Overclocking Issues – i9 7980XE on Gigabyte Aorus Gaming 9

[Naser]

Hello there!! hope all is good with everyone. I am trying to overclock my system to reach at least 4.4Ghz which I am sure it’s capable of based on many guides and review I came across, however, I could only run the system in stable state till 3.9Ghz. Let me first put down my specs:

Process: CPU INTEL CORE I9 7980XE 2.60 GHz
Motherboard: GIGABYTE X299 AORUS GAMING 9 (rev 1.0)
RAM: CORSAIR VENGEANCE LPX BLACK DDR4 32GB/2666 (4X8GB)
Graphic Card: ROG Poseidon GeForce® GTX 1080 Ti Platinum edition 11GB GDDR5X
CPU Cooling: H110i 280mm Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
PSU: HX1000i High-Performance ATX Power Supply — 1000 Watt 80 Plus PLATINUM Certified PSU

I have gone through many overclocking guides specifically made for i9 7980XE or Skylake-K including the following:

https://www.tweaktown.com/guides/8513/skylake-overclocking-guide/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPj-iG6tOJ0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeITi8DrlTI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_KILZMfV3Q
https://overclocking.guide/gigabyte-x299-skylake-x-overclocking-guide/

Unfortunately, I failed since my target was to run my CPU at 4.4Ghz. Here is what I did:
CPU Clock Ration = 44 (4.4GHz)
Extreme Memory Profile(X.M.P) = Profile1
Intel(R) Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 = Legacy
Enhanced Multi-Core Performance = Enabled
Energy Efficient Turbo = Disabled
Internal CPU Vcore = 1.18V

The rest of the setting remained as the default settings. However, I did try to change CLR (MESH) Ratio from Auto to 28-32, but whenever, I do that the system does not boot and keep crashing and restarting. Moreover, whenever I set the Vcore more than 1.25V the system again does not boot and keep crashing and restarting. With the mentioned settings, I managed to run a stress test on the CPU using Aida64 (Stress CPU only) for 30 minutes with temperature 83c at max. however, whenever I use blended test using Aida64 or Prime95 or even using Cinebench the system instantly crashes. So I tried to do ONLY FPU stress testing using both Aida64 or Prime95 and what do you know, the system instantly crashed.

Having said that, I asking your support and advices, please. I am almost giving up.


I am looking forward to hearing from you asap.


A side note, I am totally new to all of this.

Naser

 

[JCLDJB]

I am by no means an expert in the (18-core department) so I cannot vouch for things like voltage limits, etc...but I will try to help with a few suggestions - in the way I overclock new systems.

(Nice rig, by the way)

First of all, make sure your Chipset Drivers and BIOS are all up-to-date.

Next, have you tried overclocking your CPU without enabling XMP Profile?

If this is a brand new build, I would first double-check everything is running as intended, especially your RAM, as it isn't uncommon to get sticks of 4, where 1 simply doesn't work as intended, and then you end up thinking it's the CPU when in fact it's a stick of RAM causing the instability issue.

Now you say you've got "Enhanced Multi-Core Performance = Enabled", I am not 100% sure but shouldn't that be Disabled if you're overclocking?

As for jumping from 3.9Ghz to 4.4ghz, first of all, what do you class as a 'stable 3.9Ghz', as in what tests (and for how long) did you run?

I would probably take it in steps, by increasing with either 100-200Mhz at a time (try 3.9Ghz -> 4.1Ghz -> 4.3Ghz...etc).

Also, worth testing that RAM at stock CPU speeds, to rule out other variables

Unfortunately, guides can only go so far, and you kind of have to use your intuition/experience, from overclocking.

1.) Reduce as many variables when overclocking, by OC'ing one component at a time.
2.) I find that a slow and methodical approach is the best way in reaching solid conclusions on things like (frequency/voltage/temp limits).
3.) Wait for others here, to give you more advice.

Sorry I couldn't help anymore than this.

 

[Silent_Scone]

May wish to increase input voltage manually, depending on how the auto ruling scales for that board. Try between 1.95v and 2v (please note this is INPUT voltage or VCCIN, not vcore). Cooling may be an issue by the looks of your spec. The aforementioned tests that are crashing all use AVX routines, so the use of the offset function will be needed.

As JCL has mentioned above, remove any memory overclocking inc XMP profiles, too.

 

[JCLDJB]

May wish to increase input voltage manually, depending on how the auto ruling scales for that board. Try between 1.95v and 2v (please note this is INPUT voltage or VCCIN, not vcore). Cooling may be an issue by the looks of your spec. The aforementioned tests that are crashing all use AVX routines, so the use of the offset function will be needed.

As JCL has mentioned above, remove any memory overclocking inc XMP profiles, too.

I swear I read the voltage suggestions and my heart skipped a beat in the time it took me to read the rest & that you actually meant VCCIN.

 

[Silent_Scone]

lol, yes since VCCIN was introduced it's always a little concerning suggesting playing with this voltage domain as users can sometimes mix them up. It's sometimes needed to find stability, though.

 

[Naser]

Thank you guys for your inputs. I will take into consideration the above suggestion and see. I shall share the results here. Thanks again

 

[Naser]

I would also like to answer JCLDJB's questions:

Next, have you tried overclocking your CPU without enabling XMP Profile?

Yes I did and ended up with the same results.

Now you say you've got "Enhanced Multi-Core Performance = Enabled", I am not 100% sure but shouldn't that be Disabled if you're overclocking?

Regarding enabling that, well I got from couple of guides that enabling this option will allow all cores to run at the same frequency.

As for jumping from 3.9Ghz to 4.4ghz, first of all, what do you class as a 'stable 3.9Ghz', as in what tests (and for how long) did you run?

well I was not jumping directly to 4.4, I raised the freq. 100Mhz at a time and the 4.4 is my goal. Regarding the stability test, I ran it for about an hour. I know should be much longer, but since my goal is 4.4 I really didn't bother.

Now I will do testing based on your recommendations and see.

thanks again

Naser