How do people get such amazing FX-8320 OC results?!

[JiMiKi]

Hi, this is my first thread here on the LTT Forums, so in case I happen to break any rules with my post, I'm sorry.

And btw, I am quite the noob at overclocking, so sorry if I sound really stupid.

My question is, as the title states, how the hell do people get these amazing FX-8320 Overclocks?
I've seen over at Tom's Hardware how some people claim to have stable OC's of ~4.4GHz @ 1.3-1.4v and only reaching ~45c during stress tests?
But when I run Prime95 at stock/auto voltage (stock is ~1.35v iirc), I break 60c within 2-3 min of torture testing... (I even hit the 75c cap where it instantly turns PC off, when I tried a ~4.0GHz OC without touching voltages at all... woops)
And the best I've managed to do, is:
 

Spoiler

1st test http://imgur.com/a/iW8uS  3.75ghz - 202MHz FSB - 1.187500v - 59c Max - 30m Prime95 (been using this till today)

2nd test http://imgur.com/a/XkAH9 3.84GHz - 202MHz - 1.200000v - 64c Max - 15m Prime95 (Didn't wanna go over the 62c safe temp cap, so wen't down to 3.80GHz after this test)

3rd test http://imgur.com/a/ZZR2H 3.80GHz - 205MHz FSB - 1.193750v - 61c Max - 15m Prime95 (currently using this)

So, as shown in the screenshots, I have a FX-8320 on an ASUS 970 Pro Gaming/Aura MoBo, with a Cryorig H7 cooler, which supposedly beats the Hyper Evo 212 by a couple degrees according to various youtube reviews

After running these tests, I came across another user's thread here on the forums, and someone replied with a 8320 OC guide site. 
After reading through the list (which I've seen before, but figured it won't hurt reading again) I realised that when I got to the thermal paste part, I had done what is not recommended, I had done the "credit card" thin layer method, because my Cryorig H7's instructions said to do so (I always knew this was not a great way to do it, but wanted to do things as recommended by Cryorig themselves)
So... I took my PC apart, removed Cryorig's included thermal paste, applied new paste, this time using the centered "Pea" method, (Which looked more like a gray little pile of poop due to the thermal paste being high density, lol)
And when I booted my PC back up, I fired up Prime95 for a few mins, and my temps now seem to be about 5c lower than in the screenshots... so my question and issue remains... How come some 8320's can OC to well over 4GHz at higher voltages, and run 10 degrees cooler than mine? is my CPU just extremely badly binned?
 

Spoiler

 

Edited January 3, 2017 by JiMiKi

[Guest]

Different CPU OC differently. You should look further at what Silicon Lottery looks like

[JiMiKi]

Just now, deXxterlab97 said:

Different CPU OC differently. You should look further at what Silicon Lottery looks like

I am aware of this, but should it have such a noticable difference? and from what I've gathered, the higher the voltage, the higher the temps, so how come my 8320 reaches 75c at stock voltage, when others stay at sub 50c?  and some even overvoltage their 8320s and it works fine?

[Aereldor]

Higher-binned chips, exotic cooling methods (Liquid Nitrogen, helium), high-end overclocking motherboards for better power delivery and stability.

[JiMiKi]

1 minute ago, Aereldor said:

Higher-binned chips, exotic cooling methods (Liquid Nitrogen, helium), high-end overclocking motherboards for better power delivery and stability.

But they claim to run these clock speeds with air coolers, often the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo

[Aereldor]

2 minutes ago, JiMiKi said:

But they claim to run these clock speeds with air coolers, often the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo

Send me a link of these magical overclocks with anemic coolers.

 

FX-cpus in general overclock very well, but they also run pretty hot. The FX 9590 has a stock boost clock of a stupidly fast 5 GHz, but you could forge a sword with that heat.

[JiMiKi]

1 minute ago, Aereldor said:

Send me a link of these magical overclocks with anemic coolers.

 

FX-cpus in general overclock very well, but they also run pretty hot. The FX 9590 has a stock boost clock of a stupidly fast 5 GHz, but you could forge a sword with that heat.

Trying to find it right now, hope I do else I will look stupid

[JiMiKi]

4 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

Send me a link of these magical overclocks with anemic coolers.

 

FX-cpus in general overclock very well, but they also run pretty hot. The FX 9590 has a stock boost clock of a stupidly fast 5 GHz, but you could forge a sword with that heat.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/284549-29-8320-overclock "

I Am JNASHMar 14, 2013, 3:11 AM

I have my 8320 @ 4.7, Volts @ 1.48 running stable max temp 52c with an evo 212 cooler.

"
for example
idk how much I should trust these random people over at Tom's Hardware though, especially not just some guy in the comments... but if this is true... i am very jealous of his "silicon lottery" luck  

[ApolloX75]

2 minutes ago, JiMiKi said:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/284549-29-8320-overclock "

I Am JNASHMar 14, 2013, 3:11 AM

I have my 8320 @ 4.7, Volts @ 1.48 running stable max temp 52c with an evo 212 cooler.

