Category: cpu

How to get the best performance of an AMD

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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.

How to Tell the Quality of Your Computer Hardware

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You want to know if you got a good deal on your processor and you want to know how to understand the classifications and how old your processor is. We all go through this.
Don’t worry, it’s a pretty easy, quick study to find and  there isn’t a whole lot to it. All of the gobbly goop stuff you hear people talking about is much easier to follow when you get the basics down. So…let’s do this. Let’s find out how fast your processor or video card is and which processors are faster or slower than yours.
I will explain this in a plain simple manor without using tech jargon. Don’t freak out.
You can click on any of the images in this post if you are having trouble seeing or reading them.

Age of your  hardware
The first digit from the left tells  how recent the technology is. Let’s say you bought an Intel CPU. That processor is a 7700K. If you look online  and you see nothing  higher at all, such as an 8700 or a 9700, then you are in the latest tech group. If you bought  an i7 5500 and you see online there are i7 7700 CPUs available, then you likely have bought a two year old  processor.

Power class of  your hardware
The second digit from the left tells you how strong your hardware is for it’s class.
If you have an i7 7700 and compare it to an i7 7600, the 7700 will be stronger.

Newer does not mean faster
If you have a 7600 and compare it to the 6700, the 6700 will be faster but incapable of doing some of the more recent tech tricks that have come out since the 6xxx models.

Is it clocked faster?
The last two digits tell you this.
All CPU makers (and video card makers) do a final push of their most recent (but soon closing out) product by shoveling out a hand full of overclocked processors. Intel, for example, ended their last batch of 6th generation i7 processors  with the 6900 rebadged and overclocked as 6950. The 6950 is the overclocked 6900. AMD did this with their FX processors, and shipped out the FX8300 rebadged as a 9590. Rightfully too. They made a beast of that processor. It sucked out more than twice the wattage the 8300 processors pushed, so you had to buy a special motherboard (of only like 5 available) that could handle so much wattage. It was a hot fickle beast, so water cooling was a must. 4.7 GHz out of the box. 5.0 GHz with turbo turned on – on 8 cores.

Now comes the last space. The lettering.
If you buy the i7 7700K, you have bought pretty much the flagship processor of 2017 Intel, but the more expensive, harder to locate and much faster processor is the X model – the i7 7700X.

AMD processors follow the same format

AMD Ryzen Classes

This is good. So we can all understand what we have without having to learn more formats.

Video cards now follow the same format.

Except, now you have to read right to left. That’s only because video cards go through the numbers faster and when they get done with the 1000’s spot, they start back over with a 3 digit identification (usually, who knows, this year may be different). What I am saying is read right to left to see what version. GT, GTX, TI, etc. Then, if it is overclocked, it will be identied by the first number from the right. Strength will be the second number from the right. The last 1 or 2 numbers (the 950GT having one number and the  1050GT having two numbers) will tell you how recent it is. Note that this number does not represent a year. It identifies a series.

Questions or complaints? Questions go at the bottom. Complaints…email those to the manufacturers.

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

Posted onAuthorTruXterLeave a comment

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

Posted onAuthorTruXter

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.

Computer Cooling

Posted onAuthorTruXter

Get more fans, reduce occupied space, tie wires back, increase air flow, and update heat paste.

Clean all dust out of all heatsinks and fans and off of any memory or any exposed chips.

Contrary to the past few years of opinions that say using some modified heat paste, and how it reduces temps by a drastic amount. I am currently using original heatsink that came with my CPU, and it has the factory tape on it. I have owned it for about 3 months now and done some pretty stiff gaming, mostly Crysis (demo) and Need For Speed Carbon and most wanted. My temperatures are amazing, but as I know with all things, it wont last. Or maybe it will. My current temperatures are as follows:

<taken from everest>

Temperatures
Motherboard 28 °C (82 °F)
CPU 22 °C (72 °F)
HDT722516DLAT80 31 °C (88 °F)
MAXTOR 6L080L4 23 °C (73 °F)

Cooling Fans
CPU 3013 RPM
Chassis 4116 RPM

Yes I know the Hittatchi is a little warmer than it could be, but in all the time I have messed with computers, I have never seen under 90 degrees for the CPU , other than right at boot. and that was typically around 89 degrees. I will be buying more of the heat tape that came with my Sempron if I can locate it.

Many people suggest that you use some paste/metal mix stuff. I have never been to keen on that junk, after it warms up for a long time and gets used a few times the stuff tends to harden, or become so tacky it’s like jb weld and could damage a few things when removing parts when cold.. Plus temps where always at least 8 degrees warmer than if I used the $3 white packets of paste. the major issue with the white stuff, well, you have to tend to it often and redo it atleast once every three months.

