Problem with CPU

[Thanatos246]

I have a AMD FX 8120 8 core cpu OC'd to 4.3Ghz.
Problem is that windows does pick up all 8 cores, but when I run a benchmark such as Heaven, or 3dmark 11 both only show that I have a 4 core cpu.
Also cpu usage indicates that the bench is only using 4 cores.
I have checked and rechecked and reset my bios a number of times and have also reloaded windows, even went back to windows 7 to see if thats the problem.
Now I know AMD does shared cores, but a buddy of mine has the same CPU and his shows 8 cores on the same benchmarks.

Any idea what the problem can be? I am using a Asus M5a99FX Pro R2.0 motherboard running the latest bios (released in 2014).

[Wreckingball]

Thats not a problem with the cpu, its the cou architecture, its normal. Its more than likely due to the shared cores, you can always try a bios update to see if that fixes it. Check if your pc sees it as 4 cores 8 threads.

[Thanatos246]

A buddy is running the same CPU on a different board and his shows 8 cores as per my post.

[Wreckingball]

3 minutes ago, Thanatos246 said:

A buddy is running the same CPU on a different board and his shows 8 cores as per my post.

Check first if it sees if at threads, ive heard of it doing that before and it could be the case, you have a decently good ASUS board so im hesitant to say that its the boards fault.

[Thanatos246]

2 minutes ago, Rekedal said:

Check first if it sees if at threads

Not sure what you mean.
If I view my cpu info in CPU-Z or CPUID both shows 8 cores and 8 threads which is the same on both machines.

[Wreckingball]

Thats how many cores you have Unigen Heaven sees FX processors as 4 cores because of how they share the resources for every 2 cores.

[Thanatos246]

1 minute ago, Rekedal said:

Thats how many cores you have Unigen Heaven sees FX processors as 4 cores because of how they share the resources for every 2 cores.

 

I feel like I am going around in circles.
I already stated that my friend has the exact same cpu and same OS, just a different mobo and when he runs Heaven or 3dmark both shows that he has 8 cores, not 4 like what mine is showing.

[incarnate]

3 hours ago, Thanatos246 said:

I feel like I am going around in circles.
I already stated that my friend has the exact same cpu and same OS, just a different mobo and when he runs Heaven or 3dmark both shows that he has 8 cores, not 4 like what mine is showing.

Do those benchmarks seer yours as 4 core 8 threads? If yes, then it's likely just a configuration issue. Your bios might be reporting differently than your friend's.

 

The only way this is a cpu problem is if these benchmarks are only seeing and using 4 threads

[Nena Trinity]

Try to run Cinebench R15 and see how many squares it works with at the time! (if 8 all is good)

[PCGuy_5960]

The Bulldozer Architecture from AMD has a cluster design.... 2 cores make one cluster... 

Because of this design, many programs think that the CPU is a 4core with 8 threads.... There is nothing to worry about.... 

[PCGuy_5960]

To validate, open task manager and open the performance tab... There it shows the number of cores and threads your CPU has.... Send us a screenshot 

[Thanatos246]

2 hours ago, Nena360 said:

Try to run Cinebench R15 and see how many squares it works with at the time! (if 8 all is good)

Will do

[Thanatos246]

20 hours ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

To validate, open task manager and open the performance tab... There it shows the number of cores and threads your CPU has.... Send us a screenshot 

 

Windows sees all 8 cores, but 90% of the time there is only activity on 4 of them, core 0, 2, 4, 6 to be exact.
All other cores remain under 10% load unless I run a stress test which then uses all 8 cores.

[PCGuy_5960]

1 hour ago, Thanatos246 said:

Windows sees all 8 cores, but 90% of the time there is only activity on 4 of them, core 0, 2, 4, 6 to be exact.
All other cores remain under 10% load unless I run a stress test which then uses all 8 cores.

That's normal... If you run a stress test all cores will be running at 100%

[Thanatos246]

34 minutes ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

That's normal... If you run a stress test all cores will be running at 100%

So it's normal that windows only uses my even cores and not odd cores unless I force it to with a stress test? 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

2 hours ago, Thanatos246 said:

So it's normal that windows only uses my even cores and not odd cores unless I force it to with a stress test? 

Of course, because normally there is barely enough work for 4 cores, so it uses 1 per module until needed, to avoid potential bottlenecks at shared resources. If you let Windows idle you will use 0-1 core (one core will run something for the background processes every now and then, and that's it).

The more things you run jointly, the more simultaneous usage you'll get, but very few commercial software is designed to use all cores available. Benchmarks like cinebench will, because they test CPUs in a task that lends itself to parallel computing. Unigine, on the other hand, stresses the GPU but will max 1 or 2 cores only (I think it uses one per GPU but I'm not sure).

[PCGuy_5960]

2 hours ago, Thanatos246 said:

So it's normal that windows only uses my even cores and not odd cores unless I force it to with a stress test? 

Yes, there shouldn't be much stress on the CPU if you're not doing something intensive... 

[Thanatos246]

18 hours ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

Yes, there shouldn't be much stress on the CPU if you're not doing something intensive... 

But a benchmark by the very definition should be both cpu and gpu intensive to see what the level of performance is, or am I missing something?

[PCGuy_5960]

1 hour ago, Thanatos246 said:

But a benchmark by the very definition should be both cpu and gpu intensive to see what the level of performance is, or am I missing something?

Didn't see that you said that you were running a benchmark.... 

 

Try running Cinebench and check if usage is 100% on all cores, as this is a cpu intensive benchmark... 

[Thanatos246]

1 hour ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

Didn't see that you said that you were running a benchmark.... 

 

Try running Cinebench and check if usage is 100% on all cores, as this is a cpu intensive benchmark... 

 

 

It's on my list to do, internet at home has just been too slow lately. Too many downloads on my consoles etc.

Will post as soon as this is done.

Edited August 24, 2016 by Thanatos246
Updated...

[Thanatos246]

21 hours ago, Thanatos246 said:

It's on my list to do, internet at home has just been too slow lately. Too many downloads on my consoles etc.

Will post as soon as this is done.

 

So finally managed to get Cinebench downloaded and after running it it seems my cpu is working as it should.
It looks like windows however is the culprit when it comes to reporting correct number of cores.
It seems to be reporting the number of modules as cores, so I have 8 cores, but 4 modules (combined/shared cores). So windows thinks the other cores are virtual cores and ends up not using them first unless under load.
I disabled virtualisation in the bios and that sorted out my issue of windows not using the cores.
Thanks for the suggestion's guys.