First off, the system specs: Fx 8320 now @ 4.2 ghz CM Hyper 212 Evo cooler MSI GTX 970 stock oc Asus ASUS M5A99FX PRO R2.0 8 gb 1866mhz Kingston HyperX Fury 500 Watt Corsair psu 500 gb WD blue HDD (peasantry, i know...) All inside a Define R4
Thank you for tanking time to look at my long post. I recently decided to overclock the FX 8320 in my system due to what seemed like a bottleneck. I noticed that my 970 was not yielding the results that benchmarks showed it was capable of. For example, in BF4 Operation Locker 64P Conquest, I would average 59 fps on the ultra preset at 1080p. Benchmarks suggest a whopping 80+! And I've heard and seen videos of people getting over 100 fps average on this and other maps using an 8350. I figured maybe the .5 ghz is the difference. It seems that this overclock has worked. I average about 85 fps on Operation Locker after the overclock. (Long story, but maybe necessary) But here's the problem.
I'm not certain that my temps are acceptable. I've heard of others achieving up to 4.4 ghz and at lower temps than what I get with the same cooler. Currently, my voltage is at 1.28v i believe, much lower than what I've read others use. Yet still, my cpu reaches 59C. I've reseated the cooler twice, using the rice method and cross pattern to bolt it down. Could not enough ventilation be the problem?
Case ventilation setup: I have the two stock fans that came with the Define R4. One is in the front acting as an intake. The other is at the top acting as an exhaust. The Bottom line, I require assistance. Though I have OC'ed once before, I'm still quite a noob. Faulty cooler? Bad chip? Bad airflow? I can provide picture of the bios if requested.
Did you try disabling v-sync ? You'll never get higher than your refresh rate in fps if you're using v-sync. Also, 4.4ghz/1.28 isn't by any means a bad situation for an overclock + even if the temps are slightly higher than you'd like, you're not going to burn your chip with 59c.
AMD uses two different kinds of temperatures: Socket and Core.
The Socket temperature readings are good for idle and light-loads, while Core is best for at-load temperatures.
As a general rule, you can tell the two readings apart by monitoring you temperatures at idle and at load. Core temperatures will be below ambient when idling, and Socket temperatures will be ambient + 5-10C. When at load, socket temperatures will be, generally, between 5-15C hotter than the Core temperatures.
http://postimg.org/image/57aovn8sz/ Here it is. This was only after about 8 minutes, but add like 1 degree to each reading and thats what it sits at on extended testing.
Yeah, it appears that your socket temperatures, at load, are running at 75C and your core temperatures are running at 58C. Everything lines up as it should, so it is not faulty probes or readings.
The bad news is that 75C is a touch too hot for the Socket, and 58C is getting close to maximum for the Core. So, I think you've just topped out on what that cooler can do for you in your situation. You can try to see if putting a fan over the back of the socket, or somehow otherwise directling airflow directly over the socket.
BF4 multiplayer 1080p on big maps, you getting limmited somewhat by the FX per core performance. Overclocking might help a bit. i think you should be able to get better numbers, but it also depends on the map and the servers and what not.
Here is a video from a Guy on LTT community who posted this video about BF4 multiplayer on a FX8320 + 780. Your scores are indeed low according to this.
Ah wait you are the exaly the same guy who has started a topic on LTT aswell. lol cool. ☺
And btw, his 780 is OC'ed, though im not sure how much over stock. And his 8320 is at 4.4 ghz. I just tried Lancang Damn at ultra settings and averaged 105 fps, with a max of 125. I suppose I am getting similar results. However, what concerns me are the temps.
hmm those numbers are basicly great. temps are a bit hot i agree, a better cooler might fix that. But also a good ariflow inside your case is important.
Probably not. A quick look at the Define R4 tells me that it has two 140mm fans running at ~1000rpm - as you said, one for intake, another for exhaust. While these may not be the best performing fans, just simply having airflow helps a lot. Adding addition fans will probably only help out your temperatures by a couple degrees. Fractal makes some pretty good cases. But, if you want to spend money and add an additional front intake, and top-exhaust, go for it.
But, before investing $20 in some fans that may have negligible impact, I would try to use a fan (like from your stock cooler) and see how some direct airflow to your motherboard socket is effected.