My CPU is as Hot as My Sweet Arse

[kotora]

isn't it more of an issue of watts?


I thought azns were supposed to be good with numbers anyway

[Mirage]

Doesn't matter if a PSU can deliver 5000 watt if it can't deliver more than 10 amps on the 12V, the voltage the video cards need. Watt is voltage*current, so the wattage your PSU can deliver to the video card is entirely dependent on how many amps it can push down the 12V.

Ideally, a good PSU should be able to push most of its rated wattage to the 12V rail(s), and second most important, the 3.3V, where the CPU gets its power. These are the two most power hungry components in the PC.

PSUs made with powerful video cards in mind also sometimes have several 12V rails. My relatively weak PSU (in terms of wattage (450W)) can still power most new cards because it's got two 12Vs, one that can deliver 15 A and another that can deliver 16 A. It's also able to let almost all the total power be directed to those two rails. A 500W PSU with just 8 or 10 A on 12V would be destroyed if trying to run video cards my PSU has no real problems with. Not that 500W PSUs would ever be configured like that in this day and age.

[Peegee]

Hey that was more informative than I was expecting. Thanks!
edit: yes - new PSU fixed the issue <3

[Peegee]

@Mandee - did your cpu cool down a bit? Maybe get a different heatsink?

I have a question - am I going crazy or did a computer upgrade lower my performance?


(#1 and #3 for comparison)

I can't figure out how this is possible. I am running 6 gigs of ram instead of 8 (when I moved the ram, I got a DIMM(s) checksum error) - would it account for that much performance drop?

[Mirage]

Maybe you messed up a dial/triple channel setup, lowering RAM bandwidth by a lot, that's the only thing I can think of.

Except maybe a driver issue. Or a specific bug when running that 7 year old benchmark on a new CPU .

[Peegee]

None of those. You know what it was? The board doesn't support that particular processor if it's 125W (I specifically asked too)

It's a good thing I'm an idiot who bought two processors. I plugged in the 95W version and CPU-Z is making me giddy!

now to sell the 125W. U want AMD Phenom II X4 945 125W?

[Mirage]

You sure you can't find a way around it, like with a BIOS upgrade?

[Peegee]

You sure you can't find a way around it, like with a BIOS upgrade?

the manufacturer's site specifically states only the 95W version is compatible.

I'm shocked it even booted (well that's a half lie - it would boot but obv the item is incompatible so and hence the behaviour)