OC i6600k - voltage problems?

SnuggleWalrus · 1 Feb 2017 at 10:05

Hey everyone,

The last week I've been toying with overclocking my CPU on my new rig.

Gigabyte Gaming k3 z170
i6600k (going for 4.5 stable)
h55 corsair AIO cooler
3000mhz DDR4 corsair LPX 16gb (XMP attempts)
MSI gtx 1060 gaming x
500 W Corsair bronze + PSU
250gb SSD Samsung 850 evo
1tb WD Blue 7200 rpm

I did a lot of research before hand to try and wrap my head around overclocking. I've been using Core temp and CPUz is it ? to watch my temps and such while using Prime 95 to test the cpu.

My stable 4.5 at 1.35 - NO XMP
I managed to get 4.5 stable without XMP running on the ram at 1.35v and passed all tests on a torture test over 12 hours of prime 95. I played trying to get the voltages down but my attempt at 1.34 failed after 2 hours on core 4. Temp wise I was maxed at 72c. usually between 61-69c over the 12 hours.

Voltage question
My worry is that the voltage never seems to stay at 1.34 the VID (which I believe is the voltage I've set to be 1.35?) seems to move around from 1.23 - 1.36 a lot which could be causing a lot of issues? from what I understand I can use LLC for this however my motherboard has this stuck on Auto, hitting enter won't let me change anything or bring up any menus. Is there something else I could change or adjust for this?

I'd like to use XMP to get my memory clock off of 2133mhz to 3000mhz or is this a bad idea and just ignore XMP all together? (does this affect my voltage to cpu also?)
How can I enable LLC in a gigabyte gaming k3 to switch it off auto?
Anything else I should look for that could affect my voltage while overclocking.
Should I just enjoy my 4.5 at 1.35 without XMP and call it a day?

mattyfez · 1 Feb 2017 at 10:24

I've got that board, you can adjust LLC, from auto, meduim or high, or something like that.
The bios can be a bit fiddly, tje page up or page down keys should let you change it.

Xmp seems to work fine for me.

SnuggleWalrus · 1 Feb 2017 at 10:31

Ahhh! I didn't try page up and page down everything so far has been fine with hitting enter or adding my own value, I'll definitely try that tonight. I imagine High is what I would want for my overclock to make sure its matching from what I understand while getting it stable? though I may try with medium first on a two hour test.

Edit : Forgot to say Thankyou!

mattyfez · 1 Feb 2017 at 11:03

Prim 95 is quite harsh, ive just been using cinebench r15 and asus realbench, and hwmonitor.

SnuggleWalrus · 1 Feb 2017 at 19:31

Ok! After Mattfez's help I was able to get the following can anyone help me judge if this is ok for now (will do a 12 hr test overnight.)

4.7mhz @ 1.365v

idle - 34c (max shows 42 from boot)
Ran 2 hours of realbench passed every test - max temp 72c
Ran cinderbench a few times 768 - 782 rating - max temp 64c

For now should I be ok to test in some games? I'll monitor temps while I play and do a 12 hour test of realbench overnight. I also passed the prime95 tests for 30 minutes.

Yutang13 · 1 Feb 2017 at 21:24

SnuggleWalrus said:
Ok! After Mattfez's help I was able to get the following can anyone help me judge if this is ok for now (will do a 12 hr test overnight.)

4.7mhz @ 1.365v

idle - 34c (max shows 42 from boot)
Ran 2 hours of realbench passed every test - max temp 72c
Ran cinderbench a few times 768 - 782 rating - max temp 64c

For now should I be ok to test in some games? I'll monitor temps while I play and do a 12 hour test of realbench overnight. I also passed the prime95 tests for 30 minutes.

The best test is normal use. Play games, do what you normally do, if it doesn't crash you're pretty good.
P95 is a bit too tough nowadays, it's more of a power virus pushing your CPU past anything you'll ever normally do. (At least it was last I checked)
Your temps look good though, no real worries there.

Daaaveee · 2 Feb 2017 at 09:48

Agreed with the above, I wouldn't bother with P95, its overly harsh. Asus Realbench is my go to now and if its stable here then its stable in all my usage.

Your overclock looks very good, enjoy

SnuggleWalrus · 2 Feb 2017 at 10:39

Thanks everyone I was a bit disappointed before when I could barely keep 4.5 stable without llc but after working that out in my bios i'm over the moon with 4.7! I was amazed how good the temps are as well, overnight I did my 8 hour test, passed every test max temp was 68c

. I'll play with this for now and create a new profile to gradually lower the voltage to see if it can handle it any lower (I doubt it was close before). I wont play about with my graphics card overclocking just yet as I think that'll push my PSU to far I imagine (500w bronze corsair something something).