@Timothy Kim60/">@@Timothy Kim60, thanks for the help 🙂 You were right—my settings weren't quite dialed in. I'm not entirely sure how much of an impact LLC makes yet, but I’ve left it on extreme for now (I might play around with it more to see what happens). For the most part, the frequency was fluctuating because I hadn't enabled HPM. I also dropped the voltage slightly and ran it for about 15 minutes; the voltage fluctuates a bit, though that could be down to the PSU. Temperatures stayed under 51°C overall.
I suspect that with this cooler at room temperature, I could probably push it to 4.8 GHz without crossing 60°C... but there's really no point. A single GTX 660 doesn't need that kind of power, and a stable 3.5 GHz is more than enough for it. Once we move to an SLI setup, then we'll see...
That said, this is the last time I'm dealing with an air cooler. What a headache to strip everything down just to get it out of a mid-tower case, only to have the cooler barely fit once you close the side panel. The worst part is when you miss a connector, carefully seat the motherboard, and then realize you can't actually reach the plug with your fingers. Then you're stuck hunting for some tiny precision screwdriver, and it's infuriating. To top it all off, you end up making an epic blunder and forget to peel off the plastic film on the base.😵
I’d suggest brushing up on some tutorials; it feels like you're jumping from zero to sixty without checking the brakes first...
Either way, those temperatures are completely irrational. You can tell by the erratic voltage swings that something is fundamentally off. Are you absolutely certain the cooler is seated properly? Check if the fan is actually spinning, or if you've applied too much—or too little—thermal paste...
Turns out I was the idiot here—I forgot to peel the plastic off the heatsink.😵
I just pulled it off, and now at 4.5 GHz with 1.35V, OCCT shows it fluctuating between 4.5 and 2.9 GHz, with the voltage bouncing between 1.35V and 1.26V. That’s likely just the motherboard hitting its limits, but thank God the temperature hasn't crossed 42 degrees yet... My heart is finally starting to settle down...
I’ve finally identified the issue, though I can only conclude that I am officially the biggest idiot in history...🤦 Just facepalming at my own stupidity here...
I’m seeing the exact same values in CPU-Z as I am in OCCT, and honestly, I’m a bit stumped... Temp 78°C @ 4.3 GHz / 1.35V Temp 79°C @ 3.3 GHz / 1.18V
The issue is that under a full load, it isn't actually maintaining that 4.3 GHz clock speed; instead, it keeps tapering off until it hits around 1.7 GHz...
I’ll give it a shot... At first, I was worried I hadn't applied the thermal paste correctly or that it wasn't seated quite right, but then I noticed my motherboard temps were hitting some pretty high numbers. I remember watching a tutorial where they mentioned this specific board had some serious throttling issues, yet when I look at other videos, people using much cheaper boards seem to be pulling better overclocking results than I am. On the plus side, the readings from HWM align perfectly with what I'm seeing on OCCT and Easy Tune, though for the life of me, I can't figure out why the BIOS values are consistently about 0.1 higher. 🤷
I just disabled the turbo boost... running OCCT at 100% CPU load, the CPU temperature hit 80°C on HWM, while the motherboard reached 93°C. The fan speed was also sitting at either 100% or 65%, and the CPU Vcore didn't climb past 1.2V.
Timothy Kim60 said:Stock settings are predictable—that’s common knowledge. Honestly, I don't think anyone bothers running these kinds of tests at stock; it just isn't productive. You'd definitely need to disable Turbo Boost and probably look into undervolting just to maintain the base clock.
I haven't actually tested it at stock; I've been using the v8gts. My idle temps sit between 17-23°C, but under load, they jump past 80°C at 4.3GHz. The issue is the voltage itself spikes above 1.4V... which makes me a bit nervous about my motherboard seeing temperatures climb north of 90°C.
Timothy Kim60 said:Look, 62°C is his recommended ceiling. It's generally not wise to go recommending aftermarket coolers on forums without a good reason.
I'll try playing around with some settings in OCCT tomorrow, but I'm struggling to wrap my head around the logic here: if he recommends a cooler rated for a 200W TDP CPU, how can it fail to handle a chip that drops down to a 95W TDP?
I have my doubts about what even those beefy air coolers can actually achieve... at this rate, we might as well start manufacturing oil-cooled units. 🤣 Because anything north of 70°C feels like a literal oven.
