4790k Overclocking Help

Associate
Joined
28 Apr 2009
Posts
784
This question is actually from my friend so don't confuse it with similar issues I've asked about before. :p He's bought near the same that I have but unlike me he isn't de-lidded nor is he getting lucky like I did with a simple overclock that just worked. :( He was gonna post himself but it's taking awhile to activate his account so he sent me the copy/paste.

Dave said:
I have an Intel 4790k CPU and quite fancy getting it to between 4600-4800 24/7 stable. I have a decent cooler on it and current temps at stock seem quite reasonable for this particular chip, so there's room to go with it. I use Handbrake quite a bit so the extra clock speed would be welcome.

I've never done any overclocking before so when I asked my mate about it he pointed me here. Here's the overclocking screen options I have on my start up menu. Can you recommend what settings I should tweak and what I should use to test the stability afterwards. I'm a total newcomer so don't leave anything out, please. Cheers guys. I did have one attempt at moving the CPU to 48x but it didn't start so I moved it to 46 but crashed in Windows the second I ran a program. :(

Specs of my machine if that's helpful?

4790k
550W Corsair Power Supply
Corsair AIO Cooler
MSI Board G5-Z97
16GB Crucial Memory
Nvidia Graphics Card 750
2 + 1TB Hard Drives

1zxmcsy.jpg


vsibuv.jpg


27ydbgm.jpg
 
First thing i would do is turn on XMP Extreme memory profile, that will set the right mem timings and voltage to keep that stable.

Next thing i would do is download HWinfo64 i use to keep an eye on temps and volts in windows.

THen i would check to see what temps your getting at stock volts to make sure you have room to play with. Find out what your temps are under load.

I wouldnt wanna tell you to turn up the volts or multi untill i knew you were getting good temps, might just cause it to overheat before youve even started.
 
He's in the 50's right now under load so that shouldn't be an issue too much.
Just enabled XMP and that's activated the enhanced turbo @ 99.99 x 44.0x .
 
Last edited:
50s under load is great, so i guess i would try setting your CPU core volts to 1.25v then try 46 ratio again and see if its stable, personally i just skipped straight to 1.3v for 48 ratio, after i checked it was stable i dropped it down a little.

Some people needed to turn their VCCIN voltage up to between 1.8 and 2v, but i personally left my alone, on auto it runs at 1.75 and seems to work fine.

I use 46 ring ratio, i believe it doesnt make much difference, but people suggest turning it up a little to avoid a bottle neck. I certainly didnt notice any difference in benchmarks turning it any higher.

Once you figure out what overclock your settling on you will proberbly want to set and offset voltage, i believe you do that by changing the CPU/RING/GT voltage to adaptive. THen you set an offset voltage, for me 1.3v is about +0.09v but youll have to test it out yourself by loading windows and putting it under load then check in HWinfo to see how many volts the core is running at and just change the offset untill it matches the voltage you found works best for your overclock. Dont forget to set your ratio to 40 again while your doing that so it doesnt crash due to low voltage.

This worked for me btw, but i have got quite a good chip, you might need higher voltages on the VCCIN and the core to get the same results.
 
CPU Core at 1.3
VCCIN at 2v
Ring Ratio at 46
Multi at 48x

Real Bench crashes after about 15 seconds. :P Anything else we can try?
 
yeah idd, i didnt need to on my board, but i guess your board might need a little LLC. With a quick google i believe its called vdroop control on that bios. I dont know what the options are but set it to the most agressive option, maybe extreme/maximum i dunno.

Ya might just need more core voltage for 4.8ghz also, some people are using 1.35+, just keep an eye on your load temps, people say stay under mid 80s, but i prefer mid 70s then in hot weather its not gonna start getting to hot.
 
Yeah looks like its under the Overclocking>DigitALL Power section and listed CPU Vdroop Offset Control. But it may vary slightly on your BIOS. Try setting that manually 100% maybe and observe voltage fluctuation using CPU-Z under load. If it works the same as ASUS boards 100% should eliminate vdroop completely. If you don't have any joy with that you'll likely need more vcore for stability.
 
Last edited:
Initially froze on Real Bench so I bumped up CPU up a notch and tried again. Ran the full 15 minutes stress test so we're looking better right now. Think I should give prime a try with it? Any other things to look at?

dnynok.jpg
 
Failed in the Real Bench benchmark when the full screen video kicked in. :( Bumped core to 1.4v and it didn't even last 5 seconds in burn test. I suspect this chip isn't a winner!

Mine does 4.8/5 all day at 1.380 core so I have that to compare against. I don't fancy pumping 1.4v+ through his system 24/7 in case I kill his chip either. I think we're gonna end up at 4.6 on the clocks with this if we're really lucky which when compared against the auto 4.4 I can get with X.M.P. doesn't seem worth the bother.

Reckon I should just leave him at the 4.4 for maximum speed/stability trade off?
 
Yeah that was the setting as you posted above. When you set it to +100% what happens to the voltage under load? If you set it to 1.4v with +100% does the voltage drop below 1.4v when stressed? Prob easiest to load up CPU-Z alongside Real Bench to check this.
 
If he isnt gonna be messing with overclocking at all him self i would'nt leave him with something that might be even slightly unstable, if he wants it a little overclocked maybe just set him to 46 cpu ratio and 44 ring ratio and a little +offset voltage then leave everything else on auto.

He should then read a guide and have a go himself really cause every CPU can need slightly different settinges to get the same result, just takes lots of testing. Might just be he needs to set the phase control a little more agressive or could be it needs a little more ring voltage, could be a number of things, and the best thing to do would be to go through them all one at a time untill hes tested every option to stabilize it.
 
^^ no, voltage stays consistent.

He wont be doing anything with it, he's not the type. I've got it until end of Friday to attempt this for him.
 
Yeah I guess. I'm surprised how wildly different the two chips are though. Mine does 5GHz and his seems like it'll need a fight to get above 4.4GHz with stability. It really is a lottery.
 
Shame but it seems like it's just a stinker of a clocker :( Maybe best to stick to stock volts and see if you can get 4.5 out of it.
 
Last edited:
My 3570k only did 4.4 on 1.37v some people got close to 5ghz on the same chip at that voltage. Some chips are just garbage.

I bet you could get that chip to run fine at 4.8, would just take a bit of testing, i just wouldnt wanna then hand an unstable pc to ya m8 then after a few hours of BF4 it bsods and he doesnt know how to restore default settiings or reapply xmp etc.
 
It really can vary massively between batches and CPUs. My 3770k will do 5Ghz 1.28v and 5.2Ghz at 1.35v, it's from week 18 which was considered to be a 'golden' batch. The SB 2700k I had before it could do 4.8Ghz 1.368v but 5Ghz needed around 1.43v. In most cases the frequency/voltage scales well to a certain point then anything above takes a huge bump in voltage to gain stability. With the 4790k essentially being a binned 4770k and the 4770k on average not being known for it's overclocking potential (compared to the generations before) anything above 4.4-4.5Ghz then you're probably doing pretty well.
 
Back
Top Bottom