Help overclocking i7 860

[tygeezy]

I'm trying to get a little extra mileage out of this old boy. Specifically i would like to raise my minimums a bit in battlefield 4 to have an overall smoother experience on the larger player servers with a lot going on. I have very little experience overclocking, so i thought I would ask you guys a few questions. I tried myself ocing a bit without touching the voltags at all and I was able to get about 3.2 or 3.3 ghz before I blue screened in prime 95. For a cooler im using a hyper 212 plus which I recently put on after I was having cooling issues with the stock heatsink that was causing quite a bit of throttling. Them otherboard im using is a biostar T5xe that came with the cpu from a frys special years ago.

The images below are my options as far as voltage control is concerned along with the default settings. I hear people talking about v core all the time and I understand you need to bump it up to get stability with the higher clock speeds. I'm not really sure about vtt, pll, pch and pwm frequency are.

My default multiplier is 21 and the highest I can raise it is 22. My motherboard has an auto overclock feature and from what I can tell it uses the default voltage, atleast for the vcore, possibly bumping it up ever so slightly to achieve 3.2 ghz. I'm thinking I can get atleast 3.5 with my cooler. I read people getting 4.0 with my chip, but I believe they were on superior cooling systems.

Also, I tried disabling speed step and c1e in the bios, but they appeared to have no effect. The reason i did this was because i noticed diablo 3 at times wouldn't run at full speed(often sub 2.0 ghz) because it wasn't putting a large enough of a load on my processor from what I can tell. CPU z would actually say it is running at full speed with both disabled, but both of my temp monitoring programs said otherwise. My keyboard has an lcd screen so coretemp allows me to monitor temps and core speed while in game. That's how I knew diablo 3 was doing this.

This all came about from another thread I created http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2379646. I was going to upgrade my videocard, but I think i'm going to stand pat for awhile.

 

[Burpo]

Try
CPU +0.120
PLL 1.90
VTT 1.21

BCLK 160 since that's your target 3.5
Leave SpeedStep, C1E enabled

 

[tygeezy]

What are the PLL and VTT voltages anyway? It doesn't appear to list the current values up top in grey for those.

 

[Burpo]

PLL is phase locked loop and has to do with sine wavelengths (may need more to correct wavelengths)

If you raise BCLK you may also need a bit more VTT for it to be stable (no blue screen).

Try the settings I suggested and see. It's a mild overclock, but monitor temps anyway.

 

[tygeezy]

The blck is the cpu frequency setting correct? There is no blck setting. Default is 133 and the multiplayer is 21. So do 160 and use 22 for multiplier?

 

[Burpo]

Yes, if that works, you can try 166 etc. to further overclock it.

 

[tygeezy]

Looks like that was a fail on boot. With those setting it turned on, then reset and posted with a fail, but gave me the option to set my bios to default. I also can't seem to locate my turbo setting to turn off in bios.

It should be noted that I have to turn speedstep off to be able to change the multiplier.

 

[Burpo]

I don't know your board, but usually any time you increase CPU frequency (BCLK) you'll need to increase voltages. Try it at 150

 

[tygeezy]

Okay, I tried it again at 160 by 22 for 3.5 ghz and it booted and showed 3.5 ghz in cpu z. I enabled c1e support this time because it was disabled when it failed. Odd thing is once I started prime 95 it showed it actually downclocking to 3.3. Basically it just dropped the multiplier from 22 to 21. Coretemp shows the same thing. The bios is showing 3.52 ghz however.

I got it all the way to 173 by 21 and it was stable in prime 95. One of the cores gto to 84 degrees though after 5 minutes or so. I backed off a bit down to 170 by 21.

 

[Burpo]

Mission accomplished! Let us know how Battlefield 4 & Diablo 3 play now

 

[tygeezy]

Okay, so i bumped it up to 175 x 21. It seemed to be stable with prime 95, but i actually blue screened in cs go when i went to start a game. I guess I would need more juice to have it really stable there. I backed off to 170 ad so far so good. Interestingly enough when I run prime95 it runs at x21 multiplier, but any game I play, bf4, cs go, tf2, diablo 3. They all use 22 as the multiplier. Is this turbo boost going into effect? I think I actually noticed the biggest difference in tf2 on 32 player hightower map, it runs smoother to me. Bf4 i'm still dipping into the mid 40's at times. I'm guessing sandybridge and up would give the most ideal performance in bf4. Then again who knows, it could be my gpu holding me back. Although i'm running pretty conservative settings. Do you think this cpu would be much of a bottleneck on newer gpus?

