How to get the best performance of an AMD


I have always been for the underdog. The guy no one likes, the team no one supports, the processor that everyone thinks is no longer in the game.
I have also always been a little under the funds and great with overclocking, cooling and mods.
I have only once owned an Intel, but have had probably 10-15 AMD computers in my time.
These computers always under performed, but got me a good, strong enough computer for the money I spent.
So I always spent about $400 on my computers total. Cheap motherboard and processor combo and wait for upgrades or low cost motherboard paired with a mid cost AMD processor.
Well, I found out AMD has been making awesome processors all along. I was just doing it wrong. I found the fix that makes your AMD run just as well as the Intel in the same class.

I ran an AMD FX8320 on a MSI 970A G46 for a couple years and came into a deal for an FX9590. So I got it. I forget what I paid, but I did okay. The problem was, the FX8320’s default watts is 125W while the FX9590’s default watts is 220W. Big difference. So I bought liquid cooling because that beast gets hot. Super hot. And, what I never expected, the 970A G46 caps at 200 watts – which explained the sudden crashes. So I go buy a Sabertooth 990 motherboard and slap the FX9590 on it and I’m good to go. I also grabbed some more RAM and a hard drive because now I have two computers; one that runs like a tank and one that gives the spank. What I saw in performance in the short time the FX9590 was on the G46 board, was outrageous difference. My girlfriend used to borrow my G46 computer to edit videos and it would take forever to render them in Camtasia. Meanwhile, her i7 2600K would do it in no time. What would take my FX8320 1.25 hours to render, her i7 2600K would do in 15 minutes or less. Often less. The FX9590 on the G46 motherboard would render the videos in just under an hour. Now the FX9590 on the Sabertooth motherboard was showing great progress. It would render the videos in just under 22 minutes. Not as wonderful as her i7, but sure was a huge difference from the G46. Well, I got curious. I pulled the FX8320 from the G46 motherboard and put it on the Sabertooth and used the same last video to render. Under 18 minutes. So, I launched my AutoCAD, opened the last drawings, grabbed the nearest PDF I could find and dragged and dropped it into AutoCAD. No problem. Faster than I have ever worked in AutoCAD with an Xref PDF in my life.

It’s the motherboard.

The whole trick is the motherboard.
Everyone thinks AMD is for cheap builds. As if you can just buy everything cheap in the same class as Intel. So they buy cheap on everything. You can’t. You have to have a solid motherboard.

Match the Intel processor price range with your motherboard. What I mean is, if you want a high, strong, mid-grade running computer, look at the i5 cost, find the nearest motherboard to that cost, turn to AMD and grab a mid-grade processor. You will perform close enough to the Intel processor that it won’t make a bit of difference. Other than that, the biggest difference is the Intel guy making the same machine will have to eat the cost of his Intel motherboard.

By the way, I sold the FX9590 on eBay and the customer loved it. I made a fair amount back for what little use I had with the FX9590.
There is good chance that I could have and should have done more with the FX9590, but I was beyond happy with the FX8320 after the motherboard upgrade.
It is still running strong, right next to my latest build…which will be in another post at another time.

The main message here is don’t skimp on the motherboard. You can save money on everything you feel safe saving money on, but you will, without a doubt, see the best performance of a processor if you do not skimp on the motherboard.
And the gf now has an i7 7700K liquid cooled I put together for her so her computer would at least be from this decade. But she still uses the 2600K. It literally is just as strong as the 7700K.
Anyhow, later post about the Ryzen machine in the works. I may do benches of all 4. Let’s see if she wants to cooperate on this.

Heatsink Upgrade to Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus on AM3+ Review

The Girlfriend does a lot of video recording and editing internet companies. She runs an i7 processor and an Nvidia 970 video card with 16 gigs ram. She uses Camtasia software for a lot of her work. During the phase of compiling, we noticed sometimes her pc would crash, or lock up. After we installed speedfan we realized that she was hitting 180+ degrees so her intel was peaking high.
Until we could find her a new heatsink for her work horse, we tried to get by with my Athlon II X3 445 (Tri-core cpu) and my AM2 6 core which I bought for $5 at Epic A resell store.

