AMD FX - 8120 OCing/Tuning

[Puppies04]

OCed 8120 beats an i5 2500K and i7 2600K

I hope you aren't talking about gaming unless you are being very selective with your titles because in anything remotly CPU limited the i5 thrashes the FX chips by 50-100% and you will be lucky to get a 50% overclock without extremly exotic cooling.

Count me out of the thread aswell and you can stop throwing the fanboy accusations around, if you want to feel good about buying an 8120 for gaming you need to head on over to an AMD run site because all you are going to get here is the truth and the truth is for gaming FX chips are inneficient and generally outclassed by intels (and even AMDs old) offerings.

 

[soccerballtux]

GTX 275 pulled to much power from my PSU under max gaming load when running "Metro 2033" and so it shut down my PC not because it's a bad PSU rather it's a good PSU and it did it's job and even went above and beyond it's "Call of Duty" Pun intended haha by engaging at the right time it's built in Over Current protection. I am running a far more power efficient GPU now in day's so it has been good to go even in Metro 2033 in DX11 maxed. Thanx for you're concern and it is appreciated but I have a pretty decent understanding of the basic fundamentals of electricity and PSUs and I am still learning always always learning my friend computers are amazing machines I think. Also this thread is about AMD FX - 8120 and how it performs so let's try and keep it more on that topic please and I will cross the bride of PSU upgrading when the time comes and will start another thread about it when I cross that bridge.

this, my friends, is definitely a troll.

 

[soccerballtux]

Need a good CPU to help make my games look good and to be able to record real time game play's in which the 8 cores will come in handy or should at leased. I already own to many AMD chipsets and that's why i will stay with AMD plus I will support them with my dollars. OCed 8120 beats an i5 2500K and i7 2600K I have seen it but stock clock they suck I also seen it. Now I want to here from FX - 8120 owners not intel fan boy's. Thanx for you input but read my post i said don't bother talking Intel with me.

if you want to record then the 8120 would help a lot but in CPU limited games like SC2 you wouldn't get better fps.

 

[soccerballtux]

I hope you aren't talking about gaming unless you are being very selective with your titles because in anything remotly CPU limited the i5 thrashes the FX chips by 50-100% and you will be lucky to get a 50% overclock without extremly exotic cooling.

Count me out of the thread aswell and you can stop throwing the fanboy accusations around, if you want to feel good about buying an 8120 for gaming you need to head on over to an AMD run site because all you are going to get here is the truth and the truth is for gaming FX chips are inneficient and generally outclassed by intels* (and even AMDs old) offerings.

*except in BF3 and potentially other future games with solid multithreading architecture

 

[SlowSpyder]

Did you have to disable some cores to break the 4Ghz barrier on your Thuban ?

No. I can get to ~4.2GHz, but core 5 (if I remember correctly) will fail stability tests at the current voltage. If I pushed it a little harder and spent some time on it, I could probably get a bit more out of it. But, I think it would be a lot of effort for very little gain. I've seen a number of 4.2GHz Thubans on this forum, I think lower ~4GHz range is the norm with good cooling.

 

[Hatisherrif]

Wow, you ask for help on this site and you get bashed because you don't want to get an Intel solution. So much about respecting others' opinions. Black Mesa, you don't need these guys

There are a few things you should note. First of all, Bulldozer haz terrible reputation on the Internetz. If somebody mentions Bulldozer, you can almost immediately expect bashing or suggestions to get an i7 2600K or i5 2500K (or their Ivy Bridge equivalents). This reputation was, unfortunately, well-deserved. When it came out, the top Bulldozer (FX-8150) was more power-hungry, hotter and had bad single-core performance compared to the i5. To add to the mess, it was priced above the i5, which was absurd.

Nowadays, you can get the FX-8150 on newegg for $175 and the i5 2500K for $220. That means Bulldozer is no longer terrible for the money. Now let's get to the point: you want better gaming and want to stick with AMD. I would suggest two options:

1. Wait for Piledriver, which will be an upgraded version of current chips.
2. If you really must get the FX-8120 and OC it, this is what you can expect:

http://atenra.blog.com/2012/06/08/amd-fx8150-vs-intel-2500k-1080p-dx-11-gaming-evaluation/

This is from a very productive member of our forum who was kind enough to make these test just for us, but instead of praising him we label him a fanboy and call his blog c**p. This is what you get for being objective these days on Anandtech forums.

Look at that site and I think it will be very helpful for measuring how good your potential CPU would be compared to the Intel solution. I don't know how much you'd get over the Phenom, but considering I upgraded to an i5 from a Phenom I can say it makes night and day difference in certain cases, and I'm certain Bulldozer would too.

Cheers, mate.

