New build overclocking 2600k with msi z68a-gd80-g3 board

immuner · 18 Sep 2011 at 03:21

Hello,

so i've built my new rig. All is set up and working fine.
I also got a 16gb corsair vengeance set along with a noctua dh14.
I also got the 800d and i am in the process of receiving some better airflow fans over the next few days.

I would need some help with the overclocking part now. Nothing extreme, a 4.5 or 4.6 would be fine here. I do not want to use the OC Genie button as i wish to perform these things manually as i always do, so that i know what i changed.

I would like to point here that i am not an amateur, i am however new to the sandybridge platform, the uefi bios and all this new stuff after owning the same rig for about 3+ years.
So, i do not understand some of the new settings and what their values should or should not be. I have though read some articles for sandybridge overclocking, but if someone has tried this with this same board is much better isn't it?

1) So, stock temps i am getting with prime95 and intel burn test after about 10 mins are about 32 idle, 45 load with 28 ambient. Are these ok???? They look ok to me.

2) What settings should i change on the bios next?
For example, disable intel turbo boost, enable this and then increase the multiplier. Do i have to change the eup 2013, c1e support, intel c-state energy settings at all? If someone has gone through this already, I would appreciate any help.

3) MSI board has a CPU Phase control setting which can be set in APS mode or Intel SVID mode. Should i go the intel or the msi way here?

Any help appreciated,
thank you in advance

pgi947 · 18 Sep 2011 at 11:54

1) Those are fine, once you get your other fans in and increase the flow they might even drop more

2) You 'could' change all those but if your only looking for a 4.5-6 overclock you'll probably get away just upping the multiplier. Once your happy an offset voltage control is usually the next step, taking it off auto, as auto will feed more voltage than required.*

3) On an asus board, don't have that option so I couldn't say.

*I only figured out offset yesterday, it confused the hell out of me but it turns out its simple and I had a major brain fart. Pretty much find out your VID (coretemp displays this) and the +/- the amount of volts you want to run at. Example my VID was 1.372 and set an offset of -0.060 to run at 1.312v. Offset ensures that lower voltages (~0.9v) are used during idle/speedstep. The VID (so I'm told, still learning) automatically changes depending on how your overclock is set.

immuner · 18 Sep 2011 at 12:45

Ok thanks.

So what about the eco options? Are these supposed to be off or on when overclocking?
I have noticed that on idle my cpu runs at 1.6 and on full load at 3.4.
When overclocking, does it have to run at 4.5 for example all the time?

So, you think that i just need to play with the multiplier and vcore and thats it?
What about ram settings?

pgi947 · 18 Sep 2011 at 13:07

I haven't touched my ram settings, set it at the stock speed (1600mhz) and left it, though some recommend you underclock your memory, test stability, then raise back to stock or above.

Dropping to 1.6 will happen as long as you have speedstep enabled, which is where offset voltage comes in handy. Manual voltage will constantly feed set voltage at 1.6 and load speed.

As for the Eco options (I think the asus version of this is EPU) I'm not 100%, I had it enabled upto 4.7, then disabled it for 4.8+ (along with some other changes).

What I found easiest, was leave everything auto, then increase multi, see what voltage auto is using, then set that as your manual baseline and work back until the system becomes unstable, then bump it up a notch for stable. Example, auto for me at 4.5 used about 1.33v, though manually it was stable at 1.276v (I didn't bother going any lower to test).

immuner · 19 Sep 2011 at 00:38

Ok, so what i did:

- started from Standard mode in BIOS
- changed multiplier to 45
- changed vcore to 1.295...ended up taking it up to 1.325 after prime tests and intel burn tests. auto vcore would take it for 45 mult to 1.37+
- disabled spread spectrum (thats mentioned in the manual too)
- enabled low vdroop
- disabled turbo (no need here since we're oc more than 3.8 anyways)
- set ram from 1333 to 1600 as in specs (didnt enable XMP though, not sure if i should)
- enabled internal ppl overvoltage
- left EuP 2013, C1E and Intel C-State enabled since i am rarely using that much power. no need to have 4.5ghz for chrome right?

then i went up to 46 mult. However, i would have to go past the 1.35 voltage and for some reason i did not want to get closer to 1.4 so i stayed there. What's the real life difference anyways?

What worries me a bit are the temps. I'm on high ambient (30 without airconditioning, 25 with) and temps after 20mins prime and standard + high intel burn test are the ones in the pic (idle: 34 37 36 32, load: 67 72 74 68)

With 46 mult they went up to 77 and thats an extra reason i didnt want to push it more.
Temps are too high? Maybe....better airflow and reasiting heatsink would change this....

So what do you think? Any suggestions?

P.S. Noticed that my DRAM voltage went up to 1.64v. As far as i know these 1155 ones are 1.5V....Should that cause problems?

pgi947 · 19 Sep 2011 at 17:37

As long as the ram is rated for 1.65v that should be fine, intel do recommend 1.5v +/- 5% for sandybridge, but there are no reported problems using 1.65v sticks.

77c is high for a NH-D14 at those voltages, are the voltages your seeing reported from the coretemp VID or cpu-z voltage? I think the vdroop settings on your board are the same/similar to the offset options on mine, though someone with more experience with MSI boards may be able to help you more.

I think it might be a good idea to clean up the heatsink and chip and re-seat it, I've not had any experience with the NH-D14 but from what I gather it should perform just as well if not better than my H80, so those temps should be lower. Whats airflow like in your case at the moment?

immuner · 19 Sep 2011 at 17:48

Im currently on poor airflow as i got 800d with stock fans (1 bottom intake and 1 rear exhaust, plus one for hot swap bay which is elsewhere).
I am receiving new fans plus will reseat the heatsink as i would need to change the orientation anyways....

Anyways, i made some changes.
I decided to go to auto voltage since i want to have the power saving features. No need for cpu eating 90w while browsing.

Result of this, was my system to hang a few seconds after it got to windows.
After some more testing i've got new findings and new questions:

- Hanging was probably caused from Intel C-State being enabled. I found this when i realized that every time you change cpu multiplier, msi bios automatically disables this.
- Changed my DRAM setting from 1600 to Auto and enabled XMP. This caused DRAM voltage to drop from 1.6+ to 1.4+ as it originally was while stayed at 1600mhz.
- Set vcore to auto but voltages were too high 1.37+ causing high temps (got 79C). So, i disabled Low VDroop which caused the vcore to drop to 1.28 and changed the multiplier to 4.3. I run prime for 15 minutes and Intel burn test to Standard and High with no issues.
Then i went ahead and changed multiplier to 44. Prime failed in one worker after 8 minutes. However, both intel burn tests completed fine.

So, now i have an overclock of 4.3 which "seems" stable, with low vcore. Can't go up since there's no need to supply 1.3 voltages with power saving features on. This makes sense only if someone wants to have all the time his processor running at 4.5+, which i think misses some of the really cool features of the sandybridge platform.

I might go ahead and set vdroop enabled again, if i improve airflow and reseat heatsink and see that temps improve dramatically.

Now questions:
- What's the difference between C1E and Intel C-State? In the manual they pretty much seem to do the same thing. However Intel C-State disabled causes the phase leds to stay on all the time. Maybe it has to do with how much current is applied when idle but has to supply more for oc?
- There is a setting in bios called GT Overclocking which is not explained in the manual. If set to enabled it says GT Frequency 1350Mhz and ratio 27. Is that for the igp? I have that enabled too.
- If i get burn tests to work out fine, but prime not, this is not stable right? I've read somewhere that prime is not as critical as intel burn tests for sandybridge.