Overclocking 3930k Sandy Bridge-E 4.6ghz - Asus P9X79 Pro. Requesting temperature reduction tweaks

I've been overclocking my 3930k for the past few evenings and have done allot of experiments and research.

I've found that the sweet spot for me at the moment is 4.6ghz, that's with a Core Voltage of 1.376v

I have been using Intel Burn Test to test stability & temps.
My highest temperature is 80c under a very high load using all threads. (on 1 core which is always hotter that the other cores) the other cores are on average about 76c.

80c is the maximum temperature I'm prepared to see and 1.400 core voltage is the maximum voltage I'm prepared to run (to avoid the chip degrading)

I have a Noctua NH-D14 sat on my chip and have recently done a reseat and applied some Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Paste.

I am asking for some advice on how I can reduce my temperatures while having the same performance (or more)

With all the bios settings available there must be some settings I can change to have a more optimised overclock.

Pc Spec:
Intel Core i7 3930k
Nvidia GTX 470 SLI x 2 (these run HOT)
G.Skill RipjawsX 16GB DDR3-1866MHz

Here is a screenshot of my Intel Burn Test + Temps + CPU-Z info.


Here are some screenshots of my current bios settings. http://imgur.com/a/nhTS3#0

 

Yes, If I drop the Vcore down by .05 I get a blue screen (not always) when stress testing.

For the time being I would like to keep my current rig how it is but I am considering a custom loop for my next case.

 

well you're at as low of a voltage as you can go, and you won't be changing your cooling setup right now... i'd say drop your OC a bit if you don't want the temps as high as they are

a 6-core SB-E with the kind of OC you have needs some serious cooling for manageable temps!

 

Good advice. Also remember to make sure your case has good cooling to shift any heat out of your case.

 

Your pushing it hard on air really, The only thing going water would do is drop the cpu temps you would likely not be able to push more overclock out of it as the motherboard chips will be screaming at anything above 4.6ghz. ( unless you water cool the board as well)

Drop the overclock and then drop your vcore is only way really.

 

I'd echo the above - I think you've probably hit the limit without getting things wet...

 

I have seen some terrible examples of case cooling. On kiddy had sold his cpu and motherboard claiming it was "too hot" and when I questioned him he had only 1 case fan.

I'm guessing you have all the case fans necessary. Bottom and top fans important and if case allows then a side fan too.

Cooling will alway be limited with air so all you can do is move the air quicker and that depends on which fans you use and how many. I switched the fans on my case and rad last year and the difference in cooling was enormous even with my water system.

Using Arctic F12 PWM and those move a lot of air and they chain together so even 5 of them will only use 1 mobo fan header. They are speed controlled by speedfan software.

Changing your thermal paste won't make any difference.

Also where is your case located? Well ventilated area?



Do you got ALL case fans fitted? ^^^

 

I have 2 fans at the front of my case, 3 fans at the top of my case, 1 fan at the rear.
I don't have enough room between my Noctua and my side panel to fit my 180mm fan.
I can no longer fit a fan at the bottom of my case due to the size of my PSU (covers up some of the mounting holes)

Can anyone advise me on a thin fan for the side panel, I imagine a side panel fan would help a fair bit.

 

I'm not the best person to discuss fans but I do likes my Arctic F12 PWM's.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=2331&subid=1816

Check out the toppest rated (most expensive) fans at OCUK... they list dimensions I think.

 

WOW!

I think I am really going to have to do some work on my pc, at the weekend because those are around the same temp's I am getting under water on my 3930K when overclocked using the same voltage.

 

My i5 2500k @ 4.9ghz is 56 to 64c. I need high vcore to get this cpu to 4.9 but I use offset voltage so it drops low on idle.

 

That's very similar to the fan layout in my Corsair 500r, however my layout may not work with such a big hsf as the noctua but it might be worth a try



Corsair SP 120 - Front Intake x2
Sharkoon Golfball 2000rpm - Rear Intake x1, Roof Exhaust x2
Corsair AF140 - Side intake x1
Noctua NF-S12 - Side Intake x1


CPU Cooler mounted so it blows up at the roof [this may not be possible with your noctua]

There is also a fan mount on the case's floor, but as my case is on the floor and all the PSU cables are in the way, it's empty

 

I am going to measure the gap between my side panel and the top of my noctua and see if I have a 20mm+ gap. If I do.. I will probably purchase one of these (or similar)
Thanks

 

Can you run the same burn test that I did and post a screenshot so we can compare? Id like to see how many gflops you are getting.

Surely you will be able to get a higher clock with a cooling loop.
Get tweaking dhem BIOS settings!

 

Can somebody tell me what size this fan is?
http://is.gd/6vfGKH
My side panel has a 140mm and a 180mm mount.

 

Well I ran it this morning, after changing the jet the plate in the cpu block and then changing it back also removed the 240mm rad, and now just sticking with the 360mm rad on it's own.

Tested it using 46 multi, High LLC, 1.325v Core Voltage in bios but in CPU-Z it shows 1.336v.



The funny thing is that, it will run for a hour with those settings in Intel Burn Test or OCCT but fails prime 95 in less than 20 seconds with a Rounding error and that, happens at any voltage less than 1.45v so not sure whats going on there, because I have ran memtest and the ram is fine etc.

 

Quite simple... the mem controller is on the cpu and so you need correct voltage for overclock. It seems in your case that is 1.45v or above. OCCT is quite dodgy and unreliable. Latest version stopped because the cpu core 1 was 95c. Well it's never been at 95c so once again OCCT reports temps incorrectly.