 

[Black Mesa]

No. I can get to ~4.2GHz, but core 5 (if I remember correctly) will fail stability tests at the current voltage. If I pushed it a little harder and spent some time on it, I could probably get a bit more out of it. But, I think it would be a lot of effort for very little gain. I've seen a number of 4.2GHz Thubans on this forum, I think lower ~4GHz range is the norm with good cooling.

I would love to squeeze just a bit more out of my Deneb but really it is doing pretty darn well on most games but there are a few sticklers where I could use a bit more CPU gumption in gaming and on the desktop. I don't believe in overvolting CPUs for that last say maybe 100Mhz or so.

 

[Akantus]

Wow, you ask for help on this site and you get bashed because you don't want to get an Intel solution. So much about respecting others' opinions. Black Mesa, you don't need these guys

Really? I don't think anyone bashed him for not getting an Intel solution, you need to read the thread.
We just told him the truth, which is that if he want better gaming performance Intel is better, that's just it. And if he really wants Bulldozer and OC it, he will most likely need better PSU because his current one isn't up for the task.

He was bashed because he ignored our honest atemptts to help him, and kept acting like he knows better than everyone even if it was him who came for help -_-

If you want to claim that whole forum community is biased against AMD at least read the thread so it makes sense...

 

[MentalIlness]

I have a FX 8120. I have had it since February....and I havent found a game that I cannot run yet at 1080p with a HD 6870. The chip is fine for gaming. So yea, it has ran all of my games perfectly fine. If your heart is set on it, I doubt you will be disappointed.

 

[Hatisherrif]

Really? I don't think anyone bashed him for not getting an Intel solution, you need to read the thread.
We just told him the truth, which is that if he want better gaming performance Intel is better, that's just it.

You're not paying attention. He specifically stated he doesn't want Intel. Doesn't matter if it were a hundred times better.

Reread the opening post.

 

[Durvelle27]

http://www.overclock.net/t/1210060/fx8120-vs-2500k-benchmark-results


This should help you oc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u7MIwphuoE

http://apcmag.com/building-a-pc-amd-bulldozer-overclocking-guide.htm

 

[Black Mesa]

Wow, you ask for help on this site and you get bashed because you don't want to get an Intel solution. So much about respecting others' opinions. Black Mesa, you don't need these guys

There are a few things you should note. First of all, Bulldozer haz terrible reputation on the Internetz. If somebody mentions Bulldozer, you can almost immediately expect bashing or suggestions to get an i7 2600K or i5 2500K (or their Ivy Bridge equivalents). This reputation was, unfortunately, well-deserved. When it came out, the top Bulldozer (FX-8150) was more power-hungry, hotter and had bad single-core performance compared to the i5. To add to the mess, it was priced above the i5, which was absurd.

Nowadays, you can get the FX-8150 on newegg for $175 and the i5 2500K for $220. That means Bulldozer is no longer terrible for the money. Now let's get to the point: you want better gaming and want to stick with AMD. I would suggest two options:

1. Wait for Piledriver, which will be an upgraded version of current chips.
2. If you really must get the FX-8120 and OC it, this is what you can expect:

http://atenra.blog.com/2012/06/08/amd-fx8150-vs-intel-2500k-1080p-dx-11-gaming-evaluation/

This is from a very productive member of our forum who was kind enough to make these test just for us, but instead of praising him we label him a fanboy and call his blog c**p. This is what you get for being objective these days on Anandtech forums.

Look at that site and I think it will be very helpful for measuring how good your potential CPU would be compared to the Intel solution. I don't know how much you'd get over the Phenom, but considering I upgraded to an i5 from a Phenom I can say it makes night and day difference in certain cases, and I'm certain Bulldozer would too.

Cheers, mate.

Thanx for the good words and to be honest I go both ways when it comes to PC hardware and I have always been happy with the Phenom II x4 CPUs and chipsets which is what I have right now and for the most part the PhenomII CPUs have been excellent to me. My reasoning for wanting to get an AMD FX BD CPU is I already have a decent AMD chipset and AMD has for the most part never let me down in the past even back in the day when everyone was saying go Intel AMD is for suckers etc is why I would like to continue using and supporting AMD.

 

[Akantus]

http://atenra.blog.com/2012/06/08/am...ng-evaluation/

Good gaming comparison, but just to point out - Bulldozer's OC 4,6GHz is on the upper end of spectrum (I think around 4.8 is max with top air cooling), while I5's 4GHz is low end (again around 4.8 is standard) Just to make fair and objective comparison.
But you will still be bottlenecked by GPU before CPU in most cases ( but like soccerballtux said if you want to record, good CPU helps a lot - but that isn't shown in that evaluation)

 

[Black Mesa]

You're not paying attention. He specifically stated he doesn't want Intel. Doesn't matter if it were a hundred times better.

