[Schultcm]

This was my second gaming build and I built with the intention to OC this time. I spent a couple of days reading and trying to learn what I can before trying.I found and followed the very well put together guide from here ( Complete Overclocking Guide: Sandy Bridge & Ivy Bridge | *ASRock Edition)
http://www.overclock.net/t/1198504/complete-overclocking-guide-sandy-bridge-ivy-bridge-asrock-edition

My build is :

-Core i5 3570K
-Vengeance Series 16GB(2x8gb) DDR3-1866 (PC3-15000)
-NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti Superclocked+ 3072MB PCIe 3.0 x16 Video Card\
-Caviar Black 1TB 7,200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
-Hydro Series H80i Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
-Z77 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Z77 ATX Intel Motherboard
-COOLER MASTER Real Power Pro RS-650-ACAA-A1 650W ATX Form Factor 12V V2.3 / SSI Standard EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply (from my last PC but still runs great,

I hope )

Like the guide said, I set the Offset to +0.005v and set the Turbo Boost to +0.004v. I was able to pass the test with a multiplier of 45 but 46 wouldnt boot up. I went on to the next part and put the multiplier to 46 and increased the turbo by one spot ( I believe to +0.008v). The BSOD i would get was mainly to add Vcore. I increased the turbo up about 4-5 different times which I think I stopped at +0.024V turbo. Would I keep adding the turbo or also up the offset? Whiled trying to find the right voltage, I also received the BSOD "0xD1" 0xD1 = QPI/VTT, increase/decrease as necessary, can also be unstable Ram, raise Ram voltage. After the "=" is the guides answer/solution. My Ram voltage was at 1.5v which I think is where it should be from a little research?

The only reason I am not content with the 4.5GHz that seems like it would be very easy to keep stable is because I feel like I can easily go higher and I am just not fully understanding where I should make changes after 4.5. My max temp of the 4 cores during the prime95 test was about 67-68C. Since the Max is 105C and I know I dont want to be anywhere too close, I wanted to see if I could get closer to 75-80C with a better OC.

I also noticed in the BIOS that the Ram I got was set to 1333 which I bought 1866. I changed this too and added the right timing.

If there is any information that I left out and someone may need to help me out, just let me know and I will provide it ASAP. This is my first OC so sorry if I have any misunderstandings here.

 

[BiG_LiG]

You should forget about offset for now and try to get it stable with a fixed voltage, that way you will know what vcore you need at 4.8GHz (or however high you get). You can set your offset afterwards.

 

[Schultcm]

Ok I go home for lunch in 90 min and I will play with that for an hour. The last thing I tried last night was to set a fixed voltage. I went from 1.265-1.310. I was getting worried about how high I should go trying to boot into a 46 multiplier. I know that every chip is different but what would be a good starting place for a 4.8 boot? And should I include any additional turbo Voltage?

 

[Belial]

4.7-4.8 is an incredibly high overclock for sandy or ivy. Good luck.
Quote:

I also noticed in the BIOS that the Ram I got was set to 1333 which I bought 1866. I changed this too and added the right timing

Yes, you need to set the ram's XMP profile to get it to run 1866. XMP is basically a guaranteed overclock.

Why do you not have an SSD? I wish you asked for help before buying that build ;/

 

[Schultcm]

Ok then I guess I wont try too hard to OC above 4.6. I will see what happens today with the fixed voltage.

When i built my PC I set a limit to around $800. I wanted to increase in-game performance. I ended up spending around 900 on the build I listed. The SSD will increase loading times but from what I understand, it wont really increase my FPS.

 

[BiG_LiG]

1.36v for 4.8GHz on mine, yours may be similar but not exactly the same.

You're right, an SSD is a luxury that decreases loading times, it will have nothing to do with in game performance.

