First overclock

[Rabcor]

I got an intel 4790K recently and I've been playing with it's settings for a while now, however the highest (seemingly) stable clock I'm able to achieve is 4.636ghz boost at around 1.27v... but I cannot seem to get it meaningfully higher no matter if I throw a couple more volts at it without losing stability, for example if I go to ~4.660ghz at 1.3v my system will crash within seconds when I run the prime95 default stress test. And although I can boot and seemingly run my system unstable up around 4.77ghz with 1.29v setting I can't stabilize it.

I thought overclocking was mostly just a game of adjusting the voltages to match the frequencies and vice versa but something doesn't seem to be adding up if I lose my stability with +0.30v for a measly +30mhz.

Is there something I might be missing?

Edit: Oh yeah forgot to mention, I remembered to keep an eye on the RAM and Cache settings and keep them within previously known safe values as I tweaked the bclk so it doesn't appear to be them causing this.

 

[trents]

What are you cooling the CPU with? Your instability might be from cores/package temp getting too high. Have you monitored temps when stress testing? We know nothing about the rest of your hardware. PSU? RAM make and frequenc? Case? Case fans? Video card? You also need to know that many or most 4790Ks will only clock to mid 4s.

 

[Rabcor]

I'm using a noctua NH-U9s dual fan cooling setup, keeping my temps mostly below 80 (under full load it sometimes makes jumps over 80 but quickly cooling down to usually 82-83°C. Highest I've seen temps go is 87) I have a 1000W PSU so wouldn't be too worried about that (from corsair). I forgot which gpu make I've got exactly but it's designed for running 2133mhz at 11cas with 1.6v (which is what one of the XMP profiles sets it to as well). I tweaked it up to 2222mhz with 1.65v when I moved the bclk settings around.

Got a 980-Ti and a phanteks enthoo mini xl ds case (this is an ITX motherboard, asus z87-i)

Update: Tried tweaking it a bit more, I managed to get it up to 4.641ghz at 1.28v with Bclk 100.9 and mult 46 but if I move it up to 101 (4.646ghz) and 1.29v it will be unstable. So is it possible that this is just the limit of my CPU?

 

[trents]

I'm using a noctua NH-U9s dual fan cooling setup, keeping my temps mostly below 80 (under full load it sometimes makes jumps over 80 but quickly cooling down to usually 82-83°C. Highest I've seen temps go is 87) I have a 1000W PSU so wouldn't be too worried about that (from corsair). I forgot which gpu make I've got exactly but it's designed for running 2133mhz at 11cas with 1.6v (which is what one of the XMP profiles sets it to as well). I tweaked it up to 2222mhz with 1.65v when I moved the bclk settings around.

Got a 980-Ti and a phanteks enthoo mini xl ds case (this is an ITX motherboard, asus z87-i)

You are mixing up RAM and GPU.

 

[Rabcor]

Right I was, i meant which RAM make (also meant 2217mhz not 2222). anyhow as I just added to my other post: I managed to get it up to 4.641ghz at 1.28v with Bclk 100.9 and mult 46 but if I move it up to 101 (4.646ghz) and 1.29v it will be unstable. So is it possible that this is just the limit of my CPU?

 

[EarthDog]

It may be unstable for the voltage you are giving it. Try 1.325 and see if it works. But also note, when changing bclk, you are changing memory speed as well.

It would be more than helpful if you created a signature with your hardware specs... as well as post a cpuz screenshot that has the first tab, memory, and spd tabs.

 

[trents]

We normally do not alter bclk when overclocking this generation of Intels. The PCIe bus is locked to the bclk and becomes unstable quickly. If it were me, I'd just put the bclk back to 100 mhz and use the stock 46x multiplier and also leave the RAM at stock XMP.

You do not mention how you stress tested. I would put it back to 4.6 and stress test it for two hours with Prime95 blend or, alternatively with AIDA64 Extreme over night. If it will pass either or both of those it is probably stable. Prime95 is a heater. Watch your temps. They will take a big jump at about the 18-20 minute mark and then cycle up and down.

We need to make sure you are truly stable at 4.6 before anything else.

