# My little FX-4100 Review (Preview)



## damric (Jan 20, 2012)

*My little FX-4100 Review (rev2)*

Bulldozer, the new black sheep processor from AMD. We have heard it breaks overclocking records in CPU and Memory frequency. We have also seen the reviews that say it is a step backwards in performance, and that it is a mixed bag at best. Well, I like to try new things, and supposedly my motherboard supports AM3+, so let's check out the cheapest version of AMD's new CPU.

I'll be testing the FX-4100 on my MSI 890FXA-GD65, and with some new 2x4GB G.Skill DDR3-2133 CL9 RipjawsX. PSU is a 700W OCZ Modsteam Pro. Graphics is powered by 2x HD 6850's, and I'm running Vista 64 DX11 on an Agility 2.







In this first picture, we see the new CPU Box, and some new thermal grease that was included for free in a newegg combo. This thermal grease even comes with a small plastic stick to spread the stuff. Kind of reminds me of Handi Snacks, except they didn't include any Ritz crackers ><






At any rate, I filled the gaps in pretty well on the Hyper212+. By the way, the included stock cooler is a bit different than what we are used to seeing lately from AMD. It is a descent sized aluminum cube with a copper core, but no copper heat pipes. It has the same familiar small AMD fan on it. I only took about 5 seconds to look at it and put it back in its box. I'll stick with the Hyper 212. 






Everything is assembled as neat as can be in my Cooler Master High Air Flow 912.






I had already installed the latest motherboard firmware for AM3+ support, and I cleared the CMOS afterward. Everything booted up into windows just fine.

First thing that I notice is that my Core Temp gadget is bugged somewhat, and displays the processor as "ES". It also shows some crazy colder than ambient idle temperatures. Next I open CPUID HWMonitor. HWM shows correct chip name, but the same buggy looking temps. Next I open CPU-Z. CPU-Z shows FX-4100, but with (ES). WTF did they send me an engineering sample? Lastly I open up AMD Overdrive. It shows the same buggy temperatures, but the right CPU name. I see that the new stock HT Link is 2600MHZ. Stock CPU-NB is displayed at 2000MHZ for this chip. RAM defaulted to 1600MHZ with some crappy CL11 timings. I see that the chip is currently in Turbo mode, with all cores at 3700MHZ instead of 3600MHZ, and at 1.4125V.

I wanted to see what would happen with that buggy temperature under some load so I started the AOD built in stability test. It raised some, but only to about 20'C, still a few degrees less than my normal case temp? Puzzled, I pull the side of my case off and touch the heatsink. Cool to the touch? Ok, well it is running cool, but idle temps are obviously buggy and inaccurate. Let's go peek in the BIOS. I restarted my computer.

The BIOS reads about 25'C, seemingly accurate for the stock clocked unloaded processor.

Well, I'm damn sure not going to run this chip at stock, so I started overclocking.

I disabled Turbo, Cool and Quiet, C1E, and Green Power, and pretty much anything else that looked like a tree hugger.

I started with the CPU Multi, turning it up to 4GHZ. I figured the 1.4125v that is used in Turbo mode will suit my needs for now. Boots. Stable!

Tried again with 4100MHZ, 4200MHZ, 4300MHZ, all stable. Finally at 4400MHZ I had to slightly bump voltage to remain stable. 4500MHZ needed a little more juice, and 4600MHZ needed quite a bit more. Finally my load temps in windows seemed somewhat normal, approaching 39'C, with the heatsink was still pretty cool. I put the CPU back to 3700MHZ for now, and played with the CPU-NB multi.

CPU-NB multiplier is capped at x12. Seems that it is stable at x12 (2400MHZ) with just stock voltage of 1.25. I can surely take this further with some HT reference clock tweaking.

Everything is going smooth so far. Let's see what I can do with memory. I have such high hopes for this DDR3-2133 kit after I saw the insane world record memory clock in the tech news, and we have all heard that Bulldozer has an improved memory controller. It even has a built-in 1866MHZ divider!

Well piss in my grits, it didn't boot at 1866. No worries, I'll reset CMOS and change around some voltages, loosen some timings, and fiddle the CPU-NB.

No go. 1866 divider refuses to work.

Next attempt is raising HT refernece clock with RAM on the 1600MHZ divider. Got it up around 1840MHZ.

About a week was spent tuning, stability testing, re-tuning, and becoming too familiar with my CLR CMOS. I ran 15 hour sessions of Prime95 small fft's, large fft's and blends, often coming home from work with my system crashed out.

Finally I found a 100% stable setting using HT reference clock of 225, a CPU multipler of x20, CPU-NB at x12, HT Link at x12, and memory on the 1600 divider (x8). Voltages were CPU 1.466v, CPU-NB 1.25v, and memory at 1.65v. 

