Ideal voltage for 3930K overclock

[Carfax83]

My 3930k is finally getting here tomorrow (damn you slow ass UPS ground!) and since this will be my first Sandy Bridge-E build, I'd like to know what the ideal voltages are for a healthy 24/7 overclock of say 4.5ghz.

Motherboard will be an AsRock Extreme6 BTW. Never used AsRock before (I usually go with Asus or Gigabyte), but their products seem well rated and reasonably priced. Did I make a good choice for the motherboard?

Memory kit will be 16gb G.Skill Ripjaws Z DDR3-2133 CL9.

 

[escrow4]

Same board and CPU here, I have mine running at 4.1Ghz @ 1.25v stable. Didn't want to shove up a high clock speed and higher voltage immediately, so settled on that. Pretty sure you'll hit and probably pass 1.3v @ 4.5GHz. Also make sure you have a (really) good cooler.

 

[Carfax83]

Same board and CPU here, I have mine running at 4.1Ghz @ 1.25v stable. Didn't want to shove up a high clock speed and higher voltage immediately, so settled on that. Pretty sure you'll hit and probably pass 1.3v @ 4.5GHz. Also make sure you have a (really) good cooler.

Did you set that overclock manually? Or did you use the auto function?

I have a Noctua NH-D14 btw.. Whats the maximum safe voltage for overclocking on air?

 

[Grooveriding]

Expect over 1.3, likely in the area of 1.35 for 4.5ghz. I had a NH-D14 on mine before and it handled it fine. Temps were only super high with stress test programs like prime or linx, 85C+. Otherwise they were reasonable.

I have run mine with 1.38 for a long time and no degradation. I had it at 1.45 for a few months as well. The voltage to be careful with is vccsa. Try not to raise it much.

 

[Carfax83]

Thanks man, sage advice

 

[moonbogg]

I have mine set to 1.28 and it has bursts up to 1.29 and this is at a rock solid 4.3ghz. Nothing crashes it ever and temps stay in the 70's during stress testing with a corsair H80. Intense gaming sessions temps stay around mid 60's.

 

[Carfax83]

I have mine set to 1.28 and it has bursts up to 1.29 and this is at a rock solid 4.3ghz. Nothing crashes it ever and temps stay in the 70's during stress testing with a corsair H80. Intense gaming sessions temps stay around mid 60's.

Hmm, I may opt for 4.3 or 4.4 if I can stay under 1.3v. A hundred or couple hundred MHz won't make a damn bit of difference at the resolution and settings I game at since I'm GPU limited.

 

[tweakboy]

My 3930k is finally getting here tomorrow (damn you slow ass UPS ground!) and since this will be my first Sandy Bridge-E build, I'd like to know what the ideal voltages are for a healthy 24/7 overclock of say 4.5ghz.

Motherboard will be an AsRock Extreme6 BTW. Never used AsRock before (I usually go with Asus or Gigabyte), but their products seem well rated and reasonably priced. Did I make a good choice for the motherboard?

Memory kit will be 16gb G.Skill Ripjaws Z DDR3-2133 CL9.

I think you made a bad decision. Ivy Bridge E 4930k and 4960k . 6c12t is coming out September 24th.

 

[Carfax83]

I have it set at 4.4ghz 1.31v fixed and it's stable.

Do you guys recommend using fixed, or offset?

 

[moonbogg]

I have it set at 4.4ghz 1.31v fixed and it's stable.

Do you guys recommend using fixed, or offset?

Grats on the OC. I use offset. I like the voltage and frequency drop during idle. Its a must have for me. I feel it extends the life of the CPU by a lot and makes me more comfortable.

 

[Carfax83]

Grats on the OC. I use offset. I like the voltage and frequency drop during idle. Its a must have for me. I feel it extends the life of the CPU by a lot and makes me more comfortable.

Do you enable all of your C states with offset? I heard doing so can cause instability..

 

[tweakboy]

Do you enable all of your C states with offset? I heard doing so can cause instability..