I try and not block any path of airflow. i have double checked airflow with a piece of scotch tape to see how it flaps and where it flaps.

The best cooling for a case involves a dremel, a drill, a metal file, 80 mm fan. and a brave brave soul. you use the dremel and a drill to punch an 80 mm hole at the top of the case facing upward and build yourself a fan there blowing air inward. the reason for inward is so you do not steal the air from the power supply cooling, that would easily increase the temp of ps unless you either make a tunnel or a blockade but would drop overall temp of case, now a tunnel makes great for making sure you blow air directly onto and across the motherboard.

Another suggestion is three 50mm fans across one of the CD-ROM bays but you have to build a frame for them.. which I will put on the site later… oh… and it is frickin’ loud.

Precautions For Building Computers

Posted onAuthorTruXter1 Comment

Use lots of overhead light. Once you have all the parts together, find a flat, smooth, clean, static-free surface. Make sure your clothes are not polyester or you stand a chance of building up buttloads of static and having a merciless discharge turning your junk into… well… junk.

I like using Gatorade lids to hold my screws and small parts in. Yeah Trailer Park Boys-ish, I know, but it works. Working above tile is good, also, so you can hear the small parts when they drop and kinda locate them easier by where the sound comes from. With the tower open and all parts scattered on the table, lower the motherboard in. Take small pin nails and set them through the mounting holes to mark your spot — should take like 6-9 of them depending on board size and tower abilities. Pull motherboard back out and try to not disturb the pin nails. Replace each nail with mounting studs, lower board in, and screw it down. Follow instructions in the manuals for motherboard and instructions from tower to set up power switches and USB connectors. you may sometimes need to split the end connector for the tower speaker so it fits the prongs. Tie back wires so they stay low and out of view.

Insert RAM, CPU, and heat sink. Simply put: Be gentle, be slow, bend no prongs, and scratch no boards

Set in all drives: CD-ROM / DVD / hard drive / floppy drive. Place the power supply in, and take the board connecting the wire strand and try and map the cleanest, least visible route. Then plug it in. Do not crack the motherboard (yes, it can happen)! Do the same with the drives. I tie them to the rack as I go down the line. Keep hard drives away from all magnets — even the case speaker magnet!

The Video card is done pretty much the same way as the RAM. The slit(s) in the card tells you which way it should face.

Get a good look at the inner case. All air paths need to be clear of anything — even wires. Now plan the path your air will flow and then look at your fans to see which direction the blades should face to achieve the airflow you planned.

Close the case, cross toes, plug in all devices for first boot, and press power button. Pray for BIOS/CMOS boot. Press delete and watch temperatures for about ten minutes or until you see that it is getting really hot.

More stuff to keep in mind.

Computer Component Removal

Posted onAuthorTruXter

For hardware removal, there are some simple rules you should follow.

  1. Unplug the PC first!
  2. Disconnect all wires coming from the power supply. Unscrew the four screws on the back of the power supply. Slide the power supply out of its case and set it aside.
  3. Disconnect all IDE cables and FDD cables and set them aside.
  4. Unscrew all screws from all drives and slide drives out and set them aside.
  5. Unscrew the fan on the heatsink. Unclasp the heatsink, wipe off heat paste, and set aside. Pull out CPU, wipe off paste, and set it with prongs facing up.
  6. Disconnect power and reset buttons, wires, and USB wires and case speaker wires. Tie them back.
  7. Unscrew the retaining screw for the video card. Undo locking mech (if you have AGP) and just slide the AGP card out.
  8. Push down on retaining clips on the memory cards and slide memory cards out and set aside.
  9. Unscrew retaining screws for the motherboard. Pull the motherboard out and set it aside.
  10. If you are just cleaning , I suggest you use canned air and blast every little inch in which you see dust (but do not be careless); remember, some items cannot take a beating, so be very careful.
  11. Just reverse the removal method when you are ready to reinstall.

my page

Computer Hardware Installation

Posted onAuthorTruXter

Installing hardware into a fresh PC is not that complicated, really.

If the prongs and the holes line up, read the part number and look it up and check compatibilities. Sometimes some hardware is too powerful, so checking specs is always a plus. 80% of the time they will work, but sometimes you can run into problems — like an AMD Athlon XP will not fit into an AMD Athlon 64 board. Same goes for AMD and Pentium. Prongs won’t line up.

The red wire always faces toward the power source. Look really close to the IDE cables (even the ones with the center top hole filled); you will notice there is a red dotted wire. Magnify it if you need to. Same with the FDD seven cable twist. FDD plugs in after the twist — never before.

PCI or AGP video cards just clip in. If it has a hook at the end, it is AGP. If not, then it is not. AGP will be the smaller slot.

