The First Amd Athlon X4 750k Build On The Forum

[David89]

Hi,

 

i've registered in the Forum quite a long time ago and never really had the time to do "something" around here^^ I hope i'm forgiven :P Oh, and if anyone wonders - i'm from germany and if my english isn't that perfect....well, don't smash my head against the wall *g* Something about me (didn't find any "Hey, i'm new!" threads :/ ) :

 

I'm 23 years old, studying optical electronics and since my granddad "threw" a 386 on the desk (i think i was about 6 or 7 years old) i'm "into" Computers.

The second PC i got had a AMD K6 in it and my first one, that i completly build by myself was a AMD Athlon XP 2400+ Thoroughbred B. It was one of the fastest CPU's you could buy in Germany around the end of 2002.

The biggest mistake with that build was getting a Nvidia GeForce FX5200. It was probably one of the crappiest GPU's i ever owned :D Shortly after that, i got a Radeon X1950Pro, wich i had until last year (i even played Crysis on it! But with a Phenom X3... ;) )

 

Anyway. A few month ago, my ASUS M3N-HT died...at least sort of. Didn't start all the time, BOSD's and so on. Well, soomething new was necessary. And maybe it's obvious from the above, that i'm more of the budget builder, then the absolute high end one. So my budget for a new Mainboard + CPU + RAM was at the max. 200 € (~ 260 U.S. Dollar, ~ 265 C.A. Dollar). Since i am a huge AMD Fan, never had any problems with the CPU's or the GPU's (i never even had any problems with the FGLRX driver under linux, don't know why, but it just worked for me - apart from XGL back in 2006), i never even considered Intel. I don't like Intel that much, because of their company and distribution policy in Germany (they bribed all the big PC-Companies to just use Intel CPU's) and some other things.

 

AM3+ was out of the question, it's a dead plattform and apart from that i would have never got something for under 200 €.

 

So it came down to FM2 and the X4 750K. Before you look at the pictures: It's absolutly no clean build, i threw it together in a hurry, because i needed the PC for studys. But the clean the mess up is right up the list, behind water cooling and a black PCB Radeon 7870 or 7950 :D And now i let the pictures speak for themself...^^

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's now running stable at 4,4 GHz. For Benchmarks and some Testing i had it up to 4,8 GHz, but it just doesn't work with Air Cooling, it runs into a "SCRAM" ;D 72°C and the whole thing BSOD's, because the thermal controler of trinity says it's to much ;)

 

Well, anyway, as i said, i'm quite impressed and in quite a few benchmarks, the 750K @ 4,8 GHz is sometimes faster then a i5-3570. It's faster then a i7-920 all the time. Sure, Integer performance isn't that great, but personally i don't give a damn :P At the moment every game i own runs on max settings at 1600x1200 (wich is only 3% less pixels than F-HD, so i'm counting it as F-HD :P) at over 40 FPS. Since the Monitor i'm using right now has quite a slow response time, it dosen't matter that much.

 

Raw-Sepcs of the PC:

 

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 750K @ 4,4 GHz

MB: Gigabyte GA-FM2A85X-DH3

GPU: Powercolor Radeon HD4850 1GB Edition - Stock overclocked (and i overclocked it "some more" - don't know the exact numbers ATM)

SSD: Intenso S-ATA 3 60 GB SSD (Benches with over 550 Mb/s!)

HDDs: 3x WesterDigital as Storage (1x1TB, 1x750GB, 1x500GB)

 

Windows 7 Performance Index with stock 4,0 GHz TurboCore:

 

 

David

 

PS: I hope i posted this in the right section, if not, please move it mod's :/

[AMDGAMERA8]

i like it 

[Mo5]

Looks cool. Definitely work on the cable management when you have the time :)

I hope you don't mind the question, but why are you using the old 4850?

[David89]

Because the old 4850 was already "there" :D Since i had only 200 bucks to spend, i couldn't get something else...but it's planed! :)

 

Yeah, i know, my cable management is horrible at the moment :D but since this is the "build log" forum, i thought i can post some updates, if i have the time to do so :)

 

Btw, here are some 3D Mark Benches:

 

3DMark 2006

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm06/17131636

 

3DMark Vantage

http://www.3dmark.com/3dmv/4571992

 

PCMark Vantage

http://www.3dmark.com/pcmv/525530

[alpenwasser]

(didn't find any "Hey, i'm new!" threads :/ ) :

Yeah those are usually a nice way for introductions. Avoids those awkward

"Hi, I'm new and wanted to say I really like your build" in the middle of an

ongoing project or something like that.

 

Since i am a huge AMD Fan

I grew up on AMD (27 years old now), so I've always had a soft spot for them. And I

put together my first PC right in the middle of their glorious Athlon K7 days (it was

a Thunderbird C, 1.4 GHz).

But alas, in the last few years I just couldn't justify going with AMD since I actually

use the computing power of my rigs (F@H, and since recently BOINC).

I am still hoping for the glorious return of AMD at some point.

I don't like Intel that much, because of their company and distribution policy in Germany (they bribed all the big PC-Companies to just use Intel CPU's) and some other things.

Indeed, they have done some... questionable things.