"
for example
idk how much I should trust these random people over at Tom's Hardware though, especially not just some guy in the comments... but if this is true... i am very jealous of his "silicon lottery" luck  

I'd say pics or it never happened in this case. I've used a GA 970A-UD3 board like this guy says he has. It's garbage for overclocking.

[JiMiKi]

3 minutes ago, ApolloX75 said:

I'd say pics or it never happened in this case. I've used a GA 970A-UD3 board like this guy says he has. It's garbage for overclocking.

Hmm... maybe it was just BS then  that and I think I have a quite badly binned CPU...

[JiMiKi]

 

5 minutes ago, ApolloX75 said:

I'd say pics or it never happened in this case. I've used a GA 970A-UD3 board like this guy says he has. It's garbage for overclocking.

So... if you were to OC a 8320 yourself, would you be comfortable at 60-61c during prime95? 

[JiMiKi]

1 minute ago, Strike105X said:

Your system definitely outputs more heat than it should that said please change your monitoring software to either hwmonitor or hwinfo64, and run some more tests, I suspect that hot air gets trapped in your case, I have not seen that cooler before but a hyper Evo should have no issues till the 4.2-4.4 ghz mark depending on voltages, you might want to buy a new thermal paste as well, as those supplied with coolers aren't usually great, except for noctua ones.

What you're saying all makes perfect sense, though I was under the impression that the Cryorig H7's included paste was actually not that bad, and it is true that some hot air gets trapped inside my case, as I do not have a lot of fans in it, I have 1 intake fan at the front of my case, and then 2 on my CPU cooler, that's it, unless I count the 2 GPU fans  so maybe getting another fan or two could do wonders?

[ApolloX75]

1 minute ago, JiMiKi said:

 

So... if you were to OC a 8320 yourself, would you be comfortable at 60-61c during prime95? 

It's tight but doable. I've always found the low max (62C-65C) on the average FX series to be very limiting making it a necessary to have expensive cooling, not just a luxury like it is with Intel (nowadays anyways).

 

The other pain in the ass is motherboard design. There's no real standard with the AM3+ boards, leading to some very shoddy power phase designs. There's 970 chipset boards with 8+2 phases and 990X boards with 4+1 phases and no heatsinks, it's utter chaos. VRM throttling is the number one failure I see all the time and that's not even always with overclocking, some boards just thermal throttle when you use something bigger than an FX6300 at stock. And don't get me started on those worthless MA78 boards based on the 760G chipsets from the AM3 days that people keep buying. Utter crap.

[OsuMasterz]

Lmao my friend used to return and buy processors from microcenter to make sure he got the best binned one until he got really good results

[JiMiKi]

7 minutes ago, Strike105X said:

Your system definitely outputs more heat than it should that said please change your monitoring software to either hwmonitor or hwinfo64, and run some more tests, I suspect that hot air gets trapped in your case, I have not seen that cooler before but a hyper Evo should have no issues till the 4.2-4.4 ghz mark depending on voltages, you might want to buy a new thermal paste as well, as those supplied with coolers aren't usually great, except for noctua ones.

Apparently the Cryorig CP7 (the one I have) is not too shabby from test results that I could find.

 

https://smallformfactor.net/reviews/thermal-paste-a-roundup

	Ambient	CPU Core	Delta T in Celsius
Reeven RT-Pro	26	42	16
Noctua NT-H1	25.5	41	15.5
Prolimatech PK-3	25.5	41	15.5
Prolimatech PK-1	25.8	42	16.2
CRYORIG CP7	26	42	16

[JiMiKi]

1 minute ago, OsuMasterz said:

Lmao my friend used to return and buy processors from microcenter to make sure he got the best binned one until he got really good results

That thought crossed my mind while trying out my CPU OC Temps too haha

[JiMiKi]

2 minutes ago, Strike105X said:

This is fake, I can tell you right now, the people at Tom's hardware are the worst sources when it comes to AMD, if you want to study some  references look on overclock.net

 

Considering that real life usage wouldn't get you those temps yeah it's good, that said.....

 

You need a rear exhaust! Move that front intake to exhaust air, and look into a cooler that exhaust at least as much air as your cooler fans output. Look for their output on the official site, cfm I think it was called.

Yeah, I think that is a wise choice, and the reason why I moved my 2nd case fan to the CPU cooler as a pull fan, was becuase it is so close to where it was before anyway

[JiMiKi]

12 minutes ago, Strike105X said:

That's an interesting case you got their, you can supply air right from the bottom, pretty cool, the bad part is that if you don't properly suck air from the CPU cooler it will go to the GPU and that may affect its performance.

 

Now with that said, the first potential problem I see is that you applied a case fan to the CPU cooler, that may end up counter productive, if it can't keep up with the original CPU fan hot air might actually get stuck there. Study cfm and if you want a push and pull solution then properly match your CPU cooler, also make sure that your rear exhaust fan is exhausting at  least as much air as your cooler provides, if you can take it even further it's great. Just to make sure I will also say that you should not put your PC on a carpet, make sure it's on  the floor. Also what's your ambient temperature?

