Overclocking an FX-6300

[Frankieanime158]

I got myself an FX-6300 today (yea I know, should've got an i5). But! Someone in town sold me an Asus M5A99X EVO 2.0 and H60 liquid cooler for 30$ (canadian).

Was too good a deal to pass up. Both were basically brand new, so no problems there. Than got myself a 6300 since that was every last penny I had, and I've been

desperate to get away from my Q6700 that's been bottlenecking me for way too long.

Anyways.. On 100% load, I get max 52c, so I'm sure we've got some headroom to OC a bit. I went in and increased the FSB just by 10 (so it's 210 now), but a little

worried to go further.

Let me know if this is the correct way to do this..

1. Slowly increase the FSB a bit at a time (10mhz), run Prime.

2. Keep doing that until a crash than increase voltage a step, try prime again.

^^ This is what I've always assumed I've had to do, but I just want someone to clarify that. I've googled guides and stuff, but nobody is really clear on explaining it.

Also, should I manually set the ram to it's lowest setting? I heard somewhere that's what you should do - can't remember where. I only have a generic 4x2gb 1333mhz

in there right now. I'm going to get a 2x8gb hyperx at 1866 (since that's the max it can handle without an overclock).

Before that 10mhz increase, Cinebench gave me 414. After that, it gave me 432. But watching it in CPUz, I noticed it's not turboing like it "apparently" is supposed to.

It just sits steady at 3,687mhz at 17.5 multiplier. But it says 17,5-20.5, so I assume it's supposed to turbo further? It didn't turbo before that boost either, just stayed

at 3.5. Windows is set to high performance (though that probably doesn't do anything anyways, but I tried).

So yea.. What do you guys think?

 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

16 minutes ago, Frankieanime158 said:

I noticed it's not turboing like it "apparently" is supposed to.

It just sits steady at 3,687mhz at 17.5 multiplier. But it says 17,5-20.5, so I assume it's supposed to turbo further? It didn't turbo before that boost either, just stayed

at 3.5. Windows is set to high performance (though that probably doesn't do anything anyways, but I tried).

So yea.. What do you guys think?

 

You will only see the turbo clock when only 1-3 cores are used to the maximum. If you run a stress test on all 6 cores, the speed you get is the basic one (essentially, the turbo clock is a way to reallocate power from idle cores to the few in use, when that's the case). You should see the spike in single core test (and others going to 1400MHz or so due to power saving features). That said, I never got to see the turbo boost once I start manually changing things, even if I leave turbo clock  enabled.

Then again, everyone will tell you to disable turbo boost for more stable overclock (I will too), and also all the power saving features (never had a single problem leaving them on).

 

Other than that, you can make things easier on yourself by leaving the bus clock unchanged and do exactly what you are doing now, but changing the multiplier instead (so you try 17.5 -> 18.0 -> 18.5, testing at each step and increasing vcore when necessary).

The advantage of using the multiplier is that other things that depend on the bus (RAM, for example) are not messed with, and there's (mostly) just 2 things to touch: multiplier and vocre.

The advantage of what you are doing now is that you increase the performance on everything that depends on the bus simultaneously. The disadvantage is that you can get instability from at least two sources: the CPU and RAM, which will now not run at 1333 or 1866, but at some weird multiple of 210, which may or may not for your chip at the stock volt and timings, meaning you will have to deal with that as well.

[Frankieanime158]

35 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

You will only see the turbo clock when only 1-3 cores are used to the maximum. If you run a stress test on all 6 cores, the speed you get is the basic one (essentially, the turbo clock is a way to reallocate power from idle cores to the few in use, when that's the case). You should see the spike in single core test (and others going to 1400MHz or so due to power saving features). That said, I never got to see the turbo boost once I start manually changing things, even if I leave turbo clock  enabled.

Then again, everyone will tell you to disable turbo boost for more stable overclock (I will too), and also all the power saving features (never had a single problem leaving them on).

 

Other than that, you can make things easier on yourself by leaving the bus clock unchanged and do exactly what you are doing now, but changing the multiplier instead (so you try 17.5 -> 18.0 -> 18.5, testing at each step and increasing vcore when necessary).

The advantage of using the multiplier is that other things that depend on the bus (RAM, for example) are not messed with, and there's (mostly) just 2 things to touch: multiplier and vocre.

The advantage of what you are doing now is that you increase the performance on everything that depends on the bus simultaneously. The disadvantage is that you can get instability from at least two sources: the CPU and RAM, which will now not run at 1333 or 1866, but at some weird multiple of 210, which may or may not for your chip at the stock volt and timings, meaning you will have to deal with that as well.

Ah okay, thanks for all that information. Really helpful

I managed to get the multiplier up to max that the turbo allows (20.5) without any problems. Ram is still at 1333 which is good, I noticed that weird multiplier when changing the FSB, didn't like it. The voltage seems to me bouncing around in CPUz though. Somewhere between 1.308-1.452, it's always between those numbers changing constantly. Setting it to 1.4 is okay though right? A lot of people say it's fine on an AMD chip, but not sure.

