How does this 2600K OC look?

[Krynj]

I agree. I'm betting it's the 1.329v that's giving me higher temps.

Beace, what's the rest of your setup look like? I don't think I could even do 4.6 at 1.29Vcore. But for laughs, I'll give it a shot.

As I type this, doing a quick Prime95 test at 4.6GHz. Temperatures are nearly identical to the screen caps above.

 

[Beace]

Well, only other that could possibly affect my temps would be the case I guess, which is a Cooler Master HAF 932. Lots of fans, which keeps the inside cool.

I think I simply have a very good chip. Seems to require quite a bit less voltage to overclock than most others I see. I ran it at 4.4 GHz with 1.25V for a few weeks (might have been able to go lower, I never tried it), then I raised it to 4.6 GHz and running fully stable at 1.29V. I haven't touched PLL or LLC or anything else, it's all on auto except the CPU multiplier, CPU voltage and memory voltage. Just dumb luck I think.

Thing is though, even your idle temps are rather high, and there you only had 1.05V. So dunno if it's a voltage issue causing your temps. Maybe your CPU cooler fans are running very slow or something?

 

[Krynj]

Also, a question to all the other GIGABYTE board owners here. Sometimes when my system locks up during stress testing, I'll reboot, go back into BIOS, reset my OC, and then when it boots back up, the board has to flash a BIOS recovery image. Is this just the dual BIOS making sure my BIOS is set to trusted factory defaults, or is there something wrong here? Any other GIGABYTE board owners familiar with that? I've used GIGABYTE boards for a long time, and I don't think I've ever seen it flashing from its secondary BIOS on its own, ever.

Next time it locks up during testing, I'm going to just reboot it without resetting the BIOS to see if it still flashes a recovery image.

 

[Krynj]

Well, only other that could possibly affect my temps would be the case I guess, which is a Cooler Master HAF 932. Lots of fans, which keeps the inside cool.

I think I simply have a very good chip. Seems to require quite a bit less voltage to overclock than most others I see. I ran it at 4.4 GHz with 1.25V for a few weeks (might have been able to go lower, I never tried it), then I raised it to 4.6 GHz and running fully stable at 1.29V. I haven't touched PLL or LLC or anything else, it's all on auto except the CPU multiplier, CPU voltage and memory voltage. Just dumb luck I think.

Thing is though, even your idle temps are rather high, and there you only had 1.05V. So dunno if it's a voltage issue causing your temps. Maybe your CPU cooler fans are running very slow or something?

Something worth thinking about, that's for sure. I have an Antec Lanboy Air, and although they recommend having ALL fans be intake fans, I'm kind of questioning this practice, since the rear intake fan is blowing directly into my Noctua's exhaust fan. Not sure if you're familiar with this case, but, it's pretty much a complete mesh construction, with large openings and mesh everywhere for warm air to escape. It's pretty cool too, under full load, I can place my hand above the top of my case, and feel the warm air rising up.

Still though, I wonder if I can come up with a better configuration for the heatsink fans and the rear fan. Maybe if I put them around to the other side, and reverse their direction, to have them pulling air directly from the rear intake fan. Hmm...

 

[MrTransistorm]

Ok. So, stable at 4.5. Going to try for 4.6, also noticed that my BIOS has flashed itself back to the factory BIOS. Going to use one of the OC BIOS that was linked earlier in this thread and give that a shot.

To prevent it from switching back to the factory BIOS upon OC failure, you need to flash the backup BIOS with a newer version. A handy how-to video is here. ***Before you flash any BIOS, make sure you load optimized defaults***. I recommend starting by flashing the main BIOS with the latest stable (non-beta) release (in the case of my UD7, it's F7). After the main BIOS is flashed, flash the backup BIOS using the Alt-F12 method shown in the video. After that's done, you can flash the main BIOS with whatever beta BIOS you want to try. From then on, even if it crashes hard you probably won't have reset or reenter all of your settings again. Instead it will reboot a couple of times and give you a message saying that the OC failed. You then go into BIOS setup again, and your previous settings should still be there. Make some adjustments, save, and exit.

MrTransistorm, what are your temps under 100% load? And why are my temperatures per core varying so much?

At 4.8GHz I was hitting 80C while running Prime95. My cooler (Thermalright HR-02) wasn't designed for massive overclocks. It works best with a low speed fan for quiet operation. During my stability testing I put a much more powerful fan on it, but diminishing returns for fan speed set in very quickly. There just isn't enough surface area to dissipate all of that heat. Note that the 80C at 4.8GHz was with that high speed fan. I decided that the noise wasn't worth it, so I backed down to 4.7GHz. I gained 5C in my favor with the same fan.

Now, since I'm not running the CPU on full blast for daily use, I put a much quieter fan on the heat sink. Even running a CPU intensive task like video encoding doesn't get it anywhere near as hot as Prime95 does. The system remains very quiet now. All I can hear is my HDD clicking away and a slight hum from the fans in the top of my case (they need to be replaced and/or damped). My thirst for more power has not waned, though. I'm saving up for watercooling.

Concerning the different core temps, this is normal. Especially since the hottest cores are in the middle. It's normal for them to be a few degrees hotter.

 

[Axon]

Also, a question to all the other GIGABYTE board owners here. Sometimes when my system locks up during stress testing, I'll reboot, go back into BIOS, reset my OC, and then when it boots back up, the board has to flash a BIOS recovery image. Is this just the dual BIOS making sure my BIOS is set to trusted factory defaults, or is there something wrong here? Any other GIGABYTE board owners familiar with that? I've used GIGABYTE boards for a long time, and I don't think I've ever seen it flashing from its secondary BIOS on its own, ever.

Next time it locks up during testing, I'm going to just reboot it without resetting the BIOS to see if it still flashes a recovery image.

UD4 owner here. That is my experience - any failure leads to it looking for the secondary BIOS. GB needs to work out the kinks with their SB line...I think ASUS has a large leg up on them. I might switch over when the Z68 chipset comes out.

 

[Krynj]

Yes, I agree. That was very annoying. I followed MrTransistorm's instructions above and that helped quite a bit. Now if it locks up, it just reboots like normal, and I can go into BIOS and bump-up whatever needs it, without waiting for it to turn off, reflash bios, turn off again, etc, etc.

Seems like I'm approaching stability with decent Vcore here. It's weird though -- when idling, it jumps up to 1.392v.

I'm tempted to take my CPU cooler off and reapply the thermal paste. I used AS5, but maybe I'll apply some of the Noctua thermal compound instead.

 

[Krynj]

Alright, so, my Vcore is set to auto in BIOS, and my DVID is +0.090v. Under load @ 4.7GHz, CPU-Z reads 1.344v. Temps stay pretty low too. And while idling, my Vcore hovers in the 1.010 range. So I'm quite happy with that.

I'll do some Prime95 tests later today.