Asus Maximus VII Gene, adaptive voltage behaves like offset voltage

[Ahmedivx]

I have reached a stable over-clock of 4.4GHZ on my 4790K @ 1.134 volts and it was set manually, I noticed that by default when setting adaptive voltage and leaving everything on auto with intel speedstep enabled and power plan set to balanced under Windows, the voltage fluctuates as will as the frequency mutliplier, the minimum voltage was something like 0.78 volts and the maximum was exactly 1.24 volts, and knowing that the adaptive voltage offset only kicks in when operating in turbo frequencies, I set the offset to -0.105 so that the maximum turbo voltage @ x44 is 1.134 votls and it actually is working this way even during synthetic stress testing with avx instructions like Aida64, the thing is the minimum voltage has also stepped down when running @ x8 multiplier to 0.675 volts, and till now it's stable with no problems the thing is I want to know why the voltage stepped down with the amount of offset when operating in non turbo frequencies

[Nate152]

Hello Ahmedivx

Offset/adaptive voltage affects idle voltage as well as load voltage, so it's normal that the idle voltage dropped when setting it to -0.105, if you add too mucjh of a negative offset you could become unstable at idle and get bluescreens. If those settings are working for you go with it, that looks really good to me.

[Ahmedivx]

Nate152 wrote:
Hello Ahmedivx

Offset/adaptive voltage affects idle voltage as well as load voltage, so it's normal that the idle voltage dropped when setting it to -0.105, if you add too mucjh of a negative offset you could become unstable at idle and get bluescreens. If those settings are working for you go with it, that looks really good to me.

Thanks a lot for your reply, I was confused as I thought adaptive voltage only affects turbo frequencies, yes these settings are working for me stable with no blue screens what so ever, I have used Aida64 (CPU, FPU, Cache and Memory selected) and OCCT (Linkpak and AVX enabled) to test it on both manual and adaptive settings, then I used Aida64 (FPU test only) to check thermal performance and I think it was good, I was hitting 75C on the most hot core and this is on air Cooler Noctua NH-C14S, then I used Asus RealBench to sum things up, what do you think of the temperature achieved in my FPU test

[Nate152]

75c with a stress test is very good, that should put your gaming temps somewhere in the high 50's low 60's which is great temps. What you've done is the right thing to do by getting the voltage as low as possible as that will lower temps.

What were your temps in realbench? If they were below 70c you have plenty of room to try some overclocking. 🙂

[Ahmedivx]

Nate152 wrote:
75c with a stress test is very good, that should put your gaming temps somewhere in the high 50's low 60's which is great temps. What you've done is the right thing to do by getting the voltage as low as possible as that will lower temps.

What were your temps in realbench? If they were below 70c you have plenty of room to try some overclocking. 🙂

Yes the 75c was during FPU test only in Aida64 which as far as I know is intended to test the cooling system efficiency or performance and the CPU will be hottest during this test, for the normal Aida64 test with CPU, FPU, Cache and Memory selected all together the CPU was at mid to high 60's and during realbench it was at high 50's to mid 60's, as for Intel Extreme Tuning Utility it recorded a maximum of 60c at the maximum frequency 4.4 GHz 🙂

[Nate152]

That all looks great to me, you don't have a temp issue if that's what you're concerned about.

[Ahmedivx]

Great 🙂 I wonder what one can achieve with this chip if I have a custom loop instead of this air cooler, but also this cooler the Noctua NH-C14S turned out to be great indeed and performs very well much like famous all in one in one closed loop coolers, one small note though I have all my system fans run at maximum rpm which sure will cause very loud noise but I don't care actually cause mostly I game with this rig and I either use my headset or crank up the volume of the TV that the noise doesn't bother me at all

[Nate152]

Yeah the Noctua NH-C14s is a great cpu cooler and as you say performs as well as an all in one cpu cooler with a 240mm radiator. With a custom loop you may get a little more out of it but it won't be anything huge probably another 200MHz, a custom loop will cost alot more too.


I'd stick with what you have and overclock it as far as temps allow, you should be able to hit 4.8GHz - 4.9GHz with your noctua cooler. 🙂

[Ahmedivx]

I hope so 🙂 I will try to shoot for more just for the fun of it :cool: