Higher vcore means...... lower temperatures? What?

[Cyber Akuma]

So, I did something stupid on my i7 3770K build.

After I already had a stable overclock, but I upgraded my motherboard's UEFI anyway, and had to redo all of my settings (good thing I wrote them down).

My overclock was no longer stable on my old settings, and I really didn't want to turn my offset any higher, so I tried to tweak some of my other settings... that's when things started to get weird.

I set the CPU Load-Line Calibration from Auto to Medium (50%), now, the vcore gets a bit higher than it used to (maxes out at 1.320, forgot where it maxed out before but it was somewhere in the 1.3X range, pretty sure it was below 1.320 however) and hits the max more often than normal.... but runs COOLER when the vcore is higher.

On Prime95 blend mode, while the CPU is at a vcore of 1.320 my cores are around 65C, give or take. When the vcore is in the 1.29X range, my core temps are around 78C-83C. All cores are at 100% load and at 4400mhz so it isn't throttling (the TJMax is 105C anyway)... according to Open Hardware Monitor at least.

I am hopelessly confused, why would it run cooler the higher the voltage it gets now?

 

[MrSquished]

i would immediately try a different temp reading piece of software like Real Temp or Core Temp and see what they report.

 

[Cyber Akuma]

Opened two instances of SpeedFan to graph the vcore and cpu temps, exact same results. The vcore is steady when its above 1.300 volts but seems to fluctuate up and down when 1.290 and below.

 

[Cyber Akuma]

Here's my best attempt at graphing it over a 9 or so hour period:

The black line is the vcore, and never went above 1.32 or below 1.29. As you can see, my core temps are around 75C while its at 1.3 or above, but as soon as it dips to 1.29 the cores spike to 80-85C. Also, while the vcore is at 1.3+ the voltages remain stable, but when it dips below 1.29 it keeps rapidly alternating between 1.29 and 1.31:

 

[nature1ders]

RMA it all!

 

[Ferzerp]

You changed the BIOS version. You can't compare without knowing everything that the revision changed,

 

[Haserath]

That's Vdroop in action. The more load you put on the CPU, the lower the volts go, but the higher your temps.

My setup if set up a certain way will idle at 1.2V and load itself at 1.12V(Just an example).

Load line calibration stops the voltage drop, sort of. Since you changed the setting, that must be the reason you're seeing this happen now.

Intel actually recommends no LLC, because Vdroop should be accounted for.