[Solved] AMD FX 6300 or wait for Steamroller

[KingFatty]

That's a nice benefit of the 6300 vs the 8-core AMD cpus: you use less power, and it's rated at lower wattage so it's nicer to your motherboard. I guess you can evaluate whether there are more or less phases for power delivery. Yes it's good to have a motherboard heatsink, but also don't forget to compare the number of phases as having more phases is better for overclocking.

 

[gx_saurav]

The Asus M5A97 R2.0 has 4+2 phase power design & uses a 8pin power connector as per their website.

I believe the same is applicable to the MSI motherboard. Hence the only thing different is the heatsink.

What temperature for a motherboard is considered safe?

 

[gx_saurav]

Here it is is guys. GPU installed in the system. That CPU fan doesn't have a lot of space to suck air now but still CPU temperature now is 17C only when idle and 35 in load (like before).

Here is a screenshot of Catalyst control center at idle.

I don't think running benchmarks is of any use as they are all over the internet. Besides, I got a weak CPU right now. Will do some benchmarks after I get the FX 6300.

So, how do I test this card? I got crysis 2 and 3 so going to load its benchmarks to see how it runs.

 

[Jaydip]

That's a cool setup dude.

 

[gx_saurav]

That's a cool setup dude.

Thanks Jaydeep. Its not as cool as yours and I doubt it will ever reach the levels of a Core i7 4770k but it doesn't cost much and should hold all gaming needs for 2+ years which is what I am aiming for. Also lots of Visual studio & Photoshop for designing Windows Phone apps. I design Talk.to right now.

Guys, here are the temperature after 30 minutes of Crysis 3 at level 1. In that rain. Does these look fine? Everything is at default settings.

The game is running smooth at 1600x900 but stutters momentarily during heavy particles like rain, debris etc. Does this mean my current APU is limiting me?

By the way, in case someone wants to have a look at my setup you can see here

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152099908398957.1073741828.578673956&type=1&l=ebd1f4fd26

 

[Jaydip]

@ gx_saurav

In tech industry it is very difficult to have a cool setup due to the rapid way technology progresses.That doesn't make any non 4770K setup less cool.

 

[Phynaz]

CPU temperature now is 17C only when idle and 35 in load (like before).

Your CPU temperature is below ambient.

Does that sound correct to you?

 

[gx_saurav]

Don't know. It might be showing wrong. Last year it was showing 4C during 15C ambient during winters. Right now ambient is 30 as per the thermometer on wall. What about GPU temperature?

I just ran tomb raider benchmark with average FPS at 33. This looks like CPU limited to me.

@ gx_saurav

In tech industry it is very difficult to have a cool setup due to the rapid way technology progresses.That doesn't make any non 4770K setup less cool.

That is there too. As long as this plays all games at my desired level of settings, its fine. Here is full config http://pcpartpicker.com/user/gxsaurav/saved/2592

 

[Phynaz]

Don't know. Last year it was showing 4C during 15C ambient during winters.

It's impossible for your CPU temperature to be lower than the environment surrounding it.

Your temp readings are incorrect.

 

[gx_saurav]

It's impossible for your CPU temperature to be lower than the environment surrounding it. Your temp readings are incorrect.

So how do I find correct temperatures?

 

[USER8000]

I was thinking along the same lines. If MSI made this motherboard without heatsink then they must have checked performance and heat without it. They are not likely to send a motherboard to market with high heat just to face RMAs in future.

There will be a side fan pushing cool air from outside directly at the VRM and GPU in my cabinet. So I believe that going with a heatsink based motherboard is just to be on a safer side & peace of mind.

I checked the reviews on Newegg for this motherboard. People are reporting issues that the motherboard burnt. But then people are reporting issues with Asus M5A97 too. Nothing is fully safe.

Anyway, right now for 1 month I am going to stick with current APU only and will see what is available next month and how much money I have to buy new components.

MSI have had issues with VRM failures on many of their motherboards(especially the cheaper AMD ones).

