970 chipset HyperTransport bus bottleneck for FX?

[Contiusa]

Hi guys, I have a 970A-D3P motherboard with a FX-6300. I read that the HT of Vishera is 2600Mhz, but my motherboard specs says 2400Mhz (4800MT/s).

Why's that? I read at the AMD forum that the motherboard vendor should provide a BIOS upgrade for 5800MT/s. Is that correct? If not, why sell a motherboard that does not fully support the FX and place it in the support list?

[Contiusa]

Anyone?

[Contiusa]

What are the consequences of running a 2600Mhz CPU in a 2400Mhz motherboard? Would be an undervoltage?

[Vezina]

There is no consequence for that CPU.I tested with my own.As long as it s at least 2200MT it s ok.

The chipset can t cope with 2600MT along full stability maybe.
Only AMD 990 chipset can do 2600MT as per datasheet.
The 970 chipsets are most probable "trashed" AMD RD 990 chipsets thus the limitations.

[Contiusa]

Thanks for the response, but did you test it with overclock? It feels weird to run a CPU in a board that does not support its native frequency. I mean, I know people who couldn't care less or who have no idea of that, but at the AMD forum a guy says that the word that goes around is that the sweet spot for the FX is 2600Mhz.

It would be better if the motherboard matched the native frequency of the CPU it says it support, in my view.

Do you know if there is a way to contact the Gigabyte devs and ask about it?

[Vezina]

I overclocked my FX 6300 to the death
But as you can see not on the board you are using.
I had a 970A-UD3 v1.0 with a FX 4100 2 years ago and the overclock that i did then ,with the mobo ,with the caped HT, did not impressed me.Not to say that i always considered the board to throttle the CPU in some occasions.
If there are limitations in overclocking are due to other factors and not due to the HT cap to 2400.

My overclock on the board in the signature was done in many combinations of NB  ,HT and CPU clocks and no matter what number of modules i was using there is no need to keep the HT at over 2400MT-s.
You wont loose anything performance wise ,you may gain more stability using even 2200MT.
On my CPU i got 4,4Ghz stable with 1,42 V  on all cores ,4,5Ghz on a quad config (it sems one of the modules was weak without pumping voltage) and i got on one module(2 cores) 4,7Ghz ,this being usable 24/7 if in need.Never forced the voltage to much as my H 60 was limiting me ,i never intended to pass 65 Celsius in load.

So the CPU has some nice overclocking talents.
Increasing the NB clock also brings performance even using a 2200Mhz.

So keep in mind that the board does not limit you via the HT in what you intend to do ,but other features of the board may though.\You will be limited by other factors long before the 2400HT would cap something.

If you want more overclocking room you need to upgrade to high end boards featuring 990 chipset ,boards that are more rich feature wise and not due to the chipset itself they are better.

[Contiusa]

Thanks again. Well, I might never overclock both of my rigs (you can see that I handpicked a Z77 that is not ideal for it), since I use it mainly for work.
But at the other hand, there is a discussion going on about the HT bus at the biggest Brazilian forum for computers and people are just stopping to refer AMD kits exactly because of these abnormalities; which is unheard of, since AMD was very popular in Brazil due to its cost benefit, but the Intel B75 and H81/H85 was already harassing the 970 chipset, and now this.

Honestly, I understand what you say and the HT cap might not be a culprit, but I might stop referring AMD kits as well because people just don't like to know these things. The AMD motherboard scene has been too chaotic to vow for it.

[Vezina]

The AM3+ is an outdated platform and if six core or octocore CPU-s are not needed ,one can get FM2 or FM2+ boards that have great value along a K(unlocked) APU/CPU.
There is great value in them as at 60 dollars(or more) you get boards that overclock easily and have features that on AM3+ are missing or work via 3-rd party chips under performing ,see USB 3.0.
Power efficiency is great also.
In my country Intel comboes are to expensive for what they are.

Stock performance of the six core FX 6300 can be equaled via FM2+ or overclocked FM2 chips.

AM3+ proper boards are indeed expensive in relation to what they offer ,but i would say they are history.

[Contiusa]

Yes, I expect the FX series to be discontinued. This is what everyone is saying, but the FM2 platform is too expensive in Brazil, perhaps because they don't sell very well. For the same price you get a combo of i3/GTX 550 Ti, which performs better, especially in gaming.

At least in Brazil, what killed AMD cost benefit was the appearance of the Intel B75 chipset with SATA 6gbs and USB 3.0 for a very affordable price. Any combo of i3/i5 is cheaper and performs better than the counterpart in most cases. Before the B75 chipset, AMD was the king of cost benefit.

But I know that in the US is another story. But AMD dropped the ball on this one. They should have contacted the main motherboard factories and pushed a board like the B75. I guarantee that AMD would be sailing in Brazil even with the FX series.

But, well, it’s no use crying over spilt milk. They did what they did.

[Vezina]

In my country ,a UE country ,if you want a cheap gaming system ,FM2/+ is the way.

Few days ago i ve build a gaming system with a 5800K for a youngster and the performance was excellent for the money even at 1080p.The mobo was an A78 chipset based FM2+ one and the USB 3.0 and SATA3.0 performance was better than on my FM2 boards in my signature.
 
Maybe people don t know the FM2+ platform in your country well yet ,it s an excellent value.Test them and discuss them more on your forums.

I would have to limit myself to an i3 to compete in price with a FM2 rig ,an i5 CPU is already double the price of a AMD APU.

If you don like the APU approach there are the 750K and 760K that overclock like crazy and cost super affordable on the FM2.
Comboes with this ones also rule in price per performance ration and even in power efficiency.
The system with a 5800K even overclocked on the GPU side ,never sucked more than 30W in idle and 175W in load

Something must be wrong in your country if AMD is no more the most affordable

[Contiusa]

I know, but the APUs were highly anticipated by the computer crowd and in the beginning people were talking a lot about it, but then the prices were questioned and nowadays you seldom hear about it. Indeed an i3 with an average VGA costs the same as a 6800K kit. Memory is expensive here, especially above 1600MHz. And people don't like the single core performance of the FX modules. But this I reckon is a worldwide trend.

The thing is, I had a Phenom 1090T for years and I respected it very much, and people expected a great chip on Bulldozer. And it came worse. Even today, years later, the Vishera has the same performance of the Phenom cores and the tests are done with only one core using the module. If both cores are sharing the module you are not going to have the same performance of the Phenom core. This is what killed it. People think twice before vowing for it.

Richland didn't arrive in Brazil yet (Intel releases arrive in a week -- I don't know who to blame), but if it comes with a good price, it could be worth it.

[Contiusa]

My mistake, we already have Kaveri APUs, but just the APUs. An example of how underground the FM socket is 

[Vezina]

Kaveri is Fusion.
It is an APU ,but in same time ,when new applications will learn to use it, the GPU and CPU units will work together as a whole.So even though Kaveri only CPU-s may be launched the APU is practically a computing unit all together ,a hybrid kind of CPU.

Thus buying an unlocked Kaveri ,but with fewer GPU units ,thus cheaper, could be a good choice.

I wouldn t ignore FM2+ socket in the few months to come ,the mobos are dirt cheap and excellent even for overclocking.
The Kaveri  included sound part is also interesting.