Best, CPU Fixed/Locked voltage or off-set or Adaptive?

scotslad

scotslad

scotslad

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As the Title says.

On an overclocked (from Bios) system, what is best, to over-ride and lock the bios or to set an off-set voltage ?

Without going into too much detail for now, I have an MAXIMUS VIII IMPACT motherboard with an intel i7 6700K CPU.

I have it steady on a 4.6 overclock (also have LLC at level 5), I used to always set the voltage to 'off-set' so that the voltage would drop like a stone to about 0.9v when idling and of course the cpu speed would drop way down too.

I have read and watched quite a few things on "adaptive mode" for the voltage but I remember trying that mega months ago and I am sure it just sent my voltages and temps all over the place, is that correct ? (then I would return it to an off-set voltage setting).

Anyways, what in anyones opinion is best to do, over-ride/lock the cpu voltage, off-set it or adaptive mode.

I am very much interested in hearing peoples opinions on this.
Thank you ;)
 
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i don't like to waste power so i use adaptive, goes down to practically 0 volts at idle. for pure stability i presume fixed would be better, but only on the extreme end and only slightly.

edit:

actually lol, i just checked and im using fixed voltage, but the c states ensure it doesn't stay there at idle..

Capture.png
 
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james_2k said:
i don't like to waste power so i use adaptive, goes down to practically 0 volts at idle. for pure stability i presume fixed would be better, but only on the extreme end and only slightly.

edit:

actually lol, i just checked and im using fixed voltage, but the c states ensure it doesn't stay there at idle..

Capture.png
Click to expand...

Thanks mate, so I guess your another +1 for fixed cpu voltage then really

Be interesting to see what others think as I too found problems with adaptive mode, off-set setting is what I always used for years, more recently though I hear people telling me just to run it constantly locked into the 1.344 cpu voltage and they also said it will not degrade the lifespan of the cpu which I am slightly sceptical about, hmmm :confused: (also have LLC at level 5).

P.S, @ james_2k, as far as I was always aware, your meant to have C states disabled when overclocking mate, how come you have them on ?
 
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oohh i remember why, with adaptive, intel burn text avx etc increased the voltage way above what i had set. so i was worried that in the future some program would come out which would give the cpu far too much in the way of voltage. doesnt happen with fixed.
 
With mine it's not just Intel burn test or anything else that uses AVX instructions, it also happens while gaming. My cpu needs 1.275v for 4.4Ghz and previously this was applied as a offset but when I started monitoring it noticed that when gaming it was going up to 1.36v for some reason. I then tried adaptive with the same result. I then tried dropping the offset/additional voltage but then the pc became unstable which was how I found the correct offset in the first place. I gave up and set it back to a fixed voltage of 1.275v and have had no problems with it since. My idle power draw for the system remains unchanged at 62w so it doesn't seem to have made any difference to power draw.
 
scotslad said:
P.S, @ james_2k, as far as I was always aware, your meant to have C states disabled when overclocking mate, how come you have them on ?
Click to expand...

Well i think the idea behind that is that when it transitions between states, overclocking can cause crashes. but i always leave them off for testing and setting an overclock, then put them on after. no desire to have my cpu at max volts all the time.

pastymuncher said:
With mine it's not just Intel burn test or anything else that uses AVX instructions, it also happens while gaming. My cpu needs 1.275v for 4.4Ghz and previously this was applied as a offset but when I started monitoring it noticed that when gaming it was going up to 1.36v for some reason. I then tried adaptive with the same result. I then tried dropping the offset/additional voltage but then the pc became unstable which was how I found the correct offset in the first place. I gave up and set it back to a fixed voltage of 1.275v and have had no problems with it since. My idle power draw for the system remains unchanged at 62w so it doesn't seem to have made any difference to power draw.
Click to expand...

+1 same reasons as me, but i didnt see it in games, but thats probably because i wasnt running any :) it did add a large chunk of volts on which i wasnt happy with.
 
james_2k said:
Well i think the idea behind that is that when it transitions between states, overclocking can cause crashes. but i always leave them off for testing and setting an overclock, then put them on after. no desire to have my cpu at max volts all the time.
Click to expand...

Thanks guys ;)

So please tell,

If I have what I think is a steady overclock of 4.6 on this i7 6700K with cpu voltage locked to 1.344 and C states disabled/off and LLC level 5, if I was to now enable C states again would my voltage drop again when system isn't under load ?

Also, is it even safe enough to hope for a long life of such a cpu with voltage constantly at 1.344 ?

Oh, and I might as well ask too, lets say a cpu and motherboard are set to stock voltages and cpu speeds, should the C states then be enabled or disabled ?

I just dont like the voltage running at the locked in speed constantly, but I cant see a way round it and that Adaptive mode only seems to cause problems, has anyone noticed that ? only thing so far I have found that will drop the voltage when idle like I said earlier is an offset setting, but then it sometimes over shoots the voltages when under load, seems we cant win man :(
 
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aye man, get 'em turned on no worries on my pc or the one before! worst case may need a tiny bump in vcore.

regarding voltage mines been on 1.415 for a few years now, no problems. but its kept quite cool.

and yes c states do the same whether stock or overclocked.
 
james_2k said:
aye man, get 'em turned on no worries on my pc or the one before! worst case may need a tiny bump in vcore.
regarding voltage mines been on 1.415 for a few years now, no problems. but its kept quite cool.
and yes c states do the same whether stock or overclocked.
Click to expand...

Thanks man ;)

So just to confirm one more time, C states switched "ON" will drop the cpu voltages when the system is idling etc, yes ? (Even though the cpu voltage is locked ?).