I would stick with Asus or Gigabyte. If you intend to overclock the M5A97 EVO is a very solid motherboard for overclocking. The GA-970A-UD3 is also solid too but earlier versions lack LLC which limits overclocks.

 

[Phynaz]

So how do I find correct temperatures?

Try Realtemp, but honestly I don't know that AMD has ever published their specs, so it's all a guessing game. Somebody wrote an article on why you can't accurately measure the temp on AMD CPUs. I don't know if it still applies. I think it had something to do with AMD not publishing their offsets.

 

[gx_saurav]

MSI have had issues with VRM failures on many of their motherboards(especially the cheaper AMD ones).

I would stick with Asus or Gigabyte. If you intend to overclock the M5A97 EVO is a very solid motherboard for overclocking. The GA-970A-UD3 is also solid too but earlier versions lack LLC which limits overclocks.

Gigabyte GA 970A UD3 lacks front USB 3.0 ports so that is out of question.

I have some other Gigabyte boards in mind now. I will go to market tomorrow to see which ones are available and at what cost.

If I get good deals then I will buy and finish this system this month only, I am finding myself that the current CPU is limiting me a lot in gaming.

 

[USER8000]

Gigabyte GA 970A UD3 lacks front USB 3.0 ports so that is out of question.

I have some other Gigabyte boards in mind now. I will go to market tomorrow to see which ones are available and at what cost.

If I get good deals then I will buy and finish this system this month only, I am finding myself that the current CPU is limiting me a lot in gaming.

The Asus 970 EVO and the Gigabyte 970 UD3,are the only 970 motherboards made by those companies with overclocking in mind.

 

[bononos]

Your CPU temperature is below ambient.

Does that sound correct to you?

Its normal for AMD 'temps' to be below ambient because it isn't actually reporting a temperature, its some proprietary AMD scale.

 

[Jaydip]

Don't know. It might be showing wrong. Last year it was showing 4C during 15C ambient during winters. Right now ambient is 30 as per the thermometer on wall. What about GPU temperature?

I just ran tomb raider benchmark with average FPS at 33. This looks like CPU limited to me.



That is there too. As long as this plays all games at my desired level of settings, its fine. Here is full config http://pcpartpicker.com/user/gxsaurav/saved/2592

Saurav, unless you have bought the ram already I would advise against buying Crucial.I had had horrible experience with them.

 

[gx_saurav]

The Asus 970 EVO and the Gigabyte 970 UD3,are the only 970 motherboards made by those companies with overclocking in mind.

Ok. People have been able to successfully overclock FX 6300 on Asus M5A97 R2.0 to 4.5 Ghz so I believe there is headroom for me too.

Saurav, unless you have bought the ram already I would advise against buying Crucial.I had had horrible experience with them.

I already purchased this RAM 1 year ago from Amazon during Black friday deals. It is working fine without any issue so far at all even after overclocking hence I am keeping it.

 

[NTMBK]

I'm not sure about that CPU fan setup, to be honest- you're either sucking in air which is already heated by the GPU, or blowing hot air over the GPU (depending on fan direction). I think you'd be better off with the fan blowing from front to back.

Nice setup though! :thumbsup:

 

[USER8000]

Ok. People have been able to successfully overclock FX 6300 on Asus M5A97 R2.0 to 4.5 Ghz so I believe there is headroom for me too.

I know quite a few people with the EVO and UD3. The EVO for example has the same VRM section as this motherboard with slightly less VRM cooling:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/M5A99X_EVO/

Here is a review of the M5A97 EVO:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/M5A97_EVO/1.html

The VRM can supply upto 275W.

The bog standard M5A97 R2.0 only has a basic VRM section for an Asus motherboard,and longterm you are pushing the VRMs more by doing a large overclock. The M5A97 and M5A97 EVO tend to be very close in price in many markets,so for a few Dollars/Euro/Pounds more it is worth getting the latter IMHO.

 

[KingFatty]

I'm not sure about that CPU fan setup, to be honest- you're either sucking in air which is already heated by the GPU, or blowing hot air over the GPU (depending on fan direction). I think you'd be better off with the fan blowing from front to back.

