Tuning Trinity(?)

[MightyMalus]

Just built my first PC, everything went quite well(It all worked!)...took a few hours tho! jaja

So, I got a A10-5800K Trinity.

I know I read that its overvolted from stock. I'm a total newb at this, how or what is the best way to "tune" this thing?

At first instance I noticed that the RAM wasn't running at the expected speed of 1866, its at 800. And the CPU frequency is usually at just over 1.2GHz, its variable...things have changed in 5 years!

In all honesty, I want to do is increase the iGPU frecuency, while getting the RAM running at 1866 and maybe even lowering the min and max CPU frecuency abit.

How do I go about this(without breaking anything <.<")? I got an ASRock motherboard. Help? Thoughts?

 

[Arachnotronic]

Congratulations on the new PC! The A10-5800k is a nice little chip.

What is your exact motherboard model?

 

[MightyMalus]

Its the ASRock FM2A75 Pro4-M

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157334

 

[Torn Mind]

You will have to fiddle around in BIOS for voltage control, multiplier settings, and RAM configuration.

The Catalyst Control Center can help you with GPU adjustment.

Some of these things should be covered in the manual.

 

[MightyMalus]

Hmm, when in the BIOS my CPU seems to be working extra hard! Started raising my temps and fan speeds.

CPU Temps upto 65c
M/B Temps upto 39c

CPU Fan 1- Upto 4340 rpm
CPU Fan 2- Upto 1090 rpm
Chassis Fan 1 Speed- N/A
Power Fan Speed- Upto 1090 rpm

Left it there in the BIOS Monitor for a bit to see how that went.
I think that I plugged my Fan's incorrectly...Where should I have my Fan's at? I have three, two spectre(?) that came with the BitFenix Ghost case and the one on the stock cpu heatsink. I put both at the front. Thinking of adding two on top and one on the bottom, all bringing air in. Good idea? But, not sure where I would plug them all in...

I seem to be having some RAM issue. I set the profile to xmp 1.2(mobo says it supports AMP, but the option was not there), it states all the specs on the BIOS, timings and the 1866 frequency. But then, the BIOS registers the RAM at 1600Mhz and inside each DRAM slot settings, the (auto)timings are all way off. Do I have to manually set all the timings to the XMP 1.2 one?

And worse, inside the Win8 task manager, it rates the speed at 800Mhz...at least the "shared" ram went to 2GB.

 

[inf64]

That's the board I'm picking up tomorrow .
The "extra hard CPU load" in BIOS is normal, I have read on some boards. It's the way of stressing the chip and seeing if something "fails"( due to unstable settings). Don't worry about it.
I'm getting unlocked Athlon II X4 750K,I'll post my thoughts when I have it up and running. Maybe I can find some answers to your questions about memory clocks and XMP profiles.

 

[inf64]

@ MightyMalus

I got my system, tuning now. My board is practically the same as yours, only without "M" (so it's full ATX format).
First thing I noticed was that XMP profile setting is kind of buggy. Do not select anything except Auto for profile but do select the correct RAM clock from drop down menu. Also go inside DRAM settings and set up manually all primary and secondary timings according to what XMP states. Mine were way off so I set them up manually (2x4GB Crucial 1600Mhz 9-9-9-24).
My CPU is 750K, not that much of an OCer I'm afraid. I'm doing some OCCT testing right now and it is sitting at 4.4Ghz with 1.5V, which is not stellar. Good news is that it draws around 80W at this setting in full load (core+uncore) if current readings are correct in hwinfo. Max. temps with OCZ vendetta are around 57.5C in OCCT blend test.
I will keep testing and will report back.

PS System runs very fast, boot is much faster (with same HDD) than X4 @ 3Ghz, all benchmarks are considerably better (no gaming numbers for now, just standard "application benchmarks" most review sites use).

 

[MightyMalus]

Finally, tried. Nothing. What are the primary and secondary timings exactly? There is quite more numbers than those 4. What is OCCT?

