Which 24/7 OC would you use?

[Qwinn]

Okay, so I updated to modded BIOS 1801 (thanks Gonzo) which of course led me to retry my overclocks, and for the first time I think I've found an OCCT stable 4.5Ghz overclock. My question is, is there anything safety/degradation wise in the difference between these two overclock settings that would make you prefer the 4.4 Ghz over the 4.5 Ghz settings?

In the list below, I'm listing what I have set in the BIOS, followed in parenthesis what I actually get as the maximum for that value over the course of a 3 hour OCCT run.

Both settings are with my 2666 kit at XMP. I don't plan on ever OC'ing memory.

Both settings have cache set to min 30/max 30 adaptive auto. Actual cache voltage never gets as high as 1v, generally stays around 0.95v.

The super-stable 4.4 Ghz OC Settings:

Ratio/Clock: 44x100
LLC: 7
Total Adaptive Voltage: 1.25v (1.28v)
Input Voltage: 1.9v (1.88v)
Max CPU Package Temperature Spike in OCCT: 74c
Max single CPU core temp in OCCT: 70c

The 4.5 Ghz OC Settings currently under testing, but final stable settings should be very close to this:

Ratio/Clock: 45x100
LLC: Auto
Total Adaptive Voltage: 1.295v (1.33v)
Input Voltage: 1.92v (1.95v)
Max CPU Package Temperature Spike in OCCT: 80c
Max single CPU core temp in OCCT: 75c


The 4.5Ghz OCCT run is still going, but I've passed 2 hours at this point. I'll update if anything like max temp changes during the run. Note that this run is going with Steam minimized, Bitdefender active, and me working on the browser during the run.

Note when evaluating for safety/degradation that this IS fully adaptive, so it'll only be at the higher voltages under load. With my 4.4Ghz OC In Witcher 3 on 3D Vision in 1440p, CPU never seems to go over 62c so I don't expect it to ever reach 70c with the 4.5Ghz settings.

So. Thoughts? Opinions? Are those 4.5Ghz voltages/temps reasonable/safe for a 5930k for 24/7? Any suggestions on how I could increase stability? For the 4.5Ghz run I have CPU Power Phase Control and both DRAM Power Phase Control settings set to Optimized, it seems to have improved stability. The CPU/VRM Spectrum settings are auto/disabled, I thought enabling those were helpful for a bit but, no, not in the long run.

[Qwinn]

Passed 3 hours! Have company now so going to let it keep going. Still max 80c temp.

I'm really hoping this goes through because if it works I'll have used up pretty much all of the voltage/temperature headroom I had left (assuming those stats aren't already over it), which means I can FINALLY STOP chasing the damn unicorn.

[Korth]

If you want to ensure stable 24/7 unattended uninterrupted operation then just run 24-hour stress tests and use the fastest overclock settings which pass.

[Qwinn]

Damnit. Came back to black screen, couldn't wake it. It was still going strong at 4.5 hours.

I raised vcore in the bios to an even 1.3. Decided to try lowering vinput to 1.91 in the BIOS, still resulting in 1.95 during OCCT. Max CPU temp 81c at 34 minutes now. Man, that 80c would've been sweet. If this fails, I'll try setting vinput to 1.93.

[Qwinn]

Bleh. Never mind. 4.5 hour occt is as stable as I can get 4.5. Raising voltage further actually seemed less stable as I got to 1.34v and 83c and 1.96 input. Any more than that on any of those is out of my comfort zone for 24/7 for sure. Back to 4.4. Sigh. Damn you, unicorn!

Retried 125 strap and fully manual modes again. Complete fail. Crash occt within 3 minutes. My chip ONLY likes adaptive.

Going to have to run tests on 4.4 again too for this new bios. It's only passed 3 hours so far, and yep, just proved you can fail way after that!

[Vlada011]

I always keep at least 200MHz below last stable clock.
i7-3770K I kept 300MHz below last stable clock. On 4.5GHz... and I didn't lose nothing. I could lock and on 4.8GHz but who knows what will happen after 1-2 years of usage on that clock, last Prime95 stable.
Only prevent degradation and processor is as new. With Haswell-EP I would stay on 4.2GHz max...
It's not race, lot of people keep on default everything, but I mean that's stupid to stay on 3.6GHz or 3.3GHz
But 4.2 is OK.

[Nate152]

Hello Qwinn

If you can pass OCCT for 4.5 hrs I'll bet you're stable for pretty much anything. You could run it at your 4.5GHz overclock for a while and see how it goes, I'll bet you won't have any problems if you use your pc mainly for gaming.

My pc is game stable at 5.0GHz but I'm sure it won't pass a stress test.

[Arne Saknussemm]

24/7 I run at stock....ROG Forum does not load any faster at higher MHz...

Maybe for some gaming scenarios higher clocks might give me a couple FPS...hardly worth it...

For rendering videos then sure I'd use an OC profile and of course for bragging rights on the forum in benchmarks then the sky's the limit...

I would never OC anything just to run OCCT on it

[Nate152]

LOL I agree Arne I wish there was something they could do to make the forum a little more snappier.

It all depends if you really need to overclock, I do notice a little difference with my cpu and gpu's overclocked even though I can pull 60FPS at stock speeds.

Qwinn on the other hand has the swift and a pair of 980ti's which at max game settings except AA of course, I bet he's pulling close to 144FPS in most games. I would say he would get anywhere from 5 - 10FPS increase if he overclocks his cpu and gpu's.

[Pleot]

Nice temps, mine are higher, on 4300 hz they go up to 80 on ful OCCT load...