CPU v GPU upgrade - Advice?

[BitMaster]

When I set mine to 5G and fire up DCS it is FAR from pulling the 1.330vCore.

 

That only happens when you really stress ALL cores with AVX code.

 

Even Handbrake with RL world AVX does not pull that much energy.

 

Open a graph once you have it set and go fly DCS for 30min, then exit and look at your vCore graph, that will tell you what is going on.

[firmek]

Yep, just Google it. Safe Vcore for i5 4690k Haswell is 1.3 above that it will degrade the life of CPU no matter how cool it is.

 

Cheers

It really depends on the opinion. If you'll red into more advanced and detailed articles about the overclocking, a lot of people will admit there that just the fact of setting a fixed vCore voltage, regardless what the voltage level is will degrade the life time of CPU. It's just because instead of reducing the voltage when idle the CPU will constantly work on the max, fixed setting.

Much better and at the same time more complex to configure with good results method is to use the dynamic vCore (offset method).

[Gunny Highway]

Bios overclocking is better in my opinion. Most motherboards come with over clocking programs pre packaged, but the general consensus is they are usually a little overboard on voltage. A little research goes a long way in overclocking. I use bios overclocking on my gtx 970 (1320 gpu 3500 men) and i56600k (4.3 ghz). Temps don't go above 73c on either, and get anywhere from 60-120+ fps on high preset for DCS depending on map and location. I use conservative overclocks because I have a small form case and air cooling.

[BitMaster]

Well, things CHANGED in how you control vCore !

 

firmek's statement is true, for CPU's before "adaptive Voltage" was introduced to overcome some drawbacks with "offset" alone.

 

Asus ROG Forum has some info on why and how and what got changed to make it less stressful for the CPU to run in oc.

 

 

100% sure, fixed Voltage is only for testing and should not be applied to modern CPUs.

 

My guess is, that I burned my old 2600k by having it at fixed 1.35V for 2 years constantly.

If, then I upped it to 1.40 and went 5G :P ..............until it broke !

 

IIRC the Z170 chipset ( I only used that chipset for 8 weeks ) already had Adaptive Voltage.

[BitMaster]

Bios overclocking is better in my opinion. Most motherboards come with over clocking programs pre packaged, but the general consensus is they are usually a little overboard on voltage. A little research goes a long way in overclocking. I use bios overclocking on my gtx 970 (1320 gpu 3500 men) and i56600k (4.3 ghz). Temps don't go above 73c on either, and get anywhere from 60-120+ fps on high preset for DCS depending on map and location. I use conservative overclocks because I have a small form case and air cooling.

 

 

That is the wrong approach imho if I am allowed to say that quite openly, for 2 main reasons.

 

A. There is no difference on the Volts applied on any Z170 or Z270 board that I used. The Bios and the App talk to the same chip on the board that manages your Volts. What you will se eis that BOTH can give some more Volts IF needed, I repeat BOTH !

IIRC that chip is a Nuovoton chip, used on all recent Asus boards in one or another version.

 

B. That is a good way of cooking your CPU while watching YT or any other task where 0.8GHz is plenty at 0.8vCore. You turn that option down when overclocking from Bios as it is ALWAYS applied, from A-Z. Also the further you push it, the harder booting gets, the more you have to go DEEP into the Bios and adjust BOOT VOLTAGE SETTINGS for various parts, VCCSA VCCIO vDIMM vCORE etc etc. There are plenty in that list that you may have to tweak for successfull booting and fast booting without large delay.

 

 

I like overclocking but I also know the risc in it, having ruined a few CPUs by now :P

 

Do it when you need it and set it a slow as you can elsewhere. Minimumj approach pays back in lifetime of your goodies.

 

I also OC my GTX980 to 1550/8000...but ONLY if I play the game that benefits from it, DCS is the only one that makes a difference. For DiRT Rally or World of Warships I dont even set the beast to HIGHPERFORMANCE power mode, leave it 4.2-4.5G stock and enjoy a very very silent PC while I attack dreadnaughts ;)

 

 

edit* what you maybe actually ment is using those win-based tools for AUTO-OVERCLOCKING, well, that is possible from within Bios and WIndows and BOTH overdo the Volts. Either way, you are well advised to manually readjust your Volts after "maybe" using the Auto tool in quick&dirty mode to see where the journey goes to.

My 6700k smoked away at 4.7GHz 100% load while performing an Asus Auto-Overclock just to see what is possible. That chip made 4.8 without any trouble but AUto feature was capable of killing it, that is true ! Dont use the Auto if you can skip it with knowledge and dedication in manual work. Lazyness seldomly pays back.

Edited March 31, 2017 by BitMaster

[Gunny Highway]

For sure you don't want to run full voltage full time. My z170 boards bios over clock program uses adaptive voltage. What I meant was that sometimes they apply more voltage than necessary to maintain a stable clock. For example my 6600k runs at 1.3v @ 4300 ghz under full load. It could possibly (probably) run that clock speed at a lower vcore and still be stable. I just ran the boards default 4300 settings to save time and headache. I don't worry about it because the temps are good. I could probably get away with 4500+ at that voltage, but to me, the amount of gain is not worth the hassle.

[BitMaster]

1.3v for 4.3GHz sounds too much imho, unless that is a brutal prime95-AVX run...and even then..a lot!

 

My 7700k runs 4.8G at said 1.300vCore adaptive thru any brutal test, just as a guideline.

 

Try lowering it WHILE you perform some tests, when it clips away you have been too low, as long as it doesnt clip out ...GO LOWER :)

 

*what board ??

