(SOLVED) TurboBoost/EIST vs OC = confusion (i5-760)

[NumericalMethods]

Post codes should be in the back of the Gigabyte mobo manual. Cheers

 

[ehume]

Absolutely fascinating stuff.

I run my i7 860 on a GA-P55A-UD3P at 4004MHz. Since the BCLK is 182MHz, I needed a cpu multiplier of 22x. When I first set the multi to this and reviewed my settings, I thought I had forgotten something: Turbo Boost was set to Auto. When I reset Turbo Boost to Disabled, I discovered my multi was 21x.

I went back and forth a few times and confirmed that the MB would reset the multi or tBoost when I reset the other. This concerned me because I would like to run EIST/Speed Step without running the risk that with tBoost on Auto, if a task wanted to work one core hard, it would boost itself into too high a clockspeed and crash.

TMonitor will even track your threads, which means eight little graphs with the 860. Setting is . . . \TMonitor64.exe -T. You can set the app to show multipliers as well as speed. One problem though: I have my system set to a fixed voltage with EIST off. TMonitor shows me running at 1638MHz / multi = 9. Real Temp says I'm at 4004MHz, ET6 shows me at 4007MHz. Speedfan shows me at 3822MHz. CPU-Z says 4004MHz. From this I surmise that Gigabyte knows what the exact clock is; CPU-Z and Real Temp are rounding. TMonitor shows what Speed Step would be doing if it were operational. And Lord Knows what Speedfan is about.

Your Mileage Will Vary.

 

[wpcoe]

Post codes should be in the back of the Gigabyte mobo manual.

One long beep is not listed there, nor could I find it by googling except for those old forum references to RAM.

However, before I went to bed last night, I set my VDDQ, QPI/VTT and PLL values to those that CrArC uses. Today so far on my two cold boots, I've not had the long beep, so it could be fixed, might never have been broken, could be the moon phases, whatever. This OC'ing and tweaking does not seem to be a predictable, exact process, at times. 🙂

 

[Orbidal]

Wow, what a great thread. wpcoe, thanks for all the leg work on this bad boy. THe 760 is a great processor, and I am beginning to think we have yet to see what can be pushed out of it safely and with a great deal of stability. Just for those of us running the 1156 and the the 760 specifically. Could you post all of your post voltages and stats so that we can have a great starting point.

I am hoping that my RoG MIIIG mobo will be as easy to manipulate as some others' I have seen. Once again thanks for keeping us in the loop on this.

 

[wpcoe]

I'm "on the road" with my trusty old notebook, so can't post what the values are right now, but you can piece together some of the values from my posts above and from CrArC.

I thought about starting a dedicated "Official i5-760 on P55A Gigabyte mobo" thread. But, then the various types of Gigabyte P55A boards probably have different BIOSes, and how many of us all have the exact same P55A board? Darn. :-(

IF I remember, I will amend this thread when I get home with all my specific values and see how other folks' configurations compare.

 

[ehume]

Actually, from what I can tell we may all have the same BIOS, with various options open when the board in question has more features. Gigabyte seems to streamline as much as possible.

 

[wpcoe]

I just flashed version F13 last night, and two changes (and I have no idea what these settings mean) are that:

the default "CPU Clock Drive" value changed from 800 mV in F11 to 700 mV in F13, and

the default "PCI Express Clock Drive" value changed from 900 mV to 700 mV.

CPU Clock Ratio                 22x
QPI Clock Ratio                 AUTO
Base Clock (BCLK) Control       ENABLED
BCLK Frequency (MHz)            166
System Memory Multiplier (SPD)  8.0
PCI Express Frequency (MHz)     100
CPU Clock Drive                 700 mV
PCI Express Clock Drive         700 mV
CPU Clock Skew                  0 ps

Intel TurboBoost Tech           AUTO
CPU Cores Enabled               All
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E)         ENABLED
C3/C6 State Support             ENABLED
CPU Thermal Monitor             ENABLED
CPU EIST Function               ENABLED
Bi-directional Prochot          ENABLED


System Memory Multiplier        8.0
Performance Enhance             STANDARD
DRAM Timing Selectable (SPD)    AUTO

Load-Line Calibration           AUTO
CPU Vcore                       NORMAL
Dynamic Vcore (DVID)           +0.02500 V
API/VH Voltage                  1.150 V
PCH Core                        1.050 V
CPU PLL                         1.800 V
DRAM Voltage                    1.500 V
DRAM Termination                AUTO
Ch-A Data VRef                  AUTO
Ch-B Data VRef                  AUTO
Ch-A Address VRef               AUTO
Ch-B Address Vref               AUTO

Isochronous Support             ENABLED
Virtualization Technology       ENABLED

BIOS                            F13

An upcoming project is to change all of the above "AUTO" and "NORMAL" settings to actual values, as I've learned several times that what Gigabyte considers appropriate for AUTO often disagrees with what I do.

