4770k advice + RAM OC question

[Jasseh]

Hi 8 Pack,

I have been working on overclocking my 4770k (with Z87X-OC board) and now have it running at 4.5 GHz. I used RealBench for stability testing after every change I made in the bios, 5-6 runs of the stress test each time. I have also done some gaming and not had any problems (yet at least).

I am just wondering if you could advise me on what to change to reduce the temps, the settings I have changed to get 4.5 are:

Multi: 45x
Vcore: 1.3
VRIN: 1.8
RING V: 1.25
VRIN override LLC: Extreme
C1E, C3, C6/C7, and EIST: All Disabled

Max temps after 5 passes of RealBench were 87/86/83/76 although during gaming they haven't been quite that high (will test with BF3 multi tomorrow after work).

Spoiler

4.4 was stable with these settings (although I didn't try gaming):
Multi: 44x
Vcore: 1.24
VRIN: 1.7
RING V: 1.1
VRIN override LLC: Extreme
C1E, C3, C6/C7, and EIST: All Disabled

Max temps: 79/77/75/69. I will most likely drop it back to this if I can't get the temps down for 4.5 .

With everything at stock my Vcore was showing 1.1246 in Core Temp with turbo active at 3.9.

Also, is my RAM worth overclocking? I have this: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-158-GL
If it is, could you give me some advice on timings for higher speeds please?

Thanks.

 

[Jasseh]

Is llc on extreme necessary for these profiles to be stable?? If it is then the way i see it you have 3 options with your current set up.
1. Use offset mode on 4.5ghz profile so its not running full tilt all the time. (You need eist enabled for this)
2. Use 4.4 ghz profile.
3. De lid the chip and replace the TIM, should see a 10-15c temp drop.


Also to help the big man post your SA IO voltages.

Not sure if it is necessary, I set it to that after reading a haswell overclocking guide.

1. What settings (other than EIST enabled) would I need to change for offset mode?
2. Will be doing this if I can't get the temps down.
3. Would rather not void the warranty for the sake of 0.1 GHz.

I'll go check the SA IO voltages then update this post.

Thanks.

Edit:
Not sure which is the SA voltage on here so included a screenshot of HWinfo:

Spoiler

Bios settings for them are unchanged.
System Agent: Auto
CPU IO Analog: Auto
CPU IO Digital: Auto

I've dropped down to 4.4 GHz for now.

Edit again:
Back to 4.5 settings, 4.4 no longer stable at the previous settings and I don't have time to find stable settings for it tonight. I will try get it stable at 4.4 again tomorrow .

Side note: I can't take screenshots of the voltage section of the bios for some reason, even on stock settings, it just freezes when I try. Screenshots of other sections have worked fine though.

 

[Jasseh]

Thanks, I'll try that and see if it still freezes when I try screenshot the voltage section.

Dropping to 4.4 settings then changing back to 4.5 settings has somehow made 4.5 seem unstable too now . Core Temp freezes as soon as RealBench pushes the CPU to 100% load. I'm so tempted to just drop everything back to stock but then I'll feel like I've wasted money upgrading .

Edit:
Didn't stop the freezing issue for screenshots of voltage page in bios.
Trying 4.4 again with higher voltages, hopefully this time it will be stable.

Edit again:
Seems stable on 4.4 with the following changes to the previous 4.4 settings:
Vcore: 1.25
VRIN: 1.8
RINGV: 1.2

Exact same max temps as before even though the voltages are higher.

 

[Jasseh]

I'm really starting to regret upgrading to haswell now. 4.4 was unstable so I went back to optimised defaults and it still doesn't seem stable.

Just had a BSOD, DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION, after booting the PC and it looking like it was about to freeze (things weren't loading fully, like right click menu being partially transparent).

Going to run at stock for now and hope that was just a one off, all drivers are up to date and firmware on SSD is up to date.

Already had to RMA my first Z87X-OC as it had a power fault, hope I don't have to RMA anything else .