Overclocking 3770k on Msi z77 Mpower

[andrevautour]

hello everyone!

i recently got a 3770k and mpower motherboard and i just gave overclocking it a quick try, but it won't seem to boot at 48 multiplier and 1.37 volts.

i followed all the settings in this post pretty closely because i figured the gd65 is just similar to the mpower, but still no success.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1882/19/

is there anything majorly important that i might be missing?

any tips for first time ivy bridge overclocks?

i will post screenshots of my bios settings when i get home so that you guys can take a look and maybe spot something i've missed?

 

[jamesriley94]

Maybe you need more volts for that?

I need quite a few to get past 4.6/4.7

Are you thinking of running at that for 24/7?

 

[Deejeta]

LLC on?
Need more volts mate. Lots more. Follow TTL's way of oc'ing and you should be ok. I hope you have some good cooling to keep her cool.
Maybe you just lucked out on the silicon lottery as well.

 

[andrevautour]

it doesnt have to be 4.8 4.6 would be fine, but it didnt seem to like that either . i will try upping the volts a bit for 4.6 and see how that goes

 

[Dark NighT]

I will post a screenshot tomorrow of my bios settings, as it stands im running an i5 3570K at 4.5 ghz with 1.26 volts.

 

[andrevautour]

i was able to get 4.4ghz not a problem, fairly low volts as well (1.28ish) but even when i go quite a bit higher on the volts it just does not like 4.6. i will have a closer look at master and puppet's great tutorial a bit later on.

 

[madness777]

I will post a screenshot tomorrow of my bios settings, as it stands im running an i5 3570K at 4.5 ghz with 1.26 volts.

Please don't do that! Let HIM figure out how to get to 4.8 and beyond!
Don't just show him how, even if it's a different CPU!

 

[Yeren]

I have a 3770k and struggled to get over 4.4 on mine with silly volts. I have a basic board though which I'm soon to upgrade.

You may just have a unlucky chip which you won't be able to get above there. Only time and more tests will tell.

I'm about to buy a new 3770k as I'm Giving the wife mine and hoping the lottery will be nice to me next time

 

[andrevautour]

well, i didnt really like the idea of just a fixed multiplier core speed and having it sit at the one speed and volts the entire time anyway so i just used 'method 2' from master and puppets great guid i set my turbo limit to 44 on all cores and left all the other voltages and everything on auto just like it shows there and im perfectly happy with that, plus I'm much happier having it throttle down the volts and the multiplier to 16 when its idle. it doesn't goes any higher than 1.256v when its up at 4.4 and the temps are fine at that point so i'm not complaining.

it's not like a i really have anything that im doing that even need it to be higher than the 3.9 stock turbo , but i figured since it was so easy to bump up the turbo and the volts are controlled quite well on auto (unlike in 1366) i figured might as well give it a try.


overall i'm perfectly happy even leaving it at stock with the 3.9 turbo is completely fine with me, but i cant say im not a little surprised it seemed to have trouble getting above 4.6 since most people seem to be benching them around 4.8 or. i guess i may have experienced the bad side of the silicone lottery this time, i certainly have had my share of good chips in the past so i guess it's about time i got a so so one! no hard feelings from me though.


as an added bonus i threw in my old 1600mhz kingston hyper x genesis from my x58 rig and i wasn't expecting it to do any more than 1600 really but i gave it a try and it runs at 2133 no problem, so that is a nice little surprise.

also the boot time for the mpower is insane and the performance of my ssd is improved quite a lot from my old x58 board (and its even better than my dad who has the same sad on a rampage iv and 3930k)

 

[Master&Puppet]

Getting 4.6 is fine for a 24/7 overclock. I wouldn't worry about it too much. As for the turbo vs fixed oveclock - I wouldn't worry about that too much either. A fixed voltage doesn't mean that you are always supplying a large amount of Watts to the CPU (even at idle) because volts are only one side of the power equation:

Volts x Amps = Watts.

With a fixed voltage the motherboard will reduce the number of amps supplied to the CPU which therefore reduces the overall Wattage supplied and it is that which causes heat and degradation. Having an adjustable voltage will lead to even fewer amps and watts though for most people this isn't a deal breaker. Having a look here might explain it in more detail.