*CPU 4500MHZ*, stress load temperature 40'C +/-3'C depending on ambient.

*CPU-NB 2700MHZ*

*HT Link 2700MHZ*

*Memory 1800MHZ*, and then tightened timings down to CL8 1T.






Higher settings seem possible, but only with greatly increased voltage, at which temperatures quickly climbed to 50'C. I'll revisit overclocking again with improved cooling at a later time. For now, let's see a few quick benches.

The latest version of AMD Overdrive scores tougher than older versions. Example is my 4GHZ Thuban used to get about 10K, but now gets around 7500. Apparently Bulldozer is good at playing AOD ;P






Maxmemm shows that latency isn't very up to par, considering I am used to about a 50ns score with Phenom II. There isn't really any speed gain or bandwidth gain, so I'm wondering if they forgot to include the improved memory controller, or if maybe it was all a dream.






LinX...stable, but only about as many GLOPS as my unlocked Sempron 130 @3GHZ. No where near the 50GFLOPS of my Phenom II 955 or 70 GLOPS of my 1090T.






I next loaded up 3dmark11 and performed the CPU Physics test. This test was absolutely brutal to my Phenom IIs, with my 955 barely reaching 20FPS at 4GHZ. The extra 500MHZ doesn't seem to help the poor FX-4100, as it can't manage 15FPS.






Next I fired up a couple games.

Far Cry 2 DX9 ran pretty smooth, able to hold 55-65FPS for most of the time with maximum AA and detail settings. There were some occasional drops into the forties, but nothing really different than Phenom II. Very playable. In the second screenshot I used super sampling instead of adaptive and it forced a GPU bottleneck, at least showing that the FX-4100 doesn't hold my HD 6850's back from reaching 99% usage if graphics are demanding enough.











Dragon Age was a different beast. I already knew it would hurt because I tested my 1090T and showed gains with all six cores enabled, and FPS drops with only four enabled, but six was enough for 60FPS at 3.6GHZ (vsynch-on). The FX-4100 struggled and struggled some more, seeing frequent drops into the 30's, especially when I stacked a bunch of aura type enhancements on multiple party members. Overall I'd say it was playable, but I'd hate to see what it runs like at stock frequencies.

Ran 3dMark06 and Vantage today so you can see CPU scores:






Also here are the temps:













---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you made it this far, you are a geek, or you skipped to the bottom to read the conclusion to this story.

_*Summary:* FX-4100, the CPU without a purpose.
_
*Good:*

- Overclocks fairly well.
- Runs cool, even with a descent overclock. Stock cooler looks like it would suffice for a moderate overclock.
- Came with free Xigmatek thermal grease in newegg combo, and a $20 newegg gift card.
- Good Enough to run newer games, but don't expect miracles for extremely CPU intensive ones.
- Was compatible with my 890FX motherboard. Remember all the trolls saying the pins wouldn't fit?

*Bad:*

- Performs worse than similarly priced Phenom II's, and would most likely get stomped by a Core i3.
- 1866 memory setting is absolutely useless.
- Memory latency...
- Despite a nice overclock, performance is rather bland and underwhelming.




> Overall, I would not reccommend buying this chip. But if you got one for free, it will be fun to play around with until you can ebay it, or pass it on to your grannie.
> 
> 6.0/10.



It's grown on me some. I'll give it a 7.5/10, but nothing higher until the available Phenom II quad supply dries up.


----------



## HUSKIE (Jan 20, 2012)

Good mate you can up that chip up tio 4.8ghz.


----------



## trickson (Jan 20, 2012)

That is very nice ! Sweet Over clock !


----------



## Batou1986 (Jan 20, 2012)

What volts are u pushing to the NB? Linpac stable?
I see all these super OC's on this chip but mines been giving me nothing but trouble.


----------



## qubit (Jan 20, 2012)

Cool, looking forward to it.


----------



## damric (Jan 21, 2012)

Rough draft added.



Batou1986 said:


> What volts are u pushing to the NB? Linpac stable?
> I see all these super OC's on this chip but mines been giving me nothing but trouble.



1.25volts, which appears to be stock.

I did run LinX, but did not take a screenshot for the review. Scored pretty bad at about 20GFLOPS, consdering my Phenom II 955 could do 50GFLOPS, and 1090T could do 70. Might be some buggy thread handling going on there.


----------



## seronx (Jan 21, 2012)

http://downloads.guru3d.com/x264-FHD-Benchmark-v1.0.1-64bit-download-2825.html <-- try this benchmark


----------



## damric (Jan 21, 2012)

seronx said:


> http://downloads.guru3d.com/x264-FHD-Benchmark-v1.0.1-64bit-download-2825.html <-- try this benchmark



I'll check it out, but I have nothing personal to reference it to, as I've never run it on any of my  other chips.


