i7-2600K build: Overclocking: GPU Unlock/OC

[Termie]

Unfortunately, the stress test didn't make it through the night. @ -.06 offset Prime95 encountered faults around and hour and ten minutes. It did not BSOD, but simply canceled the test. Not sure if that is a sign my numbers are close, but past failed OC's have BSOD.

This morning i changed the offset to -.05 and started running it again. It's got a good 10 hours to run before i get home from work, we shall see if it makes it.

I will check out that utility tonight. I am also going to install MSI Afterburner and start playing around with my gpu clocks. During extended play my gpu temps have yet to creep out of the low 70's (with fans never exceeding 65%), and most of the time they stay in the upper 60's. Figure i've got some headroom to play with.

You can also try IntelBurnTest for a quick stability test. Might be interesting to see if it can pick up problems faster.

 

[DrBoss]

any recommendations on (free/shareware) benchmarking software?
i've used SiSoft Sandra in the past.

 

[DrBoss]

11.75 hours of Prime95 @ 4.4Ghz. -0.05 Offset.
Maximum temperature 62C

LOAD


IDLE

 

[tweakboy]

Are you using offset so you see correct temps. You can do that with core temp or speedfan.. anyhow..

 

[Termie]

Looks good to me. Now go play some games!

As for benchmarking, I really just run Superpi once in a while to make sure everything's in working order. I used to mess around with SiSoftware Sandra, but I kind of got tired of it. The trial version was too limited, and I didn't feel any need to pay for it.

 

[DrBoss]

Are you using offset so you see correct temps. You can do that with core temp or speedfan.. anyhow.. D:

I am using offset so that SpeedStep kicks in during idle and throttles the voltage back. If i manually set the voltage without an offset, the cpu maintains a constant voltage regardless of if it is under load or sitting idle (wastes power/runs hot).

Also, since i am running a negative offset, the mobo is supplying less voltage than it would if i simply set it to auto. My chip seems to perform well undervolted which yields favorable temperatures.

Its become obvious over the last week that Sandy Bridge overclocking is significantly different than on my old Conroe. Thanks to everyone who got me to this point.

 

[DrBoss]

SSD & The Windows Experience.

 

[DrBoss]

Spoke to soon. Just crashed while playing Crysis. I heard a noise in the speakers, like an alarm/bomb that was about to go off. Beep beep beep, the beeps getting closer and closer together (it wasn't anything obnoxious - just a "hmmm, whats that" kinda thing), and then wham, the system shut down. No BSOD, no error, it just shut down and then restarted.

Upon restart i entered the bios and set "additional turbo voltage" from Auto to +0.02. I am still attempting to maintain the the -0.05 offset which proved Prime95 stable for 1/2 a day. I assume Crysis is not fully loading all 4 cores (more likely 2) which would engage the Turbo function, which obviously need more voltage.

We shall see.


EDIT: that did it (+0.02 additional turbo voltage), now stable in Crysis. Doesn't seem to affect temperatures.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Time for an update

The idle temp issue still has me scratching my head... Using Core Temp and Real Temp the idle is not consistent. It jumps around between 26C and 40C (similarly to how the Vcore jumps around inside the ASUS bios). I don't understand how at one second the core can be 26C and then a second later be 40C... regardless, under load the temps are consistent and well within tolerances.

With a quick overclock, 40x Multiplier, 1.2 Vcore i posted the following results in Prime 95.



It ran for an hour stable before i got bored and decided to start this post (and format hard-drives in the background).

100% LOAD - after 30 minutes of Prime95
Core 0: 46C
Core 1: 51C
Core 2: 51C
Core 3: 54C

Seems reasonable/good for an unoptimized 4Ghz OC

Despite jumping around on me, i have noticed the idle temps have lowered slightly over the last few hours. The lowest readings ive seen at idle have been.

IDLE
Core 0: 26C
Core 1: 29C
Core 2: 27C
Core 3: 30C

I've also briefly spent some time putting the GPU's through their paces with Crysis.
At 65% fan speed on both GPU's (which is barely audible) the highest temperature i've seen is 54C.

I am new to Crossfire, and assume i am doing something wrong considering the results below.

