AMD FX-8150 vs. Core i5-2500K and Core i7-2600K CPU Review

Overclocking

Since the AMD FX-8150 comes with an unlocked clock multiplier, you have two options to overclock this CPU: by increasing its base clock and/or by increasing its clock multiplier.

Also, AMD is offering a liquid cooling solution manufactured by Asetek for this CPU. (See Figure 3.) While we ran our tests using the default air cooler that comes with the CPU, we decided to use the optional liquid cooling solution for our overclocking tests.

Figure 3: Liquid cooling solution for the FX-8150 offered by AMD

Figure 4: Liquid cooling solution for the FX-8150 offered by AMD

With this CPU, we were able to increase its clock multiplier from 18x to 21x, and the base clock from 200 MHz to 235 MHz. This made the CPU internal clock increase from 3.6 GHz to 4.935 GHz, an impressive 37% clock increase. In order to do that, we increased the CPU voltage to 1.368756 V, the memory controller voltage to 1.368750 V, and the CPU VDDA voltage to 2.76875 V. Due to the short time we had between receiving the system and publishing its review, we spent only one hour overclocking this CPU. With more time and more patience, you are sure to get even higher results.