Can’t you still control the bios menu via the keyboard? I have a similar UEFI (that’s the term for it - it’s actually different from a BIOS although it fulfills the same function) and I can use mouse or keyboard inputs.
The TJmax on your chip is probably about 98c - that’s not a “safe” temp, but the point a which it starts throttling itself so that it doesn’t go any hotter. For normal use most people like to stay below 70c or so when stress testing (which generally keeps it under 65c for normal use). 5 ghz is optimistic with that cooler - 4.6 would be a more reasonable goal.
The problem is that the mouse is interfering with the BIOS cursors. By trying to use the arrow keys, if I leave the cursor idle in the middle of the screen, it will start scrolling back up again. The only way I was able to hinder this was by plugging in a separate keyboard (the k/m I use is a wireless combo with one usb receiver) with no mouse plugged in at all.
70C sounds like a lot. Even my 8800GT never got above the 60s, and that was only when I was playing a graphic-intensive game. Since my system is still a fresh build (W7 took 8 minutes from boot DVD to desktop, I shit you not!), I haven’t loaded much on here yet. I’m going to give some benchmark programs a run first and see how things run before I start messing with the OC settings, and then gradually work my way up. Being a OC-friendly MB, I hope it will compensate if I mess up the voltage settings. I really haven’t done much OCing in the past, but I didn’t realize that the processor AND motherboard manufacturers are friendlier to it now (Intel even has a commercial promoting the OC features on their K model chips) then they were 10 years ago.
Got the CPU OCed up to 4.6ghz, which gave a 36% improvement on the PCMark benchmark over the base speed of 3.4. It loses power if I try to go over 4.8, so I’m satisfied.
Only tangentially related to the thread (which has been fascinating reading, btw), but some of the desktops and laptops I sell at work have AMD processors in them and they’re surprisingly difficult to sell since it seems almost none of the general public have ever heard of them- but they do know the name “Intel”. So, from a marketing perspective, Intel are a better choice than AMD in the minds of a significant number of non-computer folks.
I ran the same BD-Rebuilder race overnight. This time I set my laptop to high performance mode with all screen savers, sleep and hibernation deactivated. The results:
I gotta say, in the APU side of things, and specially in terms of gaming performance AMD is got intel beat.
The new AMD APU’s coming out can play modern games at higher resolution and higher settings than consoles and with better or on par performance.
You’ll be able to build a super slim cheap desktop gaming PC for the cost of a console, or be able to get some decent gaming performance out of an affordable netbook.
Does AMD actually have working fusion chips? I thought we were still a year off. I don’t think this is a terribly large concern to the sort of person who’d actually know the difference between CPUs - they’re going to be using discrete graphics cards.
Incidentally, that reminds me of something really stupid and odd intel is doing. The K series sandy bridge chips, 2500k and 2600k, have a better graphics unit on-die than the non-K units. The K units are marketed to overclockers, people who want serious performance from their pc, people who would NEVER use the on-die graphics capabilities of that cpu. So essentially they gave the best version of their integrated graphics to the people who are least likely to ever use it.
No, it’s not. They’ve simply never heard of the brand- Intel manage to advertise on TV, AMD don’t, for example- and thus people come to me and say “I want the computer with the Intel processor in it”. Doesn’t bother me too much- the Intel stuff is good, after all- but I thought it might be an interesting data point all the same.
I just bought an HP DM1Z - this has an AMD Fusion processor (basically a dual core AMD proc and an ATI Radeon something or other all on the same die) for $400. I got it today and installed portal 2 and it ran super smooth.
This is my favorite form factor for a laptop computer. I had the previous generation of HP AMD 12 inch netbook/laptop but it died because I used it so much that I plugged the fan and it was overheating all the time. I tried to take it apart to clean it out and ended up breaking it. Oops.
Yeah, CPU/GPU fusion combos are the future of cheap computers (and probably consoles). They don’t provide the discrete performance of a real graphics card by a long shot, but it’s several times better than the half-ass intel integrated graphics most stuff uses now.