Help Shephard overclock 3570k

[Shephard]

Hello and good evening all.

My computer is built albeit no graphics card. yet...

I am using the msi board. Yes I know some of you said it was crap because of this no voltage offset thing. At least it didn't come dead or broken. So far so good. If it really ends up being suck I will return it.

I have not overclocked in many years and the uefi is new to me.

here is what I did.

multiple 40x (4.0ghz) - auto cpu voltage - EIST enabled - Enhanced Turbo enabled.

I have Prime 95 Small FFT's on. 15 minutes in I am at 59 - 65 - 65 - 62 across the 4 cores. Highest was 68 degrees celcius.

how long should I run this? Maybe 4 hours?

I did not touch the settings on the golden ram.

I would like to go higher ghz. maybe 4.4ghz or more. I was told you can do that with the Hyper 212 cooling.

Thanks

 

[Vectronic]

Running Small FFT for longer than about 5 minutes is probably a waste of time, it creates a lot of heat, but isn't very good at testing general stability. Good for finding out maximum temps.

"Blend" is generally better for longer more thorough stability tests.

If you are 65 @ 4... you'll probably be 10 to 15 degrees hotter at 4.4... 80-ish.

That's assuming your 3570K is decent.

 

[Shephard]

can I go higher while keeping voltage on auto?

I will try blend and stop the FFT now.

 

[dma0991]

You can go till 4.2GHz on auto, anything more than that, it'll have to be manual voltage. I'd have to remind that MSI's BIOS is broken on the Z77A-GD65, version 10.6 to 10.8. Voltage and clockspeed is locked at the value you've set at BIOS regardless of whether you've turned on EIST or C-states. It does fluctuate to 1.6GHz briefly on some cores but it switches back to 4.5GHz so fast that the difference is not picked up by CPU-Z.

You've not mentioned the model of your motherboard but I'm certain that this problem is not restricted only to the MSI Z77A-GD65.

 

[Shephard]

it's the step below gd55.

The Small FFT ran just over 2 hours. no temps at 70.

I just started the blend. Temps are in 40/50s, using 100% cpu usuage, and 2.60gb ram.

I was able to set voltage to 1.25v for a test earlier but decided to start lower.

so how is it broken?

 

[dma0991]

so how is it broken?

Clockspeed does not drop to 1.6GHz at idle, EIST and C-states does not work. It used to, back when I was overclocking with the reference bios, 10.0. Locked voltage and clockspeed scaling doesn't bother me much as I would switch from stock to 4.5GHz only when I need it but having an option for offset voltage would've been a nice touch.

That being said, any overclock on the Core i5 3570K that isn't near 4.5GHz or more is not worth it as the processor functions normally at stock and it'll go up till 3.8GHz on Turbo Mode which is still good enough for normal day to day usage.

 

[Shephard]

I am on the stock bios. Are you sure they haven't fixed those problems?

how should I start then? 45x multiple and then manual voltage?

This guy from MSI forum says...

Since the recommended industry limit on CPU V. is 1.400v's, 1.3+v's is not really an issue. If you have the VDroop function, it will reduce the amount of CPU V. according to the setting selected. If you take the CPU V. out of 'Auto', you lose power saving features, so it's running basically full tilt all the time with no reduction of CPU V.. With a Turbo OC, with CPU V. 'Auto', you can still recieve the benefit of power saving at idle and low usage.

 

[dma0991]

Are you sure they haven't fixed those problems?

Nope. I bricked one of my BIOS just to experiment with it. Fixed voltage has always been a part of MSI's boards even with the original BIOS but clockspeed that doesn't go down at idle, that's been a problem since the BIOS revision 10.6 to 10.8.

Then there's the missing popup menu to select the speed/voltage you want on the current BIOS version. There used to be a popup menu back in version 10.0 that gives you a number of values in increments. Now you're limited to controlling it with the + or - on the number pad. Great board, not so great BIOS.

You can start on how capable your rig is capable. Only go that high if you have sufficient cooling. You're told that the Hyper212 is sufficient but that depends on your local ambient temps.

