First overclock, re assure me I'm not melting my computer.

[Doctorwatkins]

pic :

System :
i3770k + h100i
z77 sabertooth
8gb xms2 ram OC'd to 1600mhz
2x 7970 xfx black edition

Ok so I increased the multiplier to 45 to get to 4.5ghz. Set the CPU voltage to 1.23 (had a bluescreen at 1.2) should I try bringing it lower still to bring down my temps?

I've used the AUTO settings on the BIOS for everything except the multiplier, CPU voltage and I turned off EPU.
I did a couple of hours of prime 95 and everything seems to be going smoothly, temps are absolute maxmium 85 (I ran it for a bit longer after those screenies). Is this too high for my current OC? With the standard clocks I get 32 idle 60 load.

The overall package power usage seems fine, I'm happy with what it's producing. I'm just wondering if you can see anything horribly wrong that might send my computer to an early grave.

Note: the Z77 sensors are screwed so the TMPIN4 temperature is unreliable. It sometimes shoots to like 500, so I know it's nonsense.

Should I bother pushing it further? I don't intend to buy a new CPU for a while, and sending this one to it's grave would screw me over for my employment. I also get pretty uncomfortable when I see temps over 80.
Getting fps drops in bf4 from the usual 60 to 45 ish, ultra settings with AA on 2x 100% resolution 1080p. Surely that can't be normal? I'd assume i'd get a solid 60 on my system.

Thanks if you took the time to read this! I'd rather ask than do something stupid and wreck a good machine.

 

[Make]

Your temps are high-ish because your GFX cards dump all their hot air into the case.

But prime temps are pretty unrealistic anyway. Try gaming for 4 hours and see if your gaming temps exceed 72; if they do, you need to tune something. If they don't, you are absolutely fine. You are also running low fanspeeds on the h100i.

I'd say fine-tune your other volts manually isntead of auto, the internet is full of ivybridge guides. You might have some other voltages causing extra heat that are not needed.

And yes, your BF4 fps seems low. But the game is buggy as heck. "Gaming evolved" indeed..

 

[Doctorwatkins]

Your temps are high-ish because your GFX cards dump all their hot air into the case.

I've got a HAF X, the side fan is a perfect place to push air out from the graphics cards, think I should give that a go? My h100i is push at the top with a 200mm case fan on push on top of that. My back fan is also exhaust.
My only pulls are the front, and the side next to the GFX cards. Think I should switch the side panel fan to push? If so, only my exhaust and h100i will be exhaust.

But prime temps are pretty unrealistic anyway. Try gaming for 4 hours and see if your gaming temps exceed 72; if they do, you need to tune something. If they don't, you are absolutely fine. You are also running low fanspeeds on the h100i.

Here's after 3 hours of BF4, didn't go higher than 65

Dunno why it would produce drastically different results than prime 95, but I haven't changed anything in BIOS yet.

My RAM is corsair XMS2 and I think it's 1333mhz, am I doing anything terrible by putting it up to 1600?

http://www.overclock.net/t/1291703/ivy-bridge-overclocking-guide-asus-motherboards#

^think that guide is trustworthy enough to go on?

Sorry for all the questions. I was going to just pay someone to do it for me lol, but I know that it'd be a waste considering how many people DIY it.

 

[Make]

I've got a HAF X, the side fan is a perfect place to push air out from the graphics cards, think I should give that a go? My h100i is push at the top with a 200mm case fan on push on top of that. My back fan is also exhaust.
My only pulls are the front, and the side next to the GFX cards. Think I should switch the side panel fan to pull? If so, only my exhaust and h100i will be push.


Here's after 3 hours of BF4, didn't go higher than 65
Dunno why it would produce drastically different results than prime 95, but I haven't changed anything in BIOS yet.

My RAM is corsair XMS2 and I think it's 1333mhz, am I doing anything terrible by putting it up to 1600?

http://www.overclock.net/t/1291703/ivy-bridge-overclocking-guide-asus-motherboards#

^think that guide is trustworthy enough to go on?

Sorry for all the questions. I was going to just pay someone to do it for me lol, but I know that it'd be a waste considering how many people DIY it.

Hi there. I'll go paragraph my paragraph..

