Z170 Professional Gaming i7 OC Advice Please
Printed From: ASRock.com
Category: OverClocking(OC) Zone
Forum Name: OC Build Advice
Forum Description: Need advice on your OC weapon? Discuss here
URL: https://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=2844
Printed Date: 22 Nov 2024 at 3:24am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.04 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Z170 Professional Gaming i7 OC Advice Please
Posted By: Riggz
Subject: Z170 Professional Gaming i7 OC Advice Please
Date Posted: 15 Jun 2016 at 5:24pm
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Hello I recently built a new gaming rig, and am very grateful for the advice received on this forum for how to go about it. Thank you Xaltar and Parsec! The system includes http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty%20Z170%20Professional%20Gaming%20i7/" rel="nofollow - Fatality Z170 Professional Gaming Motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117559" rel="nofollow - Intel 6700K CPU http://www.amazon.com/XFX-925MHz-2XDVI-Graphics-R9270ACNFC/dp/B00GP6JGWQ" rel="nofollow - Two R9 XFX 270 cards http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1N83U89984&cm_re=evga_supernova_1000-_-17-438-010-_-Product" rel="nofollow - EVGA http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147399" rel="nofollow - - SSD http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231892" rel="nofollow - 16 GB (2 x 8) G.Skill DDR4 RAM Model F4-2666C15D-16GVR http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811854006" rel="nofollow - Phanteks Luxe Case - Model PH-ES614l_BK http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4UF30R0134" rel="nofollow - Cryorig H5 Ultimate CPU Heatsink Plus 3 Older Hard Drives for storage I have Windows 10 installed. The build is done, and running well, so I think that it is time to ease into some overclocking. I have read a number of guides online about OC'ing the Skylake CPUs, and it looks pretty straight forward. But this is a dream build for me, so I want to proceed as carefully as I can (knowing of course that overclocking one's CPU is not exactly a "safe" thing to do), so as not to mess things up. I have started by running AIDA64 for 5 minutes to see what kind of temps I am getting, and they are around 71C in a cool room, with a maximum Package temp of 77C. While I was doing this I noticed that the Core VID went up to 1.415V, even without any overclock at all. In my research I found that a "safe" stopping point for OC'ing is at 1.40V, and that going further might damage the CPU. My question is, is there a way to assign a value, like 1.35V to the CPU in the UEFI and see what kind of OC I can get with that lower voltage? The PC runs very well at the stock clocks of 4Ghz (up to 4.2 in turbo mode), so if I need to go above 1.40V for any kind of OC, I'd rather not push it in that way. Below is a picture of the HWINFO snapshot I took at the 6 minute mark during the AIDA64 stress test. I have moved the categories around a bit to keep on eye on the things that seem most important. Thank you very much : )  |
Replies:
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 16 Jun 2016 at 10:08am
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Over clocking a CPU is not particularly dangerous, unless someone does some very crazy things, like set the CPU VCore at insane levels (which I have seen done occasionally.) First I'll answer your main question about VCore, and then some comments about your system. Sorry to say, but if you don't know how to set the VCore for the CPU, you are really starting from scratch at over clocking. You said you read some guides, but are still unsure about this? Ok... starting from square one... No idea what OS version you are using. I'm assuming you don't know any of this, sorry if you do. All of the following is in the UEFI (BIOS) User Interface. You get there by pressing the Del or F2 keys multiple times when the PC starts or restarts. If you see Windows booting, you missed it and must try again. If you use Windows 8 - 10, you can install the Restart to UEFI program provided by ASRock. You run that program in Windows and if you set both options to On and click Apply, the PC will restart and go into the UEFI UI automatically. I use it all the time, a great little application. Once in the UEFI UI, you need to change to Advanced Mode if you have not already done that. Easy Mode is the default, you must first select Advanced mode and then in Advanced Mode, set that as the default mode. When in the UEFI UI, Advanced mode, go to the OC Tweaker screen. Find the Voltage Configuration entry, and click on that. Once in the Voltage Configuration screen, find the CPU Vcore Voltage option. Set it to Manual. Below this option you should see a VCore Voltage option, set to Auto. Change it by pressing the '+' key, or by entering 1.35 manually. If you're done in the UEFI UI, go to the Exit screen, and click on Save and Exit. That will save any changes you made, and restart the PC. Now you will see if 1.35V is enough for stock CPU clocks, which it should be. You may be able to get it down to 1.20V, or even less. For some reason, Skylake i7-6700K processors have very high stock clock VIDs, of 1.4V or more, as you have seen. The absolute maximum VID for a Skylake CPU is 1.52V. Some boards have an option to bypass that limit, when over clocking using liquid nitrogen for cooling the CPU. I've never done that, and I imagine you aren't planning on doing that too. A few quick but important points of information: 1. Core VID is not the same thing as the actual VCore voltage. 2. VID is not always equal to the actual VCore voltage. Most of the time they are not equal 3. Actual VCore is usually less than the VID. VCore can be greater than the VID when stress testing with AVX2 instructions. 