I benchmarked using CrysisBenchmarkTool v1.05
3 runs on the ASSAULT_HARBOR level
64Bit, DX10, all settings @ VERY HIGH, 1920x1200, 8xAA

Results are as follows:

With Crossfire DISABLED (only 1 GPU)
Pass 1: 25.27 MIN - 45.47 MAX - 34.57 AVG
Pass 2: 25.27 MIN - 46.23 MAX - 35.95 AVG
Pass 3: 25.27 MIN - 46.23 MAX - 35.69 AVG

GPU1 temp at end of test, 54C

With Crossfire ENABLED
Pass 1: 23.33 MIN - 59.92 MAX - 44.95 AVG
Pass 2: 23.33 MIN - 59.92 MAX - 40.18 AVG
Pass 3: 23.33 MIN - 60.97 MAX - 45.36 AVG

GPU1 temp at end of test, 52C
GPU2 temp at end of test, 47C

Needless to say, the Crossfire results are lackluster. Crysis is not scaling well well in crossfire. I am running Catalyst 11.3, and Crysis has been patched to version 1.2. Perhaps there are some .cfg command lines that can improve performance?

During the Crossfire benchmark the game ran at 70, 80, at times 100 fps.. and then it randomly bog down to 25fps for a few seconds (this happened 3 or 4 times during each test).

Am i missing something? Is there something i need to do to configure Crossfire?
Any help is appreciated.

Thanks for reading.

are your overclocking with 8gb ram?

 

[Termie]

Spoke to soon. Just crashed while playing Crysis. I heard a noise in the speakers, like an alarm/bomb that was about to go off. Beep beep beep, the beeps getting closer and closer together (it wasn't anything obnoxious - just a "hmmm, whats that" kinda thing), and then wham, the system shut down. No BSOD, no error, it just shut down and then restarted.

Upon restart i entered the bios and set "additional turbo voltage" from Auto to +0.02. I am still attempting to maintain the the -0.05 offset which proved Prime95 stable for 1/2 a day. I assume Crysis is not fully loading all 4 cores (more likely 2) which would engage the Turbo function, which obviously need more voltage.

We shall see.


EDIT: that did it (+0.02 additional turbo voltage), now stable in Crysis. Doesn't seem to affect temperatures.

That sounds exactly right. Prime95 does nothing to test whether the turbo voltage is stable. You should stress test with fewer threads. As I mentioned, I use IntelBurnTest: http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Benchmarks/IntelBurnTest.shtml. But if you're stable for now, stick with that voltage until you experience additional turbo problems. It's quite a nice option to be able to set that turbo voltage separately - I don't think that feature existed on p55 boards (as far as I know).

By the way, your WEI and SSD benchmarks are awesome! Everything is exactly what I'd expect them to be - graphics maxed out, CPU near maxed out, and SSD right where it is supposed to be. I see no signs of any potential problems there.

As LiuKang, asked, however, what is your memory set at (speed, CAS, and voltage)? Your WEI score suggests that it might be overclocked, since my memory at DDR3-1850 CAS9 doesn't score that high.

 

[DrBoss]

are your overclocking with 8gb ram?

yea?
edit: i am not overclocking the ram... as far as i know.

 

[DrBoss]

As LiuKang, asked, however, what is your memory set at (speed, CAS, and voltage)? Your WEI score suggests that it might be overclocked, since my memory at DDR3-1850 CAS9 doesn't score that high.

8GB
CORSAIR Vengeance
DDR3-1600
1.5V
Cas 9
9-9-9-24

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&SID=u00000687

In the bios i have it set to DDR3-1600
I also have the voltage and timing set to match what is listed above.

As far as i know i've not done anything to overclock it.

While we are on the subject of RAM, i originally intended 16GB of this stuff but prior to the purchase i realized that (despite what the Archon advertising claims) my cpu heatsink/fans would prevent me from using the first DIM. Just a heads-up to anyone considering the Archon.

 

[Termie]

8GB
CORSAIR Vengeance
DDR3-1600
1.5V
Cas 9
9-9-9-24

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&SID=u00000687

In the bios i have it set to DDR3-1600
I also have the voltage and timing set to match what is listed above.

As far as i know i've not done anything to overclock it.

While we are on the subject of RAM, i originally intended 16GB of this stuff but prior to the purchase i realized that (despite what the Archon advertising claims) my cpu heatsink/fans would prevent me from using the first DIM. Just a heads-up to anyone considering the Archon.

Not surprising about heatsinks on vengeance. They are very high, probably more so than necessary on 1.5v memory. Luckily 8gb is plenty, but if you really need 16gb at some point, try g.skill, which has lower heat spreaders.

I guess what they say is true about SB - it's memory subsystem is more efficient. Overclocking seems unnecessary. I only score 7.6 with my 1866 vengeance at 1850, cas 9, 1N.

By the way, how do you post screenshots? I could never figure that out.

 

[Martimus]

By the way, how do you post screenshots? I could never figure that out.

To take a screen shot, you just need to hit the "Print Screen" button, and it will copy a screen shot to the clipboard. From there you can paste it into MS Paint or any other graphics program to save it.

