Sabertooth P67 + i7 2600K

[SWAT Strachan]

Afternoon peeps

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Right, this one is boggling my brain. Yesterday my internet PC decided to die rather spectacularly, by blowing a bright blue spark out of the motherboard and toasting the processor at the same time (it was old, bless it). I am now typing this on the replacement, an Asus Sabertooth P67 board, an i7 2600K CPU, and 16gb of Corsair Vengeance low-profile memory (to make space for the NH-D14 naturally

).

I now have the system built and the OS installed and fully updated, and have had a quick go at overclocking the CPU. I set the multiplier to 48 to get a 4800mhz overclock, but this is where the confusion starts...

Windows tells me that the CPU is running at the stock 3.4ghz.

CPU-Z tells me that it's running at 1.6ghz.

CoreTemp tells me it's running at 4.8ghz.

All at the same time!



Which do I believe??

 

[SieB]

Have you got speedstep enabled? If yes it will downclock your CPU when not under load which will be why it's showing 1.6ghz in CPU-Z.

If not then make sure CPU-Z is the latest version, the Windows system info never shows the OC just the stock speeds, i've never had it show my OC anyway it's always just showed the stock clock.

 

[SWAT Strachan]

CPU-ID is whichever version is currently on their website, which I would hope is the most recent version

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I'm pretty sure I disabled Speedstep, as I prefer to have my overclocks constant rather than load-determined. I will double-check though, just in case it didn't save the setting correctly when I exited the BIOS (unlikely I know). I think I'll get CPUZ running and try CineBench to see if it cranks up or not.

Edit: Nope, no difference, CPUZ didn't so much as flicker whilst CineBench was running, but the CPU temperatures hit the mid-70s so it must be running pretty quick!

 

[SWAT Strachan]

Odd. I ran CineBench and CPUZ only read 1600mhz for the clock speed, but when I run the Heaven benchmark, it leaps up to 4800mhz.

Looks like Speedstep is still active after all...

 

[SieB]

You might have to disable turbo boost as well, I don't know about on the Sabretooth BIOS but on my now dead P8P67 there was an option for both. Also, make sure you set the CPU ratio in the CPU management menu and not on the main menu. If you set it on the main menu after disabling speedstep it will re-enable speedstep in the CPU management menu, it did on my P9P67 anyway.  

 

[SWAT Strachan]

If you set it on the main menu after disabling speedstep it will re-enable speedstep in the CPU management menu, it did on my P9P67 anyway.  

That is most likely what's happened. I'll check now

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[S_I_N]

what volts are ya using for 4.8GHz???

 

[SWAT Strachan]

what volts are ya using for 4.8GHz???

At the moment it's being set automatically, but it varies from 1.44v to 1.48v.

As for the Speedstep, that is most definitely turned off, but I can't seem to disable the Turbo feature without resetting the CPU multiplier back to 'Auto'. If it's set to 'Auto' I can navigate the BIOS and disable the Turbo function, but as soon as I set the CPU multiplier to 48x (in the CPU settings page, not the main screen), the Turbo mode re-engages automatically.

Am I doomed to have a variable clock speed, or is there something I'm missing?

 

[SieB]

What I used to do was set everything in the main menu then go into the CPU management menu and disable speedstep and turbo, set the ratio and then F10 exit and save.

You should stay withing 1.4v though any higher and you are pushing it a bit on the safe voltage.

 

[SWAT Strachan]

Well, I tried what you said about setting the multiplier last, but still no good

. Every time I chage the multiplier the ####ing turbo mode re-engages (even though it's greyed out) and my CPU drops to 1600mhz until put under load, then it does reach the desired 4800mhz.

There must be a way to set the CPU speed manually, without all this turbo/step crap getting in the way??

 

[SieB]

Not sure, it never did that to me it always stayed disabled. Only other thing I can think of is updating the BIOS if you haven't done it already, apart from that I can't think of what else might be causing it to keep re-enabling it's self.

 

[SWAT Strachan]

Looks like the BIOS update sorted it out, I am now running a constant 4.8ghz on 1.44v (well, 1.440-1.456 with loadline calibration working). Idle temperatures are around the 29-34 degree mark, I'm happy with that

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Cheers for your help SieB

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[SieB]

No probs

I would try and stick to below 1.4v for 24/7 use though

 

[SWAT Strachan]

Well, I've had to knock the speed down a notch, just 4.6ghz now. The 4.8 was a little unstable, and I didn't want to push the volts up any further so I'll settle for something a little slower... Like I'll notice the difference

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