The FX 8320....my journey into under-volting an 8 core CPU
4
I have had my FX-8320 for a little over a month, but I couldn't help but
notice how hot in general these things run. Even though I am using the
stock cooler, and the chip has never surpassed the 61c core temp danger
zone, it has came close a few times. I couldn't for the life of me
believe that the stock cooler for this chip was "that bad".
I
just thought these chips ran a little on the hotside in general, and as
long as you don't exceed 61c on the core and 70c on the socket temp,
then everything was ok. That is true, but I had an idea to try a little experiment. I thought, lets see what
the stock voltage is on these things, and see if we can lower that in
any significant way and see what we get.
According to CPU World, the FX 8320 has the following Boosted Pstates (Voltage at Turbo Core Clocks)
#1: 4000 MHz, 1.425V
#2: 3700 MHz, 1.4125V
The
Stock Voltage at 3.5 GHz is anywhere between 1.3375 to 1.3875v
depending on the motherboard and manufacturer. On my Biostar TA 970 v5 the default Vcore was set at
1.3375 volts.
Now with this information in mind, I set out on my under-volting journey.