To post it here you want to use the [ IMG ] and [/ IMG] command (remove the spaces). In between those two commands you need to put the image file location URL.

 

[DrBoss]

To take a screen shot, you just need to hit the "Print Screen" button, and it will copy a screen shot to the clipboard. From there you can paste it into MS Paint or any other graphics program to save it.

To post it here you want to use the [ IMG ] and [/ IMG] command (remove the spaces). In between those two commands you need to put the image file location URL.

True.

You do need to host the file online though.
I use flickr,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/20_18_06/
which offers free (but limited) accounts.

Once the image is hosted, flickr provides the BBCode code in the "share" tab. I copy this code directly into the body of my message and it automatically links to the image.
See below:

 

[Termie]

To take a screen shot, you just need to hit the "Print Screen" button, and it will copy a screen shot to the clipboard. From there you can paste it into MS Paint or any other graphics program to save it.

To post it here you want to use the [ IMG ] and [/ IMG] command (remove the spaces). In between those two commands you need to put the image file location URL.

True.

You do need to host the file online though.
I use flickr,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/20_18_06/
which offers free (but limited) accounts.

Once the image is hosted, flickr provides the BBCode code in the "share" tab. I copy this code directly into the body of my message and it automatically links to the image.
See below:

Thanks for the image tips guys.

Both of you have awesome systems by the way.

 

[Martimus]

Thanks for the image tips guys.

Both of you have awesome systems by the way.

Thanks. Yours is no slouch either.

 

[DrBoss]

Both of you have awesome systems by the way.

Cheers

 

[tersagun]

BTw guys,

many people claim that while Twin Frozr runs awesome all alone, it is awful for crossfire, as it needs lots of freah air at the bottom of it.

Now, your case is space-ship alike, but don't you really see some bad performance, GPU heat/noise wise, while running on load?

 

[DrBoss]

BTw guys,

many people claim that while Twin Frozr runs awesome all alone, it is awful for crossfire, as it needs lots of freah air at the bottom of it.

Now, your case is space-ship alike, but don't you really see some bad performance, GPU heat/noise wise, while running on load?

I am not experiencing any adverse heat or noise with my setup. The video cards are barely audible.
I played Crysis non-stop for 2 hours last night, below are the results from GPU-Z (which i had running in the background)


GPU1
Temp (Max) = 72c
Fan Speed (Max) = 67%

GPU2
Temp (Max) = 69C
Fan Speed (Max) = 65%

I think the problem people have with these cards in Crossfire is the result of having them side by side. The layout of the ASUS Sabertooth provides a spare PCI slot between the two cards (reference case image on first page).

Rangda's impressions of the cards (on page two of this thread) is also worth the read if you are considering two Frozr's.

 

[tersagun]

I see, thanks for the quick answer mate

Enjoy!

 

[DrBoss]

I see, thanks for the quick answer mate

no worries, are you thinking of getting two?

 

[darkware]

I got referred to this thread, and rightly so. I've got a 2600K build in the pipeline that is surprisingly close to this one. I've only got the P8P67, C300 instead of X-25M, and I'll be using the 650D instead of the Define R3. The other big difference is that I've got 16GB of Ripjaws X. I'm leaning toward using the Archon. I saw your comments and was going to clarify:

I heard other reports that the Archon's RAM clearance was about 44mm in the center. This would put the Ripjaws just a couple millimeters short and the Vengeance slightly too tall. Could you confirm how much the fan interferes with the heat spreader?

 

[DrBoss]

I got referred to this thread, and rightly so. I've got a 2600K build in the pipeline that is surprisingly close to this one. I've only got the P8P67, C300 instead of X-25M, and I'll be using the 650D instead of the Define R3. The other big difference is that I've got 16GB of Ripjaws X. I'm leaning toward using the Archon. I saw your comments and was going to clarify:

I heard other reports that the Archon's RAM clearance was about 44mm in the center. This would put the Ripjaws just a couple millimeters short and the Vengeance slightly too tall. Could you confirm how much the fan interferes with the heat spreader?

Sure, i will open up the case tonight and take a measurement.

I was considering the 650D prior to settling on the Fractal case. And to clarify, my case is the XL, not the R3.

 

[DrBoss]

This ram talk got me thinking. Does anyone have any experience removing the heat spreader from Corsair Vengeance ram? Considering my case is well ventilated i can't image the heat spreader is doing much for me (the ram is not OC'd).

It is still my interest to have 16gb of ram. The next question is what would actually make use of the added capacity. General consensus is that no more than 8gb of ram is needed for gaming, but would i likely see improvement in CAD and photo/image editing software if i had 16gb?