 

[Burpo]

Doubtful.. 4 cores, 8 threads & decent single core performance means you can probably go with a better GPU, but I'm no gamer.

 

[escrow4]

A Haswell chip will easily give you a substantial boost, way newer architecture with way better IPC and a base clock speed of around 3.5Ghz. My non K 4770 (I don't overclock anymore) hits 3.7GHz to 3.8GHz in game consistently. You will see a substantial difference, especially in terms of minimums. Plus Haswell draws less power and will dump less heat. So yes, going from a 2009 CPU to a 2013 CPU will be a pretty big jump.

 

[tygeezy]

Thanks for all the help Burpo. Escrow, thanks for your input. Fo now I will stay on this platform, but i'll keep my eyes out for an yfrys deals. My little brother got in on a i5 3570k + mobo deal at frys last year for I think 220 bucks. I got this i7 860 plus motherboard for 200 back in late 2009.

 

[EvilNodZ]

I Just overclocked my lynnfield i7-860 a few weeks ago after having blue screen problems when overclocked mainly in gaming.

I started from scratch and followed a really nice guide recommended by a user on here.

http://www.techreaction.net/2010/09/07/3-step-overclocking-guide-lynnfield/

It took me a couple days of testing all the various settings to get stable but i learned alot from following the guide and had fun doing so.

Currently 3.8Ghz with all power states on etc and not had a single blue screen all month

I can link all my settings if u like?

 

[tygeezy]

That would be great, thanks for the guide. So the only casualty I have had thus far is my glucose meter.... It charged via usb and I had it plugged into my computer when I kept rebooting changing settings. I leave usb thumb drives in all the time as well as my usb headset, but I guess my glucose meter couldn't take it.

I had to lower my oc a bit once more after I found I was getting errors Linx burntest. After lower backing to 167 base clock I was able to pass.

 

[EvilNodZ]

Im at work the now so i cant remember all my settings but im sure i ran 21x180blck at 1.306V 1444mhz on memory.

Finding a stable multiplier and blck took me a couple days changing settings and then stress testing till i was happy then slowly increasing rinse & repeat. Pick a low multiplier and low memory and then stress test the bclk till you find one thats stable. But honestly i followed that guide as best as i could. Yes it took ages but the it was worthwhile.

The biggest problem with the guide was figuring out the terminology as i used an asus motherboard and they used a gigabyte i think.

Anyways once i was happy with it after 2weeks of no crashes i changed the vcore to an offset and added all my power saving settings so it wasnt sitting at 3.8ghz and 1.3v 24/7. Then stress tested again till i found a nice stable V+ offset.

 

[tygeezy]

I did have a question about the guide, it said if you were running into stability problems, you should gradually raise the QPI/VTT voltages. It didn't say to raise the vcore at all. You know I was playing bf4 for hours just fine, running stress tests just fine, but of all things cs go seems to be giving this sytem a problem. I had to keep lowering my bclk because cs would either blue screen, or crash to desktop. After playing bf4 for awhile just fine yesterday, I jumped into c go, it played just fine. When I exited though I got an error stating that windows explorer had encountered an error and needed to close. I clicked okay, but the error kept popping up when I tried to enter "my computer" restarting alleviated the problem, but i'm not sure my system is completely stable and I find it odd that cs go is the only thing giving it an issue. I checked and it actually puts a heavier load on all my cores than any game, including bf4. My system will run at a 22 multiplier and most games, but in cs go with the heavier usage it seems to jump between 22 and 21.

Also, now that it is summer and this small room shares space with my gfs computer and a lot of times two giant great pyrneese dogs it is getting quite hot in here. My temps went up to 90 degrees during an intel burn test, but the room was hot as hell with two humans, two dogs, 2 monitors and 2 computers in a fairly small room.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

You might be power limiting. I'm assuming the mobo and PSU are both qualified for the load? My 870 took a heckuva lot of power at full load.

