My Core i5 750 Overclock - Loving it!

[Bleser]

Please see my prior thread that lead to my purchase of the Core i5 750 system.

Now that I have the system built and running for a few days, here are my thoughts:

1. Compared to my E6300 1.86 GHz system, everything is just plain fast. I notice booting into Windows, starting games/programs up, decompressing files, EVERYTHING is noticeably faster. I expected this to be the case, but the fact that I can feel it with absolutely everything is great.

2. Stock speeds upped my 3DMark06 score from ~8000 to ~16600 on my GTX 275. However, I noticed that it never turbo'd past a 21x multiplier, and I expected a lot more. I did some research and for some odd reason the CPU option of "C State" is disabled by default on my P7P55D (even though turbo is enabled by default) and this limits the multiplier increase. Turning this on allows the OS to turn up the multiplier to 24x, or about 3.2 GHz as expected. I re-ran 3DMark06 and got a ~17700.

3. Then I wanted more. My goal was a mild overclock to allow me to use turbo and leave voltages alone. I haven't spent a ton of time finding my max limit for this, but am currently running 167 MHz base clock with turbo on. The OS throttles the CPU down to 1.5 GHz when idle (9x multiplier), 3.33 GHz base and all the way up to exactly 4 GHz when needed in single-threaded games and such - and it is ROCK stable with no voltage adjustments. This gave me a 3DMark06 score of around 19300. The recommended cooler keeps it around 30C @ idle and just shy of 60C under full load.

4. And now for the point of all of this... the simulator I am LOVING. WWII Battle Tanks: T34 vs. Tiger is SMOOTH AS BUTTER! I get 35-60 FPS @ 1920x1080 with FULL eye candy and a tons of detail. I'm in heaven. Fantastic! Knocking out Russian tanks has never been so fun/realistic.

Thanks for everyone's help on here. I will do some more tweaking but I am stoked that I am easily getting my 4 GHz turbo overclock... I might experiment with non-turbo overclocks... but not sure there is a point.

I did notice that when running @ 4 GHz CPU-Z says vCore is 1.36... I assume this is the motherboard automatically increase voltage when it upps the multiplier in turbo mode?

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

So the jump was about as much as taking 2 audigy cards out - Glad to hear things are on the up!

 

[gizbug]

Hows your WATTAGE doing with that OC? Had mine at 3.5, seeing 100-120 Watts, and said no thanks. Back down to stock speeds. Spending 20-40 a month more in electric bill wasn't worth it to me.

 

[Jumpem]

What cooler are you using?

 

[Ben90]

Damn! electricity must be expensive where u are at i cant imagine what ur paying for electric bills...lemme do some math

20$ a month from stock 750
10$ a month from ur mobo
10$ a month from ur ram
30$ a month for ur video card
5$ a month for ur sound card
10$ a month for ur hdd

Id hate to see what ur refrigerater/ac bills are maybe like 2-3k a month?


For the rest of the world, ocing doesnt really up ur electricity cost that much... maybe like 20-40 a year max, not a month

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Originally posted by: gizbug
Hows your WATTAGE doing with that OC? Had mine at 3.5, seeing 100-120 Watts, and said no thanks. Back down to stock speeds. Spending 20-40 a month more in electric bill wasn't worth it to me.

you might do yourself good by getting an 80+ Bronze or Silver rated PSU


EDIT: i did, bought 2 Enermax Revolution 950s and the electric bill when down a noticeable amount

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: Jumpem
What cooler are you using?

 

[Bleser]

Originally posted by: Jumpem
What cooler are you using?

Per recommendations in the prior referenced thread, I'm using this one.

Quite honestly, though, I don't recommend it. Installation was terrible and it took me over an hour to get it all mounted properly. Back plate nuts came loose when loosening retention clip, fan clips were confusing, etc. I'm new to this style of cooler but overall I couldn't recommend it. It's doing its job now... but... bad taste in my mouth.

 

[Bleser]

Originally posted by: gizbug
Hows your WATTAGE doing with that OC? Had mine at 3.5, seeing 100-120 Watts, and said no thanks. Back down to stock speeds. Spending 20-40 a month more in electric bill wasn't worth it to me.

CPU-Z says 109 watts. Ummm, that is like a normal incandescent light bulb... pennies per month, especially since it is only at that wattage while playing a game. When idle it's only .96 vCore / 19 watts. I'm also using a highly efficient PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750 power supply.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: Bleser

Originally posted by: Jumpem
What cooler are you using?

Per recommendations in the prior referenced thread, I'm using this one.