 

[Shephard]

well the bios was praised on the reviews I don't get it.

how do you think I should start then.

 

[dma0991]

[RANT]
Gave it another try and managed to recover the bricked BIOS. I had to flash it with version 10.5 to do a Multi BIOS Update that actually works. Version 10.6 doesn't come with a Multi BIOS Update option and 10.8's Multi BIOS Update had no effect in recovering the other BIOS. Many thanks to this.
[/RANT]

The BIOS looks good visually but as I've tried, some revisions of BIOS is broken, even newer ones. MSI's Multi BIOS Update should be used with caution(as with any flashing for that matter) but that shouldn't be a problem for the MSI Z77A-GD55 as it does not come with dual BIOS.

There's no absolute way of overclocking. Do what you think fits with your preference in terms of usage, voltage, temps and clockspeed. I was just implying that switching back and forth from stock to 4.5GHz fits my usage. Ideally, with a Hyper212, you should not go beyond 4.2GHz. Set voltage on auto, run tests for few hours. If it crashes or BSOD, you're likely solution is to do a manual voltage or reduce clockspeed.

 

[Vectronic]

Well, if you are going for max... that's probably going to be 4.4GHz with your cooler.

You'll probably get 80C with Large FFT, 85 with Small FFT, and probably right up to the top (100-105) with LinX. Daily usage, normal apps you'll probably top-out at about 70-75C.

At 4.4, you're probably looking at a voltage of 1.220.

Other than multiplier and voltage, the only things you should change are C-State related things (Disable C3/6/States mainly, C1E is a bit more optional), and IGPU if you don't use it (Disable Render States, Multi-GPU, etc).

Leave RAM at stock for now, once/if you get 4.4 stable, then play with RAM if you want.

If you can get 4.4 running LinX (at Max/all RAM etc) at ~85C (doubtful) then you could go for 4.5GHz, wouldn't bother going higher starts getting problematic, takes way more tweaking, and will be hard to test because P95 and certainly LinX will just fire it right up to 105C and start throttling.

 

[Yuriman]

You might find this helpful:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2275027

 

[tweakboy]

Turn off speedstep and C1E ..... let us know.

 

[Shephard]

I see all the guides saying start with 1.25v volts, but Intel rates that Ivy Bridge can go higher. Why are people scared of doing 1.3 or more?

 

[Vectronic]

They're not, or at least they shouldn't be... "starting" with 1.25v is usually because it's a fairly safe voltage as far as temperatures go, even the stock cooler will be able to hang onto that for a bit before hitting TJMax.

I've had mine into TJMax several times now (5 or 6 times), and have had it running in the 100 to 103C temps for half hour, an hour at a time... I've had as much as 1.55 volts in it... (going for 5.2GHz, on AIR...lol)... there's really no reason to be scared of the chip at all unless you were really unlucky... or have a board that just wants to destroy things.

That said, starting low is just practical... if you aim high from the get go and it fails, well then what?... you gotta drop it down, but you don't really know by how much, so... it just makes sense to start in normal/known territory, and keep trying to grow.

 

[Shephard]

ok I set multiple to 44x and disabled Intel Turbo Boost and EIST. I left voltage on auto.

When I try Prime 95 blend test, Prime 95 crashes after about 7 seconds. The computer did not restart though.

I tried the test above blend. It started working but 'worker 2' was not going. Then I couldn't click anything so I had to restart.

 

[Vectronic]

You need to up it to 1.21 gigawatts of electricity! When that baby hits 44 multipliers... well you know...

 

[runzwithsizorz]

Currently running my 3570k at 4.43GHz. spent 2 hours lapping, and prep on a
Hyper212 plus p/p, using Arctic Silver. Case is a HAF, with 7 fans. Highest core temp was 79 after Linpack benching. I think my vcore voltage,(on auto),
is too high at 1.37 ?? Still trying to familiarize myself with this Asus P8z77-Vpro bios. If I could lower the volts, and thus lower the temps I may go for a higher clock.