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Group Test: AMD FX-8350, FX-8320, FX-6300 And FX-4300 - All Vishera Processors (Part 5)

4/17/2013 9:11:38 AM

When talking about the FX-8350 processor, we came to the conclusion that Piledriver microarchitecture didn’t improve much the energy-efficiency of the Socket AM3+ processors. AMD’s products which were created with 32 nm process are still more power-consuming than the 22 nm rivals. However, Vishera modifications that were reviewed work at lower clock frequencies and have fewer cores, so they may be more energy-efficient than the leading processor. Especially, as six-core and quad-core modifications have 95W maximum TDP instead of 125W TDP in their “fully-equipped” siblings.

To understand more about the power consumption of all contemporary processors in the new AMD FX series, we carried out a round of specific tests. The new digital PSU from Corsair – AX1200i – allowed monitoring electrical power that was consumed and produced, which we used positively through our power consumption tests. The graphs below (except for any other requirements) show the full power draw of the computer (with no monitor) measured after having the power supply. It is the total power consumption of all system components. The PSU's efficiency didn’t count. The CPUs were loaded by operating the 64-bit version of LinX 0.6.4-AVX utility. Furthermore, we enabled Turbo mode and all power-saving technologies to correctly measure computer's power consumption in idle mode: C1E, C6, Enhanced Intel SpeedStep and AMD Cool ’n’ Quiet.

Idle mode

Idle mode

In idle mode all processors and platforms consumed about the same power. In idle mode, any processor would switch to special power-saving states, where the power consumption was very low – just a few watts. In this case the power consumption of other system components and the efficiency of the voltage regulator circuitry on the mainboard became more crucial and they partially covered the processor’s pure power consumption.

1 thread

1 thread

In case of single-threaded load, things started getting worse for AMD processors. The fastest and most energy-consuming LGA 1155 Core i7-3770K consumed remarkably less power than the most energy-efficient AMD FX product. Concurrently, AMD processors worked slower under this kind of load than Intel CPUs. Well, Vishera generation doesn’t waste the energy the way Zambezi processors did, but there is still no clearly recognizable sign of a change in quality.

100% load

100% load

The situation didn’t become better with AMD FX power consumption under multi-threaded load. FX-8350 turned out the most power-consuming CPU in our test. It consumed 4% more power than FX-8150 under maximum load and was 2/3 more power-hungry than Intel Core i7-3770K. Other members of the FX series on Vishera design worked a little better in comparison with their predecessors, but they weren’t still on par with any competitive offerings. At the same time, I have to say that FX-6300 and FX-4300 with 95W TDP looked much better than the background of all other Socket AM3+ processors. We also tested the old Core i5 processors created with 32nm process, at that time the new dual-module quad-core AMD processor could have been comparable against them in power consumption. Although with reference to performance, this comparison didn’t make sense.

In other words, it seems that contemporary AMD processors hopelessly fall behind their Intel competitors, regarding performance-per-watt. While in performance tests top eight-core Vishera processors could sometimes win Intel’s quad-core Ivy Bridge CPUs, all illusions disappeared into thin air the minute when it got down due to power consumption.

Overclocking

AMD FX processor series is thought as overclocked product. All these processors have unlocked frequency multipliers, which mean supporting simple overclocking. Note that both Zambezi and Vishera have sufficient frequency potential for a considerable performance boost, which, though, will come with serious increase in power consumption. Nonetheless, overclocking is an important competitive advantage of CPUs in the FX series. Intel processors can only be easily overclocked if they are in the price range of $220 and above. For AMD, they support over-clockers on a budget, which is one of the basic reasons why Socket AM3+ platform became more and more popular.

Saying about the Piledriver microarchitecture, AMD focused on that it increased frequency potential. Thus, we were quite optimistic about that Vishera processors will be more interesting to overclock than their predecessors, which could only reach as far as averagely 4.6GHz with air-cooler. Though, right from the start it is clear that the new processors didn’t have such improvement – the first FX-8350 processor we received in our lab was overclocked only to 4.7 GHz.

However, it is unfair to judge the overclocking potential of an entire series just by one single processor, so we decided to check out the overclock-ability of all four Vishera products. The purpose wasn’t to get a overclocking records, but to determine the frequency, at which new FX processors is able to continuously run in 24/7 mode without losing stability. Hence, we set the processor Vcore at 1.55V, according to advices from AMD engineers. The cooling system used was NZXT Havik 140. Then, we tested the overclocked system’s stability by executing OCCT 4.3.2 utility (30 minutes in Large Data Set mode).

First of all, we checked our FX-8350 processor once again. We hoped to get a better result than the initial 4.7GHz. However, we have already tested a few other FX-8350 samples since then and none of them was better. Hence, it looked like 4.7GHz is a typical overclocking limit for a flagship AMD FX processor equipped with an air cooler.

Overclocking AMD FX-8350

Overclocking AMD FX-8350

People may think that the junior processor models are not manufactured with the best semiconductor dies that is why their overclocking potential is usually much lower. Actually, this is a pretty rare case, and our FX-8320 unit proved that. It easily reached the 4.6GHz mark, which was only 100 MHz lower than the results received from its more expensive counterpart.

FX-8320 easily reached the 4.6GHz mark

FX-8320 easily reached the 4.6GHz mark

The six-core FX-6300, which features one disabled dual-core module, overclocked practically as well as the “completed” Vishera processors. It remained perfectly stable at the maximum 4.7GHz frequency.

FX-6300 remained perfectly stable at the maximum 4.7GHz frequency

FX-6300 remained perfectly stable at the maximum 4.7GHz frequency

We were very optimistic about AMD FX-4300 overclocking, because some sources reported it could hit the 5GHz mark with these CPUs, however, we couldn’t clarify their reports. Our particular processor with half of the active cores and only half of the L3 cache remained stable at Vishera’s typical max frequency (4.6 GHz), with no gambling at potentially dangerous Vcore levels, at least.

Some sources reported AMD FX-4300 could hit the 5GHz mark

Some sources reported AMD FX-4300 could hit the 5GHz mark

After all above, it seems that all FX processors on Piledriver microarchitecture plus independent of the number of cores they have, are able to overclock to about the same level of 4.6-4.7GHz with air-cooling. Well, it is better than what we saw from AMD FX’s previous-generation processors, but there is surely no improvement in quality in their frequency potential as mentioned. Though, over-clockers should be quite happy with these results, quite typical for 32nm processors.

I would like to mention that when we overclocked FX-6300 and FX-4300 processors by raising their Vcore to 1.5-1.55V, their temperature didn’t rise too much. Our six-core CPU’s temperature rose to 65°C maximum, while the quad-core temperature stayed at the low 53°C record. It means that you could raise the core voltage higher and achieve stability at even higher clock speeds. However, we cannot agree on this approach, because excessive increase in the processor’s Vcore may result in die degradation and hence this mode is unacceptable for long-term use.

 

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