This is first time doing this, so I'm quite lost.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231460 <- That's my RAM

 

[Arkadrel]

In all honesty, I want to do is increase the iGPU frecuency, while getting the RAM running at 1866 and maybe even lowering the min and max CPU frecuency abit.

Start around 1000mhz on the iGPU, and stability test it, then work your way up in +25mhz increments.

Yes def. try getting your ram running at 1866 speeds or faster (OC them abit), just remember to stability test things if you go above listed speeds of things.

 

[MightyMalus]

Start around 1000mhz on the iGPU, and stability test it, then work your way up in +25mhz increments. Yes def. try getting your ram running at 1866 speeds or faster (OC them abit), just remember to stability test things if you go above listed speeds of things.

Yeah, but how? Like, how do I stability test them well? What are the primary timings? Secondary? RAM settings have many values, not just the four numbers everyone shows.

Looking for straight directions. =/

 

[Sleepingforest]

There's a sticky at the very top of this subforum which has stability testing information.

Steps to overclock memory:

• Go into the BIOS.
• There should be a set of menus at the top: "Main, OC Tweaker, Advanced" and so on. Go to "OC Tweaker"
• There should be a section that says "DRAM Configuration" with a single setting called "DRAM Frequency"
• Change that frequency to whatever you want. I recommend 1800MHz or 1866MHz.
• Go to the DRAM timing control. Loosen the timings to 10-10-10-27 rather than whatever default they are at.
• Make sure the voltage is at 1.5V

Done! Use Memtest to stress the RAM. If it lasts 12 hours (considered teh golden standard) without error, you've got a solid overclock!

 

[daveybrat]

Remember DDR ram = Double Density Ram so DDR speeds of 800MHz = 1600MHz. So while you aren't running at the 1866MHz speed yet, you are running it at the normal 1600MHz.

 

[MightyMalus]

Since I still don't know what the "primary/secondary timings" are. This is what I got:
CAS# Write Latency(tCWL) at 10
CAS# Latency (tCL) at 10
RAS# to CAS# Delay (tRCD) at 10
Row Precharge Time (tRP) at 10
RAS# Active Time (tRAS) at 28
Command Rate (CR) at 2T
RAS# Cycle Time (tRC) at 37
Write Recovery Time (tWR) at 14
Refresh Cycle Time (tRFC) 160
RAS to RAS Delay (tRRD) at 5
Write to Read Delay (tNTR) at 7
Read to Precharge (tRTP) at 7
Four Active Window (tFAW) at 24
DRAM Voltage set to 1.500

Task Manager still puts Speed: 800MHz

Side note: Interestingly enough, my laptop does not have "RAM Speed" in Task Manager, yet my Desktop does. Desktop is running 64-Bit Win8, Laptop is on 32-Bit.

Maybe I need to up the voltage? Or my settings are bad? My RAM should be at 933Mhz, right?

 

[Sleepingforest]

Leave the timings as they are--they look loose enough. DO NOT UP THE VOLTAGE YET. You should be able to bump up the memory frequency. I looked on Youtube to see what the BIOS looks like. The rate the BIOS shows you is already doubled, so change that to 1800 or 1866.

Man, I remember you telling me that you wanted an APU because it would be simpler than i3+dGPU...

 

[MightyMalus]

Jajaja, I know right! Well, I wanted the APU for other reasons too.

Thing is, in the BIOS. The frequency is at 1866Mhz. But when I'm in the Windows 8 64-bit Task Manager it says that the speed is at 800Mhz.

That's why I don't get it...

 

[richierich1212]

Why don't you run cpu-z instead? I'm not familiar with Win 8 task manager, it could be reading your mem speed wrong.

 

[Sleepingforest]

^Agreed. Definitely try using CPU-Z or similar software to check if the RAM is really at 1866 or 800.

