Overclocking Intel i7700k with Asus z270e or Upgrade?

[OohDreamWeaver]

Im just needing some help with the decision of either overclocking with more cooling or scratching it and upgrading. I built this around September of 2017 but have never messed with overclocking out of the fear of frying something. I've tinkered with it some with help from this forum but im still having temp issues with witcher 3 but mainly cyberpunk. Im running on high settings on 1080p and cpu usage is usually around 60-80% with temps 70-80c, this is just the game running with no other programs or webpages up. If I try to watch a video or a stream then usage goes 80-98% and temps stay around 80c a few times it hit 84c and once it hit 92c. The overclocking I've tried from reading here just makes the temps and usage increase quicker especially if I bump game settings to Ray tracing medium, as the specs say i should be able to run lol. All fans set at full power helps but still feel like im gonna fry something. I used artic mx-4 thermal compound but thought maybe I should reapply ? or maybe its just time for a new cpu and motherboard? I've looked at so many upgrade options the last week its making my head spin.

CPU - Intel i7700k
MOBO- Asus z270e
GPU- Nvidia rtx 2060
Mem - Crucial 16gb 2x8 elite cl
cpu cooler - coolmaster gemini m4
2 front intake case fans, 1 rear exhaust fan and 1 120mm exhaust fan on the top of the case
storage - samsung 500gb ssd and a new 1 tb samsung pci drive
monitor - lg 60-75hz 1080p

[OohDreamWeaver]

I was able to get 5ghz at 1.39 to load windows, passed 15min stress test on realbench, I followed your instructions for using paint but when I try to upload it says " asus rog says invalid file" its a .png so im not sure the issue? Im running cyberpunk medium ray tracing 1080p, 66c avg - 79c max vcore1.392-1.408, cores 1 and 3 seem to run hotter than the others, when i delidded there was a pathetic application from the factory or it magically disappears and doesnt cover it all lol

Hopeful for some additional overclocking ideas. I've seen other pages and videos messing with other settings in the bios but not sure if I can plug and play those to my setup or if they would be more system to system specific. Still think there is something wonky with my ram but unsure.

[OohDreamWeaver]

hate to be bothersome, been awhile with no replies. Is there anything else in the bios I can do or try to get more out of this cpu / gpu / ram set-up? I was just going to upgrade ram to see, but ive heard mixed reviews on my current ram and maybe so maybe its just a setting in bios?

[Nate152]

Sorry for the late reply, I went on a trip and was there longer than I planned.

All right, no big deal about posting screenshots, only thing I can say is keep trying, it should work as .png's are valid files. You posted pretty much what we needed to know so.....

I would keep 1.39v and cpu core ratio 50 and try setting the ram manually or better yet, overclocking it.

Dram Frequency - 3000MHz
Dram Voltage - 1.50v

Timings - These are listed on each stick as well as the box they came in, you can also look them up. Just set the primary timings and command rate. There are 4 primaray timings but you will enter only 3 as the middle two timings are tied together. For instance, if a kit has 16-18-18-35-2T timings, you'd enter at the top of the Dram Timing Control page

16
18
35
2N

Let's see how this goes first, max safe DRAM voltage is 1.50v as stated by Intel. if it passes Realbench with the overclock settings, select the next highest DRAM Frequency and test again. Keep going until it becomes unstable then back it off to the previous lower frequency.

Let me know what you end up with, then lastly we can overclock your gpu, this is where you will see the biggest performance boost in games.

Do you have a gpu overclocking tool installed, if so which one?

[OohDreamWeaver]

Nate152 wrote:
Sorry for the late reply, I went on a trip and was there longer than I planned.

All right, no big deal about posting screenshots, only thing I can say is keep trying, it should work as .png's are valid files. You posted pretty much what we needed to know so.....

I would keep 1.39v and cpu core ratio 50 and try setting the ram manually or better yet, overclocking it.

Dram Frequency - 3000MHz
Dram Voltage - 1.50v

Timings - These are listed on each stick as well as the box they came in, you can also look them up. Just set the primary timings and command rate. There are 4 primaray timings but you will enter only 3 as the middle two timings are tied together. For instance, if a kit has 16-18-18-35-2T timings, you'd enter at the top of the Dram Timing Control page

16
18
35
2N

Let's see how this goes first, max safe DRAM voltage is 1.50v as stated by Intel. if it passes Realbench with the overclock settings, select the next highest DRAM Frequency and test again. Keep going until it becomes unstable then back it off to the previous lower frequency.

Let me know what you end up with, then lastly we can overclock your gpu, this is where you will see the biggest performance boost in games.

Do you have a gpu overclocking tool installed, if so which one?

DRAM 3000 at 1.5v, timing listed on the stick was 16-17-17-36 1.2v didnt see any timings on the box though but it is from 2016 or 2017, so the 2t 2n etc etc i dont see that on the stick either. Also xmp is currently disabled, wasnt sure if that needed to be on or not? im also not running it in raid which i dont know anything about but thought i ould add that. I also I did a fresh windows install on the new pci nvme 1tb samsung evo. As for gpu, gpu tweak II came with the card. havent ever messed with it but it loads on startup. other than that no other software to my knowledge unless in the bios. I cant find the disk that came with the motherboard im sure it has some software ai suite 3? but cant recall whats on it but its
asus rog also

after a few test runs in real bench I kept hitting 90 degrees so I went ahead and dropped it back down to 2666 and 1.2 volts, I had to remove the noctua cooler prior to the fresh install of windows and reposition it to accommodate for my ram that wasn't in the proper slots. in doing so I may not have gotten good coverage when reapplying the thermal paste. So I'll tackle this after work today

[Nate152]

X.M.P. is an easy one click way to set your memory to its rated specs. Since you're setting the ram manually, you don't need to enable X.M.P.

Once you get cpu temps under control, on the extreme tweaker tab set:

CPU System Agent voltage - 1.25v
CPU VCCIO voltage - 1.25v

Then select the next highest Dram Frequency and test, keep raising the Dram Frequency and testing until it becomes unstable then back it down to the frequency where it was stable.

I'm not sure how you apply the thermal paste but I like to use the spread method to ensure the entire IHS is covered with a thin even layer just enough to cover the numbers. If you don't have a spreader, a drivers license or credit card works well.

[OohDreamWeaver]

Nate152 wrote:
X.M.P. is an easy one click way to set your memory to its rated specs. Since you're setting the ram manually, you don't need to enable X.M.P.

Once you get cpu temps under control, on the extreme tweaker tab set:

CPU System Agent voltage - 1.25v
CPU VCCIO voltage - 1.25v

Then select the next highest Dram Frequency and test, keep raising the Dram Frequency and testing until it becomes unstable then back it down to the frequency where it was stable.

I'm not sure how you apply the thermal paste but I like to use the spread method to ensure the entire IHS is covered with a thin even layer just enough to cover the numbers. If you don't have a spreader, a drivers license or credit card works well.

Reapplied thermal paste and temps are back to how they were prior to re-arranging the cooler. So I need to change the settings you just mentioned, then change DRAM Voltage to 1.5v (the numbers turn purple when on 1.5?) and change the frequency from 2666 to 3000 then work my way up until windows doesn't launch? What about the timings? I got the 4 main numbers but there isn't a number listed for the 1t,2t,2n etc etc so leave that on auto?

Update: Ram increased from 2666-3200 and 1.5v, also changed the other 2 settings you mentioned, everything is stable. Still couldnt find the last timing listed anyone on box, card or online anywhere so thats still on auto. Ran Realbench and highest tempt was 81 after 15min stress test. So now onto the GPU? The software installed is GPU Tweak II