4. There is a VID for each core, so four values. There is only ONE VCore voltage, based upon the highest VID. 5. The voltage you set in the UEFI is NOT a VID. It is the actual VCore voltage. HWiNFO will show you the actual VCore voltage, but you aren't showing it in your screen shot. Its entry is in the section with your boards name, followed by Nuvoton NCT6791D, your board's sensor chip. It should be labeled Vcore by default. Your HWiNFO screen shot (not from AIDA64 as you wrote) while running AIDA64 is useful. You core temperatures a bit high for stock clocks, but that is likely caused by the high VCore. It should go down with the reduced VCore. Your two video cards push heated air into the PC case. Depending upon your case fan configuration, that warm air may be used to cool the CPU, which of course does not work well. I can see that may be true by your memory temperatures. My G.SKILL memory is at 32C, and my M.2 950 Pro SSD is 33C. But I don't use two video cards, which are either close to or covering your 850 Evo. Those temperatures are not terrible, but something to watch if you OC the CPU. ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: Riggz
Date Posted: 16 Jun 2016 at 12:08pm
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Thank you very much for the reply Parsec. I am an absolute beginner at OC'ing. As I said, I have done some research, but my eyes would start crossing and my brain begin to hurt after a while of staring at all the terms and numbers. I do not, at this time, know how to monitor the temps with AIDA64, which is why I use the HWINFO program. I use it to stress the CPU while monitoring the temps via HWINFO. Thank you for the tip on using the restart to UEFI, I use that program, and it is very useful. Here is a picture of HWINFO with the section that you mentioned added to the view after I assigned the Vore to 1.265V. In the UEFI the Load Line Calibration is set to Level 1, where before it was Level 5. Is that okay?  The two graphics cards are a heat issue, and the M.2 is indeed sitting under the second graphics card at M.2_3. The cards do push a good amount of the heated air out of the case, but I am sure that a lot of the heat coming off of the cards goes right up to the CPU heatsink area. I plan on fixing that when I have saved up enough money for one of the new NVidia 1070 cards. Once again, thank you very much for your help. I know that it may be pain to spoon-feed someone like me information, but it is most appreciated. |
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 21 Jun 2016 at 1:51pm
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So you are fine at the reduced core voltage? The LLC set to Level 1 is unnecessary, but may only add a bit more to your CPU temperature. LLC maintains the CPU voltage that normally is known to "droop", which is not necessarily a bad thing. The CPU is designed to deal with that to a degree. Try level 2 or 3 for a test, but in the end use what works for you. If you selected a manual voltage, and set it to 1.265V, the LLC set to 1 may be keeping it higher. You can see that in the VCore reading of 1.296V. Notice that is even beyond the VIDs shown. Are you using Adaptive, but set to a lower voltage. If so, that is fine, just asking. Regardless, a good reduction of the VCore from over 1.4V. You might be able to go lower at stock clocks, but if AIDA64 stress testing fails, you know it's to low. Your CPU temperature is not bad at all, quite low really. Cooling off the other components is another challenge. "Spoon feeding" is not a pain if the recipient is actually trying to learn, and provides us with information, you qualify in both ways.  In your first post you wrote: "Below is a picture of the AIDA64 snapshot I took at the 6 minute mark during the AIDA64 stress test. I have moved the categories around a bit to keep on eye on the things...". You meant to write a HWiNFO snapshot, and I just pointed that out. In AIDA64, if you click the Statistics tab, you'll see CPU core temperatures. You should also have a Temperatures tab/graph. If you click Preferences at the bottom, you can choose the temperatures available to show in the graph. OTOH, HWiNFO works just fine, that is what I use. I was wondering if I saw, "Heh Heh Package", and I did.  ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: Riggz
Date Posted: 21 Jun 2016 at 2:32pm
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The lower voltage seems to be working fine Parsec. I tried a little overclocking this weekend, and got it stable at 4.4GHz, but it failed the IntelBurn test at 4.5GHz, and the temps were pretty high at 89C. I am afraid that I wasn't very scientific about it, and just played with the voltages a little bit at that 4.5 level. After reading your post, I set the LLC to level 2, and using HWINFO, it keeps the voltage between 1.248V and 1.264V for the Package, and 1.248 and 1,285 for the 4 VIDs at the stock speed. I only tried it at the stock speeds so far, as it is late and I want to take my time and not hurry it. But I plan on doing some more testing this weekend. I may be missing something, or looking in the wrong place, but I don't see the Adaptive mode you mentioned. In the Voltage part of the UEFI I have 3 choices; Auto, Offset, and Fixed. I have it set on Fixed and below that I have it set at 1.260V. I am not sure what the Offset mode is, but i didn't want to try it until i found out what it was. I fixed the first post about the HWINFO thing, I'm sorry that I did not understand what you were saying at first. Thank you for your help Parsec. I really appreciate having a place, with good people, to go to where I can learn about these things.
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