I've never touched the multiplier to OC in the passed though. On my Q6700 I could only adjust the FSB because the multiplier was already at max, and voltage was a lot lower than this. I don't think it ever went beyond 1.3 for me, so that 1.452 is freaking me out. Temps are still idle around 25-30, and 50-53 on load.

It's also only shifting between 3.8 and 4.1. When everything was stock, it would drop down to 1.5 when I was just idling, so is it safe to have it running at that constant?

Sorry for all these noob questions, but I guess you gotta start somewhere. I know the ins and outs of the hardware no problem now, I have 3 scrap PCs I just fiddle with and build for fun just to solidify everything into my brain. But real overclocking is new to me.

[Nena Trinity]

FX-6300 if OCed is a good match to a i3-6100 so its a good deal!

[SpaceGhostC2C]

3 hours ago, Frankieanime158 said:

I managed to get the multiplier up to max that the turbo allows (20.5) without any problems. Ram is still at 1333 which is good, I noticed that weird multiplier when changing the FSB, didn't like it. The voltage seems to me bouncing around in CPUz though. Somewhere between 1.308-1.452, it's always between those numbers changing constantly. Setting it to 1.4 is okay though right? A lot of people say it's fine on an AMD chip, but not sure.

I've never touched the multiplier to OC in the passed though. On my Q6700 I could only adjust the FSB because the multiplier was already at max, and voltage was a lot lower than this. I don't think it ever went beyond 1.3 for me, so that 1.452 is freaking me out. Temps are still idle around 25-30, and 50-53 on load.

The fluctuation you see (in the 1.308-1.452 range when you set it to 1.4) probably means you still have all the "cool'n'quiet" and C something states enabled in the BIOS (hence the fluctuations in MHz as well). You may have a maximum frequency and maximum voltage reported in your BIOS (I've seen it in some boards, not sure all of them has it), but this are theoretical bounds (like 6.6GHz and 1.55v), so it's hard to tell what can be realistically done in your particular setup. Yes, the FX will use higher voltages than the Intels, but 1.4 is somewhat high (not rare for overclocking, though). I wouldn't be surprised if you can get beyond 20.5 with that voltage, but that's chip-specific.

 

Voltages will also fluctuate naturally as the CPU switches from idle to full load an back. When the CPU goes form idle to load, voltages usually fall. The motherboard will use some offset (which you can typically control) to prevent the effective voltage to go too low. That would translate into a higher than 1.4v vcore when idle, so it "drops" to 1.4 when you load it (1.452 could simply mean you have a 50mv offset). The extra voltage at idle isn't really a problem as long as it's within reason, since there's barely any current circulating. What really will heat things up is the effective voltage during load. Many boards (and I'm guessing your Asus is one of them) will have a setting called "Load Line Calibration" (LLC), which is intended to prevent voltage fluctuations. Increasing can help you achieve basically flat voltages at whatever level you set it to. Remember, however, that you care mostly about voltage fluctuations during stress testing; when the CPU is idle teh voltages my fluctuate due to power saving features being still on, etc. I use OCCT to stress test and to follow voltages and temps as the test progresses, and you can use it for monitoring even if you test with something else (like prime95, AIDA, or whatever). Check how stable your vcore is during stress testing, and consider bumping the LLC if it fluctuates too much.

 

The temperatures you mention are the ones reported by the motherboard as CPU temp (socket temp) or the ones measured by the CPU itself (core temp or package temp)? They aren't bad in any case, but if those are socket temps, you still have some considerable room to go up (aim at <70C for socket, <60C fro package).

4 hours ago, Frankieanime158 said:

 

It's also only shifting between 3.8 and 4.1. When everything was stock, it would drop down to 1.5 when I was just idling, so is it safe to have it running at that constant?

It's safe, but it will consume some more electricity than if you allow it to go down to 7.5 (1.5GHz) when idle. The fact that it goes to 3.8GHz (19.0 multiplier) troubles me, though. It looks like you are still switching between the two turbo states of the CPU (3.8GHz on 3 cores, 4.1GHz on 1 core) rather than having 6 cores stuck at 4.1GHz, which is the expected outcome of your overclock. If you left "turbo core" enabled, it could create a problem, as the mobo tries to "boost" 3cores from the (new) base frequency (4.1) to the default boost state 1 (3.8), which is now lower than the base frequency. Each turbo states comes with it's own voltage, so it will be messing with the voltages as well. You may keep power saving states on. in my experience, but you want to disable turbo boosts for overclocking (unless you attempt to move all states up, which I have always failed to do).

 

You can find the different power states your CPU may use by default to wither save energy or boost speeds, and their corresponding voltages, here:

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bulldozer/AMD-FX-Series FX-6300.html

 

 

 

PS: I now realize that was a bit long. Sorry for the typos

[Frankieanime158]

Okay, thanks for all the information. I read everything, and I'll definitely really go through the BIOS to find those settings. I did notice Cool n Quiet, and that was still on. I'm going to get another fan though, my case fan doesn't seem to work on this board, not sure why. It's a 3 pin, and all the cha_fan1/2/3/4 have 4 pins. I've tried it on all of them, and it just comes up as "N/A" in the bios and doesn't turn on. Motherboard gets to 42c, and I don't like that temperature. The heat sinks on the board get really hot to the touch, I noticed when I kept switching the fan over