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CPU The Overclocking Thread

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Parge, 28 Nov 2015.

  1. Parge

    Parge the worst Super Moderator

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    We haven't got one of these yet (or at least I couldn't find one!). Thought it might be nice for people to post their Overclocks.

    I'll start!

    Got the 5820k stable at 4.3Ghz which is about on par with what BT managed.

    Still got some refining to to, and had to disable Hyperthreading to keep her cool, but she maxes out at about 86C on the hottest core in IBT. Gaming stays mostly about the 60C level.

    [​IMG]

    Going to try and further reduce the Vcore as at the moment I've got 1.25V going through it, which I think is unnecessary.

    Also, thinking about upgrading to a H105 when I get a new card next year.

    GPU by the way is the 980 - got the fans on very quietly and the core boosting up to 1472Mhz and Memory up to 1872 at stock volts.
     
  2. DeckerdBR

    DeckerdBR Minimodder

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    i'll join in!

    I have an older i5 2500k, default clock is 3.3ghz, lazily I use the standard mainboard oc profile which gets it to 4.3, although it is perfectly stable at 4.5 if I manually push the multiplier up, no other tweaks needed, I just dislike the extra heat output.
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/ewhwax5nwnfrzmf/oc discussion bitech.png?dl=0

    As for the GPU (an MSI GTX970) - standard clocks on my card seems to bese: 1114, boost: 1253, yet when I run a render test, GPU-z sensors show 1303.6 MHz, not sure if that correct/sustained in other situations.
    I also have the MSI afterburner software installed, just not too confident bout doing it though... any tips?

    The bitech review roundup shows they got about a 15% increase in base clocks and just over 10 in memory:
    http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2014/09/19/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-review/12
     
  3. Parge

    Parge the worst Super Moderator

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    Yep, it'll always boost to higher than the GPUz reported boost providing you haven't hit thermal or power limits. I reckon you've got another 100mhz in that. I prefer evga precision to afterburner now. Give that a shot.
     
  4. atc95

    atc95 I have the upgrade bug!

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    Really good idea and I will join you on the overclocking when I get round to updating the cooling and adding the fan vents to my case so I can test out my 5820k as well!
     
  5. Mr_Mistoffelees

    Mr_Mistoffelees The Bit-Tech Cat. New Improved Version.

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    I'm a lazy overclocker too. Used the motherboard tool and then tweaked the FSB to get to 4.5GHz. I know nothing about voltage tweaking, so left that alone but, has been running like this for three years without a hitch. Took the screenshot with Prime95 running.

    [​IMG]
     
  6. Hzza

    Hzza Minimodder

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    I'll post screenies later, but I've had a 2500k at 4.5MHz stable for about 3/4 years. Previously I had an E8400 up to 3.2 and a Q6600 up to around the same (I think I had 3.2 stable but it was too hot so settled for 3 and lower temps).

    The 2500k was a total piece of piss compared to the other 2, I think it took 2/3 weeks and more BSODs than I would care to mention to get a stable overclock out of the Q6600...with the 2500k I think I changed the multi, upped the volts a little and was 24 hours prime stable and I've basically not had to do anything with it since! I think I upped the voltage once a couple of years ago after what I'm pretty sure was a driver related BSOD just to be on the safe side but that's basically it. Temps have been amazing too, I've got a Megahalems with yate loons on it and I don't think it ever goes over 70 under full load. It's a shame that since I've had kids all I've really used it for is browsing, Netflix and the odd 8 bit indie game :D.

    Never tried GPU overclocking though, might look into it as I think my GPU is looking a little long in the tooth. Plus, I'm more likely to get a signed requisition order for a new one from the Mrs if something inexplicably goes wrong during my tinkering :D.
     
  7. Parge

    Parge the worst Super Moderator

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    GPU over clocking is where it's at. It delivers genuinely noticeable gains. Get to it!
     
  8. DeckerdBR

    DeckerdBR Minimodder

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    Using the bit-tech 970 roundup as a guide, and using msi afterburner and kombuster as tools to do it, I have started testing on a gpu oc. Not looking to mess with core voltage mv increases yet, just seeing what I can get out of increases to the memory and gpu clock as well as the power limits. Don't really want to do anything that takes away from it's current quiet operation!

    Infact I added 295 MHz to the memory clocks with no other changes, seemed stable but presumably you have to conbine it with gpu clocks to get worthy increases?
     
  9. Parge

    Parge the worst Super Moderator

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    To be honest mem clocks are nice but I'd recommend you start with finding your max GPU Core Overclock. You are very rarely limited by memory bandwidth.

    You should easily hit 1400mhz on the core.
     
    Last edited: 2 Dec 2015
  10. The_Crapman

    The_Crapman World's worst stuntman. Lover of bit-tech

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    Funnily enough I just oc'd my CPU again last week ready for battlefront. Had it at a very lazy 4.3 on my m5g (had something like 1.35v and very high llc on), but haven't oc'd it again since putting the asrock board in. Got it up to 4.4 without increasing the volts at all, but 4.5 has proved troublesome and haven't got it properly stable at that speed yet.

    Still lot less hassle than on my 970, which despite being under water and cool as a cucumber in a fridge just wouldn't boost very high. Had to tweak the bios and increase the max wattage to get the clocks i have now. Really need to read up on how to adjust the boost table to get a better setup, although 1492@ something like 60c ain't too shabby.
     
  11. Hzza

    Hzza Minimodder

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    Got a good jumping off point? I'll maybe have a tinker around Christmas, I'm hoping Santa gets me Fallout 4 so I'll probably need a bit of extra grunt for that. I've got a 7950 which should be alright but it's a pretty old card at this point so every little helps.
     
