

I will post two great 990fx motherboards for roughly 100 and under.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £104.99
1 x MSI 990XA-GD55 AMD 990X Chipset (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
Total : £196.38 (includes shipping : £9.50).



They are both 8+2 power phasing. Though the Gigabyte board has more features and flexibility with PCIe slots, if you don't need that, the MSI board is perfect for you. Both boards have high quality VRM's capable of taking more abuse than cheaper motherboards.
 
Avenged7Fold said:
Don't go above 60 degree's for fx chips, the sensors are a little off. They will operate above 60 but chances are, their life will be reduced.

But to be honest, it sounds like your not getting any problem's and 85 degree's on VRM's is still safe, so you don't have to change. If you pumped a little more voltage through, you would probably have to start looking at maybe changing the motherboard though.

I will post two great 990fx motherboards for roughly 100 and under.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £104.99
1 x MSI 990XA-GD55 AMD 990X Chipset (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
Total : £196.38 (includes shipping : £9.50).



They are both 8+2 power phasing. Though the Gigabyte board has more features and flexibility with PCIe slots, if you don't need that, the MSI board is perfect for you. Both boards have high quality VRM's capable of taking more abuse than cheaper motherboards.
Click to expand...

I like the gigabyte board

I think ill go with that

Thank you very much for your help mate

:)
 
djshauny1 said:
Also mate what are those FX8350 cpus like ?

:)
Click to expand...

Great!
If your just into gaming, your just into gaming, you wont see much difference in most games. There are however a few game's where the 8 core FX chips really shine, one of them being crysis 3. Hopefully in the future we will see more games threaded to use all these cores.
 
Avenged7Fold said:
Great!
If your just into gaming, your just into gaming, you wont see much difference in most games. There are however a few game's where the 8 core FX chips really shine, one of them being crysis 3. Hopefully in the future we will see more games threaded to use all these cores.
Click to expand...

Awesome

Ill stick with the 6300 for now then :D
 
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