AMD FX 9370 manual

AMD FX Processors U nleashed | a Gui de to Performance Tuning w i th AMD Ov erDrive and the ne w AMD FX Processors[...]

2 Disclaimer The information presen ted in this docu ment is for in formational purposes only and may contain technical inaccuracies , omissions and ty pographical errors. The information conta ined herein is subje ct to change and may be rendere d inaccurate for many reasons, including but not limited to product and ro admap changes, co mponent an[...]

3 Introduction Systems based on the platform technology codenamed “Scorpius” may be tuned to deli v er added system perform a nce. The AMD FX™ CPUs and th e AMD 9-series chipset motherboards offer an exci ting amount of performance tuning options, incl u ding potential overclocking headroo m. Note that eac h processor and c h ipset is d iffer[...]

4 Glossar y of Terms HyperTrans p ort™ Re ferenc e Cl o ck (H T ref. clk) : The bas e cloc k for various clock do mains o n the AMD “Scorpius” pla tf orm technology. H T r ef. clock is 200MHz by default. CPU, CPU NB, H T L i nk and Memory c locks are all link ed to HT ref. clock. HT ref. clock adjustment is a go od tool f or fine tu ni ng the[...]

5 Glossar y of Terms – c ont inued CPU / CPU NB Voltage OFFSET: Most AMD “Scorpius” p latfor m technology m otherboards have a BIOS opt i on that allows Voltage ad j ustments beyond th e C PU V ID Voltage range. This voltage offset is added on top of the VID v a lue. Voltage off se t could be ne gative or positive. Actual vo ltage level = CPU[...]

6 AMD OverD r ive™ utilit y The AMD Ove rDr ive™ uti lity is a comprehensive utili ty for per for mance tuni n g, system monitoring and testing. PLE A S E NOTE THAT THE AMD PRODUCT WARRANTY DOES NOT COVER D A MAGES C A USED BY RUNNING C OMPO NENTS OU T SIDE OF SPECIFIC A T ION. Download from AMD Game! W eb site - http:/ / sites.amd.com /us/game[...]

7 Figure 1, presented ab ove sho w s all t h e available clock/voltage t u ning options av a ilable in the AMD O verDrive™ utility. The pro cessor, northbridge, PCIe and memory can all be adjusted to obtain an optimally tuned system. Detailed description of Figure 1 ( A MD OverDrive utility screenshot): Current clock sp eeds (1) This section offe[...]

8 Memory Tuning Figure2: A MD OverDri v e™ utili ty Memor y Tuning Memor y timing adjustme n ts (1) The items circled with red color ca n directly affect the overall system performance. Reducing t hese values can improve the performance / l ower memory clock tuning margin whereas using h i gher values can enable higher memory clock sp e eds (but [...]

9 AMD OverDrive™ utility Stability Te st The AMD Ov e rDrive™ utili ty features an i mpr essive system stability assessment. The “Stability Test” tab under “ Performance C ontrol” inc orporates AMD ’s CPU te st al go rithms to stress the CPUs worst-case scenario. The test c o nsists of various parts that can be set to run only on a sp[...]

10 AMD “Sco r pius” plat form – Performance T uning Sugges tions CPU Core Clock P erformance Tunin g CPU core clock is the most important i tem to a djust for the advanced users w hen tuning the perf ormance of the system. The CPU Clock speed has a big impact on overall s y stem perf ormance. The following s teps explain how to de termine t h[...]

11 The key se tti n gs in t he W in do w s® XP, W indows Vista® or W indows 7® operating system to adj ust before overclocking t he CPU: • Close all ma j or applications and background to ol s and save any open document s • Set OS t o “High perf ormance” mode via “ Control Panel / Power Options” • Close any t hi rd party hard ware [...]

12 CPU NorthBridge Perfor mance Tuning The CPU Nort hBridge ( CPU NB) clock s pe ed det ermines the efficiency and b andwidth capacity of the Memory controller. L3 cach e runs at this frequenc y as well. CPU NB perf ormance tun i ng gives a measur able boost f or overall sy stem performance. In part icular it c an reduce the Memor y latency and imp[...]

13 Figure 7: A MD O v erDrive™ util i ty HT ref. c lock slider 5) Run a st ab ility test b efore increasing the HT re f. clock to another level 6) Adjust CPU NB VI D voltage slid er in A OD if there were any stability issues (in 0. 0 50V steps – th e AMD FX-8150 CPU may require 1.300…1. 375V C PU NB Voltage to reach the full performance tunin[...]

14 CPU NB performance tuning through the BIOS menu: 1) Set the CPU NB clock speed up to the n ext avail able value (example: if 1800 MHz / x9 is the def au lt and NB clock test i ng via AMD OverDrive utili t y was OK at 2000MHz then set C PU NB BIOS item to 2000MHz / x10 now) 2) Set CPU NB Voltage to a known st a ble v a lue (based o n the N B cloc[...]

15 Memory Performance tuning – AM3+ / DDR3 PLEASE NO TE TH A T THE A MD PRODUCT W A RR A NTY DOES NOT C OVER DA MAGES CAUSED BY RUNNING COMPONENTS OUTSIDE OF SP ECI F ICATION I NCL UDING DA MAGES C A USED B Y OVERCLOCKIN G (EVEN WHEN O VER CLOCKI NG IS ENABLED WITH THE AMD OVERDRIV E UTILIT Y ). Memory clock speed is tied to H T ref. clock w ith [...]

16 A dva n ced Memor y tuning examples: The f ollowing BIOS settings may improve the Memory perfor ma nce tuning margin and e nable o p eration at the higher memory c lock modes (DDR3-1866…2400). Figure 9: Ex ample setti n gs for DDR3-1866 memor y clock mode (2 D IMMs, one DIMM per channel)[...]

17 Figure 10: E xample settings for DDR3-2133 memo r y clock mode (2 DIMMs, one DIMM p er channel) The fo l lowing memory t imi ng fine tune paramete rs that may further i mprove the clock margins and/or st ab ility: Figure 11: Memo r y clock fine tuning par ameters NOTE: “Address/CMD Setup T i me” & “Address /CMD Fine Delay” –paramet[...]

18 HyperTransport™ (H T) reference cl ock HT ref e rence clock value h as no direct impact on system pe rformance. Theref ore the maximum amount of HT reference clock tuning is not required in ord er t o get the h i ghest perform a nce. HT ref. clock can be used t o fine tune and dial in the ot h er k ey clock values on the AMD “Scorpius ” pl[...]

19 AMD “Scorpiu s” P lat form T echnology – P erfo r mance T uning T arget s The fo l lowing table lists some pos si ble res u lts f or an unlocked AMD F X-8150 CP U as w ell as t h e optimal voltage values for most AMD “Sc o rpius” platf orm tec h nology systems. Note that t hese results are st ri ctly estimates based on overclocking dat[...]

20 ATTRIBUTION © 2011 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All ri g hts reserved. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, ATI, the ATI logo, , AMD OverDrive and combinations there o f are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. HyperTransport is a li cen sed trademark of the HyperTransport Technology Consortium. PCIe is a registered trademark of PCI-SIG. W indo ws, W[...]