Reread the opening post.

Thanx and that was exactly why I worded the opening post as I did come to think of it I should have invest more into making it even more clear oh well LOL.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I would love to squeeze just a bit more out of my Deneb but really it is doing pretty darn well on most games but there are a few sticklers where I could use a bit more CPU gumption in gaming and on the desktop. I don't believe in overvolting CPUs for that last say maybe 100Mhz or so.

That's the point I'm at, more or less. My power use is already pretty outrageous. My temps are ok, I could give it a bump in voltage, but 1.5v for Thuban is on the high side on air cooling. I doubt another 130MHz will do anything for me one way or another as far as performance, but it'll run hotter and use more power. So for me, it's just not worth it right now.

 

[Ferzerp]

Really? I don't think anyone bashed him for not getting an Intel solution, you need to read the thread.
We just told him the truth, which is that if he want better gaming performance Intel is better, that's just it. And if he really wants Bulldozer and OC it, he will most likely need better PSU because his current one isn't up for the task.

He was bashed because he ignored our honest atemptts to help him, and kept acting like he knows better than everyone even if it was him who came for help -_-

If you want to claim that whole forum community is biased against AMD at least read the thread so it makes sense...

We get a lot of these brand new registered posters who ask for advice, and then they will move the goal posts around constantly trying to prop up an AMD choice when it isn't optimal. It was really bad for a long time. It got extremely curiouser and curiouser. It had tapered off, but this guy is taking a similar path.

The old formula was "what CPU should I get?" and then the poster would keep trying to manufacture the bizarrest claims of their typical use. Things like "I use these two specific programs that are the two that bulldozer happens to perform well at 24x7 and nothing else on my PC". The content originally always said "I want to run VMs". Eventually after pointing out fake core count is less useful in most virtualization scenarios than single-threaded performance and a reasonable number of actual cores, the new regs magically stopped always claiming to run VMs.

This post doesn't have the same feel, but it does have a similar attitude with a little different slant. Brand new registered account, making a post hoping to have good things said about a pretty poor performing product. Refusal to accept that there are much, much better choices, or even that the older AMD architecture is better suited to his professed needs than what he's looking to buy now.

Oh well.

 

[Black Mesa]

Wow, you ask for help on this site and you get bashed because you don't want to get an Intel solution. So much about respecting others' opinions. Black Mesa, you don't need these guys

There are a few things you should note. First of all, Bulldozer haz terrible reputation on the Internetz. If somebody mentions Bulldozer, you can almost immediately expect bashing or suggestions to get an i7 2600K or i5 2500K (or their Ivy Bridge equivalents). This reputation was, unfortunately, well-deserved. When it came out, the top Bulldozer (FX-8150) was more power-hungry, hotter and had bad single-core performance compared to the i5. To add to the mess, it was priced above the i5, which was absurd.

Nowadays, you can get the FX-8150 on newegg for $175 and the i5 2500K for $220. That means Bulldozer is no longer terrible for the money. Now let's get to the point: you want better gaming and want to stick with AMD. I would suggest two options:

1. Wait for Piledriver, which will be an upgraded version of current chips.
2. If you really must get the FX-8120 and OC it, this is what you can expect:

http://atenra.blog.com/2012/06/08/amd-fx8150-vs-intel-2500k-1080p-dx-11-gaming-evaluation/

This is from a very productive member of our forum who was kind enough to make these test just for us, but instead of praising him we label him a fanboy and call his blog c**p. This is what you get for being objective these days on Anandtech forums.

Look at that site and I think it will be very helpful for measuring how good your potential CPU would be compared to the Intel solution. I don't know how much you'd get over the Phenom, but considering I upgraded to an i5 from a Phenom I can say it makes night and day difference in certain cases, and I'm certain Bulldozer would too.

Cheers, mate.

WOW that was a pretty decent blog review that Aten put up and looks like BD is a competent gamer.

 

[Black Mesa]

We get a lot of these brand new registered posters who ask for advice, and then they will move the goal posts around constantly trying to prop up an AMD choice when it isn't optimal. It was really bad for a long time. It got extremely curiouser and curiouser. It had tapered off, but this guy is taking a similar path.

The old formula was "what CPU should I get?" and then the poster would keep trying to manufacture the bizarrest claims of their typical use. Things like "I use these two specific programs that are the two that bulldozer happens to perform well at 24x7 and nothing else on my PC". The content originally always said "I want to run VMs". Eventually after pointing out fake core count is less useful in most virtualization scenarios than single-threaded performance and a reasonable number of actual cores, the new regs magically stopped always claiming to run VMs.

