De-lidded 3770k!!

Soldato
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I'm curious - CPU's never used to have IHS' fitted- how do they perform WITHOUT an IHS vs with?

I know it's possible to crush the die, which is why Intel fitted the IHS in the first place, but having 2 junctions with thermal paste vs 1 sounds like a further opportunity to reduce the temp...

Has anyone tried?

My results are on page 10 ;)
 
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I am debating whether to take this risk. I trust in my dexterity enough to think I could do this but the real question i am asking myself is:

if i get a corsair h80 and only plan on multiplying a 3770k to maybe 4.5 or less will the cooling be enough hold about 75 max, ideally a stable 60 ish something temp on a stressful load? If the answer is yes i don't need to do it.


also this was interesting: http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=34053183&postcount=570
 
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De-lidded my 3770K... Success!

Hi guys, just thought I'd share with you my results - I successfully de-lidded my 3770K tonight, and I believe it was worth it.

So, for the method:

I used a sharp (new) stanley blade to gently and slowly wiggle into one of the corners. Once the blade had gone in a little way, I wiggled it back out, then proceeded to use the tough plastic packaging from an SD card (blister pack I believe it's called?) to get under the IHS and get the rest of the glue off.

It was slow work, but probably took me 30 minutes in total. I decided to stick to this plastic approach because as long as I didn't do anything stupid it was extremely unlikely to damage anything, rather than using a sharp knife blade.

It wasn't too hard, all came off fine and soon I had the IHS off. Cleaned it thoroughly with Isopropyl and checked for damage - none that I can see. Applied a tiny bit of Cool Laboratory's Liquid Pro and spread it out with the cotton bud. I put the CPU back into the socket without the IHS first, then gently placed it on top, clamped it down and put the heatsink back on.

The worst part was probably waiting for it to POST, but it went perfectly.

Anyway, the important bit... temps!

Before and After tested with same fan settings, same room temperature (or very close), using Prime95 and CoreTemp.

Idle Before: 45, 41, 44, 40
Idle After: 41, 35, 41, 34

Full Load Before: 85, 90, 90, 84
Full Load After: 70, 72, 73, 69

CPU Core Voltage: 1.30v, Frequency: 4500mhz (100x45).

Using Arctic Silver 5 between IHS and heatsink. Bare in mind also that after this "beds in", the temps may drop again!

Please guys, go ahead with any comments or questions :). I have pics if they may help anyone else attempting this.
 
Soldato
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I applaud your bravely.

Lower temperatures may be nice, but the only thing of real interest is whether it allows a significantly higher overclock compared to before. Not worth the risk for less than an additional 500MHz as far as I'm concerned.

Hopefully you'll report back once you've had chance to have a proper play with it.

What does de-lidding do to the second-hand values? I don't think I'd buy one, too many unknowns.
 
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Thanks :) My heart was definitely racing during the process. The worst bit was trying to get the knife under the IHS, after that it was fairly easy!

I think if it's been running for a while it should be okay. As I build, sell and repair computers for a living, when I do come to upgrade or sell this PC I'll probably sell it as a second hand system to a customer looking to do some gaming or music etc, rather than for individual parts. I use the system all day every day, so if there's anything wrong with it I would know, and obviously would either not sell it, or make the customer aware.

In terms of overclocking, I've already tried to up the frequencies a bit but haven't got it stable past 4.6 yet. I reckon there's definitely room for it, as I was hitting 101 degrees before at 4.6 and now it maxes out at around 85.

I'm planning on asking 8 pack and the other band of experts for the best settings to use, as I assume at this level just upping the core voltage won't be enough. It's running fine on 1.3 volts now for 4.5ghz though, so how high do you think I could get?
 
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Nice :)

But 1.3v for 4.5Ghz :eek:

What LLC setting do you use?

It was set to auto. Why, is that too high, or too low? :p.

I'm trying to push it further now, attempting 4.7ghz but it's requiring crazy voltages unless I'm just doing something badly wrong.

Will post up some pics when I'm done BSOD'ing my computer xD.
 
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Okay, I think I've got it stable at 4.7 now. The difference in temperatures is amazing though.