Yeah these things you're pointing out have all crossed my mind, I only added the case fan to the cpu cooler because of my high CPU temps, hoping it would help, though i've not seen any noticable difference, and i am willing to bet that the pull fan does not have as high CFM as the included cooler fan does, the pull fan is not actually a case fan originally, it came from my previous Antec Khüler 620 AiO, so I think it's a static pressure fan, now i feel silly for even thinking that would be a good idea   idk what my ambient temp is atm, don't have a thermometer in here. gonna try putting the actual case fan that came with the case, in the rear, and if the power cable is long enough, the pull fan on the cooler, at the bottom intake  will post new pic soon

[-rascal-]

1 hour ago, JiMiKi said:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/284549-29-8320-overclock "

I Am JNASHMar 14, 2013, 3:11 AM

I have my 8320 @ 4.7, Volts @ 1.48 running stable max temp 52c with an evo 212 cooler.

"
for example
idk how much I should trust these random people over at Tom's Hardware though, especially not just some guy in the comments... but if this is true... i am very jealous of his "silicon lottery" luck  

 

That is most likely during a typical gaming load.

1.48V will not net you a maximum temperature of 52*C while running full-bore 100% in Prime95 -- especially with a CoolerMaster Hypere 212 EVO cooler.

 

I can verify this with MY FX-8350 with a Thermaltake Frio cooler (with aftermarket fans in push-pull, and Antec Formula 7 thermal paste)

I've done testing with it running at :

• 4.8 GHz, 1.40V
• 4.9 GHz, 1.45V
• 5.0 GHz, 1.49V ~ 1.5V+

Unless you have something like the Noctua NH-D14 / D15, or some 240mm / 280mm AIO, you are not going to get 52*C with a 4.7 GHz overclock and 1.48V Core Voltage running Prime95.

 

 

[JiMiKi]

28 minutes ago, -rascal- said:

 

That is most likely during a typical gaming load.

1.48V will not net you a maximum temperature of 52*C while running full-bore 100% in Prime95 -- especially with a CoolerMaster Hypere 212 EVO cooler.

 

I can verify this with MY FX-8350 with a Thermaltake Frio cooler (with aftermarket fans in push-pull, and Antec Formula 7 thermal paste)

I've done testing with it running at :

• 4.8 GHz, 1.40V
• 4.9 GHz, 1.45V
• 5.0 GHz, 1.49V ~ 1.5V+

Unless you have something like the Noctua NH-D14 / D15, or some 240mm / 280mm AIO, you are not going to get 52*C with a 4.7 GHz overclock and 1.48V Core Voltage running Prime95.

 

 

Ah, yeah starting to realise it was probably bullshit

[JiMiKi]

1 hour ago, Strike105X said:

That's an interesting case you got their, you can supply air right from the bottom, pretty cool, the bad part is that if you don't properly suck air from the CPU cooler it will go to the GPU and that may affect its performance.

 

Now with that said, the first potential problem I see is that you applied a case fan to the CPU cooler, that may end up counter productive, if it can't keep up with the original CPU fan hot air might actually get stuck there. Study cfm and if you want a push and pull solution then properly match your CPU cooler, also make sure that your rear exhaust fan is exhausting at  least as much air as your cooler provides, if you can take it even further it's great. Just to make sure I will also say that you should not put your PC on a carpet, make sure it's on  the floor. Also what's your ambient temperature?

Changed location of the fans, and ran another test, for a random 12 mins x) with hwinfo and hwmonitor running
But in HWMonitor, under Motherboard, it says CPU 73c... is this the socket temp? if so... that's not good, max is 70c for the 8320 iirc  

Edit: attached wrong image, and now realised i didn't take one at the moment it stopped testing, took one now though without closing anything, hope that works  

 

[JiMiKi]

I was running that test with open case yes, originally it was closed, though... Why?

[JiMiKi]

9 minutes ago, Strike105X said:

Wait, don't tell me your running those tests with the open case and get those results? ( 73c That's socket temp btw, but for your settings it's still to hot)

oops, forgot to quote

I was running that test with open case yes, originally it was closed, though... Why?

[JiMiKi]

9 minutes ago, Strike105X said:

Because it's to hot, even if you don't have a thermometer, you can still have a rough estimate of your ambient temps, is it around 30c?

My best guess would be 18-24c or so... I don't really like it too hot

Edit: I know for sure it's not 30c or warmer, though, I'd be sitting here sweating at that point x)

[JiMiKi]

1 minute ago, Strike105X said:

Remove the backpanel as well and test again if you still got those temps then something isnt right with the contact between the cooler and the cpu.

Lol, alright, I'll check... but, silly question perhaps, but when I tightened the screws on the backplate for the cooler, i tightened them quite hard, and then loosened them up a tiny bit after, think this could have any effect on the temps? like... the tighter the screws, the lower the temps? idk x)