I'd say your airflow needs a bit of work yes. Turn the side to exhaust, Front in take, back exhaust, and use the H100i as intake or exhaust, whatever you wish. It might pull in some dust. You don't need to worry about the total case airflow with 2 GFX cards like that, just worry that they get cooled.. and the h100i will handle the other hot component by itself I can't say this will be better 100%, but there is only one way to find out.. that's why we are enthusiasts, we pursue max. performance because we have the time and energy for it

Prime95 temps and BF4 temps will never match; prime is made to produce unrealistic loads that happen in high calculation scientific programs with AVX extensions (Don't ask ). Gaming temps are always 20-30 lower than Prime. Honestly, your temps are fine now, but they can be fine-tuned if you like.

I don't know much about RAM clocking, but I am sure it will only increase performance for the good if you manage to get it stable.

That guide seems fine, I often link to the haswell guide for gigabyte from the same forum, that's how I got my 4670k to 4.6ghz.. with same cooler as yours.

Don't worry about asking too much, that's why the community is here. And don't pay anyone to do it, it's more fun yourself Good luck! (By the way, don't take my word as gospel, but I know a bit of something.. if someone else comes with another opinion, they can be just as right.)

 

[Doctorwatkins]

Hi there. I'll go paragraph my paragraph..

I'd say your airflow needs a bit of work yes. Turn the side to exhaust, Front in take, back exhaust, and use the H100i as intake or exhaust, whatever you wish. It might pull in some dust. You don't need to worry about the total case airflow with 2 GFX cards like that, just worry that they get cooled.. and the h100i will handle the other hot component by itself I can't say this will be better 100%, but there is only one way to find out.. that's why we are enthusiasts, we pursue max. performance because we have the time and energy for it

Prime95 temps and BF4 temps will never match; prime is made to produce unrealistic loads that happen in high calculation scientific programs with AVX extensions (Don't ask ). Gaming temps are always 20-30 lower than Prime. Honestly, your temps are fine now, but they can be fine-tuned if you like.

I don't know much about RAM clocking, but I am sure it will only increase performance for the good if you manage to get it stable.

That guide seems fine, I often link to the haswell guide for gigabyte from the same forum, that's how I got my 4670k to 4.6ghz.. with same cooler as yours.

Don't worry about asking too much, that's why the community is here. And don't pay anyone to do it, it's more fun yourself Good luck! (By the way, don't take my word as gospel, but I know a bit of something.. if someone else comes with another opinion, they can be just as right.)

Thanks for the advice dude, about to switch the side fan to an exhaust now. One last question. In the guide it says "CPU Load-line Calibration ► Ultra High" then writes a paragraph about how you want it that way.

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/24019-load-line-calibration-why-overclockers-should-care/

^here I read that LLC is something you should be afraid of and not mess with, even though the guide justifies it. Also that guide has the exact same motherboard as me. Is the guy in the link above just scaremongering?

 

[Doctorwatkins]

So I followed that guide to the letter, except setting the unboosted clock, as I want my OC to only kick in when I need it to.

Pushed it to 4.5ghz with 1.23 on the vcore

Idle temps went up to about 39ish, but load temps came down considerably. I'm pretty happy with this, should I stick with it?

 

[Make]

4.5Ghz with relatively low Vcore and very acceptable temps

I'd leave it for now and get back to tuning it IF you ever run out of power.. which will be a long time far away.

I'm afraid I don't know how load line calibration works on Ivy bridge, but according to that link, it is not a bad idea and won't do any bad on the volts you are running. Still, i'd stay away from the extreme settings..

Well done!

 

[Doctorwatkins]

4.5Ghz with relatively low Vcore and very acceptable temps

I'd leave it for now and get back to tuning it IF you ever run out of power.. which will be a long time far away.

I'm afraid I don't know how load line calibration works on Ivy bridge, but according to that link, it is not a bad idea and won't do any bad on the volts you are running. Still, i'd stay away from the extreme settings..

Well done!

Thanks dude. I've got my LLC on Very High, strangely enough if I put it back to high or medium I end up getting freezes during prime95.
Ran it for a good couple of hours and absolute peaked at 90, but when I'm gaming I haven't seen it go above 73, so considering the unrealistic load prime 95 offers I'm just going to stick with this and maybe invest in some thermal paste that isn't stock with the cooler.

 

[murah]

You are not melting your computer, your temps might be a bit high but while gaming you wont hit anywhere close to that. Personally I use a 4.4 > 4.6ghz OC depending on game (BF4 doesn't like 4.6 atm) and the most I see is 68c

4.4 @ 1.184v
4.6 @ 1.256v

a note on LLC, I have mine on medium though it doesn't really matter what setting you have it on as it is what works for your chip. However setting it too high can result in instability and gaming (Which I assume your machine is built for) wont require you to run with such a high LLC. Alternatively you can drop the LLC and raise voltage slightly.

now here is the kicker, once you have the OC you like and its stable start to play around with CPU PLL VOLTAGE, try dropping it down in small amounts and you could very well see a drop in temps a lot of Ivy Bridge actually like around 1.5 - 1.7 on the PLL voltage for improved clocking.

