Overclocking


#101

Hey John, not sure if the UD3s let you do this, but if you can go into your advanced voltage settings and increase your QPI PLL to around 1.16 (1.4 is the max), does it make any difference for you? I’ve just noticed that now that I have increased mine from stock, I’ve been able to drop my QPI/VTT to 1.18 and it is running stable.

Had I have not increased QPI PLL at all, I wouldn’t even be able to get through one test of LinX without BSODing. I’ve gone from 1.26 to 1.18 on the QPI and it has just passed it’s 3rd run. It has definitely made a massive difference on my board.

If you read the quoted text about QPI PLL at the top of the page it clearly states

Helps stabilize higher CPU Uncore frequencies and QPI frequencies (in CPU feature)
As you can’t drop your Uncore multiplier, it may help you gain stability whilst dropping other voltages.


#102

Agh, got to loop 9 of LinX before it BSOD’d with QPI @ 1.20v and QPI PLL @ 1.18v. Going to try again with QPI PLL @ 1.20v.

If it works this time, I have managed to drop my QPI/VTT considerably and my CPU vcore a tiny bit.

update

Just finished testing the above settings and it passed. So if you guys have the option to play with QPI PLL, give it a go. I was able to drop QPI voltage by 0.060v which is considerable when you think that before I couldn’t get my system stable with anything less than 1.260v on the QPI with a 174 base clock.

So final settings for the time being

ambient temp - 30.9’C

CPU vcore - 1.296v (windows, dynamic voltage control enabled)
IOH Core 1.120 (seems to get me a tiny bit more in vantage, probably due to having dual cards giving the PCI-E bus a hard time)
QPI/VTT - 1.20v
QPI PLL - 1.20v
DRAM - 1.58v


#103

loop 6 and mine failed going for 4ghz … .1.28 vcore, 1.181vtt max temps 68-74.

1 more vcrore should do it this arvo … so much effort for 200mhz lol


#104

1.28 vcore is still low, haha. Now you know how I felt after being stable at 3.66GHz with low - mid 1.2X voltages, needed high 1.2Xs to get 4.0GHz cooperating.

Got to play with a D0 920 system this morning (the one that my mate built for another mate and pretty much told me that “you can’t get it stable at 4.0GHz”). It’s based on a GB X58 board so it was right up my alley.

So I jumped in the drivers seat, put in some reasonable voltage settings that would allow a D0 to run with H/T on (which is lower than my C0 needs for the same clock speed with it off, so tempted). Straight away it managed to get through a couple of LinX runs before stopping on an error, but no BSOD. Bit more playing and it was running at 4.01GHz. After that, my friend who owned the pc said to my other mate in a cheeky tone, “I had a feeling nipper was going to do a better job than you right from when he pressed the on button.” That said it all, lol

Maxed at 76’C on a corsair H50 which would have to be the biggest waste of money I’ve seen after using one and having to reseat it. I say this with full confidence, do not buy one over a decent tower HSF, they are no better. This was at a 20’C ambient temp also, absolute rubbish cooler. I told him that he was going to run into problems on hotter days.

The voltages still need to be tweaked a lot but I only had a couple of hours to get the job done before he needed to leave. So I basically got it stable with average volts and told him to have a play around with them if he wanted to, gave him a crash course in OCing

191MHz x 21 multi = 4.01GHz
191 x 8 RAM multi = 1528MHz
QPI 191 x 36 = 6.8 GHz
Uncore 191 x 16 = 3056MHz

CPU Vcore - 1.280v in windows (HT on, dvid on, llc level 1)
QPI/VTT - 1.240v
QPI PLL - 1.240v
DRAM - 1.64v
IOH - 1.02 (this probably wasn’t needed at all)

All other voltages where left as normal.

All those voltages can be dropped, the CPU will probably survive on 1.25 or even less vcore imo. I’ve said this before, the 920 D0 is an absolute pearler when it comes to overclocking, even the bad ones are good in comparison to the C0s.


#105

Nice Nip!

Interesting about the odd multiplier jazz. I was originally working with 191x21 (they unlocked 21 in a bios update :D), and moved to 200x20 to get the ram up to speed. But if that’s causing more volts to be needed i’ll give that another look, although from the looks of the testing when I did have it at 21 previously, it might not help. Currently I’ve got it set to 200x19, will see how low I can get the volts for this first, as it’ll likely be the 24/7 OC.

