Voltage questions (apologies if noobish)

[adrichardson]

Hi all

I'm in the process of fine-tuning my rig. It's stable at 4.3ghz @ 1.25v (load temps under AIDA 64 are around 87c). I've tried pushing it up 4.4ghz, but it BSOD'd @ 1.26v. I'm guessing under real world conditions I could possibly push the core voltage to 1.27v, but I've got a few questions:

(1) is there any consensus on a safe voltage/temperature range with an h100i?
(2) I'm currently running 8gb of Corsair XMS3 2000 @ 1866 c9 1.6v (it's not stable at 2000, which is probably why it doesn't make the QVL). If I went for 1.5v or 1.35v DDR3, am I likely to see a drop in CPU temps?
(3) if so, for photo editing/gaming/handbrake, am I likely to get better performance out of 1600 c8 or 1866 c9?
(4) is it really worth the effort for an extra 100mhz? (I appreciate I'll probably go to OC hell for asking that :confused: )

Cheers!

[HiVizMan]

Hello my friend there are no n00b questions just a desire to know stuff.


1 - it is all about temps. And each CPU is unique when it comes to the individual needs of voltage, and more voltage with higher frequency = higher temps. So what ever your ambient temperature is in your room add 10 degrees C to that for your idle temps. Then it is up to you to find out the max. I have the H100 and 4.4Ghz is quite doable with my rubbish voltage hog 4770K
2 - Those sticks are originally released in 2010 and are not designed for the current Intel processors. They need 1.65 volts to work mate, that is why you are not able to get them stable. That voltage is not going to be adding to your heat production so no worries there.
3 - You are more likely to get better performance out of the amount of ram you have, so 16GB is better than 8GB. But to directly answer your question the performance will be about the same. You will not notice any difference at all.
4 - Nope not really, but you will have some difference if you ran artificial benchmarks. But 4.4GHz is certainly doable on your system so why not.


And we are all going to OC hell so see you there.

[adrichardson]

Thanks for that - I've ordered a compatible Corsair Vengeance kit, so will retry for 4.4 when it arrives (and the weather cools down a bit). I had a feeling I was pushing my luck with the old memory 😞

Any stability tips for pushing 4.4? Other than dropping cache ratio to 41, manually setting core and memory voltages and enabling termination anti-aliasing, I've left everything else set to auto (which seems to be the recommendation in the UEFI guide)...

[HiVizMan]

It really is all about t he individual CPU I am afraid. What works on my CPU will not work on your (well it might but you know what I mean).

When I do my initial OC set up I do not bother changing anything at first besides the vcore and the multi, all the rest I leave on auto. So why not find out where your limit is multiplier wise with a set voltage and then work from there. I used 1.2625 as my default vcore and found that each of my CPU's had different levels of OC at that frequency.