Sorry if I sound like a pure nob, lol, but if this is right enough then it sound excellent tae me man :)
 
;) cheers man @james_2k mate,

I still don't see any drop in cpu voltage with C states enabled OR disabled mate when the system is just idling and I am looking at latest versions of aida64, HWmonitor and cpuz too, defo no change mate, hmmm, I wonder if something else could possibly be stopping them from dropping :confused:

Anyways, apart from that, for the past couple of hours I have sat here enabling and disabling CPU C states.

I know we have different cpu's and motherboards but as usual I was willing to try things :)

I am using the latest edition of asus realbench (benchmark) which is version 2.44 and each time I changed things I ran like 6 x benchmark tests using that program which I think is a fair chance to see whats what.

The benchmark scores where always about 8 to 12 thousand points higher with C states disabled than what they were with them enabled, so I dunno, maybe just the difference in our hardware as I mentioned and I know benchmark scores don't mean zip if your not into that kind of thing which I am not but when testing hardware I guess its a good guide.

I also kept an eye on the cpu core temps and to be honest there wasn't really that much of a difference, so again I dunno whats what, all I do know for a fact is that with the C states Disabled on mines I was benching much better scores, but anyways, just saying man and overall, I don't have a clue what the full difference would be to the system in real time running everyday tasks, I don't even game for example man, lol.

Have you tried the benchmark and C states enabled and disabled using asus realbench 2.44 (benchmark) by any chance ? if not then if you have time give it a go, but try the benching maybe up to 6 times on each setting, just keep blasting it man and then just wait on the scores to see what you get and see if there is a difference like I said, just for fun really if you can be bothered and have time, doesn't take that long to be honest, up to you though.

Mostly I found better results when the cpu and computer was warmer which looked strange to me but maybe makes perfect sense to some people, maybe the cpu is like a car engine, cold is not good to hammer it but when hot then yes its ok, lol.
 
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If you are using a fixed voltage then the voltage will not drop at idle, just the clockspeed. To be honest I have live power consumption and my idle power draw is exactly the same with a fixed voltage where the voltage remains constant and adaptive/offset where the voltage drops. Both show as 62w from the wall at idle. I have every power saving mode avaialable enabled as well as several that I did not even know existed. Asus did a guide for max power saving when the Z87 ROG range launched and I just copied that.
 
hmm, weird. as troop said, check that windows is set to 'balanced' power profile. will check a benchmark or two

and i'm using manual (fixed) voltage pastymuncher and it definitely drops voltage at idle, screenshot at the top.

le strange!

just disabled all c-states (nothing else)

result:

Capture.png


voltage stuck at max. frequency down from 4.8->3.5 at idle EDIT: it still drops the frequency to 800Mhz at idle... no voltage change. so disabling my c states (from 1e to 7) just affect voltage not clock speed.

downloading asus realbench to check that too.
 
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ok some results, did two runs of each. cstates on and off.

Code: 
[B]RUN 1 - No C-states[/B]           [B]RUN 1 - C-states enabled[/B]

                       Image Editing
    51852                                    54042
    Time:98.125                           Time:94.148
                       Encoding
    162434                                  168850 
    Time:59.027                           Time:56.784
                       OpenCL
    86908                                    86908
    KSamples/sec: 2249                KSamples/sec: 2253
                       Heavy Multitasking
    175615                                  153986
    Time:55.69                             Time:63.512
                       System Score
    101820                                  98564

[B]RUN 2 - No C-states[/B]           [B]RUN 2 - C-states enabled[/B]

                       Image Editing
    203487                                  187224
    Time:25.004                           Time:27.176
                       Encoding
    166435                                  167557
    Time:57.608                           Time:57.222
                       OpenCL
    86908                                    86908
    KSamples/sec: 2252                 KSamples/sec: 2252
                       Heavy Multitasking
    176410                                  173198
    Time:55.439                           Time:56.467
                       System Score
    140928                                  136340
 
did one more run with c states enabled to check

Code: 
Image Editing: 193246
Time: 26.329

Encoding: 169408
Time: 56.597

OpenCL: 90189
KSamples/sec:  2254

Heavy Multitasking: 178424
Time: 54.813


System Score: 139778

in total id say the results seem to be within a margin of error.

been doing a few of these tests and some of them have quite a large margin between them to be honest, even without changing settings.

one more thing to check, if you are running intel rapid storage, dynamic storage accelerator (on my pc at least) makes the cpu never downvolt.
 
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I am listening and reading what you guys are saying ;)

I just tried it again this time on my old system that has the i7 3700K cpu and asus p8z77-V Deluxe board, C states on and off I didnt see a difference at all really in the voltage dropping on idle, if anything I might say it was a very tiny bit better when disabled and the temps appeared a bit better too, so I left it disabled, had it on auto.

So thats another head scratcher, lol, I can't think of anything else that would drop it apart from off-setting the voltage, and maybe the user pastymuncher is right enough eh, but really strange how some people it appears to work for, hmmm :confused:

P.S, power settings are set on Balanced too, plus I dont have that intel rapid storage software I dont think, I dont do raid and dont have intel drives etc either if thats what thats all about.
 
Mine did originally drop the voltage at idle with a fixed voltage because it did it when I first set everything up and was trying to find my max stable overclock. I then updated from the original bios and it no longer dropped with a fixed voltage. I tried flashing back but it was gone for good. From what I am seeing with my live power consumption it makes no difference to idle power draw anyway.
 
;) so overall, i7 6700K voltage locked to 1.344 (no drop in voltage when idling) and clocked to 4.6, (with pretty decent temps) is that fine and ok for giving the cpu quite a long life (with decent cooling), I don't mean will it last forever but at least the usual 5+ years etc ??
 
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