I’ll check when I boot up tonight, but fairly certain the UD3R (P55 in general?) doesn’t have a QPI PLL voltage adjustment.

edit: yeh, looking here these look very similar to the UD3 bios, no QPI PLL in sight :frowning:


#106

Worth a try I guess, having a 1528MHz ram speed instead of 1600MHz is going to do absolutely nothing in game anyway. I run my ram at 1392 MHZ, I could possibly get it stable at 1740MHz but it does nothing in any benchmark that I’ve used (other than ones that focus on ram). I still will try to get it stable at the higher speed just for the fun of it though. The additional memory bandwidth that these new chipsets have from the addition of the QPI make the speed of the ram a non issue, as long as it doesn’t hold back my OC then I’m happy.


#107

while i have low volts … its identical to john in regards for vcore thirst and heat

only diff is i dont go outside itels spec i guess … thats the only difference …probably a good chip for water as you could probably get a pretty chuffy clock at 1.35 or less vcore.


#108

That’s the same conclusion I came to with my 940 when it was still under the noctua. There was no chance in hell I would be on 4GHz now if I wasn’t on water, it just gets too hot. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, I had wanted to do it for years but never had a way to justify it.


#109

Water is the go, just hate upgrading can be a pain in the ass changing components…


#110

nice mac, it has come in handy for me.

The X58 UD3R I used this morning also had QPI PLL adjustment. Considering our mb models are practically the same but on different chipsets, I would assume that John’s UD3R would also have the option.

Edit, didn’t see John’s post above.


#111

Hey nip I wasnt reading straight mine doesn’t have qpi pll either…:laugh:


#112

ah k, maybe it’s not a necessary voltage to have on a P55, the ASUS P55 Pro I used in another build didn’t have it either if I recall. Although I didn’t really start playing around with it until recently, may have just missed it?


#113

You’re not wrong, be a real pita with water cooled graphics cards.


#114

waters the go … just hate the $400-$500 to get a good sys … so air is the go :stuck_out_tongue:

qpi pll is locked on all p55 (at x18 i think from memory reading in a guide or 2)

hey nip … did the p55 pro have all the actual running volts in bios under each adjustable setting that you did ? mine does

i think John said he doesnt … i think its pretty good to see what your pc is actually using for all those settings


#115

The cost is the biggest downside. Same argument for SSD vs HDD. One is far dearer than the other for the performance it gives, but once you’ve got it, you’ll never want to give it up. One thing about water cooling is once you pay for the pump, res, rad, you’ll basically only need to buy a new block every now and again. In most cases, the manufactures make one block fit all types of CPUs, so you can even reuse them in some cases. They also require a bit more maintenance, unless you don’t mind the possibility of algae/blockages/leaks/electrical shorting…

I think you must be thinking of the actual QPI multiplier which is locked @ x18, rather than the QPI PLL as its parameters are votlages, not multipliers.

Yeah it did az, very nice feature I must admit. My X58 - Extreme doesn’t do it either.


#116

yeah the multi sorry


#117

thought id join in on the fun (cpu killing :P)

Well seems the HSF is still gay under hard load, (beatin a dead horse iknow!)

But did a test peaked at 90 in core temp 86in HW :s

Results

Still gotta get a new fan but struggling atm with funds for everything :frowning: so it just keeps gettin pushed back further on the list.

And does vantage change your windows scheme to gay like my pic? when it exits my screen is black until i refresh it lol, has always done it. So well my new top score is 17.2k vantage, 1k higher then my last. Stock GPU too.


#118

Vantage sets your colour scheme to basic until you quit the application. It should then revert back to aero. If this doesn’t happen for you, I would suggest reinstalling Vantage or possibly your GPU drivers. That little black box where your taskbar icons are is not something that happens to me. Could be related to drivers I guess, not being able to recover properly between basic and aero schemes. I have no idea atm, I might have a look around to see if anyone else gets that problem.

Nice score btw. Your PC is definitely no slouch

HW monitor probably has an incorrect TjMax set, hence the difference in core temperatures. For that matter, it looks like your TjMax in core temp is at 98’C, going off everyone else’s 1156 CPU here, it should be 99’C. Like John has said after getting similar temps, I’d be cutting the CPU back a bit until you can get some good cooling on it, not worth the risk for a bit more of a kick in Vantage.


#119

nah ive definitly tones it down, just wanted to torture it :stuck_out_tongue:
funny i set the vcore to 1.28 but it shows higher there, all good, it was definitly stable just the temps peaked.

ill keep saving my coin (well try to) and have a shot at the big 4!


#120

Good stuff mate.