The PLL is designed to run at a voltage of 1.8V and exceeding 1.98V is dangerous. However, when overclocking, stability seems to be better for many people in the 1.5V to 1.7V range.

 

[Doctorwatkins]

You are not melting your computer, your temps might be a bit high but while gaming you wont hit anywhere close to that. Personally I use a 4.4 > 4.6ghz OC depending on game (BF4 doesn't like 4.6 atm) and the most I see is 68c

4.4 @ 1.184v
4.6 @ 1.256v

a note on LLC, I have mine on medium though it doesn't really matter what setting you have it on as it is what works for your chip. However setting it too high can result in instability and gaming (Which I assume your machine is built for) wont require you to run with such a high LLC. Alternatively you can drop the LLC and raise voltage slightly.

now here is the kicker, once you have the OC you like and its stable start to play around with CPU PLL VOLTAGE, try dropping it down in small amounts and you could very well see a drop in temps a lot of Ivy Bridge actually like around 1.5 - 1.7 on the PLL voltage for improved clocking.

The PLL is designed to run at a voltage of 1.8V and exceeding 1.98V is dangerous. However, when overclocking, stability seems to be better for many people in the 1.5V to 1.7V range.

Decided to tweak around some more :

My PLL doesn't want to go any lower than 1.7. I tried it at 1.6 and 1.65.
Managed to get my LLC down to high from super high. BUT, when I'm running prime95 I got a few weird empty dialog boxes, some apps were crashing when I tried to run them during the test, but prime didn't output any specific errors.
Should I just up the vcore from 1.23 for stability, or is it usual to get app crashes when running the tests? Prime95 itself didn't crash.

(The voltage in CPU-z is showing as 1.208, when in the bios it's set to 1.23, I have no idea why)

 

[Threepwood]

Spoiler

Put massive photos inside a spoiler, thanks!

Nice, stick there and do some real world tests before anything else or you have no idea where along the line you started to get instability. (if you get instability during said real world tests)

 

[Doctorwatkins]

Spoiler

Put massive photos inside a spoiler, thanks!

Nice, stick there and do some real world tests before anything else or you have no idea where along the line you started to get instability. (if you get instability during said real world tests)

That overclock didn't stick, test went fine until about 2 hours in. Got the vcore up to 1.248 and put the LLC up to super high again =\

What is the relationship between the offset settings, LLC and vcore?

If I just stick my vcore to what the CPU seems to want to pull (1.248 under load), and turn LLC down to 50% then I'd have a stable overclock? I'd assume the LLC was compensating for me being slightly under the vcore that my machine wanted.

Sorry for dragging this thread out and thanks again.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

It is my understanding that LLC should be set to extreme. Having it set to extreme will ensure that the vcore you have set will remain rock solid. If you bring it down from extreme then you are essentially allowing the Mobo to raise and lower vcore which would explain higher temperatures and/or instability. If you need higher vcore, you should set yourself rather than hand control to the Mobo.

I am more than happy to be contradicted on this issue. I am a novice at overclocking, but I did read a lot about LLC and that's my understanding of it. I have my 4670K clocked to 4.2 and LLC is set to extreme. Temps under stress rarely reach above 65.

 

[murah]

Decided to tweak around some more :

My PLL doesn't want to go any lower than 1.7. I tried it at 1.6 and 1.65.
Managed to get my LLC down to high from super high. BUT, when I'm running prime95 I got a few weird empty dialog boxes, some apps were crashing when I tried to run them during the test, but prime didn't output any specific errors.
Should I just up the vcore from 1.23 for stability, or is it usual to get app crashes when running the tests? Prime95 itself didn't crash.

(The voltage in CPU-z is showing as 1.208, when in the bios it's set to 1.23, I have no idea why)

sometimes a bios can report too high or too little, at least you know your rough ball park for now. great job on the PLL however I wouldn't worry too much about the crashing apps when running Prime 95 you should JUST be running prime95(CPU-z + temp monitoring program is fine), anyway get yourself on a game and test it out, if you have a BSOD your not stable, Dont use Battlefield 4 to test its awfully unstable right now. If you don't crash great! getting there keep up the good work