Nice build though, that board looks really clean :)

[David89]

Yeah those are usually a nice way for introductions. Avoids those awkward

"Hi, I'm new and wanted to say I really like your build" in the middle of an

ongoing project or something like that.

Yeah, that's why i put it on the top^^

I grew up on AMD (27 years old now), so I've always had a soft spot for them. And I

put together my first PC right in the middle of their glorious Athlon K7 days (it was

a Thunderbird C, 1.4 GHz).

But alas, in the last few years I just couldn't justify going with AMD since I actually

use the computing power of my rigs (F@H, and since recently BOINC).

I am still hoping for the glorious return of AMD at some point.

Well, i would say, AMD has had some very dark days. But at least they made some money, last quarter, or at least contained the loss a little bit.

And it always depends on what you're philosophy is...^^ In my case, i look to find the best compromise between price and performance. I just don't want to spend a whole monthly income for a PC and i don't want to support a company who have done that many questinable things...;)That's just my oppinion and i believe we customers have the power to change those things.

Nice build though, that board looks really clean :)

Thanks, yes, it does, but apparently that's just the actual gigabyte colour theme^^ But i want to keep it Black and Silver, so i'm looking for a 7870 or 7950 with a black PCB...

 

Cool build. Are you going to fix that cable managment? Other than that, I'm suprised how well the Athlon works.

Thanks. :) Yes, sometime in the future i'm going to fix the cable managment. I have to figure out a way, to get all the cables cramped behind the other side, but the problem is: That Case is a CM Silencio 650 and it's silenced, so there isn't much space left on the back of it, and quite a lot of cables are to short, to run them all the way across the back...

[alpenwasser]

Yeah, that's why i put it on the top^^

I've also chosen that approach in my project log. Seems pretty clean, but it's only

possible if you actually have a project log (new forum requirement: do a project log :D ).

 

i don't want to support a company who have done that many questinable things...;)That's just my oppinion and i believe we customers have the power to change those things.

That's precisely why I don't buy Apple products. They have about the same moral compass (if one can

call it that at all) as an oil company or an arms manufacturer. Just horrible, horrible behavior.

At least, Intel seem to do some good with their money nowadays (tricky to tell, of course),

but Apple is just... yeah, I don't want to start a flame war in your build log so I'll stop here.

[David89]

That's precisely why I don't buy Apple products. They have about the same moral compass (if one can

call it that at all) as an oil company or an arms manufacturer. Just horrible, horrible behavior.

At least, Intel seem to do some good with their money nowadays (tricky to tell, of course),

but Apple is just... yeah, I don't want to start a flame war in your build log so I'll stop here.

Hehe, thanks :D I know what you mean ;)

Yeah, in the past few years, Intel has done some good things, and i don't say the products are bad or something like that, but...yeah...anyway, if everyone would buy Intel, Intel would have a pure monopole on the x86 marked wich would probably turn out quite bad, wouldn't it?^^

[alpenwasser]

if everyone would buy Intel, Intel would have a pure monopole on the x86 marked wich would probably turn out quite bad

You can already see the bad things happening for the consumer; Intel's tick tock

cycle has slowed down significantly below its original roadmap plans from a few

years back since they've realized that AMD can't keep up anymore. IIRC the original

intention was to have six months between a tick and a tock, and now it's more like

a year (not sure on that one, but I think it was something like that originally).

And I'm definitely sure it's not due to problems with Intel's R&D or the manufacturing

processes. If AMD were still clamoring to Intel's heels, we would have long had Ivy

Brigdge-E, and Haswell would have come out quite a while ago.

And we haven't even talked about Intel's prices yet :o

When I put together my next build that does not require highest possible processing

power I will definitely give AMD consideration again :)

[David89]

Yep, well, Intel is using more money for R&D than AMD's whole income/transaction value^^ If AMD could use only have the money Intel is using, probably bulldozer would have wiped the floor...

But since Rory P. Read said AMD wont be delivering the high performance marked anymore...it does look very dim :/

[David89]

Thanks! Yeah, i thought about going with ASUS Blue Look, but then i found that thing :D

It's a Olympus E-520 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_E-520 ), wich i absolutly love^^ Shot a few awesome pictures on a laser show a semester above mine did at the university :)

[zomby]

Hi, great read :)

I think I read your review on a German forum as I found very little information about this chip. Most of the information I found out about it was from foreign sites lol

Anyway I have the same chip but I'm struggling to get it stable above 4.2ghz- I have it at 4.2ghz 1.41v at the moment. What was your voltage to get it stable at 4.4?

Thanks

[alpenwasser]

But since Rory P. Read said AMD wont be delivering the high performance marked anymore...it does look very dim :/

Well, the high-end market is not really that big in overall financial volume, it just

makes most of the headlines in the enthusiast community. So I think that's actually

not an entirely unreasonable approach, financially speaking.

Return on invest is probably a lot higher for the medium to low end market segment

(you know, 80/20 principle and such). So if this keeps them afloat in hard times I

think I can get behind that. And with them making the APUs for the new console

generation I think we could start to see some light in the coming years.

