Overclock with Turbo and resolve AMD FX throttle issues

[samuel]

When it comes to CPU overclocking, first thing we do is disable turbo core/boost; Why?
 
In previous processor generations it was too complicated and most people didn't notice any performance improvement when having Turbo enabled in the Thuban (Phenom X6) days (I owned a Zosma 960T).
 
Until I looked at this Anandtech article about the FX81xx back in 2011.
 
So in the article it is clear having Turbo enabled will give you a noticeable single thread performance improvement and improved OS responsiveness. Which is true this time unlike previous generation processors.
 
But first: Normal FX overclocking is generally easy.
 
AMD suggests to disable turbo in their official Overdrive software as it can complicate things a lot. Be ready to restart your PC like...100 times and spend pretty much the entire day doing this. You'll even need a calculator (Or not, if you're used to doing math).
 
Benefits of using this method:

• Resolve CPU throttle issue. This is a big issue with the 8 cores and a  lot of users avoid Gigabyte's lower end AM3+ boards because of weak the VRMs which will cause their CPU to throttle. That is most prominent on the 4+1 power phases motherboards.
• APM (Application power management) works correctly only with Turbo enabled. (At least on my UD3).
• Lower temps and power consumption because you can leave any power management feature on.
• You can even undervolt the CPU as turbo sets its own voltage (stock is 1.425v for 4.2 boost on 8350s)

For example an FX8320 has two turbo states:

• 4GHz 1.425V for when 1-2 cores are in use
• 3.7GHz 1.415V (may vary) for when 8 are in use and thermal headroom is available

But it isn't quite that simple: the clock changes are very very fast and dynamic, they are temperature and power envelope restricted. However these more modern designs can be more efficient if used optimally compared to older Thuban designs.
 
OK so to start with I'm going to use an FX8320 as the guinea pig for this example, we can't go above 3.7GHz as that will basically cause turbo core to be the throttle (say you had 22 multi for manual 4.4ghz, when turbo enables it goes to 3.7), there is base overclocking though but it isn't always the best workaround.

 

(E.g. a base clock  FSB of 220 will result in 3.85ghz stock, 4ghz turbo step 1 and 4.4ghz step 2.) so of course turbo becomes an issue.)

 

 A FSB of 220 will result in 220x17.5=3850 Mhz stock, 220x20=4400 Mhz turbo step 1 and 220x22=4840 turbo step 2. Unstable of course at normal voltages!

And this is why I recommend this powerful tool: AmdMsrTweaker
 
But first, find a good base clock to use. I chose 3.60Ghz. Find the stable voltage for this clock with turbo disabled and write it down. You could use your current stable value you've been running without turbo.
 
Avoid using FSB overclocking, or use it at the very end for fine tuning. Enable turbo and all power management features (C1E, C6, APM. C&Q). Choose a turbo clock value that should be stable as a base, most boards allow you to change step 1 (4ghz).
 
Don't touch the CPU voltage in bios from now on. After restart, the mobo will automatically raise the CPU voltage to keep stability when turbo kicks in, but the base will have the same vcore. LLC should be set to regular for now unless you know that you need a certain level for stability.
 
Now it's time to work with that awesome tool, simply extract the appropriate version for you (I suspect you'll need the x64 version). Extract the folder and and run the exe file. It will look something like this:

If I didn't use the tool, or if I'd reset the bios, I'd see the default set by factory. Even if I changed the CPU voltage in bios, these values will not change.

• P0 state is the highest boost state (the one you set in the bios).
• P1 is the second boost state. This should not be configurable and it does not change automatically when the base is higher that it. FX8320 has a 3.7 Ghz P1 state. If you OC your base to like 4 ghz, weird things happens: Instead of boosting, it will throttle to 3.7 and ramp up and down the voltage like crazy.
• P2 Is your base. Bios configurable, is your normal clock when all the cores are at 100% and there is no thermal room left for boost to chick in.
• P3 Is another special pstate... This is the "throttle" clock that so many users see in prime95 and IBT Not because of weak VRM, but due to very aggressive thermal approximation made by the CPU itself.
• P4,P5,P6 are the idle pstates. Nothing special here to say.

This is where it gets complicated: even if we set a certain voltage in bios, the P0 voltage we see here, is another voltage, the factory value. And the real value (the one in aida64), most of the time is 0.1v larger than the bios setting. I'll give my example:
bios value: 1.2175v. Actual value 1.3v. LLC minimum.
 
Think this way: 1.425v represents 1.2175 and if we lower or raise first value, the actual voltage will increase by exatly the value you raised/lowered before.
 
If we lower the P0 from 1.425 to 1.4125 (a 0.0125 increment), AIDA64 will show a lower core voltage (from 1.3 to 1.2875). This is what we will exploit from now on.
 
