AMD A8-5600k APU Processor Review

This being a new technology, new type of processor and new platform in general, we never quite know what to expect but coupled up with a high-end board from Gigabyte, we were hopefuly that we could push things as far as possible.

The Gigabyte F2A85X-UP4 utilises the higher-end and new A85x chipset and allowed us to easily start tweaking the speed of the APU through use of the unlocked multiplier on our A8-5600k.

The first point was to disable Turbo CORE and other technologies that involve adjusting the speed of the chip without our input. Once this was done, we went straight in at 1.475V as the maximum rated voltage from AMD though you can go higher at your own risk. We pushed our multiplier to 42x and managed to boot and start benchmarking with 100% stability across a variety of benchmark applications.

Not content on stopping there, we pushed to 4.3GHz using the 43x multiplier with the same stability and our next logical step was 4.4GHz using the 44x multiplier. The NB voltage needed to be increased slightly to 1.3V to provide extra stability once in Windows and things were stable throughout all of our tests. Sadly the next step up at 4.5GHz managed to boot into Windows but proved that stability was a bit flaky and more volts would be needed so we decided to stop at 4.4GHz at 1.475.

Behind the scenes we did manage to push this chip to 4.7GHz on the Gigabyte board but this required a much higher voltage of 1.6V which we can’t condone as being safe for 24/7 usage, even though our temperatures seemed to be fine through idle and load under the Corsair H80 closed loop system, even when running some of the most extreme and extensive stress test applications on the market today including render and calculation tests which we use for peace of mind when it comes to stability for our reviews.