Upgrading an FX-8120 with a crap mobo, help?

[explosivcorn]

Hey guys! First post on Linus Tech Tips, always loved the videos and I thought you guys would be a better community base than something like reddit (no matter how much I love reddit)

 

So I have an FX-8120 with a cheap Asrock 970 Extreme3 board. The board doesn't really let me overclock the FX-8120, I've been able to rig the CPU to 4.0 GHz with software but a lot of people say that is not recommended. Everytime I try overclocking through the BIOS my computer crashes on boot.

 

For reference, I overclock because I play CPU intensive games like Wildstar, Planetside 2, and Skyrim and I also do video rendering and am planning on getting into streaming.

I have a GTX 760.

 

My question would be should I upgrade my Mobo and stick with AMD and just overclock my 8120, maybe getting an 8350 down the road when it goes on sale?

Or should I make the switch over to Intel and maybe pick up that cool ass Pentium K that came out, but I would also have to pick up a really expensive Mobo.

 

I guess the streaming and video editing would be a big influence into getting an FX chip?

 

Let me know, Thanks for the help!

[D3MON]

my (and others) board, done.

sorry cant type more, its 5;30am and i need sleep lol

[explosivcorn]

so with your board and some overclocking i'd be fine with games like MMOs and bigger RPGs? 

taking my gfx card and 8GB of RAM into consideration.

[D3MON]

so with your board and some overclocking i'd be fine with games like MMOs and bigger RPGs? 

taking my gfx card and 8GB of RAM into consideration.

your board only has a 4+1vrm (google it) thats why you cant overclock.

my board is the cheapest ive found with an 8+2 vrm (after noticing someone's who had ones sig mentioned it)

since then me, i_build_nanosuits and a few other members who have this same board and fx8's have been keen advocated of it, so long as your not hoping to run sli. i run 1.35v with extreme llc (1.425v under load) and im stable at 4.5 havent stressed yet at 4.6 but i havent crashed yet.

tbh one thing i hear allot of is "cpu intensive" when noone actually knows what it means.

cpu limited-1 or 2 cores are maxed at 100% because the game was written by 3 guys in a basement, bad games, mostly mmo's leaving therest of your cpu useless, often the reason some i3's perform the same, in these cases  your gpu is going to waste and an overclcok is needed.

CPU heavy-modern games written by big teams like dice with battlefield, crysis and so on (even minecraft, world of tanks, and now skyrim) do this, will usually evenly distribute among cores/modules making sure your gpu is the limit, generally an overclock on your cpu wont make any difference (infact you could declock and not lose 1fps to an extent) and your graphics card is used to its full potential as it should be.

the other 2 games are probably badly written single threaded POS's though i cant say, last time i checked skyrim was (after updates over the last 3 years) multi-threaded (though still not DX11!!!)

it might not of evenly used cores but it atleast tried.

your best bet (for now) is to stay at 4ghz and do some testing, ru each game with task manager and msi afterburner monitering cpu and gpu load and do some typical gameplay, run around hack stuff for a good 20-30 seconds then tab out and check cpu load, if a thread or 2 is maxed and your gpu isnt at 100% load then its badly made and you need to overclock the first 4 cores (enable turbo followed by lots of trail and error), if your gpu is at 100% load your fine and try the next game.

keep doing it and you'll be able to work out for yourself and your knowledge and ability to asses will grow.

food for thought...

BF4-multi threaded, anything with less than 4 threads (real or hyperthreaded) will begin to struggle), though i tested as a tripple core phenom and was borderline, dual was playable but pinned at 100%

http://www.techspot.com/review/734-battlefield-4-benchmarks/page6.html

Bioshock infinate-anything can play this and IPC and mhz is king, it doesnt care how good your cpu is overall so long as its fast so an e8500 would be great, hence why a phenom x4 980 at 3.7 beats a phenom x6 1100t at 3.3

http://www.techspot.com/review/655-bioshock-infinite-performance/page5.html

same for arma 3 (probably early and not optimised yet and may be better now, we'll see).

http://www.techspot.com/review/712-arma-3-benchmarks/page5.html

if single threaded was good we'd all be stuck in 2005.

again, test your cpu-gpu usage yourself over a few hours, see what you can work out and if cpu limited get this board and OC if your gpu limited, overclock your gpu, it should be okay though its a bit faster than an r9-270.

oh and dont bother with a 8350-my 8320 gets a 790 in cinebench r15 at 4.9ghz though not stable obviously.

by the time your 8120 is ACTUALLY hindering performance to a noticable non-placebo degree, amd and intel will have completely different cpus to now and x99 will be a generation or 2 old...

[explosivcorn]

Thanks so much for the help!

Even if i wanted the new Pentium K chip, it would also be a 200 dollar mobo, and if I wanted to go the quad core intel route, that would be a total of 200 bucks. 

 

Just getting a new cheap AMD mobo for less than 100 and overclocking my current CPU sounds like a fair deal 

[harrynowl]

Yea the UD3P is a good choice, I'm currently selling an open box one but you're not in the UK

[GrantSor+1]

I was planning to get a Asrock 970 extreme 4 mobo to partner my fx-6300. And im still wondering about its overclocking capabilities because of this. O_O

[harrynowl]

I was planning to get a Asrock 970 extreme 4 mobo to partner my fx-6300. And im still wondering about its overclocking capabilities because of this. O_O

I think the 4 is a 4+1 also, the aforementioned UD3P does make use of phase doublers but I'm not sure of the actual effect. 

[GrantSor+1]

I think the 4 is a 4+1 also, the aforementioned UD3P does make use of phase doublers but I'm not sure of the actual effect.

Yep also 4+1 the only difference is they extreme 4 has USB 3 or SATA III ( I dont know which )

Will a Gigabyte 970-UD3 be ok? * sorry for invading the thread

[harrynowl]

Yep also 4+1 the only difference is they extreme 4 has USB 3 or SATA III ( I dont know which )

Will a Gigabyte 970-UD3 be ok? * sorry for invading the thread

Where I am the UD3 is more expensive and worse than the UD3P.

 

Look out for the M5A97 EVO R2.0, that's a good board too.

[Faa]

You're better off getting a locked i5 & H81 board or an unlocked i5 & Z87/Z97 board and sell your cpu/mobo instead of buying a board that can overclock your 8120. The games you listed are mainly cpu bound

[explosivcorn]

Getting an expensive board to over clock an Intel that is already so expensive is kind of a turnoff