This was a hard fact to face. The i7 is flat out a beast, and my AMD machines were completely useless for her. Except maybe recording. Rendering a video that she just compiled normally would have taken 10-17 minutes on her machine (when working right) ended up saying it would take 45 minutes on the AM2 and approximately 3 hours on the tri core.

So we took a trip to the computer store and bought the best heatsink they could advise, and what has the best/most reviews on line. We bought her computer a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO. Her temperature now stays in the 110s while compiling. Oddly there is no noticeable damage to the cpu or motherboard.

PcCooler Heatsink

PcCooler Heatsink

IMG_1218 My AMDs that I was proud to have had running for so little investment, were crushed in the dirt and now useless for every function in the house. Between her video work and my autoCAD work, it was time for an upgrade. So I (being the true AMD Fan I am) took a trip to the local computer store and brought home an AM3+ 8320 processor, 16 gigs of pny Anarchy 1866 ram, and an MSI 970A-G46 motherboard. of course a new case. Dropped my Geforce GTX460 Video card in and slapped on the factory heatsink, installed a spare power supply we had. Installed windows 7 and pushed the computer to her and said “well, try it out”.

We head back up to the computer parts store and buy a $21 heatsink.  Give it one test and find that it was time to take another trip to the computer store to buy the exact same heatsink we bought for her intel cpu. Within 1-2 minutes of rendering, the temperature of the processor jumped from the cool 98 degrees up  near 140 degrees and was climbing faster every second. The PCcooler heatsink is great for dissipating heat, at idle. but it was as if there was a threshold of like 115 degrees before it’s method of absorbing and dissipating heat become utterly useless. I will not throw it away. I will be installing it on another pc, but I’ll have to add an extra fan or something experimental.

Since I remember the instructions for the girlfriend’s computer came with instructions and spare parts for an AM3+ processor, I decided to search for the same heatsink.

I found the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus sounded like and looked like the same heatsink. Chased down the reviews and found everyone complaining about the install instructions but praising the cooling. Bought it for $35 and got free shipping.

DSC_0002It took all of about 10 minutes to install the new heatsink. I admit I cheated and watch this guy’s video though. I had to remove one side case fan for clearance, the processor heatsink was just too tall for my ENERMAX case.
Right away I went to rendering a video I compiled last night . When I tried to render the video last night, though the new computer made light work of the task, my cpu temperatures got to 145 degrees.
but now with the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus heatsink, re-rendering the same video took less than half the time it did last night and temperatures never exceeded 116 degrees.

The build is finally a success. and total cost under $600. and so far nothing runs slow, nothing hangs so far and it seems my autocad is flying. even using the knock off brands of cad design like bricsCAD, nanoCAD or ProgeCAD. They all run smooth with no pausing, no “thinking”.

Temperatures while in autocad never exceed 113 degrees.

I even ran a windows benchmark.
tempsidle
Sorry about the screenshot with in a screenshot. Only way I could think to get both scores up at once.

Review score for the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
Ease of installation: 10/10
visible appeal: 10/10
effectiveness: 10/10
noise factor: 9/10

Final score: 10/10

Extra score = Instructions booklet usefulness: 1/10

Processor benchmark scores up to date

looks like passmark just updated today .
Steak and Bj day of all days.
Seems they are married people. lol
That’s the Assgot Ring Effect
put a ring on her finger and her assgot bigger and her mouth got smaller.
but here is the scores from their site.

High End Cpu scores

Mid Range Cpu Scores

Low End Cpu Scores

Common Processors

Now For the one we really wanted to see.
Over Clocked Processors

Looks to me as of today 3/14/09 Amd Is the best “right out of the box” central Processing Units
but when you overclock, Intel i7 stomps.. Very good job guys, thanks for the scores.