Safe System Agent Voltage (VCCSA)

[WebMaximus]

I have a Maximus VI Formula motherboard and a 4770K which I'm trying to get stable and one parameter where I have had some mixed information is what to be considered as a safe VCCSA voltage? Some says not to exceed 1.2V and others say 1.3V is the limit.

What's the real deal?

My temperatures are all good around 70 degress max during everyday full load like when rendering a movie using Sony Movie Studio or when gaming.

[HiVizMan]

What exactly is the issue with your system that you are trying to resolve and what work will increasing the VCSSA do in resolving your issue?

[WebMaximus]

I'm currently running the CPU core freq @ 4.6 GHz and I have been trying to get stable running the ring bus within 300 MHz of the CPU core speed ie 4.3 GHz or higher but I've been having BSODs when rendering movies in Sony Movie Studio. Since I have 4 sticks of 2400MHz CL9 RAM installed I understood the voltages you might need to adjust/increase a bit are the CPU System Agent voltage and the analog and digital I/O voltages.

Speaking about the analog and digital I/O voltages I have another question, how can I montor these inside Windows, what are they called? I'm using HWMonitor but I haven't found any values in there that seem to correspond to these two voltages?

[HiVizMan]

Well if you want to see the VCINN voltage you can use an old version of CPUz it reads that instead of the vcore. 🙂 But I am sure it is recorded in HWMonitor

OK I hear you.

Increase your VCCIO and VCSSA to 1.25 and add two notches to the CPU Cache voltage not the VCINN voltage.

[WebMaximus]

HiVizMan wrote:
Well if you want to see the VCINN voltage you can use an old version of CPUz it reads that instead of the vcore. 🙂 But I am sure it is recorded in HWMonitor

OK I hear you.

Increase your VCCIO and VCSSA to 1.25 and add two notches to the CPU Cache voltage not the VCINN voltage.

Sorry for my lack of knowledge but is VCINN the same as the analog and digital I/O voltages and if so which one of them? Since both these are separate settings in UEFI I would like to be able to monitor both of them. Just checked HWMonitor and I don't have anything in there called VCINN so maybe an old version of CPUz is the way to go but then again I wonder how a single value represent two separate values...both the analog and digital I/O voltages?

Should also mention that I'm working with offset voltages for the System Agent and the analog and digital I/O. For the CPU and CPU cache I'm working with manual voltages. This is what I currently have them set to:

CPU - 1.390V
CPU cache - 1.390V
System Agent - .350V
Analog I/O - .300V
Digital I/O - .300V
Eventual CPU input voltage - 1.95V

[HiVizMan]

Please just leave the digital and analogue in and out for now. 🙂

Do the changes that I have listed.

There is very little need to mess with heaps of settings just because they are present.

The only ones that you need to use are vcore, and memory voltage.

The rest actually work best on auto. Changing them just over complicates a very simple process. 🙂

[Raja]

VCCIN is eventual CPU input voltage in your list above. Don't confuse that with IO analog and digital voltages. The IO-A and IO-D rails are derived from the CPU Input voltage (VCCIN) voltage by on-die DC to DC converters.

[WebMaximus]

Thanks for your input guys, much appreciated!

So I've now tried what has been suggesed in here and pretty much everything but no matter what I do using only minimal number of settings or by using also the options I discussed I'm not able to run the ring bus @ 4.3 GHz while having my CPU core running @ 4.6 GHz. When having the ring bus @ 4.3 GHz I always sometimes already after a couple of minutes and other times after 20-30 minutes I get a BSOD with STOP code 101 when rendering a movie in Sony Movie Studio. I have also tried increasing both the CPU, CPU cache, AD I/O, SA and eventual CPU in voltages as much as I dared without risking my hardware but still no go 😞

Guess I just have to face it my chip simply doesn't like running the ring bus freq any faster than 4.2 GHz, at least not when running the CPU core @ 4.6 GHz and I rather not go any lower on the CPU core freq when I know it does run stable @ 4.6 GHz as lon as I keep the ring bus freq at 4.2 GHz.

[HiVizMan]

Looks that way my friend. If it is any consolation what ever gains you may have seen will be so small as to not be noticeable.

[WebMaximus]

Thanks, what you say is of course true just feels a bit annoying when I've read everywhere you should try keeping the frequencies within 300 MHz.

Well...at least I'm lucky I got a chip that does 4.5+ GHz 🙂

Have a great weekend!