Memory is just a clip in, also. Look up board manufacturers and part numbers and read through the specs for the board to know the minimum and maximum memory capabilities for your PC. (I have also looked this up more than… well, plenty of times and can easily do it. You can, too!)

With the CPU, once again, part numbers and manufacturer numbers are of wonderful help. Check board specs, check CPU specs, and always double check before the hard part, which is sliding the CPU into the dock. Squirt a thin layer of heat sink paste on the side facing away from the motherboard. Set the heatsink onto the CPU and center it before it actually touches (so you don’t smear off the heat paste while wiggling all around to position it). Clasp the retainer on either side. Screw the fan down to the heatsink. Plug the fan into the board.

With the power supply, make sure you have one strong enough to run your fan and that meets your CPU’s requirements. Make sure it is fastened really tightly; clip all wires into what ever hole they fit in (this is usually true). If you have one drive power connector that has no other splices or additional connectors on it, I would suggest you either use it for the master drive or you could plug your fans and lights into that connector.

With IDE and FDD cables, red goes toward the power source.

The use of a hot glue gun by splatting a tad at the clasps for most parts except the CPU is okay to prevent stuff from falling out of place.

Scroll to the bottom of my page if you want to make a donation and request further assistance. Any donation helps! If the problem is resolved, please pass this link on when you know of someone in need.

Shopping Tip: PC Vs Laptop

Posted onAuthorTruXter2 Comments

If you are in the market for a new computer but are not sure if you should get a personal computer with a tower and a monitor, or a laptop, Hopefully this article will help you. I will try and weigh the differences for you.

For the first I will start with PC (personal computer).

Ups.

A personal computer can have high amounts of power in many of the parts, Like fresh up to date video card for the gamers or high quality video watchers, Or powerful processor(s) to do the tasks you need to get done, latest and greatest up to date memory and full capacity . Nice 25inch monitor and the keyboard and or mouse of your choice allowing you to make all use of the items as easy as you want. Well Like I have a trusty keyboard I bought from CompUSA at least four years ago that has tons of extra keys for items that I may need to open and run plus it’s own scroll wheel so I can skip ahead 5 lines at a time when I know I am on a huge page and need something from the bottom of the page, but do not feel like grabbing the mouse. That wheel also works in video games. My mouse is Memorex mouse with 5 buttons plus the wheel clicks for other uses, in most games the wheel clicks for an aimer and the side button are stand up and lay down. Both of those items where my own choice and my selection, as the case for my pc is my choice with ventilation So I can run the fans I feel I need to cool my computer the way I want and have it look the way I want. Everything can be modified and upgraded.

Downs.

Lots of wires everywhere. Huge tower that I keep bumping with my knee and I know someday I will bump it hard enough to scratch the hard drive . Can hardly ever move it or take it anywhere, like on vacation. No way of just putting it away and pulling back out when in need for usage without a frickin’ owner’s manual on how to rewire it back together. I never have been good at memory games. All of the add on parts are quite costly. When buying speakers you have to select some that will sound good, look good, and last and might be impressive, So you kinda have to learn all that or trust ol’ brad from the sales desk. Pretty loud, is most annoying when using as a media center.

For thsi next section I will cover the laptops:

Ups.

Portability, design, ease of use, small, convenient, hides away nice when a guest comes over with a toddler, Slides right under the seat in my car, Has a mouse and keyboard, monitor, and speakers built right in, you can add on third party if you want but do not have to ! Really makes great use of the Wi-Fi system you set your house up to, You can actually now sit on the couch in your skivvies and pizza stained t-shirt and let that computer desk chair collect dust. You can cook and check your email or MySpace message with your laptop resting safely on the counter while you fry your bologna.

Downs.

Once that keyboard is damages or worn out, It gets expensive, once that monitor breaks, well it’s really quite ruined and probably a better idea to buy a new one instead of replace it. If that toddler gets hold of the laptop, it’s screwed. The mouse built into laptops has always been something that just bothers me into utter stress, because they never seem to do what I want them to do without a few tries. Can get stolen easily. Will warp if left under the seat in my car on a hot day when I get stuck somewhere a little longer than I anticipated. I always have to remember to gather it up when I leave a location that I took the thing out of my car. Not very good for gaming or video compression, most parts are not upgradeable.

Okay, I just covered my likes and dislikes now I will do the run down of what is the better choice.

For those who are into high end monster power tasks, Go for the PC. For everyone else get the laptop, you will get ten times more out of the laptop than what you will get from the pc. Take that sucker to work with ya. Just when you are shopping , if they do not state the specifications of what is in the computer, chances are they are outdated.

GLHF

TruXter