Overclocking CPU/GPU/Memory Stability Testing Guidelines

[das1996]

Lehtv,

I personally stay away from that AI suite garbage. Stick to the bios/uefi to make your changes. It's a bit more cumbersome, but the results are more consistent. In fact, in setting up my system (same cpu/board as you), I somehow managed to lock the system into a 48x multiplier using AI suite. No matter what I did, I it wouldn't accept the changes made in the bios. Not even clearing the bios (button or f5) would fix this. I got out of this mess by reflashing the bios.

Call me old school, but it's reliable and consistent.

My experience with loading has been two fold. Sometimes I'd get a crash with intelburn 2.54 (similar to linx IIRC), some times i'd get a crash with prime95. Ideally one should get no crashes with either.

Yes, it is normal for temps/load to drop slightly as each linx cycle completes.

I'm curious why you're using a negative offset? Trying to find the LOWEST voltage the processor is stable at?

 

[lehtv]

I personally stay away from that AI suite garbage. Stick to the bios/uefi to make your changes. It's a bit more cumbersome, but the results are more consistent.

AI Suite II is working fine for me. I like being able to change the voltage without having to reboot, it makes it much faster to probe for a stable voltage.

I'm curious why you're using a negative offset? Trying to find the LOWEST voltage the processor is stable at?

Yes, exactly. The lower the better, as long as it's stable.

 

[Idontcare]

Just posting my findings regarding LinX vs Prime95 stability testing because it contradicts Idontcare's OP which claims LinX is better for determining core logic stability. I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong or if one program is better for lower voltages while the other is better for higher voltages.

Initial settings:

- HT off

Now, if I enable HT and test Prime95 Small FFT's with the same voltage that I just passed 4 hours of LinX with, it BSOD's within a few seconds.

See anything wrong with that? Regarding my choice to set HT off instead of assigning thread affinities in Task Manager... well, I couldn't get LinX to properly stress the four threads I chose.

Hi lehtv, there are three possibilities that come to mind here:

1. When I made this guide (long times ago) prime95 was not AVX-aware, so it came nowhere close to LinX in terms of temperature and stability testing back then, it is possible that Prime95 has since caught up and surpassed LinX in terms of AVX capability and power-virus features.
2. I can't rightly say that I knew what I was doing when I drafted this guide, so it may have been wrong all along. You can fill an internet with all that which I do not know
3. The off and on HT methods for your testing raise my suspicions because I know you can really get yourself optimized into the wrong area if you disable HT for some stress tests and re-enable it for others. For all my tests I keep HT enabled, always. When you report getting different results BUT you are disabling HT then you are probably seeing exactly why most folks don't disable HT when doing stress tester, because it lulls you into a false sense of having a stable system.

AI Suite II is working fine for me. I like being able to change the voltage without having to reboot, it makes it much faster to probe for a stable voltage.

Yes, exactly. The lower the better, as long as it's stable.

I use AI Suite II as well, for the same reasons, and it works without issue. One thing I have to do though is set the priority to HIGH for the process in task manager. If I don't then it gets all laggy when LinX is running.

 

[das1996]

IDC, I think my confusion lies in how the ai suite interacts with the bios settings. Does it take precedence over them, or work in conjunction? Are the settings saved in AI suite and get applied at each boot? Once settings are established, can ai suite be uninstalled?

From my limited experience with it, it would seem the program applies its settings each time windows boots, settings in the bios remained as I set them originally, not implementing the changes I made in ai suite.

 

[lehtv]

I use AI Suite II as well, for the same reasons, and it works without issue. One thing I have to do though is set the priority to HIGH for the process in task manager. If I don't then it gets all laggy when LinX is running.

Ah, I never tried that. I noticed it was very laggy except between each cycle when CPU load went down. That's exactly why I lowered the voltage between each cycle and not midway through cycles. I'll try to get the cores to load properly with HT on this time.

From my limited experience with it, it would seem the program applies its settings each time windows boots, settings in the bios remained as I set them originally, not implementing the changes I made in ai suite.

That seems correct. It's just like GPU overclocking apps in that regard.

 

[Idontcare]

IDC, I think my confusion lies in how the ai suite interacts with the bios settings. Does it take precedence over them, or work in conjunction? Are the settings saved in AI suite and get applied at each boot? Once settings are established, can ai suite be uninstalled?

