24/7 Overclocking Advice

[Firesauce]

Good Morning, All

I have recently built a new rig and thanks hivizman's quick and helpful input i resolved a small yet embarrassing issue about a month ago, to only be met with a new issue. While i took a great deal of time choosing my parts i hastily choose 2 GTX 580s and bought a processor that cant seem to handle cards as well as i hoped. I am currently running the following

AMD Phenom II X4 980 Blackbox edition @ 3.7GHz " currently running Stock"
Crosshair V motherboard
EVGA GTX 580x2 SLI config
Corsair H100 Water cooler With Arctic Silver 5 Compound
Corsair Force Series 90GB SSD P/n CSSD-F90GBGT-BK
Western Digital 500gig Caviar Blue for storage
Corsair Professional series 1200 watt PSU
Corsair Vengeance 16 gig 1600 DDR3 Duel Channel Kit ( Down to 8 gig for a more stable OC )
Antec 1100 Case all 120mm Fan slots occupied

I haven't had the need to Overclock for quite some time and would like to request some aid in creating a stable 24/7 to lessen the rather large bottleneck my processor is causing in most of my games i play.
I had some free time last night and was met with some solid success with the following Settings

CPU 3845Mhz
Vcore 1.45
Ram @ 1600 with 8-8-8-24 Timings
Dram Voltage 1.6
CPU/NB @ 2600
CPU/NB voltage 1.30
CPU multiplier @ 19
Bus @ 202

A quick 30 min Prime95 before bed and ended with

CPU @ 30c idle and 51c at full load

I apologize for the lack of pictures but i'm currently on break at work. I should be able to have some up around 6pm USA EST time tonight. Thank you all for your time.

[HiVizMan]

Hey Firesauce good to see you again mate.

I think you are getting close to where the upper ceiling is with that CPU if you are on air. But your H100 and CPU dependant your should get to 4GHz

It is going to be all about trial and error to find what suites your system so take it slow and get into the habit of recording your settings and the temps makes life easier when you go back to an overclock that worked best. Instead of having to reinvent the wheel again.

[Firesauce]

I had a very stable OC with the settings listed just below but i backed it way down due to CPU heat. After a about 3 hours of a 4 hour Prime95 run i terminated the test when my core temp hit 59c. So i backed it down to the settings in my first post. Is the Max temp for a 24-7 OC at full load still around 55c? I wouldn't think that has changed

CPU 4156Mhz
Vcore 1.488
Ram @ 1600 with 9-9-9-24 Timings
Dram Voltage 1.55
CPU/NB @ 22**
CPU/NB voltage 1.20
CPU multiplier @ 21
Bus @ 223

I will most likely return to a 2400 NB speed this evening due to some sound and Frame-rate instability during my Heaven Benchmark. I'm also relearning the memory timings and their meaning. I am quite sure this is my primary fault. I will have the NB to high and the CPU to slow or visa versa. Good to see u too HiVizMan and thanks again for the quick response.

[HiVizMan]

Yeah the balance between the NB and core frequency is important for a fully stable system.

Just to put things in perspective for you. You needed 1.488 for 4.1GHz to push the CPU to 4.5GHz I needed to up my voltages past 1.6Volts. 😉

[Firesauce]

I'm quite sure that my case is also to small for the H100's radiator so its not getting cooled the way it should. While i'm very pleased overall with Antec's 1100 case it doesn't have the room for the setup i have. I felt like macgyver trying to get this radiator inside without blocking all my grommet hole's and funny enough is why i came to the site the first time. It wouldnt post after my infamous rewiring:(. While its working for the time being its not very efficient to say the least. I lucked out and won some gift cards at work and i am going to get a corsair obsidian 800d here in the next few weeks. I imagine it will make things quite a bit more roomy inside, besides it will look fantastic under my desk.

[HiVizMan]

This is the case I am using Firesauce and a Corsair too.



http://www.corsair.com/pc-cases/graphite-series-pc-case/graphite-series-600t.html

[Firesauce]

I made some adjustments last night and ended up with some rather heavy voltage numbers on the CPU/NB and DRAM. During a heaven benchmark with the settings on Ultra and Normal Tenselation, i saw the Dram voltage get to 1.689 and the CPU/NB get to 1.379. Should i be concerned they are that high under load? I am going to make the push to 4000mhz tonight if i can the voltage figured out. I think im giving the CPU more power then it needs and its causing the high core temps.

1 Hour prime95 CPU @ 30c idle and 51c at the end of the test.

Wprime
32k 10.83 sec
1024k 341sec


CPU 3870Mhz
Vcore 1.475
Ram @ 1600 with 8-8-8-24 2T Timings
Dram Voltage 1.60 set in the BIOS but spiked to 1.689 during load
CPU/NB @ 2456
CPU/NB voltage 1.30 set in the BIOS but spiked to 1.379 during load
CPU multiplier @ 19
Bus @ 203

Current Memory Bandwith @ 14.57GB according to Sisoftware benchmark.
Heaven Benchmark 60FPS with Vsync on 81.5FPS with Vsync off
GPU core load 98% on both Cards. CPU use-age 98%


That looks to be about the same size as my current case.

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/antec_1100/

[HiVizMan]

20 x 23 x 10 - a bit bigger and wider than the 1100

If you like big my Antec 1200 is huge. Too big for my desk. 😞

And yes once you start getting past a certain point the voltages start to go up hugely.

[Firesauce]

I set all the voltages to auto and was shocked at how high they were. The cpu/nb was hitting 1.5v at times with the clock set to 2600. Is there a recommend voltage range I need to be at for a 24/7 setup?

[HiVizMan]

Each system in unique of course, and the trick is finding what is the lowest voltages that work (system stable) for your set up. And sadly there is no quick fix for that one. You will have to test each voltage setting and run some kind of quick stability test to determine what works and what does not. 😛