What does CPU PLL do?

thetrystero

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Oct 31, 2012
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and how much of an effect does NOT having PLL have on my ability to overclock?

I'm looking at the ASRock Z77e-ITX in particular, which does not have PLL control capabilities.

Is this very much of a handicap in trying to bring the 3570 to about 4.6GHz?
 

Kenmitch

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
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Dependant on your case and cooling choice 4.6ghz might be unrealistic for a mini-itx build.

PLL voltage for the most part isn't a make or break for overclocks. It does have the enable internal PLL overvoltage which is sometimes needed for the chip to boot at higher multipliers.
 

Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
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From : http://www.benchtec.co.uk/forums/threads/8337-CPU-PLL-voltage

How voltage changes the operation of the PLL loop can only be explained fully by the Intel engineers that designed it. It's essentially a feedback mechanism (frequency synth VCO etc) that keeps the output clock frequency time aligned (in phase) with the reference clock. As the output clock frequency is increased, downstream sampling margins are reduced if there is any phase variance between the CPU clock and any related sub-domain that obtains its reference clock (PCIe, DMI etc) from another source or another output node of the master clock generator (transmission line variance and other factors).There is also the chance that the level of voltage applied has an impact in the output clock jitter (higher levels of jitter will reduce sampling windows).


By changing the PLL voltage at the CPU side, you are either making a very subtle change to the oscillating frequency of the VCO (it is a voltage controlled oscillator after all), or you are affecting the feedback loop of the PLL (bandwidth and gain). This can alter the output frequency such that you either make the downstream sampling margin better or worse. The effects of PLL voltage manipulation will vary from platform to platform depending upon the implementation and perhaps even temperature drift of the oscillator (insight to why things change when you go cold).


This stuff is just the tip of the iceberg, anything deeper and one really needs to be an EE to really get a grasp.
 

Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
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thanks for the link. apparently i won't need to touch pll till i get to 56x multiplier. at what clock speed do i get there? sorry, i'm a oc n00b.

You're fine. I am guessing you mean 46. And that question is not easy to answer. Every CPU is different. Just gotta start bumping it up and see what happens.

But knowing what the options in your bios will help you get higher with more stability. On my Sandy the core voltage made that most difference. Adjusting PLL and others didn't give me much, so I leave them at auto.