MSI H81M-E34 For OC? (Pentium G3258)

[zonkedoutnathan]

In my setup is the MSI H81M-E34 Motherboard, and I'm using the pentium G3258 Processor. I am a first time overclocker and I got this Processor specifically for its overclocking potential, as I hear people are able to get 4.2 GHz and even a little bit more on the stock cooler. After I had ordered the processor I was making sure that I would be able to OC and I read 2-3 posts on the internet of people saying that the H81 chipset boards are not able to overclock seemingly at all? I cant quite remember but I think they had said that these motherboards have lost their overclocking functionality due to an update. But there seems to be no issue getting into the overclocking settings on my board itself, and I read where a good number of people have claimed that they have overclocked the processor on this board themselves seemingly without issue. I decided to just try overclock it a little bit just to try it out and I have raised it from 3.2 ghz to 3.5 without changing the Volts and the highest temp I've seen was like 130. So basically what I'm asking is, is it safe to continue with overclocking on this board? Or should I lower it back down to stock clock speed and just invest in a new processor? It would suck if it is the latter.

I apologize in advance if this is in the wrong section.

 

[EarthDog]

We talk temps in Celsius in computer land.

54C is fine on load... keep voltage under 1.4V and temps under 90C load when stress testing. The board isn't optimal for overclocking...I thought they were locked as well (the bios update has to do with LOCKED cpus).

I'd read our haswell overclocking guide found in the intel section in a sticky thread... or link in my signature.

 

[trents]

It's the bios version I'm guessing. Seems like I remember reading that Intel pressured the board manufacturers to release bios upgrades that nixed the overclocking ability on that CPU just like they did for those boards that came out with bioses or clock gen chips that allowed overclocking of inexpensive locked dual core CPUs. It was reducing demand for their more expensive lines. Either that or they were getting a lot of fried CPUs returned for RMA from over zealous overclockers.

I have owned several of the MSI H81M-P33 motherboards which is another inexpensive board that was highly touted for overclocking the G5328. The last motherboard I purchased for that purpose was an ASRock mini ITX. It wouldn't allow me to increase the multiplier on the G5328 so I back flashed to an earlier version of the bios whose descriptor said, "Added micro code for G3258 Pentium." This was the "debut" point for the G3258. That gave me back the ability to raise the multiplier. I'm not sure if MSI allows you to easily back flash to an earlier bios version like ASRock does but you might look into it.

And yes, it is pretty easy to get the G5328 to 4.2-4.3 ghz on stock cooling on these low end boards.

 

[zonkedoutnathan]

Appreciate the info lots, and I'm trying to adjust to celcius, sorry :/ but yeah I even upgraded my bios and it still did not take away the oc functionality, I was just wondering if there was a real concern with using the board to oc I.e fried components. So I should be fine? Appreciate the info again.

 

[trents]

You shouldn't be struggling with the Farenheit v. Celcius thing. All you have to know is that when you stress test your overclock settings you don't want the core/package temp to exceed 90c. Is your bios giving you Farenhite readings? There should be an option to change that to Celcius.

Stress testing is necessary to establish that your overclock is indeed stable. There are a lot of choices for stress testing. Personally, I use OCCT Large Data set. It has a built in timer so you can set the duration of the stress test. I set it for 3 hours and I think that is long enough to demonstrate stability. It also has a built in temperature monitor.

Another popular stress tester is Prime95. No timer, no temp monitor however. If you use it, also download and install HWMonitor to be able to track max core/package temps.

When increasing the speed of the CPU (what we call "overclocking") you will also have to increase CPU core voltage at some point to keep it stable. Many motherboards in the class you have will do this automatically but if not you will need to manually increase the "vcore" as we call it to support the higher speed. I think EarthDog's advice to limit the vcore to 1.4 is on the conservative side as those G3258 CPUs will handle 1.5 vcore without issue as long as the core/package temps allow. But with the stock cooler you likely will need to limit the vcore to less than that. Raising the vcore makes it run hotter.

 

[EarthDog]

1.4-1.45v is what most people will tell you to stay under. 1.45+ most people wouldn't agree with running that 24/7, honestly.

 

[trents]

Yeah, I spoke too soon. My memory was not serving me correctly. 1.5 vcore is not appropriate. I went back and read some reviews where people were overclocking this CPU. Anything over about 1.425 won't get you anymore overclock it seems. I have one clocked to 4.4ghz on 1.417 vcore and stock cooling. And the review indicate that's pretty typical.

 

[zonkedoutnathan]

I used prime 95 and hwmonitor when I overclocked from 3.2 to 3.5 just to test it out. My bios does have a an "oc genie" button but I hear that these settings are not always optimal and can run your CPU on the hot side. And also my bios automatically reads in Celsius. But I think I have it from here, I'll just remember to keep volts below 1.4 and temps below 90c. Thank you all for the info

 

[trents]

Let us know how it turns out.

 

[zonkedoutnathan]

Sorry for the extremely late reply, I overclocked, downloaded Fo4 and became a basement dweller lol. But i actually just set my voltage to auto and just raised the multiplier up to 3.7 and im getting idle temps of 30-33 Load temps of 62-64. It set the voltage automatically to 1.129 and i have stress tested and played many hours of games and it hasn't crashed. So pretty satisfied and I can push it farther if I want, but my gpu is bottlenecking my cpu right now so I am waiting to get a new one.