The above values give me a stable 3.65 Ghz, but also powers down nicely to 1.5Ghz (9x 166) when at idle/low load. I'm not an ego-driven OC'er (well, maybe just a little), I just want as fast a processor as I can get -- only when I need it -- to reduce "work" time, even when I'm playing, hence I have TurboBoost, SpeedStep, C1, C3/C6, etc enabled.

I tried to keep my Kingston Value Ram as close to 1333Mhz as possible, as I know it's not a good candidate for overclocking. I ended up using the 2:8 FSB: DRAM ratio.

 

[wpcoe]

I changed the following:

Intel TurboBoost Tech .... AUTO/ENABLED/DISABLED .... ENABLED

DRAM Termination .... AUTO .... 0.750 v
Ch-A Data VRef .... AUTO .... 0.750 v
Ch-B Data VRef .... AUTO .... 0.750 v
Ch-A Address VRef .... AUTO .... 0.750 v
Ch-B Address VRef .... AUTO .... 0.750 v

I don't know which option to choose:

QPI Clock Ratio .... AUTO/32x/36x
Performance Enhance .... STANDARD/TURBO/EXTREME
DRAM Timing Selectable (SPD) .... AUTO/QUICK/EXPERT
Load-Line Calibration .... AUTO/ENABLED/DISABLED

and, finally, The Problem Child:

CPU Vcore ........ NORMAL/AUTO/[value]

When I choose any option except NORMAL, the Dynamic Vcore (DVID) option below it is greyed out.

Originally I tried a value of 1.18750 v, since that's what BIOS shows in the left hand (greyed out) column as "Normal". Couldn't start Windows.

Went back to BIOS and noticed that the "Normal" (greyed out) value was displaying as 1.19375 v, so tried that. Couldn't start Windows.

Tried 1.25000 v. Could boot into Windows, but would BSOD after about 10-20 seconds.

Tried 1.40000 v. Could boot into Windows. Could even pass Intel Burn Test. But, noticed that the Vcore was reported (by CPU-Z and Hardware Monitor) as 1.392 v, even when SpeedStep brought multiplier down to 9x. i.e. Voltage would not drop regardless of multiplier.

Reverted to "NORMAL," and voltage drops to 0.88 v on idle with 9x multiplier, and rises to 1.232 v at load with 25x multiplier (TurboBoost kicks in so speed is 4.15Ghz!).

Should I just count my blessings and stick with "NORMAL" Vcore? Or is there some more experimenting to be done?

 

[coffeejunkee]

QPI clock ratio : x32, that already pushes the uncore freq quite high when upping the bclk.

Performance Enhance : Gigabyte 'profile' for memory timings. Turbo prefered. Sets timings tighter or looser, might need Standard if you oc your ram a lot.

DRAM Timing SPD : I just use auto, but you could key in the values directly. Depends on your ram as well. (Quick changes both module's timings at once, Expert allows separate timings per module)

LLC : removes vdroop. Voltages in cpu-z will be closer to what's set in bios and not drop under heavy loads. Required for high vcore overclocks. Not completely sure how safe this is so I only enable LLC if I can't get my oc stable otherwise.

CPU vcore : set to normal. Fixed is fixed, auto overvolts. Use dynamic vcore to add increase or decrease voltage. Fex. your cpu's vid is 1.275V. Set dyn vcore to +0.05 and new vcore will be 1.325V. Suppose idle vcore is 0.85V at that vid, new idle vcore will be 0.90V.

Stress with Linx running 2 threads as well to test turbo stability (if you haven't already).

 

[wpcoe]

Hey, thanks coffeejunkee for the explanations, one's that I can understand!