In the x64 folder, create a text file and edit it like this:

AmdMsrTweaker Turbo=1 P0=20@1.3625 P1=19@1.325 P3=15@1.1875 P4=12.5@1.0625 P5=7.5@0.9125 P6=5@0.8375
 

Save and rename it from a .txt to .cmd

 
Replace the multipliers and voltages according to what the amdmsrtweaker.exe shows to you. After that, you can run it. The P2 state (the base) you don't need to chage it, it's already set in bios and tested as the previous stable clock.
 
What can you do from now on?  You can change any pstate to have whatever clock and voltage you want but I really really recommend you is to do it incrementally.
 
Turbo in bios is set to 4000(4ghz). In amdmsrtweaker is still 4000 (20xFSB) but i decreased the voltage with 0.0125 increments until Prime 95 it was unstable in large ffts (do 2 threads to test this state). Final stable voltage for me is 1.20 in aida.
 
Second Turbo (3700) raised to 3800 (19XFSB) and decreased voltage until 4 threads large FFTs error.
Base- untouched (3600)
 
P3 state. If you still have throttle issues, you can simply raise it to a value identical to base but preferably 100 mhz lower than it (3500). Of course you need to raise it's voltage accordingly. You can lock to this pstate using catalyst like this:

Test the stability with whatever stress program you want.
 
I've raised it from 2900 to 3000 (15xFSB) and kept the same voltage. IF i'd had throttle issues, i't raise it to 3500 (17,5xFSB), and use the base voltage showed in amdmsr, maybe lower it a bit.
 
The rest of pstates do whatever you want with them or just leave them.
 
I've set P6 to 1000mhz and 0.8375 which actually is 0.704 in aida. Low power and heat output is good.
 
Once you have found your values, save your cmd to google docs, just because it took so much work  .
 
You can setup a start schedule to auto execute the cmd file or just make a shortcut to cmd and place it to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp.

 

 

 

Did this in a hurry, many thanks @harrynowl for correction.

[helping]

I was actually thinking about playing around with turbo core overclocking profiles over this summer when I have some time.

 

interesting post +1 

[Faa]

Work on your layout, it's awful to read

[samuel]

I will correct the spelling later. As for the layout, i honestly did my best, sorry.

[harrynowl]

Because there's some good content here and I have some spare time whilst I render some things I helped you out with spelling and formatting to make it easier to read and understand as many people will just skip this thread:P (it's still not perfect though)

 

When it comes to CPU overclocking, first thing we do is disable turbo core/boost; Why?

 

In previous processor generations it was too complicated and most people didn't notice any performance improvement when having Turbo enabled in the Thuban (Phenom X6) days (I owned a Zosma 960T).

 

Until I looked at this Anandtech article about the FX81xx back in 2011.

 

So in the article it is clear having Turbo enabled will give you a noticeable single thread performance improvement and improved OS responsiveness. Which is true this time unlike previous generation processors.

 

But first: Normal FX overclocking is generally easy.

 

AMD suggests to disable turbo in their official Overdrive software as it can complicate things a lot. Be ready to restart your PC like...100 times and spend pretty much the entire day doing this. You'll even need a calculator (Or not, if you're used to doing math).

 

Benefits of using this method: 

• Resolve CPU throttle issue. This is a big issue with the 8 cores and a  lot of users avoid Gigabyte's lower end AM3+ boards because of weak the VRMs which will cause their CPU to throttle. That is most prominent on the 4+1 power phases motherboards.
• APM (Application power management) works correctly only with Turbo enabled. (At least on my UD3).
• Lower temps and power consumption because you can leave any power management feature on.
• You can even undervolt the CPU as turbo sets its own voltage (stock is 1.425v for 4.2 boost on 8350s)

 

 

For example an FX8320 has two turbo states:

• 4GHz 1.425V for when 1-2 cores are in use
• 3.7GHz 1.415V (may vary) for when 8 are in use and thermal headroom is available

 

But it isn't quite that simple: the clock changes are very very fast and dynamic, they are temperature and power envelope restricted. However these more modern designs can be more efficient if used optimally compared to older Thuban designs.

 

OK so to start with I'm going to use an FX8320 as the guinea pig for this example, we can't go above 3.7GHz as that will basically cause turbo core to be the throttle (say you had 22 multi for manual 4.4ghz, when turbo enables it goes to 3.7), there is base overclocking though but it isn't always the best workaround. (E.g. a base clock of 220 will result in 3.85ghz stock, 4ghz turbo step 1 and 4.4ghz step 2.) so of course turbo becomes an issue.

 

And this is why I recommend this powerful tool: AmdMsrTweaker

 

But first, find a good base clock to use. I chose 3.80Ghz. Find the stable voltage for this clock with turbo disabled and write it down. You could use your current stable value you've been running without turbo.

