Is this normal turbo/clock behavior for an i5 3570K?

[I4AT]

So I'm working on a new build and it's exhibiting strange behavior, at least compared to what I'm used to with past sockets.

I have an i5 3570K and a Gigabyte Z77X-D3H, updated to the latest F16 BIOS from F9. With turbo boost enabled at settings of 38/38/37/36 (1, 2, 3, 4 active cores) and default multiplier at 34, CPU-Z is reporting 3.8ghz idle at desktop, 3.8ghz under LinX load on all 4 cores. It never downclocks even though C1E, C3/C6, etc. are enabled.

I set the turbo boost settings to 40/40/40/40 and default multiplier to 16x (1.6ghz) to see what would happen and it idles at 4ghz, bounces between 3.4ghz and 4ghz under LinX load, but 3.4ghz isn't even a current setting...

The XMP profile for my RAM (2x8GB 1866 g.skill ares) was working fine with the F9 BIOS, after the update to F16 the system hangs when enabling XMP. I manually set the timings and dropped from 1866 to 1800 and it's gotten more stable.

Anyways, why are the turbo settings not operating as intended, and should the CPU not idle at something like 1.6ghz?

If anyone is curious about temperatures it's reading 65C max load after about 22 minutes of LinX.

 

[ShintaiDK]

3.4Ghz is the base frequency without turbo. Do you have some kind of TDP setting in BIOS you can increase? That might be why its jumping up and down due to powerdraw thats limited to 77W.

But since you got a Z77 board. Why not just disable turbo and set it to 40x multiplier as default.

 

[crazymonkeyzero]

I don't think the frequencies should be jumping at load like that unless your cpu is getting too hot or like ShintaiDK says pulling too much power, in which the cpu will automatically downclock to compesate. On my stock 3770k,on full load, it runs constantly (give or take) at 3.79 ghz (3.8 is max turbo on 4 cores?) on all four cores when cooled by the h60~temps are around 59C which is a comfortable range for the cpu.

 

[I4AT]

Hmm, so you guys typically run 3.8 or whatever basically 24/7? This is what's really strange to me because I'm so used to 775 and 1156 chips speedstepping down significantly while idle, and I'd prefer that to be the case, no point in the chip running at 3.8ghz when I'm just sitting at the desktop.

It only jumps between 4 and 3.4 on that one particular setting, on optimized defaults it seems to work at 3.8/3.6 like it should. HWmonitor was showing 65 watts max package draw so I don't think it's throttling, temps stayed under 63C most of the time as well. I think the BIOS is just really weird and not accepting settings as it should.

I just can't get it to do something like 3.4/3.6/3.8/4.0, with those settings it just sticks at 3.8ghz both idle and load for some reason, although the voltage scales down while idle and up under load, even though clock speed never changes. Unless CPU-Z is just reporting the wrong readings, could that be the case if the motherboard is booting UEFI instead of legacy or something?

If I just set the CPU multiplier to 42 without turbo boost it sticks like it should, idles at .94v and 4.2ghz, then when loaded the voltage goes to about 1.26v 4.2ghz. That's really not how I'd like to have it set up though, I'd prefer it to run at 1.6ghz idle, step up to 3.4ghz or whatever under light workloads, and 4-4.2ghz when heavily loaded, is this not possible?

 

[crazymonkeyzero]

Hmm, so you guys typically run 3.8 or whatever basically 24/7?

No.

It runs 3.8ghz on all cores on load (like prime95/gaming/video encoding),typically kicking in at 20%+ cpu usage. At idle it's typically like 3.2ghz for me.The standard base frequency is 3.5ghz (3770k). But I think turbo has a lot to do with the motherboard as well. I think I read somewhere that Asus claims that their upper end boards (rog) are designed to enable the cpu to be in turbo for longer periods of time and more frequently compared to other manufacturers. I'm not exactly sure about the validity of this statement though, so please don't quote me.

 

[I4AT]

Now I've disabled all the C1E, EIST, C3/C6, etc. power states, disabled turbo, set the multiplier to 42 and the chip is running at a constant 3ghz instead of 4.2ghz. This is really starting to piss me off, I have no idea what's going on.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Idle 1.6Ghz for me. High load between 3.6 and 3.8Ghz depending on threads. I am sure your would do the same with stock settings.

But why overcomplicate it? You got an unlocked CPU, not a locked one. So use the multiplier instead of a turbomode that got alot of dependencies like temperature, powerdraw etc.

EDIT: Didnt see your last post. Try reset your BIOS to defaults, set the multiplier to 40x and see what happens. (Dont play with the turbo.)

 

[mango123]

I had this same issue I made a post about a while back.

I ended up just reflashing and updating bios twice, load defaults too.

Then I had to leave turbo on, and greyed out. Odd I know.

Turbo on at 46x mult gives me 4.6 load and 1.5 idle. C1E en all rest disabled.

Wehenever I would actually disable turbo on my asus board, it would try to run at 3.0 or 3.5 ghz when set to 4.4 - 4.6

 

[I4AT]

Uggh, I guess I can try flashing again. I can get to the point where 3.8/3.6 is the default like your board was running, but it still wouldn't go down to 1.6.

When you're setting your turbo multiplier, are you putting all 4 states at 46x, or just the 4 core state, the 1 core state, or what? Or does your BIOS not specify a separate multiplier for each number of active cores?

Or are you just setting the basic "CPU multiplier" to 46, and turbo automatically gets greyed out from there?

 

[I4AT]

I flashed it and cleared CMOS twice with the PSU unplugged. Now I can set it to 4.2ghz again, but it still doesn't idle at 1.6ghz, it's just always 4.2ghz.

Guess I'm just gonna try to find the lowest stable voltage I can get and leave it, tired of messing with this thing. I probably should have bought the Asrock Extreme4, the 2 extra USB 3.0 ports aren't worth this headache.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Just to make sure, you verified that your CPU load is 0-2% or so?

 

[I4AT]

Nah I didn't, I'll have to check, but I just realized I may still be on the "high performance" Windows profile from a step in an SSD optimization guide. That's probably my problem lol. Gonna go mess with it some more.

 

[I4AT]

Yeeeah that did it, was still in the high performance profile with a minimum 100% cpu speed. All this time getting aggravated with the board and it ended up being a Windows solution.

 

[ShintaiDK]

So error 40 strikes again

 

[I4AT]

lol yeah, PEBKAC.

So on a related subject, what exactly are vtt, pll, and load line calibrations? When I manually set my vcore to 1.24v the chip idles at ~1.23v according to CPU-Z. Under load when it ramps up to 4.2ghz the vcore drops to ~1.175v

When I use vcore auto the chip idles at ~.94v and rises to ~1.25v when it ramps up to 4.2ghz. What do I need to fine tune to manually set it to idle at less than 1.0v like it does when using auto vcore, but load at less than 1.2v?

Each option that I've worked with so far has done only half of what I want.

 

[Yuriman]

PLL is phase lock loop(?) and to my knowledge it's used by the clock generator. I have mine undervolted to 1.57v,the lowest my board supports, with no ill effects. It had been suggested that you might be able to shave a degree or two off by turning this down but overall it does very little to touch this setting.

Load line calibration compensates for the "natural" drop in voltage that happens when your chip is more highly loaded and drawing more current. It's possible for this setting to overcompensate on some boards, level 3 is ideal on mine.

Make sure you have spread spectrum disabled, and you can safely leave C1E and EIST enabled.