And if they ever get enough money again to get into the high-end market, I will

happily celebrate that day :)

[David89]

Hi, great read :)

I think I read your review on a German forum as I found very little information about this chip. Most of the information I found out about it was from foreign sites lol

Anyway I have the same chip but I'm struggling to get it stable above 4.2ghz- I have it at 4.2ghz 1.41v at the moment. What was your voltage to get it stable at 4.4?

Thanks

Haha, yeah, that could well be the case :D AFAIK i am the only one who did a proper review with all sorts of benchmarks on the 750K. And i am Still very impressed with it...although i would love to have a water cooling to see what it is realy capable of...and since it only costs 65 Euros at the moment, it wouldn't be that much of a bugger if i toast it :D

Well, under normal circumstances i overclocked it with the TurboCore, so it runs on the standart 1,475v. That means, if you're running it under 100%, the Cores are going to start cycling between 3,8 GHz and 4,4 GHz (at least in my case). But since i haven't encountered a game wich uses all 4 Cores at 100%, the TurboCore stays at 4,4 GHz most of the time, while gaming. And even doing some F-HD Video editing it does start clocking down sometime, but only to 4,0 GHz. With "PrimeStat" you can "pin" the frequency under Windows to 4,4 GHz and so it won't start cycling.

For 4,8 GHz i had to "give'er all she's got" and pumped 1,56v onto it, wich is quite extreme and one of the reasons i can't go any higher with air cooling. For that, everything was off - CnQ, TurboCore and so on.

But i found out recently, that overclocking the HT-Bus is doing wonders to the speed of the APU's, so i have to try that too.

[David89]

Return on invest is probably a lot higher for the medium to low end market segment

(you know, 80/20 principle and such). So if this keeps them afloat in hard times I

think I can get behind that. And with them making the APUs for the new console

generation I think we could start to see some light in the coming years.

And if they ever get enough money again to get into the high-end market, I will

happily celebrate that day :)

Yeah, well, the FX-8350 isn't a bad CPU (at least IMHO), but AM3+ is dead and i wont buy anything new on a dead plattform...for FM2 there is the chance of getting at least Steamroller cores and it has native USB 3.0 as well as 8x Native S-ATA 6 GB/s connections...

If AMD would make a Phenom branded Steamroller CPU for FM2 with L3-Cach...it probably would be quite interesting to see where this would be going. But for a very decent budget gaming rig, personlly i only recommend the 750K. Because you can nowhere else get that much bang for you're buck...65 Euros for the CPU, 70 for a good Mainboard...a 7870 for 150 Euros...some RAM and you're pretty much done. You pay less than 500 Euros and i bet the 750K is even capable of running BF3 on a 64-Multiplayer Map with decent FPS :P

[David89]

Well, since i promised to clean up that cable mess... ;)

 

I have to admit, i'm not that pleased with the result, but it'll have to do for now :D

 

 

 

 

Btw, if you are wondering what case i'm using: It's a CoolerMaster Silencio 650

 

 

[Nicktrance]

Is it possible to hide the CPU fan cable under the heatsink and use an extension to pass the 8 pin connector behind the motherboard? That looks much better than it looked originally though :) good job, I know how tough it is to route cables in small cases.

[alpenwasser]

Well, the 8 Pin is certainly... interesting :D

Is that tape on the cables?

EDIT: Huge improvement though, just so I've mentioned that ;)

[David89]

Is it possible to hide the CPU fan cable under the heatsink and use an extension to pass the 8 pin connector behind the motherboard. That looks much better than it looked originally though :) good job, I know how tough it is to route cables in small cases.

 

Well, if i get an extension cable, then yes, it would be possible :D But i didn't spend any money on the cable job today...so...well, maybe one day :D Bitfenix has some VERY nice cable extensions, wich are sleeved in a sort of silvery-grey-ish colour...probably i'm going to go with those...^^

 

Hm, i would not say, the Silencio 650 is a small case :D The Problem is, that it's silenced, so there is quite a thick piece of foam on the back, wich means there is probably even less space then in a smaller case...

 

 

Well, the 8 Pin is certainly... interesting :D

Is that tape on the cables?

EDIT: Huge improvement though, just so I've mentioned that ;)

 

Yep :D It's automotive textile tape. Normally whole wireing harnesses are made with that kind of tape...i had something left over from work and thought, maybe i could do some improvement's on that cabel mangement and get some of that colour mix out of the case, but it's quite difficult to get the tape proberly around the cables, without some kind of pull on the cables...they need to be exactly positioned over the whole lenght to look really good...and that's nearly impossible to do on a computer :D

[alpenwasser]

but it's quite difficult to get the tape proberly around the cables, without some kind of pull on the cables...they need to be exactly positioned over the whole lenght to look really good...and that's nearly impossible to do on a computer :D

Yeah I suspect you would have to really stretch the cables tight and then you'd be able

to wrap the tape around them and have it look proper. Which means you would have to take

everything apart and probably have somebody help you with a second pair of hands.

[David89]

That's not really the problem. The problem is that, while you can stretch them, they will not be positioned correctly, because they are attached to all those connectors^^

[alpenwasser]

I see. A bit uncooperative, those buggers :D