Nice rig but what about SSD ? If you don't have one that is not good.

 

[Carfax83]

Man, this chip is incredible I must say. I lowered the voltage just a tiny bit more, to 1.3v with CPU load line calibration at level 3, and it's stable as a rock at 4.4ghz.. I just played Crysis 3 for about 30 minutes, temps never even broke 60

A far cry from the overclocked 920 I was on previously which ran rather hot (usually in the mid 70s) due to all the volts I had to pump into it to get it to run at 4.2ghz stable.

My computer feels so much different now, a lot smoother and more fluid.

Honestly, I'm glad I decided to go with Sandy Bridge E instead of Haswell, because overclocking has never been so easy

 

[Grooveriding]

I use offset mode so voltages and temps drop during light use. Leave c1 and speedstep enabled and disable the c3 states, if I remember right there are three of those.

 

[Carfax83]

I use offset mode so voltages and temps drop during light use. Leave c1 and speedstep enabled and disable the c3 states, if I remember right there are three of those.

I'll have to mess with offset mode some other time. Right now, I'm very satisfied with the voltage and temps. I reduced the voltage again so now it's at 1.29 and it's STILL stable at 4.4ghz. I may try 1.28 later on as well..

CPU-Z shows idle voltage at 1.28v, which is pretty low if you ask me. At full load, it drops down to about 1.25.. This is with CPU LLC enabled at level 3.

*Edit* OK tried 1.28v and I had some issues with stability. 1.285v works great though, so that's my final voltage! :thumbsup:

 

[Riotvale]

i tried to get 4.4 on 1.285v as well. it's just not stable enough. A couple runs of prime 95 and IBT lock everything up. Temps are still pretty good though, the highest core only hit 71 during the test.

The best i can get right now on 1.275 is around 4.2 or so. I really want 4.4 (ideally 4.5) on air (Noctua DH14). I'll have to settle for 4.2 right now though. I guess that's still a pretty good OC for a 3930k.

Thoughts?

 

[Carfax83]

i tried to get 4.4 on 1.285v as well. it's just not stable enough. A couple runs of prime 95 and IBT lock everything up. Temps are still pretty good though, the highest core only hit 71 during the test.

Do you have load line calibration enabled?

Also what resolution do you game at? If you game at 1440p and above, then 4.2ghz should be fine because you're going to be more GPU limited at that resolution.

At 1200p and under though, the CPU is going to make more of a difference. It really depends on the game and your settings though..

 

[moonbogg]

i tried to get 4.4 on 1.285v as well. it's just not stable enough. A couple runs of prime 95 and IBT lock everything up. Temps are still pretty good though, the highest core only hit 71 during the test.

The best i can get right now on 1.275 is around 4.2 or so. I really want 4.4 (ideally 4.5) on air (Noctua DH14). I'll have to settle for 4.2 right now though. I guess that's still a pretty good OC for a 3930k.

Thoughts?

My 3930k is 4.3 stable with auto voltage, which ends up being right around 1.28v. It looks like your chip is right where it should be. I don't use load line calibration or any of the BIOS performance features. I leave it all on normal or off. All it seems to do is simply increase voltage and heat and its not needed.
Also, I noticed that 4.3ghz is a wall for me, meaning that I need a LOT more voltage to get stable at 4.4 than I do at 4.3. If going to 4.5 or higher, forget it. I'll need custom water and have to screw around too much for it to be worth it.

 

[blackened23]

Just throwing this out there since you asked it a few posts ago -

Offset voltage is definitely worth it. There are some folks here that brush off any concerns of electromigration, but i've had CPUs in the past become unstable from previously stable overvoltaged clockspeeds from going too hard on manual voltage, so offset is definitely better in the long run. Those CPUs took 2+ years to feel the effects, and I didn't care because I had planned upgrades anyway but in the long run. But the point being, offset definitely will increase the life of your CPU while overvoltaged - over voltage absolutely does cause electromigration, so if there's anything you can do to prevent it - it's a good idea even if it takes 2-3 years for manual voltage become an issue.