----------



## cadaveca (Jan 21, 2012)

Just a note that your memory clocking issues are board-related.


ASUS M5A99X EVO:






Your conclusion on the CPU though, is the same as my own.


----------



## Super XP (Jan 21, 2012)

Memory issue is board related just as the above poster indicated. All AMD FX CPU's run best with a minimum memory speed of 1866MHz. As for under performance, my current AMD FX 8120 blows away my late Phenom II x4 940 (clock for clock) by far in over 90% of benchmarks. 

Piledriver should hopefully close the gap further.


----------



## de.das.dude (Jan 21, 2012)

nice review. but 2 things. no 9 series board and the way you applied TM on the 212+ isnt very pleasing to me


----------



## trickson (Jan 21, 2012)

I would like to see some temps too .


----------



## btarunr (Jan 21, 2012)

If you got it in a retail box, why does CPU-Z read it as "ES" (engineering-sample)? Maybe you should seek a replacement, because AMD might in the future screw you over by denying warranty (because ES chips aren't covered by them).

The OC itself isn't bad though.


----------



## de.das.dude (Jan 21, 2012)

maybe thats becasue of the bios on the non supported mobo?


----------



## overclocking101 (Jan 21, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> Just a note that your memory clocking issues are board-related.
> 
> 
> ASUS M5A99X EVO:
> ...



he had 8gb not 4gb im sure that affects things as well


----------



## trickson (Jan 21, 2012)

So what is up ? I would like to see some temps .


----------



## ShiBDiB (Jan 21, 2012)

Thats an awful lot of TIM on that heatsink. But thats a whole nother discussion in itself.


----------



## Frick (Jan 21, 2012)

damric said:


> - Performs worse than similarly priced Phenom II's, and would most likely get stomped my a Core i3.



Got mine for €50, so I'm a happy camper.


----------



## cadaveca (Jan 21, 2012)

overclocking101 said:


> he had 8gb not 4gb im sure that affects things as well



Not really. It's just a matter of the divider working right. Ran into the same issue myself, with other boards. Try the ASUS, stuff just works. Well, at least now it does. 

The OP's board just needs a BIOS update is all.



CPU-Z ES thing is just what happens sometimes, too. CPU-Z/BIOS error. I've only tried one board with 1.59, but it seems to work alright. If I recall right from when I first got the FX-4100, I got hte same thing as well.


----------



## damric (Jan 21, 2012)

I agree. I'm wondering how much my mobo held back my memory. Of course I can't prove anything until I get another board. G.Skill techs told me that they found the IMC of the FX-CPUs to be very sketchy.

Ok about the TIM spread. You guys that own the Hyper 212+ can attest to this. There are some nasty ruts in between the heat pipes that need to be filled in. If you don't fill in the gaps and use the dot method, you will see imprinted stripes. The actual amount of TIM used otherwise is extremely thin, barely enough to color it grey. The newer Hyper 212+ Evo takes care of the heat pipe issues. This is a well documented problem with the Hyper 212+. The gap-filling method works great though, as you can see by my temperatures.

Thanks for the input fellas. I'll try and do more tests and maybe some comparison graphs as I get time. 

I added 3dmark06 and vantage scores, as well as temperature screenshots for y'all


----------



## cadaveca (Jan 22, 2012)

Yeah, it's an odd bird, these FX chips. Although, I am pretty sure it's just your board holding you back.

In the end though, we know tht the FX chips aren't full of raw power. I'm playing with mine now looking jsut at gmanig performance, not benchmarks. I spent the time overclocknig and getting the most I could, and the benchmarks aren't all that impressive, considering Phenom chips and Intel. But benchmarks don't always accurately relate true usability.

The BIOS on the ASUS board is pretty tight right now, doing exavtly what I want and expect, so I'm retiring my 2600k rig for now, and going back to AMD, just because...well..I got that fancy AMD FX watercooler. 

I'm very interested to see what you think after using the rig for a while, and whether first impressions change a bit.


----------



## Batou1986 (Jan 22, 2012)

Your mem isn't too far off, clocks in maxxmem are correct in my picture.
I could care less about benches BF3,Skyrim,DeusEx,f1 2011 all run flawless


----------



## damric (Jan 25, 2012)

Added CPU and GPU usage graphs of playing Far Cry 2. Maybe it's not such a bad gaming CPU after all...

Added LinX score too.


----------



## Super XP (Feb 14, 2012)

damric make sure you clean the lens from your camera, the pictures are blury. Anyhow thanks for your little review.


----------