 

[jeffro37]

Have you guys read the thread about the z77 extreme 4 volt reading? Something is not right with the readings.

here: http://www.overclock.net/t/1360404/asrock-z77-extreme-4-vcore-reading

 

[enigma7820]

Yes they report a reading lower than it really is I have read

 

[Belial]

You can overclock as far as you like, I'm just saying if you hit 4.7-4.8 then that would be a great overclock. I don't know where you chip lies but anything above 4.6 is a good chip. Most ivies can't do more than 4.6 on a reasonable voltage.
Quote:

When i built my PC I set a limit to around $800. I wanted to increase in-game performance. I ended up spending around 900 on the build I listed. The SSD will increase loading times but from what I understand, it wont really increase my FPS.

A few of the parts are lower quality at a higher price. It doesn't really matter, you already bought them (psu, mobo, ram, heatsink, hdd). Maybe if you could or were willing to return them for better stuff but it's not important. They are all great quality, really. Just better options for the same price or equal for less.

SSD doesn't affect FPS, but it affect boot time, how you load up programs, and system response time in general. I thought it was goofy before too, but SSDs have plummeted in price so you could even just buy a crappy $30 patriot 64gb SSD and you'd have a drastic boost in system response time. It all sort of adds up, and basically, an SSD will be one of the biggest upgrades you can put in a computer. Your system won't really be noticeably faster than one half the price, I mean it will but, an ssd, will just be hugely apparent, is my point. It's a really big fail not to have an ssd on any computer these days, frankly.

SSD just affects so many small things in day to day, general usage, that yea, it won't affect your fps in-game, but it's just apparent everywhere. When I use the computer for an hour, just to check email, reddit, the forums, real quickly, I can't tell any difference in my i7-3770k 5ghz UD5H 2400mhz RAM vs my Athlon II x3 1333mhz system. But it's apparent the whole time if I'm on an SSD, or a HDD.

Whether you spend $30 on some patriot 64gb, to $50 for an intel x25-m/320 80gb, $60 for a high end 64gb SSD like the samsung 830 or m4, to $80-90 for a good deal on a high end sata iii ssd 128gb.

Do you really need 1tb of storage after all? I mean I've used 50gb on 3 years on my main computer, so I got an 80gb ssd instead of any hdds.

Anyways whatever, this is off topic (do you really need 16gb of ram?).
Quote:

Have you guys read the thread about the z77 extreme 4 volt reading? Something is not right with the readings.

This is true on all lower quality motherboards. It's nothing special about the extreme4, it's more like the extreme4 is nothing special.

 

[jeffro37]

It would make me pretty upset to think i have a stable oc at 4.7 or 4.8 with 1.36 vcore when it is really 1.42 or more. Could end up killing the chip by overvolting it without knowing.

 

[Belial]

Well 1.36 to 1.42 isn't going to 'kill the chip'.

A little extra voltage like that kinda sucks but it's nothing catastrophic like that. You might have something like 1.5v is really 1.58v but if you are pushing 1.5v+ you are already pushing the limits of the chip.

It does kinda suck how bad the board is but really it's still a decent board. It's just crap when you compare it to similarly priced boards and it's quality is more like a lower priced board. You can still do good overclocks on it. And all you need to do is use a digital multimeter to verify what your real vcore is and problem solved, you know what you are doing.

You know, the G45 is slightly lower quality than the extreme4. It's got nikos, no low rds on mosfets which is even worse than the d-paks on the extreme4. It's 3+1 it seems (3+1+1+1 i think?).

 

[Schultcm]

Yeah I probably didn't need that big of a HD. My plan on the computer is to play games and also launch Windows server 2008 R2 and play around with virtualization. I have 300gb partitioned for that and 700 for win 7. I do want to record some gaming videos so I decided on the 1TB.

I just got back from lunch and I played around with the voltage a little. I was able to boot into windows at 1.290 but froze during the prime95 stress test. I went up to 1.295 and had about 2 min to play around with it before I had to go back to work. I added a picture of the voltages and temps ( which I know the temp doesnt mean anything since it is idle)

WP_20130227_001.jpg 309k .jpg file

 

[jeffro37]

I didn't say it was a bad board or mine was a great board either. I was just posting that thread so the op could see what other ocners were finding out when using this board and a higher oc that is all.

 

[BiG_LiG]

Are you still trying for 4.8? Just keep raising the vcore until you're stable.