 

Avoid using FSB overclocking, or use it at the very end for fine tuning. Enable turbo and all power management features (C1E, C6, AAM. C&Q). Choose a turbo clock value that should be stable as a base, most boards allow you to change step 1 (4ghz).

 

Don't touch the CPU voltage in bios from now on. After restart, the mobo will automatically raise the CPU voltage to keep stability when turbo kicks in, but the base will have the same vcore. LLC should be set to regular for now unless you know that you need a certain level for stability.

 

Now it's time to work with that awesome tool, simply extract the appropriate version for you (I suspect you'll need the x64 version). Extract the folder and and run the exe file. It will look something like this:

If I didn't use the tool, or if I'd reset the bios, I'd see the default set by factory. Even if I changed the CPU voltage in bios, these values will not change.

• P0 state is the highest boost state (the one you set in the bios).
• P1 is the second boost state. This should not be configurable and it does not change automatically when the base is higher that it. FX8320 has a 3.7 Ghz P1 state. If you OC your base to like 4 ghz, weird things happens: Instead of boosting, it will throttle to 3.7 and ramp up and down the voltage like crazy.
• P2 Is your base. Bios configurable, is your normal clock when all the cores are at 100% and there is no thermal room left for boost to chick in.
• P3 Is another special pstate... This is the "throttle" clock that so many users see in prime95 and IBT Not because of weak VRM, but due to very aggressive thermal approximation made by the CPU itself.
• P4,P5,P6 are the idle pstates. Nothing special here to say.

This is where it gets complicated: even if we set a certain voltage in bios, the P0 voltage we see here, is another voltage, the factory value. And the real value (the one in aida64), most of the time is 0.1v larger than the bios setting. I'll give my example:

bios value: 1.2175v. Actual value 1.3v. LLC minimum.

 

Think this way: 1.425v represents 1.2175 and if we lower or raise first value, the actual voltage will increase by exatly the value you raised/lowered before.

 

If we lower the P0 from 1.425 to 1.4125 (a 0.0125 increment), AIDA64 will show a lower core voltage (from 1.3 to 1.2875). This is what we will exploit from now on.

 

In the x64 folder, create a text file and edit it like this:

AmdMsrTweaker Turbo=1 P0=20@1.3625 P1=19@1.325 P3=15@1.1875 P4=12.5@1.0625 P5=7.5@0.9125P6=5@0.8375

Save and rename it from a .txt to .cmd

 

Replace the multipliers and voltages according to what the amdmsrtweaker.exe shows to you. After that, you can run it. The P2 state (the base) you don't need to chage it, it's already set in bios and tested as the previous stable clock.

 

What can you do from now on?  You can change any pstate to have whatever clock and voltage you want but I really really recommend you is to do it incrementally.

 

Turbo in bios is set to 4000(4ghz). In amdmsrtweaker is still 4000 (20xFSB) but i decreased the voltage with 0.0125 increments until Prime 95 it was unstable in large ffts (do 2 threads to test this state). Final stable voltage for me is 1.20 in aida.

 

Second Turbo (3700) raised to 3800 (19XFSB) and decreased voltage until 4 threads large FFTs error.

Base- untouched (3600)

 

P3 state. If you still have throttle issues, you can simply raise it to a value identical to base but preferably 100 mhz lower than it (3500). Of course you need to raise it's voltage accordingly. You can lock to this pstate using catalyst like this:

Test the stability with whatever stress program you want.

 

I've raised it from 2900 to 3000 (15xFSB) and kept the same voltage. IF i'd had throttle issues, i't raise it to 3500 (17,5xFSB), and use the base voltage showed in amdmsr, maybe lower it a bit.

 

The rest of pstates do whatever you want with them or just leave them.

 

I've set P6 to 1000mhz and 0.8375 which actually is 0.710 in aida. Low power and heat output is good.

 

Once you have found your values, save your cmd to google docs, just because it took so much work .

 

You can setup a start schedule to auto execute the cmd file or just make a shortcut to cmd and place it to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp.

 

 

 

[samuel]

LOL thanks...I think!

[harrynowl]

LOL thanks...I think!

Yep, feel free to cut and paste it for OP.

[samuel]

update: you can simply use this line, not deal with pstates and keep your stable overclock but without throttling issues.

AmdMsrTweaker Turbo=0 APM=0

[vladko10]

I turned all of the power management options + turbo on. I tried the ''AmdMsrTweaker Turbo=0 APM=0'' line straight away, and it still throttled. I used the other line mentioned in the post and after a restart, i see 3.8, 4.0 Ghz values, but when i start stress testing the values go back down to 3.6 until i stop the stress test. Please help me, since i am very new to overclocking and i find this tutoutial hard to understand.

I have the FX-8320, FX990 Extreme 3 motherboard and Corsair VS450 PSU.

Thank you in advance!