I will change Performance Enhance to Turbo and leave DRAM Timing to Auto, since I want to not stress my inexpensive ValueRam much beyond stock settings.

I'll disable LLC and watch my voltages to see if they change/improve.

I guess I will leave Vcore at normal.

I'm still unclear whether I should leave QPI Clock Ratio at Auto or set it to 32x. How can I determine what QPI ratio is being used if I leave it at Auto? But, beyond that, what exactly does QPI *do* on a chip that doesn't have onboard video?

BTW, when I stress test with IBT, I use 10 iterations at High. I only have 4GB RAM and High is the highest level IBT lets me use.

Oh, and any comments on the rest of the manual settings I used? Most of them are either from suggestions here on the forum, or simply what BIOS was reporting as the "Normal" setting (in the greyed out column.)

 

[wpcoe]

Stress with Linx running 2 threads as well to test turbo stability (if you haven't already).

Do you mean shutting down two (or maybe three?) CPU cores?

 

[wpcoe]

With the latest adjustments:

QPI Clock Ratio = 32x
Performance Enhance (RAM) = Turbo
Load-Line Calibration = Disabled

Still at .880 v at idle (9x 166 = 1.5Ghz), but at load (22x 166 = 3.65Ghz) voltage never goes above 1.168 v. It used to go to 1.232 v.

 

[NumericalMethods]

Excellent result! I really like the fact that these 1156 chips will let you have your cake and eat it. Overclocking while still saving power at idle is great. Your voltages are really, really low. Tempted to push that overclock any further?

 

[coffeejunkee]

I'm still unclear whether I should leave QPI Clock Ratio at Auto or set it to 32x. How can I determine what QPI ratio is being used if I leave it at Auto? But, beyond that, what exactly does QPI *do* on a chip that doesn't have onboard video?

Good question. Lynnfield doesn't really have a qpi link like Bloomfield. But maybe it's like an internal qpi link to the pci-e controller on die. I don't really know but I don't see the need to use the x36 multiplier. You're pushing the uncore above stock with the x32 multi already. And I don't think it gives much extra performance. Freq. is shown in the bios, so that will show you what 'auto' chooses.

Do you mean shutting down two (or maybe three?) CPU cores?

No, I mean under settings, set Linx to use only 2 threads.

 

[ehume]

I read somewhere that the QPI frequency max is 6.4GHz. I run my QPI freq at 32x183 because 5824MHz is under the max, where 36x182 would be 6552MHz, over the max.

 

[wpcoe]

Tempted to push that overclock any further?

You're, evil, you know that? hahaha! For now, I'm going to leave it as is. I ruptured a disc in my back, and between physiotherapy and the drugs I'm taking, I'm going to wait until my mind is clear and focused a bit more before trying much more tweaking.

No, I mean under settings, set Linx to use only 2 threads.

Doh. <smacking my forehead>

Okay, I did with two threads, multiplier stayed between 23x and 24x, and was stable. Then reduced to one thread, multiplier stayed between 24x and 25x, and was stable.

I read somewhere that the QPI frequency max is 6.4GHz.

Okay, with my 166Mhz, 32x would be 5.312Ghz, and 36x would be 5.976Ghz, but until I understand what that QPI setting actually is/does, I'll leave it at 32x, I guess.

 

[ehume]

Okay, with my 166Mhz, 32x would be 5.312Ghz, and 36x would be 5.976Ghz, but until I understand what that QPI setting actually is/does, I'll leave it at 32x, I guess.

Since 36x will not pass the max, might as well set it to Auto.

 

[wpcoe]

Since 36x will not pass the max, might as well set it to Auto.

Well, my ego feels smug when it feels in control, so I'm leaving it at 32x for now. :biggrin:

An update on my Vcore:

For the time being (while I'm still gingerly testing things), I set RealTemp and CPU-Z via Task Scheduler to run at long-on.

So, now by the time the windows desktop appears (which is quick, thanks to my SSD), I can see that the processor runs in Turbo at 25x for a little while, apparently while loading all the processes and services that run at startup. While my processor runs at 25x (4.15 Ghz), the voltage briefly jumps up to 1.28v.

That's compared to during Intel BurnTest, using all four processors at up to 22x, when it maxes out at 1.168v.

PS: Seriously, the next time I go into BIOS, I'll change the QPI back to AUTO.