The silicon* lottery

britain4 · 6 Jan 2018 at 12:14

Just a little moan lol, in my current system I have an i7 4770k that refuses to run at more than 4.5ghz even with silly voltages - I need 1.31v just to get 4.5 out of it (luckily it’s delidded and I have a good cooler), a 780 ti that artifacts above 1185mhz even with a voltage mod (temps are limiting any higher voltage now) and 2 sticks of Corsair Vengeance 2400 RAM that run fine at XMP but as soon as I try to lower any of the timings by 1 it either blue screens, fails stress test or just refuses to boot even with a voltage boost. Maybe I will try running at 2666 with the same timings... lol.

Not the worst results but all 3 are below average and you’d think I’d have some luck with at least 1 of them lol. My old 2500k was an overclocking monster too. Anyone else have similar bad luck with their components?

*thank you for pointing out the silly spelling mistake in the title lol

Thekwango · 6 Jan 2018 at 12:19

So you've 2 parts that are running well above rated and 1 running at rated specs? Not sure you're what the issue is.

David Bisset · 6 Jan 2018 at 12:36

Silicon takes offence at being given the wrong name, otherwise it would clock higher.

LewisRaz · 6 Jan 2018 at 12:41

It happens... My 980ti overclocked a long way above what most were getting.
My 1080s were both rubbish for OC and capped out lower than some aftermarket models were shipping as standard.
My 6700k also needs 1.4v to get 4.6ghz...

All pure luck unless you fork out for binned components

EsaT · 6 Jan 2018 at 13:21

LewisRaz said:
My 6700k also needs 1.4v to get 4.6ghz...

Amount of free overclocking room has become lot smaller from Core 2 era of 10 years ago.
Myself had 1,25VID Q9550 which I undervolted to 1,2V while increasing clocks fair 30%
Which was actually good and meaningfull speed boost for only small power consumption increase.

Finners · 6 Jan 2018 at 13:24

Just look at the bigger picture, if your 4770k was running at 4.8Ghz that would be in the top 10% maybe even top 5% of those chips.

That's only ~6% faster than you are at now, that translates to even lower % returns in gaming. Its really not that much performance you are missing.

britain4 · 6 Jan 2018 at 13:35

Thekwango said:
So you've 2 parts that are running well above rated and 1 running at rated specs? Not sure you're what the issue is.

Well no issue, not complaining about the components at all, just my luck that all 3 of them are below average OCers lol. Maybe I’ve just been spoilt in the past.

David Bisset said:
Silicon takes offence at being given the wrong name, otherwise it would clock higher.

Ah crap I knew that! No wonder I can’t overclock silicone!

LewisRaz said:
It happens... My 980ti overclocked a long way above what most were getting.
My 1080s were both rubbish for OC and capped out lower than some aftermarket models were shipping as standard.
My 6700k also needs 1.4v to get 4.6ghz...

All pure luck unless you fork out for binned components

Yup 100% luck of the draw, same with my 780, it won’t go higher than the factory OC models! Had to flash a custom BIOS to get it this far!

passifid · 6 Jan 2018 at 13:39

Bah my 4770k refuses even 4.2ghz under an aio at 1.35 it just bsod anything I've tried above 4.0 never bothered overclocking it since as 100-200mjz is nothing i wanted a 4.5 even 4.4 would be nice for the symmetry

britain4 · 6 Jan 2018 at 14:08

Finners said:
Just look at the bigger picture, if your 4770k was running at 4.8Ghz that would be in the top 10% maybe even top 5% of those chips.

That's only ~6% faster than you are at now, that translates to even lower % returns in gaming. Its really not that much performance you are missing.

This is true... you know how this hobby is though, it’s fun pushing for every last MHz you can get

passifid said:
Bah my 4770k refuses even 4.2ghz under an aio at 1.35 it just bsod anything I've tried above 4.0 never bothered overclocking it since as 100-200mjz is nothing i wanted a 4.5 even 4.4 would be nice for the symmetry

That one certainly is below average, as pointed out not missing out on much performance I’m sure but sucks if you like chasing numbers

passifid · 6 Jan 2018 at 15:31

britain4 said:
This is true... you know how this hobby is though, it’s fun pushing for every last MHz you can get

That one certainly is below average, as pointed out not missing out on much performance I’m sure but sucks if you like chasing numbers

