Help with a moderate first time Overclock (i5-3570K)

[Endymion FRS]

I have an ASRock Extreme4 Z77, and I'd like to bump it up to 4.4, but I need a bit of help. I tried using the boards "load optimized turbo" for both 4.2 and 4.4, but they increased voltage to 1.240. What exactly is the limit for voltages I need to look out for? I plan on using this as a 24/7 overclock for 2-3 years or so, and the whole electromitigation thing has me worried. I also tried to limit it to stock voltage, but I couldn't find any setting for that. I ended up setting it to fixed @ 1.2v and bumped up to 4.4, but it bluescreened on Intel burn test.

What I am pretty much asking is, where exactly do I start? I want to learn, and I know it is mostly trial and error. I just want to know what some of these setting are and what does it mean when i change some of them.

 

[SpeedTester]

What cooler you using? Stock?

 

[Endymion FRS]

Hyper 212+. I tried a 4.2 for a test a while back, only got to high 60's on Prime95

 

[Diogenes2]

I have a 3770 @ 4.4 & 1.18 volts on an Asus board.. You might have a chip that will take you lower ( voltage ) than that ..

Use the vcore " Offset " mode with a negative value and lower it in .010 steps until you lose stability . That will let you run and the lowest possible Vcore ..

 

[Ferzerp]

I have an ASRock Extreme4 Z77, and I'd like to bump it up to 4.4, but I need a bit of help. I tried using the boards "load optimized turbo" for both 4.2 and 4.4, but they increased voltage to 1.240. What exactly is the limit for voltages I need to look out for? I plan on using this as a 24/7 overclock for 2-3 years or so, and the whole electromitigation thing has me worried. I also tried to limit it to stock voltage, but I couldn't find any setting for that. I ended up setting it to fixed @ 1.2v and bumped up to 4.4, but it bluescreened on Intel burn test.

What I am pretty much asking is, where exactly do I start? I want to learn, and I know it is mostly trial and error. I just want to know what some of these setting are and what does it mean when i change some of them.

Others may disagree, but with your cooler, I would be willing to use as much voltage as you can adequately cool. The reason I say this, is you're going to get hotter than you're comfortable with before your voltage reaches dangerous levels.

My chip is a bad OC'er and needs around 1.22-1.23V for stability at 4.4Ghz

 

[borisvodofsky]

OK what you need to do is POST screen shots of ALL of the pages of your bios options relevant to CPU, and MEMORY

That is the only way we can help you with any accuracy.

 

[Endymion FRS]

How do I take a screenshot of my bios? Or do I just use a camera for that?

 

[Kenmitch]

OK what you need to do is POST screen shots of ALL of the pages of your bios options relevant to CPU, and MEMORY

That is the only way we can help you with any accuracy.

Images from http://www.anandtech.com/Gallery/Album/1908#

 

[borisvodofsky]

Did you break into his house and take photos of his stuff? :biggrin::biggrin:

 

[borisvodofsky]

advance turbo. disable
optimized cpu. disable
optimized gpu. disable

Cpu ratio. 45
host clock. 100
spread spectrum. disable
intel speed step. enable
intel turbo boost. enable
additional turbo voltage. (come back to later). disable for now if possible
internal pll overvoltage. disable

Under XMP
- LOAD the primary xmp profile

CPU voltage. keep upping this until you can pass prime 95 1792k test for 35 mins with 70% of your memory

STAY below 1.4v (measured in cpuz or occt, not bios)

---- in prime 95, go to top menu, torture test, custom test, min 1792k, max 1792k, and put in the value for 70% of your ram


You should probably disable the IGP some where, because you're probably not using it.


Dram voltage set to default value that's printed on your memory sticks,
--- if it's 1.65, then use 1.65, you can decide to drop to a lower voltage later.

Load line calibration, set to level 3, or level 4 for now.

C1E, disable
C3 State, disable
C6 State, disable
Package C state Support, Disable

CPU Thermal throttling DISABLE , you can enable this later when you know your overclocking limits

Command Rate in the memory profile can be changed to 1T or 1N if you're using only 2 sticks of memory.

If you are using 4 sticks of memory , you'll need to make sure it's 2T or 2N

 

[Yuriman]

CPU Thermal throttling DISABLE , you can enable this later when you know your overclocking limits

Great guide except for that part. I would recommend never disabling thermal throttling, it's there for a reason.

 

[borisvodofsky]

Great guide except for that part. I would recommend never disabling thermal throttling, it's there for a reason.

You're to conservative. :biggrin::biggrin:

Here's the thing though, Thermal throttling is like a CPU condom,

It prevents you from getting a true feel of what your CPU can do.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

You're to conservative. :biggrin::biggrin:

Here's the thing though, Thermal throttling is like a CPU condom,

It prevents you from getting a true feel of what your CPU can do.

Lol. But a first time ocer shouldn't blow up his CPU

 

[Kenmitch]

Did you break into his house and take photos of his stuff? :biggrin::biggrin:

Nope. Just googled his motherboard and clicked images. Most of the time you can find bios shots. In his case it seems the images are of all screenshots if you look at the link.

You're to conservative. :biggrin::biggrin:

Here's the thing though, Thermal throttling is like a CPU condom,

It prevents you from getting a true feel of what your CPU can do.

