Power management of AMD FX-8120 Bulldozer

[Cheeru]

Few days ago I have purchased the ASUS CFV Motherboard for the purpose of building a AMD Bulldozer based computer for my all needs. I was looking for a good performance out of the computer. For that reason I have found a compatible processor and that is AMD FX-8120. This is a BullD0zer processor. I hope that I don’t need to explain more about this processor because it is already known processor because several blogs and forums have been discussing about this CPU from the past several months. I have installed it on my motherboard but a strange problem I have found that I couldn’t able to get it to stop Speed. By changing the voltage, the CPU frequency drops from 3.1 GHz to 1.4 GHz. I need to keep it still at 3.1 GHz as a minimum. I tried for it lot time but couldn’t succeed. What to do now?

[Himalayan]

As far as I know that consumption of the IDLE processor is around 100W, which denotes a Bios Bug not recognizing the processor and does not make good management correctly or maybe something happened to them the reviews (could be both) that processor can walk to +3.20 GHz with only 1.100v, as I saw many reviews about the voltage 1.425v haunted by something that is not good, is almost 30% more stock consumption. When actualized the BIOS again, it is possible to correct this bug, because this processor is capable of going down to 400 MHz to save energy, according to data provided by AMD...

[Ramona19]

Do you have any idea about the Asus motherboards?

I have heard that these motherboards have been giving problem with throttling the processor. No matter how you need to thrust or overclock the processor, the motherboard won’t able to take it in any manner. So I order to resolve these issues first of all you need to make sure that the motherboard is running the latest version of BIOS. Then turning on and off the CNQ again in overdrive would temporarily fix the problem. Also, if you are running Windows 7 in your computer, then you have to make sure that you have got a hotfix for it. The Microsoft has released a Hotfix to solve problem with those who are running Windows 7 with AMD Bulldozer processor.

[Gimbya]

You cannot blame AMD that the reviews were not made for people like me to analyze the situation. AMD always gives low price CPUs and right now they are using technology that is the same as technology used in Intel i7. Then reason with this Intel products are more expensive not because of what they spend on their technologies this is because of the marketing. Even if it is a low cost processor I don’t want it to be going down to 1.4 GHz. Have you turned off the C1E? Sometimes in my case I have noticed that it is dropping frames constantly and sometimes speeding back up. Now I don’t think that is Auto throttling the games in order to run them smoother and sitting on 3.4 GHz constantly. Something else is going on with this processor which I couldn’t able to find out yet.

[Cain]

I had read some forum that they made a test disabling a core module x, the result was far superior performance, where the jump in performance between Bulldozer and Thuban was remarkable, even stood at par and slightly higher than current i7 Sandy Bridge. At some point it crossed my mind that the deplorable performance but Bulldozer is not quite bad. The problem I assume that only due to the software being used for and it is not well optimized for the full use of Bulldozer. Did you try turning off the power saving options. Try installing the PhenomMSRTweaker. It will help you to configure the customized power saver profiles and from that you can set how much load processor need when you up a P-State. I am quite sure that PhenomMSRTweaker works well with the Bulldozer processors.

[Quasim]

According to AMD, the power management of FX has been the subject of special attention because in addition to the classic PowerNow!, Bulldozer can pause caches, as well as some units while a calculation of the FPU is planned for low power. We should also mention the bulk of support states C6, C1E, a method of memory management and APM (Power Management Application) which all aim to minimize the consumption control via the bios and / or of software such as the AMD Overdrive. AMD says Bulldozer architecture and resource sharing between two cores within a module is designed to reduce consumption. This unfortunately does not seem to be the case.

[sushantbankar]

The AMD Turbo Core, similar to Intel Turbo Boost, seeks to optimize the performance of the processor by adjusting the rate based on consumption and temperature. When the thermal margin allows, technology increases the frequency, then the work is performed more quickly and the first processor returns to the idle state (idle). Application Power Management (APM) describes the ability of the Zambezi / Valencia / Interlagos track (real time) the amount of energy that each core consumes. Rather than taking measures thermal or current, you trace the activities of each module Bulldozer.

[jamiejohn]

AMD knows how much energy need for each operation, and is able to process the energy used to form instantly. A quick comparison between actual consumption and the maximum TDP indicates whether or not there is room for enhanced performance. For instance, suppose you use an application that does not require many resources to the CPU: the Turbo Core alternates between the base frequency of the CPU and a higher average for the best overall performance with a TDP defined.

[Mrigankasekhar]

The Turbo Core is not limited only to a basic and some higher frequency arbitrary. Indeed, it is organized in three states p: base (called P2), an intermediate state (P1) and a high state (P0). This is an improvement over the first generation of Turbo Core, which passed only between two states P. It is a significant step forward because you can get into P1 with all eight cores active, until there is room. Go to P0 requires that at least two of the four modules are idle. AMD can overcome the TDP for brief moments, but clearly the processor cannot stay too long.

So when you look at the specifications of an FX processor and see the specific Base, Turbo Core and Turbo Core Max, you are assured of always having at least the base frequency. See the Turbo Core frequency up to when the TDP is under control. And, every time that half of the core is idle, you can reach the maximum speed Turbo Core.

[AabheerM]

Depending on use, the voltage in IDLE is considerably lower than the maximum value, so it depends what you feel the CPU at full load at 1.4v. Always make sure that you have a good cooling system in your computer which will help you to keep the CPU temperature below red line and make the CPU to work stable. It will help you to gain better performance. If the temp rises above the normal point, then the power saving feature for AMD bulldozer processor may directly downclock the frequency to make it cool quickly. In any case I personally think that the most balanced consumption / performance is to 4GHz, than it consumes just more to gain not much in terms of performance (in addition to 4GHz you can still keep active all the functionality of the CPU).