Pretty much correct I get about 150-180fps in most of my games so it's not an issue but it would be nice to have got a saving and bought a 4770 instead and also not an aio but a £19 hobby and put the £100 to something else since it was just for the fun overclocking

britain4 · 6 Jan 2018 at 15:46

passifid said:
Pretty much correct I get about 150-180fps in most of my games so it's not an issue but it would be nice to have got a saving and bought a 4770 instead and also not an aio but a £19 hobby and put the £100 to something else since it was just for the fun overclocking

Yeah even at 4ghz a 4770k is still a bit of a powerhouse tbh. Know what you mean about the money saving though. Tried the voltages any higher? I could go higher on mine but I don’t think it scales very well after 4.5

I’m stress testing the RAM now at 2600mhz (2666 failed) and 1t command rate but stock timings, if it does another few more hours I’ll scratch that one off my unlucky list lol

Devrij · 6 Jan 2018 at 15:56

I have a 3770k that does 4.5ghz at 1.25v, but even with 1.4v won't do an inch more. Temps max at 65c even with the high volts. It's very frustrating, so I feel your pain. It's fine, but knowing you aren't limited by heat or volts, and it's just that your chip says no, that's irritating. I game at 144hz so the clockspeed would be greatly beneficial too. My 980ti is also a rubbish clocker.

I've had some great chips in the past though so I feel like I'm paying my dues here. My next chip is going to be great though. I feel it in my bones

britain4 · 6 Jan 2018 at 23:17

Devrij said:
I have a 3770k that does 4.5ghz at 1.25v, but even with 1.4v won't do an inch more. Temps max at 65c even with the high volts. It's very frustrating, so I feel your pain. It's fine, but knowing you aren't limited by heat or volts, and it's just that your chip says no, that's irritating. I game at 144hz so the clockspeed would be greatly beneficial too. My 980ti is also a rubbish clocker.

I've had some great chips in the past though so I feel like I'm paying my dues here. My next chip is going to be great though. I feel it in my bones

Exactly, you know what I mean lol. Not like 300mhz is going to make a blind bit of difference to anything but that doesn’t stop me wanting to chase it.

The RAM is proving underwhelming definitely, I can’t do a single change to it without compromising either speed or timings. Either way I’m not moaning as I got exactly the performance I paid for

just a bit frustrating!

Devrij · 7 Jan 2018 at 00:02

britain4 said:
Exactly, you know what I mean lol. Not like 300mhz is going to make a blind bit of difference to anything but that doesn’t stop me wanting to chase it.

The RAM is proving underwhelming definitely, I can’t do a single change to it without compromising either speed or timings. Either way I’m not moaning as I got exactly the performance I paid for just a bit frustrating!

I'm tempted to give my RAM another go. I left it at stock because RAM clocking just seems trickier. I tend to always think it's stable and then one particular application exposes instability a couple weeks later.

britain4 · 7 Jan 2018 at 18:33

Devrij said:
I'm tempted to give my RAM another go. I left it at stock because RAM clocking just seems trickier. I tend to always think it's stable and then one particular application exposes instability a couple weeks later.

Yeah RAM is tricky. Can be seriously time consuming doing 1 timing at a time then the stress test crashing after like 3 hours lol. Thankfully mine just plain old refused to boot so it was quite a quick process

new boy · 7 Jan 2018 at 19:51

I had a bad run. I had a 3570k that was a turd, then killed it and replaced it with a 2600k that was also a turd (now suspect motherboard was poor) also had a 7850 and 7950 that were bad clockers at the time.

Then I got a new z97 board and a 4790k that was AMAZING, also got a 290x that was very very good, then replaced it with a 980ti which is sort of average, maybe a bit bellow average.

What can you do? Its just how it is, you just have to roll with it.

britain4 · 7 Jan 2018 at 23:31

new boy said:
I had a bad run. I had a 3570k that was a turd, then killed it and replaced it with a 2600k that was also a turd (now suspect motherboard was poor) also had a 7850 and 7950 that were bad clockers at the time.

Then I got a new z97 board and a 4790k that was AMAZING, also got a 290x that was very very good, then replaced it with a 980ti which is sort of average, maybe a bit bellow average.

What can you do? Its just how it is, you just have to roll with it.

Yup true, just hope I have better luck with my next build - which will be a long way off now after “refreshing” my current one.

I paid out all that money for an “overclocking” motherboard too lol. Not that my parts are bad in isolation just that I’ve managed to get 3 below average overclockers in the same PC

(Might have got somewhere with the RAM actually so if it passes this stress test I won’t be too unhappy)