  12. DeckerdBR

    DeckerdBR Minimodder

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    Well I had a play with it last night, purely increasing the GPU Core & Memory with no power limit changes. Results were a bit weird though. I upped the core 150 and the memory 200, ran a fur stress test at my native res with 8 times AA and it seemed to run ok, but I notice small white speckles on some of the screen. Presumed this was artifacting, which I actually thought was normally green. So I tried upping the power limit to 105% and then also reducing the clocks but it made no difference. I then reset to stock and ran the stress test and to my surprise, same white speckles.

    Going to try those setting again but with the aide of Uniengine Heaven Benchmark and also Vantage marks fire-strike test, to make sure it's not a quirk of kombustor!

    I guess from my point of view, im not yet confident at what point I raise the power limits, or the core voltage or reduce the clocks, is it only on obvious artifacting or crashes or are there other considerations? Can you just up the clocks without other changes?

    I had GPU Shark running (part of kombustor) and even at stock (factory boost OC) which for me is about 1302 on the GPU core, I was getting message "GPU voltage limit reached" under the 'limiting policies (NVIDIA) heading. I presume that intended behavior?
     
  13. The_Crapman

    The_Crapman World's worst stuntman. Lover of bit-tech

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    You can bump the power limit up to the max without much fear of damaging anything. You might want to set a custom fan profile to find a good temp:noise balance. Heaven, valley and firestrike are better foe testing stability, furmark is a bit ott. Bump the core up from stock 25 at a time. Run a benchmark and see if it's stable, if it is kick it up another notch and go again. artifacts will show as big blocks of solid colour if it's not happy at that speed, at that point take it back to the last good clock speed and keep it at that. Then tackle the memory going up about 50 at a time (memory will probably be able to be overclocked a fair bit) with the core set at the highest stable setting untill again you get artifacts. Take it down 25 see if that's stable, if not go back another 25 to the last stable point and run it a good while to make sure.
     
  14. Otis1337

    Otis1337 aka - Ripp3r

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    [never mind, going to put this it its own thread]
     
    Last edited: 3 Dec 2015
  15. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

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    When I bought my Alienware I wasn't expecting much out of it. Apparently it came with a very small overclock to the 5820k (about 3.8ghz IIRC) but as soon as I put in two extra sticks of ram the overclock via the bios stopped working. Strange, but after some investigating I managed to find the Alienware app for overclocking and soon hit 4.6ghz @ 1.24v. This was stable too, producing these results.

    [​IMG]

    And my settings using the software (a shot of 4.5ghz, but as seen above it did do 4.6)

    [​IMG]

    And my results in Asus Realbench, with temps.

    [​IMG]

    Do note the cooler is only a single thickness 120mm AIO. So I am absolutely thrilled with the temps. For day to day use I dropped the clocks to 4.4ghz and 1.15v. It barely breaks 60c during benching.
     
  16. Parge

    Parge the worst Super Moderator

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    Lovely! I have a single thickness 120mm rad on mine too. I've got it at 4.3Ghz and slowly lowering the core clock down from 1.3v and testing. Currently at 1.23v and it seems perfectly stable - thats only 0.01V over the default voltage mine hits at stock. Temps seem to stab about 70C - but I do get an occasional jump to 90C during IBT. I think it might be where the software loads at 100C and the fans haven't caught up yet.
     
  17. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

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    I could upgrade it to a dual thickness quite easily but there's no point. At 4.4ghz with ridiculously low temps the rig absolutely flies. I'm really happy because I came from a 3970x that would do 4.9ghz for benching (temps on the limits with a H110) and I was really worried that I had actually down graded. Turns out I am about 10% faster than the 3970x, so all was good.

    The reason I dropped to 4.4ghz was because the MSI Big Bang Xpower II I bought originally for my £3500 rig died about 11 months in. Apparently it was stupid, like 24 phases, but I guess eventually pumping out all of that voltage to keep a 3970x proved too much and it died, only allowing a clock of 1.1ghz (which hilariously made little difference at 4k in gaming !) that's why I didn't really notice until one day I was playing Crysis 3 and got to a threaded level and noticed it was crawling.

    What sucked was I sent the board back to MSI who then took five weeks to pluck up the courage to tell me they no longer stocked replacement boards. What sort of sorcery is that crap? selling me a board for over two hundred and fifty notes and then screwing me 11 months in. I ended up taking a GTX 970 which I sold for £180 and bought a RIVE for £120 from Ebay. The RIVE had no warranty so I just pretty much sold up and bought an Alienware. At least Dell keep a good stock of parts.

    So yeah, I really don't want to go balls out on this rig. Seeing what happened to a £3500 "Dream Machine" has put me off of overclocking a bit.

    It's a mistake I won't make again. If these so called big companies are going to pull tricks like that they can sod off. Seriously how can you make an uber product and discontinue it before even a single year is up?

    Just goes to show, all about the money and to heck with it as soon as they stop selling..
     
  18. The_Crapman

    The_Crapman World's worst stuntman. Lover of bit-tech

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    had a little push on the core on the 970 and now boosting up to 1517. max temp after 20mins of battlefront was 53 :brrr:
     
  19. Parge

    Parge the worst Super Moderator

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    Woah nice! Mine won't boost past 1484mhz at stock volts. Max temp is 10c hotter than you.
     
  20. The_Crapman

    The_Crapman World's worst stuntman. Lover of bit-tech

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    I haven't really touched the voltage, but I have bumped the power limit from 170W@100% to 225W@100% which is a fair old whack. wouldn't even boost to it's rated boost clock prior to that! I do also have a rad twice the size and probably 4-5 times as much coolant. and the office is chilly which always helps.

    20 mins of battlefront is all i'm getting though before the dam thing crashes again :wallbash: Dropped all my clocks back to stock and still crashes so not going to be that. i just want to go pew pew and blow stuff up god damit!
     

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