I’m not entirely sure how much heat an Intel chip generates under load, but using the stock cooler feels manageable enough. With AMD, however, the stock cooling situation is nothing short of a disaster. Quick question for those running an AMD FX Series: do you disable Turbo Boost and manually tweak the voltage? I'm asking because I ran a benchmark for Metro LL today and things got ugly. My CPU hit 82°C while running at a stock 3.3 GHz (with a turbo boost up to 4.3 GHz), and my motherboard peaked at a staggering 91°C. I could actually smell burning plastic, so I have to wonder—is this level of heat even remotely normal? Once I disabled the turbo mode, the CPU started behaving a bit more calmly, though my max FPS in the same test dropped by about 20. The average stayed roughly the same, as did the minimum.
I was actually looking at the X3 Airrazor, but I had to pass once I saw the sheer size of it. Honestly, that thing isn't exactly built for a mid-tower case...
I mean, Scythe Ashura will probably beat it on thermals, and it’s half the price, too.
It's hard to put into words—it's just pure aesthetics. Love at first sight, really. I practically bled while I was installing it...
Sean Garcia3 said:How's the cooling on that thing? Is it loud?
Honestly, I have no idea yet. I just finished the build, and since I left the cables a complete mess, I'm going to take a breather before I actually check if it's running quiet or not.
$8.25 You've got an extra bracket in that link... I ended up swapping in the v8gts today. Honestly, I couldn't be bothered with the ordering process; the build quality on those parts isn't exactly top-tier, and they barely fit in the case as it is...
Codegen breeze 6099. The issue I'm running into is that I have two separate hard drives... so if I were to start cutting, everything would end up all bunched together like this
Having learned my lesson from last year, I was sitting around waiting for some clearance deals at those amazing prices, but man, talk about bad timing—I felt like I got hit by a bus when I saw how much everything spiked. I actually have a way to go through a friend that would make the whole thing $333 cheaper, so I was planning on picking up the FX 8320 + M597 combo along with a Gigabyte GTX 970. They’re the only ones offering a six-month installment plan through my bank, but there's a catch: that massive 33 cm beast won't even fit in my case...
Sean Garcia3 said:Look, if you pick up an FX 8320 at $366 from UZI-J—and if you sign up for the PC Expert program, you get an extra 3% discount—it works out to $355. That’s actually a pretty solid deal. Toss in a Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P motherboard and a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo with that discount, and you're looking at $266. Personally, I find that quite reasonable. If you have the cash and you're itching to play some games on higher settings, what are you waiting for?
There are two main drawbacks, though. First, they don't offer up to six installments—which is really just their own limitation since Chase pays out the full amount upfront. Second, all items only come with a maximum two-year warranty, which I find to be the biggest downside.
crimsonstag84 said:The Dollar is strengthening, which is driving up production costs... we've seen jumps from $1.75 to $2.00 in just the last few months. On top of that, some GPUs, motherboards, RAM, and power supplies are creeping up by a few bucks every single week in most stores.
I managed to snag a 2500K during the last big sale for $343 😬 ...tomorrow marks exactly one year since I bought it.
Did you pick that up at Best Buy or futur? I was hoping there would be a sale combined with an IBO deal so I could grab a 3570k, but now that same CPU is going for about $667 somewhere... it's brutal...
Sean Garcia3 said:Everything seems to have gone up as far as I can tell, except maybe RAM and occasionally SSDs. At Micro Center, for instance, motherboards are around 150-$67, processors are over $67, HDDs are 20-$10, power supplies have bumped up a little, coolers are around 30-$13, printers are $6.75, cases are about $33, even GPUs are up by $33 compared to previous prices. jbte, I was buying stuff a year ago and I got a better deal than if I were trying to build a whole new rig today.
Exactly. The M597 is sitting at 850-$300 now, when it used to be at most $233. Basically, every option I waited for failed me. There was all this talk that FX prices would drop, so I held out thinking I might get an FX 8320 for $333, but man, they're averaging about $400 now...
It is certainly not the time to be buying hardware... Besides, I'll just wait; I have a massive backlog of games to get through on both PC and PlayStation 3 anyway. I'll wait for better times... maybe the dollar will weaken once the summer travel season hits... fingers crossed.🙄
Since there isn't really a reliable site out there dedicated solely to tracking CPU trends, I have to point out that prices for processors have spiked aggressively over the last month or two—especially since yesterday. Some have jumped by more than $67. You would logically expect prices to be trending downward, but this sudden surge is honestly a bit jarring. Does anyone have a theory on why this is happening? Did some massive cargo ship sink or something? It’s absurd. An i5 3570k or an i5 4670k are selling for about 200-$$100 more on average than they were when they first launched, and I even saw an i5 2550k listed for over $633... You can hardly believe it.