Generally I'd recommend a fixed overclock if:
1. You want to achieve the highest possible overclock (fixed voltages are more stable).
2. Your CPU generally works under load for most of its day (fixed overclocks are stable at a lower voltage therefore doing the same workload for less Wattage).
3. You don't intend on keeping the CPU for a particularly long time (it will generally be fine for several years and even after that you can reduce the overclock or run it at stock...often still beyond its usable life for most people).

A Turbo/offset overclock if:
1. You don't require such a high overclock.
2. your CPU generally works at idle/light workloads for most of its day (the ability to reduce volts becomes more important than having the perfect volts under load).
3. Maintaining a particularly long lifespan is important (there is very little extra wear on the CPU).

I personally setup both on my PC. I generally boot it with the turbo profile which is more than enough for everyday use and gaming. Occasionally when I'm going to render a video, or play an exceptionally CPU heavy game, I'll restart and load the fixed profile but switch back after.

 

[andrevautour]

Getting 4.6 is fine for a 24/7 overclock. I wouldn't worry about it too much. As for the turbo vs fixed oveclock - I wouldn't worry about that too much either. A fixed voltage doesn't mean that you are always supplying a large amount of Watts to the CPU (even at idle) because volts are only one side of the power equation:

Volts x Amps = Watts.

With a fixed voltage the motherboard will reduce the number of amps supplied to the CPU which therefore reduces the overall Wattage supplied and it is that which causes heat and degradation. Having an adjustable voltage will lead to even fewer amps and watts though for most people this isn't a deal breaker. Having a look here might explain it in more detail.

Generally I'd recommend a fixed overclock if:
1. You want to achieve the highest possible overclock (fixed voltages are more stable).
2. Your CPU generally works under load for most of its day (fixed overclocks are stable at a lower voltage therefore doing the same workload for less Wattage).
3. You don't intend on keeping the CPU for a particularly long time (it will generally be fine for several years and even after that you can reduce the overclock or run it at stock...often still beyond its usable life for most people).

A Turbo/offset overclock if:
1. You don't require such a high overclock.
2. your CPU generally works at idle/light workloads for most of its day (the ability to reduce volts becomes more important than having the perfect volts under load).
3. Maintaining a particularly long lifespan is important (there is very little extra wear on the CPU).

I personally setup both on my PC. I generally boot it with the turbo profile which is more than enough for everyday use and gaming. Occasionally when I'm going to render a video, or play an exceptionally CPU heavy game, I'll restart and load the fixed profile but switch back after.

First of all I want to just say thank you for your very detailed and clear post about overclocking. It's definitely nice to have a clear description of each method and some bios screenshots so you can have a look at your own bios and make sure everything looks right on your end.

I did a lot of overclocking on my last setup, which was a sabertooth x58 board and an i7 920, so I figured I would just jump in and do it since I've heard ivy bridge is even easier. It also seemed to me that most people were getting at least 4.6ghz if not 4.8ghz out of their 3770k's, so i can't say i wasn't a bit surprised when mind didn't seem to want to play at 4.6ghz.




I tried changing the turbo mode multipliers and it worked fine up to 4.4, which was nice. I'm definitely more of a turbo mode person because I dont really need an overclock or anything because the ivy cpus are extremely capable at stock and I dont really have any massively cpu intensive things im doing on a regular basis.


I still haven't entirely figured out why my chip doesn't seem to like it at anything more than 4.5, but I do have a hunch. When I have my chip at say 4.6ghz it boots into windows fine and everything, but what actually happens is that the various cpu testing apps actually "stop responding and are forced to quit." but the computer itself never actually freezes or crashes or anything like that, plus the temperatures are all fine. When I run cinebench sometimes it stops responding and sometimes it has an error message.

This is something that I've never seen back when I was using windows 7, this seems to be new with windows 8. Im wondering if its more the OS not liking the OC for some reason and giving false errors or something like that.