It's going to be a pain in the neck to dial in, it will probably take you a couple of hours to find a stable setting - I use .020+ on my 3770k. But in the long run, offset/adaptive voltage is definitely worth it for better idle temps and longevity.

 

[SexyK]

Is there any way to put a cap on the voltage using offset? Since launch of the 3930 I've had my chip under an H100 at 4.2 with no adjustment to the voltage it never went above ~1.3v. I just finished up a custom water loop and temps are much better so I want to push to the 4.4-4.5 range, but even without making any adjustments to the voltage settings in the BIOS the voltage is bumping up over 1.4v at times automatically. Don't really want to set a manual voltage since I like the sub-1.0v idle voltages, but 1.4+ seems a bit much.

 

[blackened23]

Is there any way to put a cap on the voltage using offset? Since launch of the 3930 I've had my chip under an H100 at 4.2 with no adjustment to the voltage it never went above ~1.3v. I just finished up a custom water loop and temps are much better so I want to push to the 4.4-4.5 range, but even without making any adjustments to the voltage settings in the BIOS the voltage is bumping up over 1.4v at times automatically. Don't really want to set a manual voltage since I like the sub-1.0v idle voltages, but 1.4+ seems a bit much.

The only way to "cap" the offset voltage is to experiment until you find a setting that pins it at an ideal turbo voltage.

It will take several hours and be a complete pain in the neck....but worth it in the end. Haswell makes this process much easier with adaptive voltage - where you *can* use a target turbo voltage, but no such option exists for SB/IVB.

 

[SexyK]

The only way to "cap" the offset voltage is to experiment until you find a setting that pins it at an ideal turbo voltage.

It will take several hours and be a complete pain in the neck....but worth it in the end. Haswell makes this process much easier with adaptive voltage - where you *can* use a target turbo voltage, but no such option exists for SB/IVB.

Okay that makes sense. So in my case, because I haven't made any manual voltage adjustments yet, that means I would likely need to set a negative offset, correct? That is, I want the voltages at turbo to be lower, so I should set a negative offset against the current reported voltages?

 

[blackened23]

Okay that makes sense. So in my case, because I haven't made any manual voltage adjustments yet, that means I would likely need to set a negative offset, correct? That is, I want the voltages at turbo to be lower, so I should set a negative offset against the current reported voltages?

You know, i'm not even sure if - or + is better, lol. I personally use positive; using +.020 on my 3770k puts my turbo voltage right around 1.25ish which is perfect for me. I think I tried negative offsets and I had worse results, but the entire process took a really long time (and was really annoying). But, idling at 1.255V (high voltage for IVB) wasn't very fun either, so i'm glad I went through with the effort required to find a proper offset.

I wish I had a better answer, but it's really a trial and error sort of thing with a lot of reboots in between.

 

[moonbogg]

Okay that makes sense. So in my case, because I haven't made any manual voltage adjustments yet, that means I would likely need to set a negative offset, correct? That is, I want the voltages at turbo to be lower, so I should set a negative offset against the current reported voltages?

Leaving the voltage on auto usually results in the CPU being stable. So, a starting point for you may be to observe the peak auto voltage under load, and then go into bios and start adding small negative offsets until you are no longer stable, then go back up a notch or so. I think you can go as small as like .005 or something. Been a while since I've done it.

 

[Grooveriding]

Our motherboards are different but both are from Asus, so maybe you can use my settings as a starting point for running offset and go from there.

Using offset for 4.8Ghz I use 0.055 CPU Vcore, LLC on Medium, 1.125 VTT, 1.11709 2nd VTT, 1.12 VCCSA, 1.8625 CPU PLL. WIth these settings my vcore maxes out around 1.39

For 4.6Ghz I can run all the same as above but 0.045 CPU Vcore and 1.85 CPU PLL. With these settings my vcore maxes out around 1.365