 

[tygeezy]

I have a corsair 750 watt power supply. My motherboard is at the top. It is a biostar, not sure of model off top of my head. Found a thread somewhere where people were using this motherboard and getting impressive results.

 

[EvilNodZ]

I did have a question about the guide, it said if you were running into stability problems, you should gradually raise the QPI/VTT voltages. It didn't say to raise the vcore at all. You know I was playing bf4 for hours just fine, running stress tests just fine, but of all things cs go seems to be giving this sytem a problem. I had to keep lowering my bclk because cs would either blue screen, or crash to desktop. After playing bf4 for awhile just fine yesterday, I jumped into c go, it played just fine. When I exited though I got an error stating that windows explorer had encountered an error and needed to close. I clicked okay, but the error kept popping up when I tried to enter "my computer" restarting alleviated the problem, but i'm not sure my system is completely stable and I find it odd that cs go is the only thing giving it an issue. I checked and it actually puts a heavier load on all my cores than any game, including bf4. My system will run at a 22 multiplier and most games, but in cs go with the heavier usage it seems to jump between 22 and 21.

Also, now that it is summer and this small room shares space with my gfs computer and a lot of times two giant great pyrneese dogs it is getting quite hot in here. My temps went up to 90 degrees during an intel burn test, but the room was hot as hell with two humans, two dogs, 2 monitors and 2 computers in a fairly small room.

If your system is switching between 21 & 22x multi it sounds like you have turbo enabled? I found that 22xmulti would cause my system to crash and a 21x Multi was stable. Lock your platform to a stable multiplier and disable turbo boost when you are trying to get it stable.

I cant remember if i had to change qpi/vtt on my system.

Im finished work soon so ill link all my settings and you can try them if you like.

Also i wouldnt use intel burn test to set your temperature limits, IBT always set cpu core temps soaring towards TJ max and i never get anywhere near that temp doing normal stuff on my pc like gaming. I just use it for stability testing.

 

[biostud]

What memory do you have?

You might need to run with a memory divider. Even though my memory (two different brands in 4x2Gb) is rated 2000Mhz, I can't get it stable above 1600Mhz. So I run with a memory divider of 5:4 on my i5-750. My CPU runs with 39x200Mhz @ 1.2V.

 

[tygeezy]

What memory do you have?

You might need to run with a memory divider. Even though my memory (two different brands in 4x2Gb) is rated 2000Mhz, I can't get it stable above 1600Mhz. So I run with a memory divider of 5:4 on my i5-750. My CPU runs with 39x200Mhz @ 1.2V.

I have 12 gb of ddr 3 1600. Two of the dimms are 4GB and the other 2 are 2gb. So yeah, they are different models and brads of ram.

 

[tygeezy]

If your system is switching between 21 & 22x multi it sounds like you have turbo enabled? I found that 22xmulti would cause my system to crash and a 21x Multi was stable. Lock your platform to a stable multiplier and disable turbo boost when you are trying to get it stable.

I cant remember if i had to change qpi/vtt on my system.

Im finished work soon so ill link all my settings and you can try them if you like.

Also i wouldnt use intel burn test to set your temperature limits, IBT always set cpu core temps soaring towards TJ max and i never get anywhere near that temp doing normal stuff on my pc like gaming. I just use it for stability testing.

Yeah I believe turbo is on. I can't find that setting anywhere in my bios however to try and turn it off.

 

[EvilNodZ]

Heres all my settings that are stable for me.

My turbo is called Intel turbomode tech it in the advanced tab in my bios as above and i have it disabled.
I would disable speed step and C-state tech and C1E support till you get the system stable.
If ur multiplier is still not locked it might be the setting called cpu ratio setting.
im sure i had to enable it to allow my ratio to downclock to 9x when idle, but i would disable it till u get it stable.

I would also try using a fixed v-vore at first and ignore my offset voltage. Mines was 1.306V.
My Bios uses the term IMC to refer to QPI/VTT voltage, i have mines set at 1.23125v
I set DRAM at 1.65V




Hope this is of some help to you. Let me know how you get on.