From my limited experience with it, it would seem the program applies its settings each time windows boots, settings in the bios remained as I set them originally, not implementing the changes I made in ai suite.

Yeah I too was a long-time believer that AI Suite was total crap. I tried to use it going all the way to 2007 timeframe with my Asus P5E WS Pro and it was a buggy POS.

I was quite surprised, pleasantly so, when I bought my MIVE-Z and discovered that the AI Suite II was extremely handy for tuning/optimizing overclocks from within windows.

Yes it doesn't commit the changes to the BIOS but it does allow you to save profiles within the AI Suite app and you can re-apply them on startup just like you can do with MSI Afterburner and GPU OC'ing.

I love it because I can have one profile that is very low voltage/clocks for usual desktop stuff and then when I want to pour on the clockspeed to churn through a particularly time consuming calculation I pop up the AI Suite window and select my 5GHz profile an away she goes without ever needing to reboot.

It really is pretty cool once you get familiar with the app.

Ah, I never tried that. I noticed it was very laggy except between each cycle when CPU load went down. That's exactly why I lowered the voltage between each cycle and not midway through cycles. I'll try to get the cores to load properly with HT on this time.

For setting thread count, locking affinity, and managing the core-parking issue be sure to read through the following two posts:

Setting LinX thread count and locking affinity to cores

The issue of "core parking" when using "processor affinity" in Task Manager

 

[das1996]

I use AI Suite II as well, for the same reasons, and it works without issue. One thing I have to do though is set the priority to HIGH for the process in task manager. If I don't then it gets all laggy when LinX is running.

Maybe I'm just not seeing it - I don't see any settings for Vcore offset adjustment in AI Suite. Looks like it only lets you adjust fixed Vcore. How does this interact with the bios which is set to offset mode?

 

[Idontcare]

Maybe I'm just not seeing it - I don't see any settings for Vcore offset adjustment in AI Suite. Looks like it only lets you adjust fixed Vcore. How does this interact with the bios which is set to offset mode?

The AI Suite software refers to it as if it were the same, you use the same Vcc slider regardless whether you are adjusting the voltage for manual voltage setting or for offset voltage setting.

This is how I messed up and managed to shovel ~2.4V into my 2600k briefly. I didn't understand how the AI Suite cpu voltage worked for the offset, I quickly learned though

What you want to pay attention to is that everything is linearly relative. Move the slider down by 0.005V and the applied voltage is decreased by 0.005V. What you cannot count on is the absolute voltage value as displayed in AI Suite on the Vcc slider. To see the actual applied voltage you need CPUz or to look in AI Suite for the sensor side panel.

 

[Kalessian]

Ok, I do need help after all. Regarding post: http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=34129182&postcount=133

So I have the CPU-NB at 2650mhz, the CPU at 3990mhz, HyperT at 1750 (should this be closer to 1800 or 2000?) RAM below the 800mhz spec (seems getting deneb to run RAM at high speeds is not only hard to do but mostly fruitless compared to lower access latencies). If I lower the CPU multi by 0.5x, the PC is perfectly stable across many tests (all 3 p95, occt, linx). If I lower the CPU-NB multi, but keep the CPU at 4ghz, the PC is perfectly stable (same tests). But I get some kind of emergent instability with both higher up. I've thrown lots of volts at both CPU/CPU-NB and it still fails mixed P95 within 20 minutes, but generally passes the other two for 20 hrs.

It's not a heat issue, I cleaned up the HS and increased the PWM profile and knocked off 5 degrees off my old max. I may replace the bad AS5 job I did with some MX2.

Any PhII experts want to chime in?

 

[huges84]

Just wanted to say thanks for the great resource! I will be using this tonight.

 

[davidseo]

So I have the CPU-NB at 2650mhz, the CPU at 3990mhz, HyperT at 1750 (should this be closer to 1800 or 2000?) RAM below the 800mhz spec

 

[Sunburn74]

If a system is 24 hour prime small FFT stable and 24 hour prime large fft stable (this is the latest AVX integrated prime95), would you do any further testing?

 

[Idontcare]

If a system is 24 hour prime small FFT stable and 24 hour prime large fft stable (this is the latest AVX integrated prime95), would you do any further testing?