This post doesn't have the same feel, but it does have a similar attitude with a little different slant. Brand new registered account, making a post hoping to have good things said about a pretty poor performing product. Refusal to accept that there are much, much better choices, or even that the older AMD architecture is better suited to his professed needs than what he's looking to buy now.

Oh well.

Read original post please before you derail this any further please

 

[lehtv]

Thanx and that was exactly why I worded the opening post as I did come to think of it I should have invest more into making it even more clear oh well LOL.

Read original post please before you derail this any further please

You can't force others not to post something they think is relevant to the thread and relevant for what you're asking. You specifically asked no Intel, but you also specifically stated your upgrade was intended for gaming purposes. These are in direct contradiction, so it makes sense to suggest changing your views about upgrading to Intel. You also stated you want your PC to be more energy efficient, which is another thing Intel is objectively much better at than AMD - so again, it makes sense to suggest Intel.

If you still want to upgrade to AMD, no one can stop you, it's your right to be biased for whatever reason. But you shouldn't presume to have the right to dictate what others can and cannot say, especially when everything was said with the intention of helping you out.

At no point did I or anyone else bash you for not getting an Intel, Hatisherrif's accusations are completely out of proportion and inaccurate.

And regarding "derailing the thread"... If you had wanted to keep the discussion where you claimed, you wouldn't have defended your PSU's quality. My point was that the PSU needs to be upgraded to safely support FX-8120 overclocking - which is completely on topic - it was you who got stuck on what I said regarding the unit's quality.

 

[Akantus]

You're not paying attention. He specifically stated he doesn't want Intel. Doesn't matter if it were a hundred times better.

Reread the opening post.

Good job cutting out the important part: "And if he really wants Bulldozer and OC it, he will most likely need better PSU because his current one isn't up for the task."

Nobody forced Intel upon him, we just wanted him to be informed, and thus make good decision he won't regret.

If trying to help is considered bad thing, then sorry I guess...

 

[Black Mesa]

You can't force others not to post something they think is relevant to the thread and relevant for what you're asking. You specifically asked no Intel, but you also specifically stated your upgrade was intended for gaming purposes. These are in direct contradiction, so it makes sense to suggest changing your views about upgrading to Intel. You also stated you want your PC to be more energy efficient, which is another thing Intel is objectively much better at than AMD - so again, it makes sense to suggest Intel.

If you still want to upgrade to AMD, no one can stop you, it's your right to be biased for whatever reason. But you shouldn't presume to have the right to dictate what others can and cannot say, especially when everything was said with the intention of helping you out.

At no point did I or anyone else bash you for not getting an Intel, Hatisherrif's accusations are completely out of proportion and inaccurate.

And regarding "derailing the thread"... If you had wanted to keep the discussion where you claimed, you wouldn't have defended your PSU's quality. My point was that the PSU needs to be upgraded to safely support FX-8120 overclocking - which is completely on topic - it was you who got stuck on what I said regarding the unit's quality.

Buying and Intel CPU is a direct contradiction to my AMD motherboard which is specifically the reason why I stated no Intel please.

 

[Ferzerp]

Buying and Intel CPU is a direct contradiction to my AMD motherboard which is specifically the reason why I stated no Intel please.

Then your answer is stick with what you have because what you're planning to buy is not going to improve your gaming performance at all other than potentially 1 or 2 games in existence.

If you just have to spend money, buy a better video card.

Yes, even with the silly constraints you've put on it, the answer is don't waste your money on that processor.

 

[lehtv]

Buying and Intel CPU is a direct contradiction to my AMD motherboard which is specifically the reason why I stated no Intel please.

I've understood that from the very beginning. What's stopping you from buying an Intel motherboard? If you're ready to splurge a ton of cash on a Platinum efficient unit, it shouldn't be a problem to spend $100 on a Z77 board; you could also recover some of that cost by selling your existing board. I'm not criticizing or bashing, I'm trying to help you be rational about your upgrade.

 

[Maximilian]

Why does anyone bother helping people like this guy? He was told in the very first post by lehtv "Upgrading to FX-8120 won't improve your gaming experience much if at all." Despite this solid advice the OP was abrasive and kind of a dick about it.

OP go here instead:
http://www.amdzone.com/phpbb3/

They will tell you what you want to hear :thumbsup:

 

[Gordon Freemen]

I've understood that from the very beginning. What's stopping you from buying an Intel motherboard? If you're ready to splurge a ton of cash on a Platinum efficient unit, it shouldn't be a problem to spend $100 on a Z77 board; you could also recover some of that cost by selling your existing board. I'm not criticizing or bashing, I'm trying to help you be rational about your upgrade.

$120 on a Platinum PSU and $160 on the CPU that's less than you spent on you're SSDs.