By disabling Thermal Throttling it would be more like hammering a cork in the end of ones e-peen.

 

[Ferzerp]

Don't listen to the person who told you disable thermal throttling. If you hit that point, you're as hotter then you need to be already. It holds you back in absolutely no way. It just keeps you from breaking things. Nor do you have any buisness at all going near 1.4V with IB without some more exotic cooling. You'll hit 105C long before you get that kind of voltage.

 

[borisvodofsky]

Don't listen to the person who told you disable thermal throttling. If you hit that point, you're as hotter then you need to be already. It holds you back in absolutely no way. It just keeps you from breaking things. Nor do you have any buisness at all going near 1.4V with IB without some more exotic cooling. You'll hit 105C long before you get that kind of voltage.

You don't know that.. maybe he's got an h100 or something. and why would you assume he'd just walk away and while he's stress testing. the tests are only 30 mins long. He's probably just playing a ds or something.

 

[borisvodofsky]

Nope. Just googled his motherboard and clicked images. Most of the time you can find bios shots. In his case it seems the images are of all screenshots if you look at the link.



By disabling Thermal Throttling it would be more like hammering a cork in the end of ones e-peen.

You seem to know alot about this urethra insertion concept, please elaborate. :whiste:

 

[borisvodofsky]

Lol. But a first time ocer shouldn't blow up his CPU

You hardly ever hear about people blowing up their cpus by overclocking, it's only when cheap water loops fail, or peltier melting. :biggrin:

Which is why I am so against those water cooling in a box shenanigans.

 

[Endymion FRS]

advance turbo. disable
optimized cpu. disable
optimized gpu. disable

Cpu ratio. 45
host clock. 100
spread spectrum. disable
intel speed step. enable
intel turbo boost. enable
additional turbo voltage. (come back to later). disable for now if possible
internal pll overvoltage. disable

Under XMP
- LOAD the primary xmp profile

CPU voltage. keep upping this until you can pass prime 95 1792k test for 35 mins with 70% of your memory

STAY below 1.4v (measured in cpuz or occt, not bios)

---- in prime 95, go to top menu, torture test, custom test, min 1792k, max 1792k, and put in the value for 70% of your ram


You should probably disable the IGP some where, because you're probably not using it.


Dram voltage set to default value that's printed on your memory sticks,
--- if it's 1.65, then use 1.65, you can decide to drop to a lower voltage later.

Load line calibration, set to level 3, or level 4 for now.

C1E, disable
C3 State, disable
C6 State, disable
Package C state Support, Disable

CPU Thermal throttling DISABLE , you can enable this later when you know your overclocking limits

Command Rate in the memory profile can be changed to 1T or 1N if you're using only 2 sticks of memory.

If you are using 4 sticks of memory , you'll need to make sure it's 2T or 2N

Ok, thanks. I had no intention of disabling thermal throttling ever anyways haha. A couple questions on this though. Why am I disabling all of the C states and spread spectrum? None of these affect how it underclocks and undervolts when not under load, correct? I can't adjust voltage directly, and was experimenting with offset, so 1.4v is the limit? I tried 1.25 at 4.4 overnight, and had one core have an error in Prime95 blend.

 

[Ferzerp]

Pretty much ignore any advice that guy gives you unless someone else agrees. There are bits of it that are misinformed, and bits of it that are dangerous.

 

[Endymion FRS]

I did read something about disabling C states on another guide though, they mentioned doing that if you use offset rather than fixed.

 

[borisvodofsky]

Pretty much ignore any advice that guy gives you unless someone else agrees. There are bits of it that are misinformed, and bits of it that are dangerous.

who died and made you king of overclocking. :whiste:

Everything I've mentioned is well tested, "distilled" information.

They are informal in the sense that they're generated through user experience.

But, they've been time tested for at least 2 years since dawning of p67+2500k combo, that everyone and their mother bought.


Everything presented is both SAFE, and well regarded as invaluable to stability and high performance. ^_^

 

[borisvodofsky]

I did read something about disabling C states on another guide though, they mentioned doing that if you use offset rather than fixed.

For now, just figure out what your cpu needs to sustain the overclock target you wish to get to.

The C-states are bad for overclocking because they lower voltages at different processor loads "unpredictably"

And it has been shown that enabling C3 and C6 lowers the SATA 3 performance on many intel boards.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

You hardly ever hear about people blowing up their cpus by overclocking, it's only when cheap water loops fail, or peltier melting. :biggrin:

Which is why I am so against those water cooling in a box shenanigans.

i meant it figuratively :whiste:

 

[Kenmitch]

I did read something about disabling C states on another guide though, they mentioned doing that if you use offset rather than fixed.

Offset voltage sometimes requires a person to disable c3 and c6 states. This is dependant on the chip and clockspeed tho. Anything under 4.5ghz or so most likely not....But it may also allow for lower 4 core loaded vcore.

The reasoning is do to the way the chips vcore works. For example with 4 core load the chip may ask for 1.28v 's at 4.5ghz and be stable as a rock. But if you hit the chip with a single core load it may only ask for 1.20v's and bsod. If c3 and c6 are disabled it eliminates this issue. Sometimes a little extra vcore will fix it also but is more useful on the baby overclocks.