Before, if I ran Intel Burn Test at 1.3v, I would get as high as 101 degrees. CPU-Z just showed my core voltage reaching 1.45v whilst doing the burn test (10 cycles) and my average max temperature was 93.5.

...I'm guessing that voltage is a little high though? LLC is now set to Extreme.
 
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Okay, I think I've got it stable at 4.7 now. The difference in temperatures is amazing though.

Before, if I ran Intel Burn Test at 1.3v, I would get as high as 101 degrees. CPU-Z just showed my core voltage reaching 1.45v whilst doing the burn test (10 cycles) and my average max temperature was 93.5.

...I'm guessing that voltage is a little high though? LLC is now set to Extreme.

Yeah that is a little high, i'm doing 4.4 at 1.220v
 
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Yeah that is a little high, i'm doing 4.4 at 1.220v

I could do 4.4 easily at 1.26, it just seems to require exponentially more voltage the higher it goes. I got it stable at 4.5ghz doing 1.285v, but to get 4.7ghz the lowest I can go is setting it to 1.385.

Here's the CPU-Z screenshot, running Prime95 getting around 90 degrees:



I've set it to 1.385 but the LLC takes it up to 1.44 anyway. When not on full load it's doing 1.4.
 
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I could do 4.4 easily at 1.26, it just seems to require exponentially more voltage the higher it goes. I got it stable at 4.5ghz doing 1.285v, but to get 4.7ghz the lowest I can go is setting it to 1.385.

Here's the CPU-Z screenshot, running Prime95 getting around 90 degrees:



I've set it to 1.385 but the LLC takes it up to 1.44 anyway. When not on full load it's doing 1.4.

The difference in performance your going to see is not worth it from 4.5 to 4.7 in my opinion, especially at the voltage needed
 
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The difference in performance your going to see is not worth it from 4.5 to 4.7 in my opinion, especially at the voltage needed

You're probably right lol... I'm going to reboot and go back to 4.5ghz I think.

I've got a feeling that I'm doing something wrong with the other BIOS settings that's causing this though, I don't think I should need it that high unless I've got a rubbish chip :p.
 
Soldato
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That's a bit high for 4.5Ghz :p mine needed just 1.17V for running prime at 4.5Ghz, granted it was only for 30 mins or so before I moved on to higher clock. Mine will do 4.8Ghz 24/7 but temp is a bit too high for my liking as I run F@H a bit. I have mine de-lidded, too and at 4.7Ghz the temp is around 70C when running F@H, about 10C more when running Linx(IBT).

It's worth noting that Ivybridge chips are very sensitive to temp, so if your temp is too high no amount of vcore is going to make it stable, so lower the vcore a bit and you might be surprised :) LLC at extreme is fine but it does increase vcore when underload so make sure you keep a close watch. Also make sure you disable IEST and turbo for better results.

There's a guide on xtremesystem that helped me immensely when I was stablising my overclock, but I can't find the link at the moment, will post up later.
 
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I've put it back to 4.5ghz and it's happy on 1.28v now.

I've set the LLC back to Optimized, after reading through a couple of threads. Also dropped some of the other voltages and settings a bit. Now hitting about 70 in Prime95.

That guide would be very handy :). My target is 4.8ghz, but I understand I might struggle to reach that, especially on air cooling.

I did find it interesting that rather than high temps just being a result of overclocking, they actually cause it to be less able to overclock. Do you think with water, or a bigger heatsink I'd be able to hit 4.8ghz more easily? Or should I keep fiddling around with my voltages and settings some more...
 
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I've put it back to 4.5ghz and it's happy on 1.28v now.

I've set the LLC back to Optimized, after reading through a couple of threads. Also dropped some of the other voltages and settings a bit. Now hitting about 70 in Prime95.

That guide would be very handy :). My target is 4.8ghz, but I understand I might struggle to reach that, especially on air cooling.

I did find it interesting that rather than high temps just being a result of overclocking, they actually cause it to be less able to overclock. Do you think with water, or a bigger heatsink I'd be able to hit 4.8ghz more easily? Or should I keep fiddling around with my voltages and settings some more...

Any OC would be made easyer going from air to water without a doubt, i hear good things about the H80i
 
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