Dynamic voltage? Over clocking 4690K on Gigabyte Z97X-SLI

Kirby Wurm · 15 Feb 2016 at 14:37

Hi!

Is there any way to have voltage scale back when idling this CPU on this chipset when overclocking? I've managed to get a stable OC of 4.7GHz at 1.3v and 2.2v VRIN/1.1v ring voltage. Temps are fine (24c idle, up to 60c at load) but I notice as the voltage is manually set it doesn't scale down when the CPU is not being utilised heavily. I know there's the option to use voltage offset but from what I hear it's not that reliable in the sense that it can lead to more voltage being allocated to the CPU than it requires under load. Is there another method available to allow this? After finding the stable overclock I turned EIST/C3 back on but they don't seem to impact voltage. I know Asus motherboards have a dynamic voltage setting but no such luck on this mobo .

It may well be the case that I won't be able to do this with my current setup and I can live with that considering I have good temps, but any suggestions would be appreciated.

Telecaster · 15 Feb 2016 at 17:54

I run mine at 4.5/4.6 using offset voltage and it scales back voltage fine and had no issue with stability or such like. Mine's an MSI mobo though so can't advise RE: Gigabyte.

800mhz idle speed is 0.84v

MadMatty · 15 Feb 2016 at 18:03

As long as Eist and C1E are enabled, idle voltage should work just fine in manual mode. Also make sure Windows is set to balanced and not High performance.

BluD · 15 Feb 2016 at 18:32

Set the CPU VCORE to Normal, then below it set an offset of about +0.1v and check what that gives you and adjust accordingly or if ya wanna be careful just set normal then see what it run at first and add the offset on to bring it up to 1.3v.

Like Matty says check your windows power profile is on balanced not high performance too as it runs at 100% CPU all the time on high.

You really need 2.2 vrin for only 1.3vcore? seems a lot to me, i can get away with 1.85.

Kirby Wurm · 16 Feb 2016 at 09:42

Thanks for the suggestions. Poweer mode is definitely on balanced in Windows. I'm away on a meeting tonight but I'll have a look tomorrow. I'll start with turning C1E on, failing that will move to using offset.

2.2 VRIN probably is high, I just set it there to take it out of the equation, I'll scale it back once I've sorted this voltage out. Is it worth setting a higher uncore ratio to go with the OC?

BluD · 16 Feb 2016 at 19:36

What you using atm? im runnng my cpu at 49x and uncore at 46x. I remember reading its really not worth increasing uncore to and extent that it effects your overclock. I basically just run mine as high as it goes without adding any volts, then knock it down one to make sure its stable.

Kirby Wurm · 17 Feb 2016 at 23:11

Tris enabling C1E and nothing changed. I enable vcore offst to 0.150v which under load would reach 1.241v which wouldn't quite be enough. I've settled on an offset of 0.2 where the voltage increases to 1.290 under load (had to drop to 4.6GHz for now as while 4.7GHz seemed perfectly stable in Windows the motherboard would occasionally fail to boot correctly). Thank for the advice!

I've stuck the uncore at 4GHz and the VRIN down to 1.9 and all seems good so far. Temps don't exceed 65c in Prime95 26.6 though the cooler does get noisey.

BluD · 18 Feb 2016 at 06:50

Sounds good, i wouldnt be afraid to up the voltage a little more for 4.7, anything upto about 1.35 is fine for everyday use. Also what Load Line Calibration are you using? I normally have mine set to high or turbo.

Kirby Wurm · 18 Feb 2016 at 08:20

I've set LLC to Turbo, may drop it to high and see whether that's stable.

I'll give 4.7 a try with a slightly higher offset , I had read 1.3 was about as far as you'd want to go for 24/7 use, but as it's now dropping the voltage when idle I suppose the overall strain won't be as great.

Thanks for the advice, will give it a go again tonight, 4.7 is the magical number as it's a nice round 20% boost which pleases my very slight compulsions!

Kirby Wurm · 19 Feb 2016 at 18:50

4.7 now seems stable with an offset of +0.250. Idle voltage is a tad high at 0.9731. Is it possible to change the vcore setting from normal (1.1v) to 0.8v (just above the idle voltage of the CPU at stock) and increase the offset by 0.3?

BluD · 19 Feb 2016 at 21:07

I dont think so m8, maybe inscreasing the LLC to extreme and then lowering the offset could give you something to that effect but i wouldnt bother. When your PC is idle it will be drawing very little power even with the slightly higher voltage.

My PC idles at 80 watts running at 4.9 with 2 gpus in crossfire also overclocked. It only starts drawing the power when it needs it.

Kirby Wurm · 19 Feb 2016 at 21:37

Good point. Well I'm very happy with my system, 4.7 stable and my 980 Ti boosting to 1512MHz core with a slightly more aggressive fan curve (have gone up to 1542 using 100% fan for quick Heaven 4 runs). Thanks for all the assistance!

BluD · 20 Feb 2016 at 10:15

Nps, looks like you have a nice 980ti should keep ya going for ages.