 

[MightyMalus]

In CPU-Z my DRAM Frequency is 931.6MHz. Not exactly 1866MHz....1863.2MHz.

What would be the next steps in tuning and improving Trinity?

(Gonna get Memtest now)

 

[Arkadrel]

The next step, after memory is at 1866mhz and stable.
Is to increase the IGP's speed.

I believe it comes at stock running 800mhz.
You need to get that stable around 1000-1100mhz (25%-37,5% oc).

So your graphics performance is better.

After that, you can choose to OC the CPU.
Start around 4,4-4,5ghz or so, and again stability test it.

When thats all said and done, its about as good as it gets without adding a discrete GPU.



This video shows about the "max" of what a A10-5800k is capable of gameing wise:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNOPZAcRnj4

DDR3@2133mhz
IGP@1100mhz
CPU@4,4ghz

Playing Dirt 3, around 45-58 fps, at 1920x1080, high settings no AA.

 

[MightyMalus]

Ugh, did a quick check at 9-9-9-9-27, got flickering and stuff. Win8 found the error and rebooted me. Went back to 10-10-10-10-27 and running Memtest. Three of them, two with 2047 of memory and one with "all unused memory".

Is that how it should be done? I have 8GB of RAM.

Sorry, its taken so long =/

Edit: RAM is at 1863, how do I improve it? Raise voltage? Put one of the timings at 9? What If I wanted to go even higher to 2133Mhz? Also, I'm running stock cooling.

 

[Sleepingforest]

At some point, the timings will be too loose and you'll start getting errors. I'd stick to 1866ish or 2033ish for safety's sake.

To improve the frequency, you have to INCREASE timings and voltage. I don't recommend above 11-11-11-30 timings or above 1.5V (1.65V in a pinch, maybe).

 

[galego]

First thing I noticed was that XMP profile setting is kind of buggy.

XMP is for Intel chipsets. AMP is for AMD.

What the AsRock motherboard is doing is to simulate XMP profiling. Complete control and easy settings are obtained by using AMP enabled memory.

Note: For an APU-build I would recommend 2133 MHz memory because offers a significant performance boost compared to 1866 MHz

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2013/05/08/amd-rg2133/1

 

[MightyMalus]

To improve the frequency, you have to INCREASE timings and voltage. I don't recommend above 11-11-11-30 timings or above 1.5V (1.65V in a pinch, maybe).

Oh...I was confused then. I thought lowering them would increase performance...

Okay, questions.

1- If I keep my frequency at 1863(-.-'') how do I increase its performance? By raising to 11's? Performance on a specific frequency, or is it best to just boost the frequency?

2- Why does everyone always mention just 4 numbers? "11-11-11-30", for example, I see 4 total, in the BIOS before getting to the "30", in my case its "28". So, I actually don't know which number you mean...the first three before "30"? the last three before the "30"? Why does every one skip or jump one of the numbers?

See...below:

CAS# Write Latency(tCWL) at 10
CAS# Latency (tCL) at 10
RAS# to CAS# Delay (tRCD) at 10
Row Precharge Time (tRP) at 10
RAS# Active Time (tRAS) at 28

3- And really, what about all the other RAM settings?

For an APU-build I would recommend 2133 MHz memory because offers a significant performance boost compared to 1866 MHz

I bought 1866mhz memory, still working on it =/ Its running at 1863mhz...

 

[Phynaz]

XMP is for Intel chipsets. AMP is for AMD.

Actually XMP is a JEDEC standard. AMP on the other hand is that thing that AMD claims lets you switch between applications faster.

 

[Headfoot]

Don't worry about it running at 1863. It literally makes no difference at all. In regards to timing numbers, FASTER = LOWER. However, you have to "loosen" the timing by increasing those numbers in order to overclock to a higher Mhz speed (ie 1866 to 2033 or whatever you get it to). Really high quality RAM can keep the timing numbers low AND get a higher Mhz speed.