Associate
Dear Mr 8 Pack,
Thank you for all the useful guides and advice you have posted on these forums. Having borked my fairly new X58 i7, motherboard and RAM last year (trying for a modest 4.0ghz with a motherboard and chip that were well known to work well together at higher settings) I was a bit worried about overclocking again. (The replacement parts were not cheap...)
I used to be quite capable and kept up to date with overclocking back in the AMD Barton xp2500 then Athlon 64 days. With the Intel Core chips I wasn't CPU limited enough to feel the need to overclock until last year when my GPU could finally run all games maxed out, allowing me to notice the slowdown from the CPU limiting my minimum fps. The problem has returned with my new 780 Ti - I know the GPU isn't limiting my frame rates at 1080p so I wanted to squeeze a bit more out my CPU to get the best performance possible.
I have an HTPC case with nice airflow that isn't too loud (after so many vacuum cleaner cases when I was younger) as my PC is in the lounge. I mainly use it for gaming / music. My goal is as much power as is realistically possible in a small form factor, but without being too hot / loud: hence the name for it "The Caged Beast"
I have read a lot of your threads on here relating to Ivybridge (although most people seem to have moved to Haswell), flashed my motherboard to the latest BIOS like you suggested to other people, and found these nice guides specificly for my motherboard type:
http://forum.computerlounge.co.nz/y...luxe---Overclocking-Guide-For-Ivy-Bridge.aspx
http://www.overclock.net/t/1291703/ivy-bridge-overclocking-guide-asus-motherboards
Having followed them I now find myself with a stable 4.5Ghz (45x100), Vcore of 1.170, PLL voltage 1.7, memory still at 1333mhz (until the cpu is stable), with peak core temperatures of 78-86c when testing with Prime95 for 15 mins. I am now slowly reducing the Vcore in 0.05v increments as suggested. These are still the same temps I was getting at 1.20 volts where I started at 4.5ghz.
(p.s. know you want me to start testing games not just synthetic tests, but I am just trying to find any glaring instability for now).
After all the rambling (sorry) my 3 questions are:
- How low should I aim with the Vcore to get my temps good enough for long term use even in the summer?
(I am reasonably happy with 4.5Ghz from 3.5Ghz so having read your graphs with temp vs speed I thought it was best not to aim higher with my case. Also, according to the Asus AI suite the Cpu temp is never more than 65c at load, whereas CPU Hardware Monitor is showing each core individually but with the higher temps. All 4 cores are similarly hot, cores #1 and #2 are 2-3c higher than #0 and #3 so I think my cooler is well seated. Lastly the Vcore supposedly drops momentarily to 0.486 according to Hardware Monitor but the voltage chart on AI suite is fine without any dips.)
- Do I need PLL Overvoltage enabled?
(my Bios says it is for extreme overclocking with the K series chips, which I thought were Sandybridge. My targets are not very extreme either so I am not sure more volts are good for my temps if they are not necessary)
- When I put my Corsair Vengeance White low profile memory up to 1600mhz should I use the 1.5v default or 1.35v that the XMP rating suggests for 1600mhz?
(it seems odd to me to use less volts for higher speed, but maybe the motherboard default is too generous and lower volts could help the heat...)
Thanks for wading through all this. It is really great having someone to give out advice so often
Thank you for all the useful guides and advice you have posted on these forums. Having borked my fairly new X58 i7, motherboard and RAM last year (trying for a modest 4.0ghz with a motherboard and chip that were well known to work well together at higher settings) I was a bit worried about overclocking again. (The replacement parts were not cheap...)
I used to be quite capable and kept up to date with overclocking back in the AMD Barton xp2500 then Athlon 64 days. With the Intel Core chips I wasn't CPU limited enough to feel the need to overclock until last year when my GPU could finally run all games maxed out, allowing me to notice the slowdown from the CPU limiting my minimum fps. The problem has returned with my new 780 Ti - I know the GPU isn't limiting my frame rates at 1080p so I wanted to squeeze a bit more out my CPU to get the best performance possible.
I have an HTPC case with nice airflow that isn't too loud (after so many vacuum cleaner cases when I was younger) as my PC is in the lounge. I mainly use it for gaming / music. My goal is as much power as is realistically possible in a small form factor, but without being too hot / loud: hence the name for it "The Caged Beast"
I have read a lot of your threads on here relating to Ivybridge (although most people seem to have moved to Haswell), flashed my motherboard to the latest BIOS like you suggested to other people, and found these nice guides specificly for my motherboard type:
http://forum.computerlounge.co.nz/y...luxe---Overclocking-Guide-For-Ivy-Bridge.aspx
http://www.overclock.net/t/1291703/ivy-bridge-overclocking-guide-asus-motherboards
Having followed them I now find myself with a stable 4.5Ghz (45x100), Vcore of 1.170, PLL voltage 1.7, memory still at 1333mhz (until the cpu is stable), with peak core temperatures of 78-86c when testing with Prime95 for 15 mins. I am now slowly reducing the Vcore in 0.05v increments as suggested. These are still the same temps I was getting at 1.20 volts where I started at 4.5ghz.
(p.s. know you want me to start testing games not just synthetic tests, but I am just trying to find any glaring instability for now).
After all the rambling (sorry) my 3 questions are:
- How low should I aim with the Vcore to get my temps good enough for long term use even in the summer?
(I am reasonably happy with 4.5Ghz from 3.5Ghz so having read your graphs with temp vs speed I thought it was best not to aim higher with my case. Also, according to the Asus AI suite the Cpu temp is never more than 65c at load, whereas CPU Hardware Monitor is showing each core individually but with the higher temps. All 4 cores are similarly hot, cores #1 and #2 are 2-3c higher than #0 and #3 so I think my cooler is well seated. Lastly the Vcore supposedly drops momentarily to 0.486 according to Hardware Monitor but the voltage chart on AI suite is fine without any dips.)
- Do I need PLL Overvoltage enabled?
(my Bios says it is for extreme overclocking with the K series chips, which I thought were Sandybridge. My targets are not very extreme either so I am not sure more volts are good for my temps if they are not necessary)
- When I put my Corsair Vengeance White low profile memory up to 1600mhz should I use the 1.5v default or 1.35v that the XMP rating suggests for 1600mhz?
(it seems odd to me to use less volts for higher speed, but maybe the motherboard default is too generous and lower volts could help the heat...)
Thanks for wading through all this. It is really great having someone to give out advice so often
)