 

[Rabcor]

It may be unstable for the voltage you are giving it. Try 1.325 and see if it works. But also note, when changing bclk, you are changing memory speed as well.

It would be more than helpful if you created a signature with your hardware specs... as well as post a cpuz screenshot that has the first tab, memory, and spd tabs.

How do I create such a signature?

Edit:
I haven't run a full stress test yet, just running ~5 minutes of testing I see if it can run prime95 blend without crashing and I also take it through a few rounds of cinebench multi threaded benchmark. I'm not all too worried about stress testing for temps because I'm mostly just gaming so it'll hardly ever be nearly as stressed as during a benchmark or stress test. E.g. if it can take 3 rounds of cinebench multi threaded benchmark with sane temps I'm feeling pretty ok about it, think prime95 is a bit overkill for that sort of test but I did notice that prime95 has a tendency to crash my system within mere seconds when it's unstable so that is my initial stability test, if it can run these two things first then I can later test it's stability more thoroughly.

I'm not sure if prime95 is exactly healthy for my system though I hear this strange buzzing noise whenever I run it, kinda scares me a little because I've never heard my system make a noise like that (even when I'm benchmarking).

 

[trents]

Cinebench is not a good stress tester. We will sometimes purposely overclock our systems past what is stable just to see how high a score we can get in Cinebench because it is easy to pass when system is not truly stable. If you are not comfortable running Prime95 because of temps then use AIDA Extreme 64 or Intel Extreme Tuning Utility for 5+ hours. They will not drive up temps nearly so much as Prime but when run for a long time will do a good job of testing stability. If you do not give attention to this matter I think you will find your system will no prove to be stable in real life applications such as gaming over time.

The Signature tool is found at top of page under Settings. When in settings, look down the left margin and you will see it.

The buzzing noise might be coil wine. Not harmful necessarily but annoying.

 

[Rabcor]

Oh THAT kind of signature, silly me.

I know that the buzzing noise might be coil whine, but it sounds eerily 'buzzy' compared to all coil whine I've heard before. I don't trust it my more thorough stress testing will have to wait for another time since I'm going to sleep just now, thanks for your tips, I'll try AIDA 64 and Intel Tuning Utility to see what kind of results I'll get with those.

 

[wingman99]

Post a screenshot of CPU-Z while stress testing.

 

[EarthDog]

Post a screenshot of CPU-Z while stress testing.

yup.. waiting for cpuz screenshots asked for earlier.

 

[Rabcor]

View attachment 186208

There you go, and also made a sig. I have EIST enabled (c-states disabled) and took these during a stress test with intel's extreme tuning utility my current setup seems stable (Still haven't fully tested tho). It's at 4.636ghz boost right now at 1.285v (I thought earlier it was stable around 1.27v but I was wrong) I don't want to go above 1.3v my cooling can't handle it and I hear there's a consensus that the haswell CPUs safe voltage range only goes as high as 1.3v.0

 

[EarthDog]

Your memory is overclocked quite a bit. I'd set that to stock/xmp and see if that changes anything on the cpu.. but you are heat limited already anyway.

I'd run p95 blend or the memory test in aida64 for a while to make sure you are stable.

 

[wingman99]

I can't open the Attachment.

 

[trents]

Rabcor, please attach pics directly to your posts using Go Advanced.

 

[EarthDog]

I can't open the Attachment.

I was able to this time, wasn't the first time (both mobile chrome). Weird!

Rabcor, please attach pics directly to your posts using Go Advanced.

+1 please...

 

[Rabcor]

Is it working this time?

As for the memory, I made sure to try all my configs in question with the memory frequency underclocked rather than overclocked before I did the memory OC, it's not the cause. (Also set all cache settings to auto to make sure that that wasn't it either)

 

[wingman99]

If your still having stability problems at 4.6Ghz? I would raise the Vcore to see if it makes it more stable.

 

[Rabcor]

Not having stability problems with this, but if I try to nudge the frequency up even just 5-10mhz I will have them, even if I bump up the voltage by 0.15. That's basically what I was confused about.