Nice setup though! :thumbsup:

Agreed - I have never seen any evidence that shows the vertical airflow path of the CPU cooler actually making a difference compared to horizontal.

But there is a benefit to horizontal, because you provide additional airflow toward the motherboard VRM heatsinks.

So in my mind, you would be sacrificing one benefit (cooling the mobo VRMs) to achieve no additional benefit (vertical CPU air path), because you have exhaust fans at top and rear of case, so either orientation will get exhausted. It's just you can gain the benefit of cooling the mobo, so why not?

So when you swap the CPU and install the FX-6300, I'd suggest re-orienting the CPU cooler to blow toward the rear. Unless someone has some test results or other information showing a tangible benefit to orienting the CPU cooler vertically? Or if you can get auxiliary fan cooling on the mobo VRMs. Normally it would probably not matter, but if you plan to overclock the 6300, the VRMs will be getting warmer than usual and you don't want the motherboard to trigger the auto-throttling of the CPU to cool off the VRMs that way.

 

[gx_saurav]

Too late. I was in market today and M5A97 R2.0 EVO was $ 30 costlier. I was already over budget.

I got a deal today with AMD FX6300 + Asus M5A97 R2.0 + Cooler Master Hyper 212X for just $ 250 (₹ 15,250). The vendor was ready to give me this combo if I pay cash so I paid cash and got it. This is almost as good as the price you get on Amazon for the same hardware in USA.

Here are the pics of current setup. I still need to re-do the cable management. I just got home, rebooted the PC and found that I did not need to re-install Windows. However, now it says product cannot be activated as it has exceeded activation limits. Off to talk to Micorosoft Customer service (which actually is just 30 km away from my home).

Everything is at default right now. I am still downloading Asus AI Suite. Need to upgrade BIOS. How do I do that? All I got is a .cap file. How do I update BIOS?

 

[KingFatty]

For ASUS, I tend to use their Windows program that just runs the BIOS update from within Windows. It's just really easy and I'm lazy. So there is no USB formatting or creating a boot CD or whatever. You just download the BIOS update, then run the ASUS update utility, point it to that downloaded BIOS file, and click OK.

 

[ph2000]

there should be utility in the cd / website

 

[gx_saurav]

I installed their AI Suite 2 and using that to control my PC. Some apps bundled in that are good.

1. Updated BIOS automatically using AI Suite. I will use this only for updating Asus stuff now.
2. Bios did not detect DDR3 1866 speed of my Crucial ballistix tactical. I manually set it to 1866 MHz and it is working fine. I am not playing around with BIOS right now as I am still reading about what is what.
3. I use a Lumia 920 and their AI Charging software is good. It gives more ampere then regular USB 3.0 gives which charges my phone faster.
4. I am also using their USB 3.0 Boost software. It is now giving my 90 MB write speeds in my Sandisk Extreme 16 GB USB 3.0 flash drive. Previously it used to give me 60 MB max.
5. I enabled their EUP & Fan Xpert program which automatically tunes fan speed, CPU Voltage, CPU multiplier etc. I did automatic overclock and it overclocked my CPU + north bridge etc safely to 3.8 GHz max and 4.2 Ghz in Turbo. Regular speed when browsing, watching movies etc changes from 1.3 GHz to 3.8 GHz automatically. I am happy with this "safe" over clock done by Asus itself and don't intend to overclock further for now. I am already getting enough performance in games.

 

[gx_saurav]

Just did some CPU Stress testing. I ran Prime95 for about 15 minutes at default settings. I just started it and ran. I did set everything to stock though just to make sure temperature with stock clock speed is good or not.

I did the same with my GPU. I reduced clock speed (just to check) to default 860 Mhz from 920 Mhz factory overclock. 15 minutes of Furmark gave a maximum temperature of 68C in HWMonitor. However, when playing games the temperature hardly goes above 60. Is this because furmark tortures a CPU more then a game?

Here are the temps. What do you guys think? Ambient temperature according to wall thermometer is 30C.

I am going to run the same benchmarks with CPU overclocked to 3.8 GHz and GPU at factory default of 920 MHz in some time and will post results then.