i5 4670k Overclocking

[Dutu40]

Hello, I recently purchased an AsRock Z87 Extreme3 motherboard with an i5 4670k CPU (stock cooler), my stock voltages (when the CPU is used a little) are between 1.073 and 1.136 with everything on auto, I tried my motherboard's optimized turbo OC up to 4GHz which I believe to be a minor overclock and it worked in games etc, the CPU was kept at around 1.199V - 1.218V in Aida64 stress test, however 4.2GHz with up to 1.25V would barely load into windows before BSODing even at the windows's assessment and 4.4GHz at 1.27-1.29V would only load the windows a little bit before going directly into a BSOD, meanwhile I'm hearing stories of people doing 4.4GHz OC's with voltages of 1.175 and 4.2GHz with 1.125V, is it that my chip is simply horrible or is there something else going on?

And I do know that a stock cooler is not good for overclocking...or anything at all actually but I did those OCs just to test my CPU's capabilities which have utterly disappointed me.

 

[CrazyTeeka]

Getting a good cooler like the H100i would help with cooling your overclock, and some good thermal paste such as MX-4.

You really need to start off with finding which Vcore voltage makes your CPU stable at stock speeds, before even starting to overclock. Ram should be at 1600Mhz and Load Line Calibration to 100% or Extreme.

Can use either "Prime95, RealTemp, CPU-Z" or "OCCT with CPU:OCCT", whichever you feel more comfortable with, for stress testing.

TTL has two guides at...

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/gigabyte_z77_overclocking_guide/1

http://www.overclock3d.net/articles/cpu_mainboard/how_to_manually_set_and_undervolt_your_cpu_vcore/1

 

[metalgun2000]

I have a bit of experience with this. My 4670k is paired with a G1 Sniper M5 from Gigabyte. I was having a little issues getting the Cores stable at 4.4ghz at first. After doing a bit of tweaking, the issue turned out to be the Ring Bus, Uncore Ratio, whatever Asrock calls it. This is actually the Last Level cache and it ties everything on the CPU together so they can communicate with each other, the cores, the iGPU, the system agent, everything. My motherboard was trying to take the Ring Bus multiplier beyond stock values while still keeping the voltage at levels that wasn't stable. It was my fault because I keyed in a manual voltage for the Ring Bus originally. All I had to do was bring up the Ring Bus voltage until it was stable at the x40 multiplier the board would set it at, problem solved. I'm wondering if your motherboard is trying to keep the Ring Bus at a 1:1 ratio with the cores. It's worth checking because after testing a bunch of CPU and Ring multipliers, I had found that it really isn't necessary to have them at 1:1. My CPU runs at 4.4ghz while the Ring Bus is at 4.1ghz, anything below 4.1ghz and the Ring Bus starts to bottleneck my CPU. Let my know if this helped.

 

[Dutu40]

I tried what was suggested, still nothing changed.
However, this is what I get from BlueScreenView after I BSOD from a failed OC.

==================================================
Dump File         : 022414-5328-01.dmp
Crash Time        : 2/24/2014 5:13:22 PM
Bug Check String  : 
Bug Check Code    : 0x00000124
Parameter 1       : 00000000`00000000
Parameter 2       : fffffa80`06e29028
Parameter 3       : 00000000`bf800000
Parameter 4       : 00000000`00000124
Caused By Driver  : ntoskrnl.exe
Caused By Address : ntoskrnl.exe+5a440
File Description  : 
Product Name      : 
Company           : 
File Version      : 
Processor         : x64
Crash Address     : ntoskrnl.exe+5a440
Stack Address 1   : 
Stack Address 2   : 
Stack Address 3   : 
Computer Name     : 
Full Path         : C:\Windows\Minidump\022414-5328-01.dmp
Processors Count  : 4
Major Version     : 15
Minor Version     : 9200
Dump File Size    : 169,231
Dump File Time    : 2/24/2014 5:14:58 PM
==================================================

I'm not sure if I linked that correctly or not :lol:

 

[tinytomlogan]

Yeah it means go back and follow the guide again

BSOD read outs wont really be enough we would need bios screen shots etc.

But TBH either youre not following the guide properly or your mobo is utter gash.

 

[Dutu40]

The lowest I could go on the Vcore before BSODing in games (stress tests apparently run fine) is 1.025, 0.980 and 1.000 doesn't BSOD in stress tests apparently.

Here's what I tried: 4GHz stable, 1.199 core V, from 1.9 input voltage to 1.6 is completely stable, user-defined adaptive voltage is completely ignored, CPU Load Line Calibration is completely ignored (I set the adaptive voltage to 1.150 and even the offset to 0.001...nope, the motherboard just ignores me and goes to 1.199 no matter what and automatically disables LLC).

4.2GHz - 1.199 (motherboard defined) BSOD in windows, 1.218 BSOD in stress testing, 1.225 BSOD in gaming (but fine in stress test), 1.230 same (though the mobo forces it down to 1.228) LLC is forcefully set to "Disabled" even though I put it on "Enabled" (I double check it in the BIOS)

4.4GHz - 1.230V override BSOD in windows loading screen, 1.250 same, 1.270 same, not even trying for 1.3 because I'm not runing that 24/7. LLC forcefully disabled by the motherboard.

Also the CPU Cache frequency is set to 38 by the mobo, I tried both 35 and 34 but to no avail, but apprently 40 CPU core and 40 CPU cache can work together without a problem...and when I run on the standard mode the motherboard automatically turns LLC on.

And I also use the BIOS version 2.10, I think the latest one is 2.4 but I don't know if I should risk flashing because they didn't say they improved anything related to the OC in the latest versions.

 

[CrazyTeeka]

If LLC is being disabled by force, that doesn't sound ideal, because by being disabled allows vcore drop to occur which makes overclocking much more difficult.

However lack of LLC is not that bad, just means trying a high vcore from the list below.

For vcore you could use these numbers, 1.0 1.025 1.050 1.075 1.1 1.125 1.150 1.175 1.2 1.225 1.250 1.275 1.3, that list follows the 0.025 increments rule, its what I use and it works.

Also remember anything over 1.3 is not recommended for 24/7 use.