FX-8350 @ 4.7GHz - OCCT Question

[TRWeiss1]

Gents,

 

I recently upgraded my system (referring of course to the "faster system" in my sig), went with the FX-8350 8 core, and took my first crack at water cooling the CPU w/ the Thermaltake Water2.0 Performer. I've got the system stable in Windows and games @ 4.7GHz (or so it appears thus far), and wanted to do some stress testing in OCCT. I went and downloaded the most recent version, set my temp limits, and fired up the testing...

 

Now, I don't have any experience with this newest version of OCCT, and am wondering if there's any reason it would be ramping my CPU frequency from where I set it (4.7 GHz) down to ~1.65 GHz. It has been doing that throughout the test, and I'm wondering if it's something OCCT is doing on purpose, or if I may not have a setting (or some voltages) quite right in the BIOS. I will admit, although I had an ASUS P6X58D prior and was running my i7 @ 4.0GHz, this new UEFI BIOS has WAY more parameters to tweak. I can provide any and all specific info upon request, but I was curious as to whether this was anything someone has seen before. Thanks in advance!

 

PS - Here is a pic of the fluctuation, noted of course by the graph in the upper right. => http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll302/TRWeiss1/CPU_Freq_Dropping_OCCT.jpg

[TRWeiss1]

It appears that the CPU multiplier is jumping down to 7.0, when I have it statically set at 20.0 in the BIOS.... Now I need to figure out why this is happening...

[Onion]

I don't know if its called something else on AMD systems, but do you have the speedstep equivalent enabled? Do they still call it Cool'n'Quiet? Disable that.

Edited November 29, 2012 by l33t p1mp

[TRWeiss1]

Yeah, they have Cool 'N Quiet, which I have disabled... I've had a few AMD based systems in the past, so I know a few things to look for. But yeah, that is disabled, along with C1E... But good Lord, there are SO many settings...

 

Lastly, for what it's worth, the multiplier does NOT change from 20.0 outside of OCCT. It stays rock solid, but for some reason drops to 7.0 in OCCT. Idk if this is something the application is doing, although I don't think it should be if I define the multiplier in the BIOS. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[WarWeeny]

get intelburntest instead?

 

dont know if you can run it with an amd proc but i doubt it wont.

[SpikeSoprano]

It could be your termal setting which is dropping the multy, although most folks like to leave this enabled .

[red1776]

Do you have APM disabled?

[d6bmg]

If APM and Cool n quiet is disabled and still multiplier is coming down, I suppose it is doe to thermal throttling (!). But hinking more about it, ~67C is not a temperature where thermal throttling will occur.

So, it could well be a PSU issue.

[TRWeiss1]

Interesting.... Thanks guys. I guess I never thought about the PSU. It's an Antec 850 watt, and I'm only running 1 video card. Of course I also understand that this CPU is probably pulling SIGNIFICANT power under a load at these clock speeds.

 

Edit :: I'd thought about it being related to the PSU, but don't you'd think I'd see some sort of discrepancy on the PSU voltage graph? Something like a blip or a drop? I dismissed the PSU as being an issue since all of the voltages remain rock solid throughout the test...

Edited November 29, 2012 by TRWeiss1

[d6bmg]

It might just be a bad unit or a good PSU went bad after a period of time.

[Waco]

What board do you have? It could very well be power-limited. My 8120 at 4.5 GHz pulled in excess of 400 watts when fully loaded...not all boards can deliver that kind of power safely.

[TRWeiss1]

I've got the ASUS M5A99X. Very possible that the PSU is failing after being loaded for a few minutes, or maybe the mobo can't handle it... On another note, what's "ErP"? Saw that in the BIOS under the Advanced APM settings. Right now I have it Enabled because I'm not sure what it does...