Motherboard Auto Overclocking vs Manual Overclocking

[Dave3000]

I own an i7-4930k and an Asus P9X79 Pro motherboard. When I let the motherboard auto overclock my CPU it sets it to 4.1 GHz and the BCLK to 125 GHz and 1.4-1.42v (don't remember what voltage exactly). However I recently manually overclocked my CPU to 4.2 GHz at 1.17v and I ran Intel Burn Test at Very High setting for 100 runs successfully. I even tested it overclocked at 4.4GHz at 1.2v for a few minutes without issues in stress tests before setting it back to stock settings, however 4.5GHz is unstable with my chip even at 1.25v. Is the motherboard's auto overclock stress test harder the CPU than these stress test programs like Prime 95 and Intel Burn Test despite it taking less that a minute, and is that why the Auto overclock does not set the overclock as high but the vcore much higher?

 

[tential]

Auto OC seems to use much higher voltage than manual OC.

 

[Spungo]

Auto OC seems to use much higher voltage than manual OC.

The auto settings will always be very conservative. The worst thing a company could do is create an automatic overclock tool that creates questionable stability. When the computer starts crashing, the user goes straight to Newegg and rants about how terrible the product is. It's a much better business choice to use too much power and have the overclock limited by temperature. The computer won't crash; it will just overheat and downclock itself. Stability is maintained, no angry rants are posted on Newegg.

This is especially true with business related stuff. I ran the overclocking tool in my sig on my work computer's Nvidia Quadro 2000, and it was able to overclock by 40% before encountering errors. That's a huge margin of safety put there by the manufacturer. if you want to go balls to the wall and do your own stability testing, you'll need to manually control the clock and the voltage.

My E6600 is a great example of auto voltage being way too high. I have the CPU undervolted, but it's still able to run a stable overclock of 20%. If I let it use auto voltage while overclocked 20%, it would probably use twice as much power.