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1

Hey Guys! How is everybody?

I've been watching The Tek videos and so forth for a couple months, a friend let me know about that awesomeness, and I finally decided to put a build together.

I'm about $440 in, and I think I'm done for a while...

Specs:

Case: Apex SK-393-C

(PoS that gets the job done)

Mobo:ASRock FM2A75M-DGS Micro ATX AMD 

(This thing.... on the one hand it's cramped as FUCK: I had to rework my wifi solution to fit my GPU, more on that below. On the other hand, the UEFI just blows me away....)

CPU: AMD A6-5400K

(This thing is sweet -- the GPU side actually talks to my GPU and works as a crossfire card -- unbelievable! )

GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 6670 1GB 128-bit DDR3

(Huge fan/heatsink relative to mobo size on this thing -- completely blocks the PCI slot I needed for my wifi card)

PSU: Corsair Builder Series CX430 80 Plus Bronze

(Pretty cheap, no frills, does the job)

RAM: G.Skill Sniper Series 2x4GB 1866

(Decent price)

HDD1: Refurbished 160GB WD Caviar 7200RPM Bare Drive

(Quite cheap, does the job)

HDD2: 500GB 2.5" HDD out of my old MacBook Pro

(Not installed yet)

CPU Cooler: Xigmatek Loki w/ 2nd fan

(Hasn't arrived yet)

Case Fans: 2x Linkworld (wtf?) 90mm fans

(Not arrived yet)

Wifi: Netgear External something-or-other, 300MBps x 2 

(Bought at Wal-Mart to replace a Rosewill PCIE Wireless N dual band card thanks to the GPU size)

I have overclocked the CPU to 4.0GHz.\

I used Artic Silver thermal paste rather than that OEM bullshit.

I'm considering overclocking the GPU to 1GHz and the CPU to 5.0GHz, and the RAM over 2000.

Again, I paid less than $450, and the performance is amazing -- haven't had any issues yet.

I play mostly older games, I think my newest is STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, and I've had zero issues there, except for slight vsync problems, tears, but I can't get that to happen consistently. 

I am using a HANNspree monitor that does double duty as a PS3 display, connecting over HDMI.

 

I would love to hear opinions:

Did I get a good value? (Bought everything through Newegg except the wifi dongle, I like them, and Shoprunner is AWESOME)

Do you think I can push the CPU to 5.0 without cooling issues? How about 6.0? The mobo will do 6.3.

Where would you consider my bottleneck is, if I have one?

Am I going to have problems with Borderlands 2, Skyrim, Crysis 2, etc.?

 

Aaaaand I'm off for now, MineCraft and Netflix await me.

2

Did I get a good value? (Bought everything through Newegg except the wifi dongle, I like them, and Shoprunner is AWESOME)

Do you think I can push the CPU to 5.0 without cooling issues? How about 6.0? The mobo will do 6.3.

Where would you consider my bottleneck is, if I have one?

Am I going to have problems with Borderlands 2, Skyrim, Crysis 2, etc.?

  • More or less, but you should have gone with an A8. You can probably get better performance by using the 6670 by itself, as the A6's GPU is significantly slower, and is probably holding back the 6670 in the "Dual Graphics" (formerly "Hybrid CrossFire") set up.
  • If you have a massive cooler, 5.0 might be doable, but I doubt your motherboard is up to the task. anything above 5.5, and you're likely going to need some exotic cooling with some exotic power delivery.
  • It's pretty balanced, but low end. Some games (like Skyrim) will see a CPU bottleneck, especially since you only got a dual-core, while others will see a GPU bottleneck. 
  • I'm pretty sure you can play those games without issue, though you won't be able to have the highest settings.
3

Well, I am planning to upgrade to an A10 when I can (maybe not, maybe an FX-6300 or better) but that's gotta wait for more money, to be honest. 

I'll look into that -- I can fire up PlayClaw and STALKER each way and see if I have any performance changes (Or BL2/Skyrim once I get my hands on them.)

The cooler -- I did mention the Xigmatek Loki. Is that "massive" enough for 5.0-5.5?

4

No. The Loki fits more in the category of "dinky." I'm not intimately familiar with AMD overclocking, but I'd imagine you can get moderate overclocks, maybe 4.4 or 4.5, but 5 might be a bit much. When I massive, I mean the likes of the Noctua NH-D14, or the Phanteks PH-TC14PE. Again, in addition to the cooling issue, there is the issue of the motherboard, it's power delivery system, and the cooling for the VRMs. Taking a second look at the motherboard, you may not even hit much higher than 4.2GHz due to power constraints, but again, I'm not intimately familiar with AMD overclocking.

5

Well, power constraints not with standing, it did give me the option of up to 6.3. 

I do want to replace the mobo at some point anyway. It's cramped as all hell -- note where I mentioned above the need to replace the wireless card with an external dongle.

6

Just because you can doesn't mean you should. There are also thermal limits, voltage limits, and a bunch of other variables to consider, including luck. Short of an exotic LN2 cooling set up, you can forget about 6.3. I know the FX-8150 has been pushed to something like 8GHz, but that was with only a single core active, top of the line motherboard, and cream of the cream in terms of CPU binning, and it was just "stable" enough to run a few benchmarks. The top of the line Trinity APU has been pushed to 7.3GHz, but again, that was under ideal conditions.

PCGamesHardware.de reports that two of the A10-5800K's four cores were disabled in order to achieve the 7.3177 GHz clock speed (along with a healthy dose of liquid nitrogen cooling).

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/AMD-Trinity-Overclocked-A10-5800K-7.3GHz,18223.html

The practical limits of CPU overclocking end at about ~5GHz (give or take 200MHz) for the FX, and probably less with APUs. Someone who really knows what they're doing can squeeze a bit more, but just with CPU multipliers and voltages you aren't going to take it that high.

Also, in overclocking, there becomes a point where efficiency tanks, the amount of voltage required to keep stability will shorten the life of the CPU. There are a quite few people who can push their 2500k's to 5GHz, or even 5.2GHz, but the power/voltage required and heat generated really doesn't justify the performance gain say a more moderate OC, such as 4.6 - 4.8 GHz, not to mention the one clocked at over 5GHz will probably only last a year or so before dying. Personally, I'm leaving mine at 4.5 GHz because that extra 100MHz increment requires a significant voltage jump (1.325v vs 1.38v, if I recall correctly), and with my high ambient temperatures, I can't really afford the extra heat generated with voltage. I'm already running a 42c delta (68c at 26c room temp), and that's with the Xigmatek Dark Knight.