Quite honestly, though, I don't recommend it. Installation was terrible and it took me over an hour to get it all mounted properly. Back plate nuts came loose when loosening retention clip, fan clips were confusing, etc. I'm new to this style of cooler but overall I couldn't recommend it. It's doing its job now... but... bad taste in my mouth.

so you must be Adam? lol. just looked at reviews on newegg and saw yours.

 

[Aenslead]

Forgive my ignorance... but where in CPU-Z can I see my wattage use??

 

[Beanie46]

Originally posted by: Aenslead
Forgive my ignorance... but where in CPU-Z can I see my wattage use??

It doesn't. Just shows core voltage for cpu and memory SPD voltage settings....not wattage used. At least through ver. 1.52.2

 

[Bleser]

Originally posted by: Beanie46

Originally posted by: Aenslead
Forgive my ignorance... but where in CPU-Z can I see my wattage use??

It doesn't. Just shows core voltage for cpu and memory SPD voltage settings....not wattage used. At least through ver. 1.52.2

Correct, sorry, it's from a program called HWMonitor by the same company who makes CPU-Z, CPUID.

 

[gizbug]

I use everest for wattage. 2-8W idle with i5 not oc'ed. 48w idle while oc'ed at 3.5, with bursts up around 100-120w.

 

[Pneumothorax]

I dunno if this is a Gigabyte only thing, but I do notice significant increases in idle power use on their motherboards when the voltage is increased. Looks like EIST is disabled and the voltage remains fixed at the higher level regardless which multiplier is used. On my Q9550 & 920, if I raise the voltage other than "Normal" in Bios, my chips will basically run at the higher voltage at all speeds. Leaving it on normal will allow the voltage to drop to 0.9xx or so on both chips when they're idling on the lowest multiplier. This allows my overclocks to run with almost the same power when idling as stock. Hence my search for the highest overclocking chips on stock voltage, I'm always trying to find the highest o/c I can get without budging the voltage setting on my Gigabytes...

 

[JimmmyD]

Also Asus does this with their boards especially the Rampage they up the stock volts and tighten timings so it's faster out of the box... The drawback is the power consumption though I do agree... And if you live in California your electricity is SERIOUSLY expensive..

 

[Aenslead]

Originally posted by: Bleser

Originally posted by: Beanie46

Originally posted by: Aenslead
Forgive my ignorance... but where in CPU-Z can I see my wattage use??

It doesn't. Just shows core voltage for cpu and memory SPD voltage settings....not wattage used. At least through ver. 1.52.2

Correct, sorry, it's from a program called HWMonitor by the same company who makes CPU-Z, CPUID.

Ah! That explains it.

Thanks. Was going nuts trying to find something that wasn't there! Thanks.

 

[Bleser]

Originally posted by: Pneumothorax
I dunno if this is a Gigabyte only thing, but I do notice significant increases in idle power use on their motherboards when the voltage is increased. Looks like EIST is disabled and the voltage remains fixed at the higher level regardless which multiplier is used. On my Q9550 & 920, if I raise the voltage other than "Normal" in Bios, my chips will basically run at the higher voltage at all speeds. Leaving it on normal will allow the voltage to drop to 0.9xx or so on both chips when they're idling on the lowest multiplier. This allows my overclocks to run with almost the same power when idling as stock. Hence my search for the highest overclocking chips on stock voltage, I'm always trying to find the highest o/c I can get without budging the voltage setting on my Gigabytes...

Not really a Gigabyte thing - if you disable the power-saving features then it can't properly throttle down the voltages. I have left the multiplier on "Auto" and CState, EIST, and Speed Step all enabled so she runs cool and quiet at idle and low load (let the OS lower multipliers and voltages). Then she powers up to a 4 GHz monster when needed.

 

[Pneumothorax]

Originally posted by: Bleser


Not really a Gigabyte thing - if you disable the power-saving features then it can't properly throttle down the voltages. I have left the multiplier on "Auto" and CState, EIST, and Speed Step all enabled so she runs cool and quiet at idle and low load (let the OS lower multipliers and voltages). Then she powers up to a 4 GHz monster when needed.

That's the thing though, if I leave all the power saving stuff on, BUT I change the voltage to a manual setting, the mobo will run the chip at that fixed voltage regardless if it's on an idle multiplier or not. What I WANT, is a RMCLOCK like setting in the BIOS that allows us to change the voltages with EACH multiplier, therefore allowing us lower voltage (ie power usage) at lower multipliers and higher ones at max speed.