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ASUS CPU Load Line Calculation, Which is which?

yountmg
Level 7
I have a new "ASUS ROG Maximus VIII Ranger" with a Intel I7 6700K.

To fix an occasional BSOD CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMER on CIV 5; windowsforum said t0 update the bios from 1601 t0 3401.

I noticed however CPU voltage has went way up?

I am only attempting a modest OC of 4200 Mhz.

The manual states that CPU Load Line Calculation goes from Level 1 to Level 8 or 0% to 100%.
The BIOS states that the CPU Load Line Calculation goes from Level 1 to Level 7 or 100% to 15%.

The word respectively is noticebly absent from both write ups.
Web sites never correlate low and high, 0% and 100% to the ASUS Level 1 and Level (7/8?)?

Motherboard manufacturers apparently differ on which Level is low or high, so understandably use words like low, medium and never use high.

I changed it from Level 5 to Level 4 and it did seem to go up, pushing 1.489v under stress rather than 1.385v.

I wish I knew if level 4 is indeed lower or higher than level 5?
Apparently ASUS removed Level 8 from the BIOS, so maybe level 8 was 100%????
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6 REPLIES 6

davemon50
Level 11
OK this is not a direct answer to your voltage question (I don't know the answer, sorry), but I have played many hundreds if not a couple thousand hours of Civ 5, and had a lot of instability issues, total lockups, etc. I found that overclocking of the GPU was the source of it all. I didn't set it back to stock, but after reducing graphics OC settings iteratively for that particular game I finally got to the point where everything finally ran stably. I couldn't find this advice on any forums or on Steam, but it solved the problems. This problem did/does not occur with Civ 6. Maybe that's something you can try? Hope that helps.
Davemon50

MeanMachine
Level 13
This is not going to answer your question completely however my understanding of LLC (Load Line Calibration) is thus:

LLC is to defeat Vdroop so they introduced LLC to tackle Vdroop which applies additional voltage to the CPU. It is to ensure a more stable vCore under load and minimize the gap between CPU voltage in idle and load. LLC is important when going for that little extra in your CPU OC.
I have found that using LLC in the final phase of your OC is beneficial with demanding CPUs that have high TDP draw. I don't feel it being necessary to increase LLC beyond either side of center in your LLC scale. Not too hIgh and not too low depending on TDP.

LLC varies between MB manufacturers as to what settings are available for LLC and "CPU Current Capability". Some as a % and some from 1-8. Level 5 is higher than 4 at least it is with my MB. Level 8 is for LN2 OCing.

If you updated your Bios recently then your on default settings.
We owe our existence to the scum of the earth, Cyanobacteria

My System Specs:

MB:ASUS ROG Crosshair VII Hero/WiFi GPU:EVGA GTX 1080 sc PSU:Corsair AX-1200i
CPU:
AMD R7 2700X Cooler: Corsair Hydro H115i Case: Corsair Carbide 780t

Memory:G.Skill TridentZ F4-3200C14D-16GTZR SSD:Samsung 500GB 960 EVO M.2


[/HR]

Korth
Level 14
https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/483370-easy-explanation-of-adaptive-voltage-on-asus-rog-boards-...
http://www.tweaktown.com/guides/7481/tweaktowns-ultimate-intel-skylake-overclocking-guide/index5.htm...
https://www.msi.com/blog/why-llc-is-your-friend-when-overclocking

You can always set higher VCore so the CPU remains stable when voltage drops and current increases under load. Until you reach a point where low-load VCore is too high, so you instead use Load Line Calibration (LLC). LLC adaptively compensates for fluctuations ("droops") in VCore voltages.

Different motherboard manufacturers implement LLC differently. Usually in a consistent fashion across all their motherboards, although LLC qualities often vary across different motherboard chipsets or even different motherboard variants/models.
LLC is basically software running in firmware, it depends on the qualities and specifications of (mostly VRM) hardware components, it depends on timings and responses of running (ASIC/PCH) firmware/software components, it depends on the cleverness and efficiencies of design and layout for everything working together. LLC is very easy to implement ... but not very easy to implement well.

LLC (with little or no user control) is often embedded on low-end motherboards with low-end VRMs. And (with some or total user control) on high-end motherboards with high-end VRMs to allow the user to overclock multiple component parameters far beyond "recommended" or "rated" values. Misconfigured LLC settings reduce system stability.

End of story is that exactly what LLC is and exactly what LLC does and exactly how LLC works on any given motherboard has to be learned from the manufacturer. There's some comprehensive Maximus VIII / i7-6700K overclocking guides in these forums (and others, lol) which discuss LLC settings in some detail, but it's just one of those things that ASUS likes to be deliberately vague and cryptic about (partly to thwart evil competitors and partly because ASUS actually has no way of knowing exactly what quirks and qualities apply to your particular motherboard and processor parts).
"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others." - Douglas Adams

[/Korth]

The Patriot Viper 2133Mhz DDR4 were not working @2133Mhz or 2400Mhz with the 3401 auto settings.

note: Help pages always tell you to get a stable CPU overclock before OCing the RAM.

I do not think its possible to get a stable CPU OC if the RAM is already failing.

I suspect that the BIOS 1601 was marginal when running Patriot Viper DDR4 on Auto settings.
I paid a pro 85 dollars to set this stuff up, stupid of me; he just loaded defaults.

I finally passed a stress test using BIOS 3401 by setting CPU VCIO and System Agent to 1.1.
I also upped DRAM voltage from 1.2 to 1.2012.

Vcore is set to auto, runing @1.378v & 30C and stressing out at @1.489v & 70C.

When the memory was set on auto, stress tests failed; but I was able run windows sort of; with vcore manually set @1.27v.
The stress test would some times complete with max values @1.385v & 60C! This is better than 1.489v & 70C.

I think that going manual with offsets will lower the temperature and voltage spikes.

Davemon50 ::
Yes, I agree.
Works for Real Bench Luxmark OpenCL Test also.
Debug mode disables Graphics card Overclocking.

MeanMachine::
So all I need to do is find and read a story on a Maximus VIII LN2 build and read it!
Thanks, I will look into that. I wasn't to interested before because I can't afford to go LN2, but I am pretty sure they are maxing out LLC; if they actually mention the settting I will know. I just want the vcore to behave reasonably for 4200 Mhz.

I upped system agent and VCCIO voltage and it seemed to be working and then everything started failing randomly.

The post codes reported weirdness like CPU initialization failure and memory not installed and SSD boot drive failures.

I have suspected bad memory every since I purchased the system so I ran MemTest64+ again and this time it reported a lot of failures.

I purchased Corsair Dominator DDR4 3000 MHz CMD16GX4M2B3000C15; ASUS recommended where as Patriot was not.
Either the Patriot ram was bad from the start or not compatible with this system and eventually failed hard.

The new ram uses higher voltages, of course.

DRAM is 1.353, CPU system agent is 1.2 and VCCIO 1.125. These values were set by the BIOS.

Raja
Level 13
On the ASUS boards, lower LLC values result in 'more droop', while higher values result in less (well, there's more to it than that, but this isn't the medium to discuss such things). It has been that way for as long as I can remember.