FM1, Interesting new platform?

[Dirk Broer]

Had to postpone the second HD 6670 for several reasons, one of which was that an Asrock Mobo under my Intel Quad died.
Replaced the DDR2 board with it's DDR3 nephew from Asrock, and upgraded it to 8Gb. Still cheaper (at some 83 Euros) than
upgrading the original DDR2 board to 8 Gb (some 128 Euros), which shows you how DDR3 RAM prices have gone south, while DDR2 went north.
The other reason is that I could acquire a second FM1 Mobo for my temporary laid-off A6-3500, a Gigabyte A75M-UD2H.
As 2133 Mhz memory with decent latency has become affordable, I will try that in the new set-up and try to push the A6-3500 to its limits.

[Dirk Broer]

I had to learn my way around the

old-skool, but highly tweakable, GigaByte BIOS -as compared to the state-of-the-art ASUS UEFI-, but in the end it is only just a way to set the parameters.
At first my for-the-time-being 1600 Mhz memory would not run faster than 1333 Mhz, but I licked that and the performance got quite a boost. It must have been the other reason besides the app_info.xml that quadruppled the productivty of my A6-3500, as the app_info.xml itself would only do twice as much at the same time, and not necessarily in the same time. Now I got 4 Einstein WUs in 12 hours instead of just one, which shows again how memory-speed sensitive the FM1 (and FM2) boards are. After my birthday in August I will definitely buy memory of 2133 Mhz to see whether another perfrmance leap can be made by just adding faster memory. I also hope to be able to upgrade this system to an A8-3870K as well, and then I'll try to see what 'unlocked' really means.

[AMDave]

You are having way too much fun.
"... but I licked that ..." - you know there's an app for that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zfl6w...feature=fvwrel


ha ha. Just joking. I know its a tpyo, but I couldn't resist.

But seriously you are getting rewards from you exploration into the guts of the configuration.

Great work and Thank You for continuing to share with the rest of us.

[Dirk Broer]

It's not a tpyo, it's slang (and no Aussie slang at that). Look at 5 with the verbs:

lick
v. licked, lick·ing, licks
v.tr.
1. To pass the tongue over or along: lick a stamp.
2. To lap up.
3. To lap or flicker at like a tongue: The waves licked the sides of the boat.
4. Slang To punish with a beating; thrash.
5. Slang To get the better of; defeat: licked her weight problem.
v.intr.
To pass or lap quickly and rapidly: The flames licked at our feet.
n.
1. The act or process of licking.
2. An amount obtained by licking: a lick of ice cream.
3. A small quantity; a bit: hasn't got a lick of common sense.
4. A deposit of exposed natural salt that is licked by passing animals.
5. A sudden hard stroke; a blow.
6. An attempt; a try.
7. Informal Speed; pace: moving along at a good lick.
8. Music A phrase improvised by a soloist, especially on the guitar or banjo.

[AMDave]

for sure I thought you meant something else but now here I sit re-edjumucated. I'd never heard of n. 8. either. but v. 5. has given me some material for a good jape with someone.

[Dirk Broer]

There are complete websites devoted to guitar licks, and the lick in music even has its own Wikipedia article
But then again so has jape or even FM1

[AMDave]

Thanks for the links. I learned stuff today

[Dirk Broer]

I learned something these lasts days as well, and it came a bit as a surprise:

In order to overclock a FM1 system you need a HDMI or a DVI cable/monitor combo because d-sub/VGA will not get you a higher FSB than 104 Mhz.

My brandnew G.Skill 2133 Mhz memory will only work at that speed when I connect my daughter's Samsung Syncmaster to the system,
ye olde iiyama vision master pro 410 just won't cut it better than 1866 Mhz (but with awfully tight latencies).

[NeoGen]

That is a very interesting bug to report back to the motherboard manufacturer!

I imagine that electronically all components have to be in a very tight sync with each others to work, but some BIOS coder(s) must have not used VGA output in a while to miss that one.

[Dirk Broer]

That is a very interesting bug to report back to the motherboard manufacturer!

Seems no bug, but a fact. VGA does not seem to like too high busspeeds on the FM1 platform. Have to buy a new monitor in order to overclock my APU. Strange, but true.

But now for the good news: AMD has lowered the prices on a number of FM1 APUs/CPUs and AM3 CPUs (I even spotted a FM2 APU, but I think A4-5300 is a typo for A6-3500!):

Processor	Old price	New price	Difference
A8-3870K	101 dollar	91 dollar	9.9%
A8-3850	97 dollar	87 dollar	10.3%
A6-3670K	80 dollar	77 dollar	3.7%
A4-5300	53 dollar	47 dollar	11.3%
A4-3400	48 dollar	40 dollar	16.7%
A4-3300	46 dollar	36 dollar	21.7%
Athlon II X4 651	92 dollar	76 dollar	17.4%
Athlon II X4 645	102 dollar	87 dollar	14.7%
Athlon II X4 641	81 dollar	65 dollar	19.8%
Athlon II X4 640	98 dollar	67 dollar	31.6%
Athlon II X4 631	79 dollar	65 dollar	17.7%
Athlon II X3 460	87 dollar	69 dollar	20.7%
Athlon II X3 455	76 dollar	65 dollar	14.5%
Athlon II X3 450	76 dollar	60 dollar	21.1%
Athlon II X2 265	69 dollar	48 dollar	30.4%
Athlon II X2 260	64 dollar	48 dollar	25.0%
Athlon II X2 255	60 dollar	47 dollar	21.7%
Athlon II X2 250	58 dollar	47 dollar	19.0%