I would still test with other applications that I intend to personally use. Those stress tester programs are good but they cannot catch all instabilities.

 

[shivendra9411]

OCCT GPU test w/error checking enabled is superior to Kombustor for determining GPU stability. (updated link to OCCT 4.0.0, thanks NoobyDoo!)
Error checking MUST be enabled by the user (check the box), otherwise you are leaving it up to your eyes to detect visual artifacts which renders the test entirely subjective.
Stability Criterion: Must pass 20 minutes minimum, passing 1 hour is preferred (considered gold standard)

 

[shivendra9411]

noting

 

[eddypoon]

Hi Idontcare and all, any experience/comparison on Aida64, occt testing software versus your selected tools?

 

[Idontcare]

Hi Idontcare and all, any experience/comparison on Aida64, occt testing software versus your selected tools?

I like OCCT for the GPU stress test because you can tell it to monitor/detect/report numerical errors (like LinX does for CPU tests) which is better than just trying to detect graphical artifacts by eye as you must do with Kombustor.

 

[Ed1]

The AI Suite software refers to it as if it were the same, you use the same Vcc slider regardless whether you are adjusting the voltage for manual voltage setting or for offset voltage setting.

This is how I messed up and managed to shovel ~2.4V into my 2600k briefly. I didn't understand how the AI Suite cpu voltage worked for the offset, I quickly learned though

What you want to pay attention to is that everything is linearly relative. Move the slider down by 0.005V and the applied voltage is decreased by 0.005V. What you cannot count on is the absolute voltage value as displayed in AI Suite on the Vcc slider. To see the actual applied voltage you need CPUz or to look in AI Suite for the sensor side panel.

Does AI suite have option to run OC profile at startup and not at startup (meaning use it just to fine tune voltage an clock then set it in bios ) ?

 

[Idontcare]

Does AI suite have option to run OC profile at startup and not at startup (meaning use it just to fine tune voltage an clock then set it in bios ) ?

Yes, it is quite a useful tool for fine-tuning your OC within the OS and then hard-set those OC parameters to the BIOS and you don't need to rely on AI Suite after that.

The one feature it is missing (maybe? not sure, but I haven't found it) is a way to assign hot-keys to the OC profiles such that it becomes keyboard-click easy to go from a default profile to a "super-clocked" profile when desired. I really like that about MSI Afterburner, would be great if AI Suite became more like that.

 

[Ed1]

Yes, it is quite a useful tool for fine-tuning your OC within the OS and then hard-set those OC parameters to the BIOS and you don't need to rely on AI Suite after that.

The one feature it is missing (maybe? not sure, but I haven't found it) is a way to assign hot-keys to the OC profiles such that it becomes keyboard-click easy to go from a default profile to a "super-clocked" profile when desired. I really like that about MSI Afterburner, would be great if AI Suite became more like that.

Thanks for reply , I heard some problems with AI suite (over Asus forum, trouble with uninstalling it , but think they have app to clean up now) .
I didn't install it when I got P8Z77v-pro , I may reconsider as it can speed up finding best multiplier per temp of cpu you want to run .
It also would lessen the Asus multiplier bug from happening as your not changing the bios multiplier has much to fine tune .

Yes, I like AB a lot I have 2 profiles that load for 2d and 3d , works great that way have stock voltages and clocks for 2d and 3d it gives boosted profile . works very well .

 

[moowarcow]

Hello, long time everyone.
Have a quick question for the Prime95. How many threads should we run for the gold standard? 4,8,#?
Thanks.

 

[Adam S. Lee]

I did not know about those 2 stress testers

 

[szvwxcszxc]

On stock cooling, my 3770K is stable overclocked at 4.2GHz through the BIOS OC setting on my MSI mobo. Increasing this on stock cooling causes a freeze. However, 4.2GHz is stable to remain at that speed.

 

[Smiki007]

Could someone tell me is the 0.5v rule (QPI/VTT - QPI/DRAM had to be set within .5v of the DRAM voltage), still applicable to socket 1155 and specifically Ivy Bridge for some high speed memory kits (2133Mhz, 2400Mhz etc.).
Thanks.

 

[cysmith23]

Hello, long time everyone.
Have a quick question for the Prime95. How many threads should we run for the gold standard?

Thanks.