 

[Chillie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schultcm

This was my second gaming build and I built with the intention to OC this time. I spent a couple of days reading and trying to learn what I can before trying.I found and followed the very well put together guide from here ( Complete Overclocking Guide: Sandy Bridge & Ivy Bridge | *ASRock Edition)
http://www.overclock.net/t/1198504/complete-overclocking-guide-sandy-bridge-ivy-bridge-asrock-edition

My build is :

-Core i5 3570K
-Vengeance Series 16GB(2x8gb) DDR3-1866 (PC3-15000)
-NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti Superclocked+ 3072MB PCIe 3.0 x16 Video Card\
-Caviar Black 1TB 7,200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
-Hydro Series H80i Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
-Z77 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Z77 ATX Intel Motherboard
-COOLER MASTER Real Power Pro RS-650-ACAA-A1 650W ATX Form Factor 12V V2.3 / SSI Standard EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply (from my last PC but still runs great,

I hope )

Like the guide said, I set the Offset to +0.005v and set the Turbo Boost to +0.004v. I was able to pass the test with a multiplier of 45 but 46 wouldnt boot up. I went on to the next part and put the multiplier to 46 and increased the turbo by one spot ( I believe to +0.008v). The BSOD i would get was mainly to add Vcore. I increased the turbo up about 4-5 different times which I think I stopped at +0.024V turbo. Would I keep adding the turbo or also up the offset? Whiled trying to find the right voltage, I also received the BSOD "0xD1" 0xD1 = QPI/VTT, increase/decrease as necessary, can also be unstable Ram, raise Ram voltage. After the "=" is the guides answer/solution. My Ram voltage was at 1.5v which I think is where it should be from a little research?

The only reason I am not content with the 4.5GHz that seems like it would be very easy to keep stable is because I feel like I can easily go higher and I am just not fully understanding where I should make changes after 4.5. My max temp of the 4 cores during the prime95 test was about 67-68C. Since the Max is 105C and I know I dont want to be anywhere too close, I wanted to see if I could get closer to 75-80C with a better OC.

I also noticed in the BIOS that the Ram I got was set to 1333 which I bought 1866. I changed this too and added the right timing.

If there is any information that I left out and someone may need to help me out, just let me know and I will provide it ASAP. This is my first OC so sorry if I have any misunderstandings here.

Check out my profiles bios screen shots there are some pics that may help as a reference for your settings my method is currently working great for me @ 4.9+ghz stable

 

[Belial]

Quote:

I didn't say it was a bad board or mine was a great board either. I was just posting that thread so the op could see what other ocners were finding out when using this board and a higher oc that is all.

Oh i know. You are totally right, i just felt the line about 1.38v being 1.42v a bit odd, i mean 1.42 isn't going to kill an ivy (maybe if you got a sandy in there i suppose). That's a great video, for sure, but that doesn't even begin to mention how bad the VRM is on the extreme4 which will throttle a 24/7 overclock because it's so low quality, or go into the low quality pcb or how flimsy the board is...

 

[Schultcm]

I was stable all night at 4.5GHz with a voltage of 1.285. Temps were in the low 60's. I was able to boot into windows at 4.6-4.7 going above 1.3V with temps getting up to 75-78C. I was still getting some errors so I think I will just settle for the 4.5. I will get bored here and there and will try to find something stable a little higher. If anything works I will be sure to post back here. Thank you for your help!

 

[Chillie]

Some times what helps with gaining stability is upping your bus speed as opposed to only using the multipliers. I could not get stable at 4.9 @ 5.0 by setting the multipliers to X49 and X50.....but it worked if i dropped the multiplier to 4.7 and upped the bus in order to reach a clock of 4.9 or 5.0. let me know if you want some pics of my settings.

 

[Schultcm]

Would that increase the chance to dmg? This is my first overclock and I am still trying to learn. A guide I read had some warnings about messing with that. I think it is called Host clock over ride on my mobo.

 

[Belial]

Yea I've never heard of that either, that sounds pretty interesting. But I dont think you'll be able to do that OP, you have to delid or have some very high end cooling to push 4.8ghz+ even on a great chip and using bclk tuning lol.