One of the reasons I am wondering that is because I can get to 4.5ghz at low volts (1.264V) and the temps are low, but then it it just starts doing the thing i explained above with prime 95 and various other apps crashing, but never actually freezing the computer. So it seems like it should be no problem to get to 4.6ghz with just slightly more than 1.26V.

I'm going to test this theory by throwing a copy of windows 7 onto some small hard drive later on and testing my over clocks in there.

 

[andrevautour]

So, it turns out that my theory above did not seem to be correct. I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 and tried 4.6ghz again and still the same issue. Like I said I get error messages and apps that stop responding rather than blue screens and freezes.

Here is the error that I got in cinebench at 4.6ghz, maybe someone has seen this before?

 

[UKCurtis]

I have the same Motherboard and CPU and I cant get 4.6 on prime95 after about 40mins of stress I get an error on Thread 4, The issues what you have are the same as me. It just doesnt like 4.6 and 4.4 your volts what you have are the same as me 1.250 near enough the same. At the moment im running 4.5GHz at 1.320 its good to know someone els has this aswell, Looks to me we got unlucky this was my first Intel cpu.

 

[andrevautour]

I have the same Motherboard and CPU and I cant get 4.6 on prime95 after about 40mins of stress I get an error on Thread 4, The issues what you have are the same as me. It just doesnt like 4.6 and 4.4 your volts what you have are the same as me 1.250 near enough the same. At the moment im running 4.5GHz at 1.320 its good to know someone els has this aswell, Looks to me we got unlucky this was my first Intel cpu.

Yes, i've been hearing the same sort of thing too. it's unfortunate about the lack of OC ability , good thing thought that the 3770K's are great chips even at stock settings.

 

[UKCurtis]

Yes, i've been hearing the same sort of thing too. it's unfortunate about the lack of OC ability , good thing thought that the 3770K's are great chips even at stock settings.

Indeed im loving my upgraded computer every Game plays amazing thats all I wanted.The OC ability was a bonus I wouldnt mind getting 4.7Ghz Oh well 4.5GHz is fine for me.

 

[andrevautour]

Indeed im loving my upgraded computer every Game plays amazing thats all I wanted.The OC ability was a bonus I wouldnt mind getting 4.7Ghz Oh well 4.5GHz is fine for me.

what was the specs of the computer you upgraded from?

 

[UKCurtis]

what was the specs of the computer you upgraded from?

INTEL i7 3770K OC@ 4.5GHz --- AMD Phenom X6 1090T Black Edition
MSI z77 Mpower Big Bang ------ Asus Crosshair V Formula
Asus GTX 680
RipJaws- 16GB Ram
Corsair H100 Cooler
Corsair HX850W Power supply
Corsair 600T mid Case White Edition
Corsair Series 3 120SSD

Runs so much faster and FPS in games are amazing so happy with the upgrade

 

[andrevautour]

INTEL i7 3770K OC@ 4.5GHz --- AMD Phenom X6 1090T Black Edition
MSI z77 Mpower Big Bang ------ Asus Crosshair V Formula
Asus GTX 680
RipJaws- 16GB Ram
Corsair H100 Cooler
Corsair HX850W Power supply
Corsair 600T mid Case White Edition
Corsair Series 3 120SSD

Runs so much faster and FPS in games are amazing so happy with the upgrade

Good stuff!

 

[ccaution]

To check whether you chip has what it takes for those overclocks, disable all the c1e,eist,etc., enable the internal PLL overvoltage, give the PCH a nice 1.1v and choose a conservative LLC option, in a way for the vcore not to "jump" on load.

Then work your way up, with the multys and the vcore. I have never seen a 3770k that couldn't do 4.6... it might just be one of those c1e "semi-idle" issues, that lots of asus motherboards have, when you're pushing too far with energy saving features enabled

 

[Kidbest100]

I have heard of that problem as well. Asus boards are kinda iffy sometimes. Some of their boards are rock solid, and others are total crap.

I have seen some 3770K's which will not go past 4.3. Its ridiculous how unlucky you can be sometimes with those chips. However, the majority of them will overclock just fine to a respectable 4.6 just fine.