[Bearfoot]

1.3v for 4.3GHz sounds too much imho, unless that is a brutal prime95-AVX run...and even then..a lot!

 

My 7700k runs 4.8G at said 1.300vCore adaptive thru any brutal test, just as a guideline.

 

Try lowering it WHILE you perform some tests, when it clips away you have been too low, as long as it doesnt clip out ...GO LOWER :)

 

*what board ??

 

(1) How do you lower Vcore while performing tests? I adjust Vcore in BIOS, i.e., during boot-up. Is there another way?

 

(2) What tests do you recommend --- Prime95 LFFT is what I use for VCore checking?

 

(3) I have my Vcore set to Manual. Do you recommend Manual or Adaptive? I find that setting it at manual (i7-4790K, Core at 44, Vcore at 1.25) runs stably, but at adaptive the Prime95 test fails?

[Gunny Highway]

It's a gigabyte z170 gaming micro I believe. I'd have to look when I get home. Yeah I could definitely lower it some, like I said I just don't want to mess with it. I'm not the most adept computer person, and like I said it runs cool enough for what I do. It has never been over 73c during hours long gaming sessions. Besides if it burns up, gives me excuse to upgrade!

[0414 Wee Neal]

Hi

very lame question, what benefits do higher clock speeds bring to performance in DCS?

 

If the pareto principle is true, at what point do the efforts outway the benefits (excluding the actual enjoyment of learning something new of course!)

 

Neal

[BitMaster]

(1) How do you lower Vcore while performing tests? I adjust Vcore in BIOS, i.e., during boot-up. Is there another way?

 

(2) What tests do you recommend --- Prime95 LFFT is what I use for VCore checking?

 

(3) I have my Vcore set to Manual. Do you recommend Manual or Adaptive? I find that setting it at manual (i7-4790K, Core at 44, Vcore at 1.25) runs stably, but at adaptive the Prime95 test fails?

 

Bearfoot,

 

I took some pics for both default ( with XMP3600 enabled, which needs VCCIO upped to 1.3000 no matter what the CPU runs at ! ) and 5G from both apps from Asus that needed tweaking.

 

- DigiVRM:

 

this controls how many Phases are available to your CPU, how aggressivly they are driven and timed and how much the vCore drops when under low load ( LLC Load Line calibration ).

 

TurboV:

 

this controls the Voltage Arena on your board. I have highlighted what I changed to reach the 5G. I have lowered each and every Voltage as much a spossible, lower any one and it crashes under load.

 

 

For testing you should only use prime95-AVX small-FFT's at the very end of your findings.

Aida64 stability test puts enough stress on the components to quickly find misfits while it does not heat up your CPU like mad. I cannot run the prime95-AVX 29.1 test for longer than 10-15min, it soon reaches 90-100°C when it comes to the 8k Lucas-Lehmer code. But it does not fail, that is important and it does not throttle until 102°C.

 

Aida64 will blink all red when it fails, adjust what you think is wrong and try again...

If it runs longer till failure, you might be doing the right thing, up a lil more and see, if it gets better with more you can find the setting real quick, if it gets worse you are dialing the wrong thing, if it stays same, also wrong dial/volatge you try to adjust.

 

It gets more complicated when you have fast ram as well, it really gets hairy. Most say "Oh, yeah, this 7700k 7thgen ONLY needs vCore up, there is no magic", sorry, that is mostly BS !!!. That is true till 4.7 or 4.8, any further you need serious oooomps to drive the CPU, which comes from the settings in DigiVRM, not the vCore Volts ! Up LLC and up the Phases, just watch temp as this considerably raises temp with same voltage, its more Ampere = more watts.

 

If you have the chance to read watts ( HWinfo does it and is free ), look what it consumes.

140-160Watt is what mine takes when at 5G under heavy load ( AVX or IBT, IntelBurnTest ).

Up to 140W I am safe, 150 so lala, 160 is where I have to grab the plug and be ready to pull it :P aka stop the test.

 

IntelBurnTest-V2 is a very cruel tool, it tortures your CPU and RAM like mad and is as valid as p95 is, maybe even more RL alike as the temps are 1 step lower but still VERY high, those two tests, p95-avx and IBT produce the most heat by far, nothing I found gets close apart from alpha software I found on Hardocp forum, called Statuscore, that is also very brutal.

 

Blender = peanuts, mine does Blender in 5.2, so that disqulifies the test cause my 5.2 is anything but stable, its ok for DCS and games but thats about it.

 

RealBench = obsolete ( too old, not updated by Asus for quite some time ) + it ALWAYS stresses your GPU which is very driver dependant. Errors come very likely from your GPU as well

 

UserBench = nice to see where you are, tells you nothing stability wise

 

GeekBench = same as UserBench

 

prime95-26.6-NON-AVX = my preferred long time stress test tool

 

prime95-28.10 or newer = AVX...a lot of heat, it should not fail, just get very hot till you pull the plug, if you are really lucky it just does it withoput getting super hot. Dont do more than 10-20min.

 

CineBenchR15 = like userbench or geekbench , it does not really show weaknesses but performance ratings.

 

Taiphoon ( thpn100.zip ) is the best DRAM tool I have yet found. Shows you anything you need to know about your RAM modules. Nice if you look for guides to oc RAM and need to know what die your Corsair or Gskill has on it. These days most if not all high speed DDR4 use Samsung chips, called the "B" die.

 

MSI Kombustor = I use this GPU stresser not to test the GPU but pull all the watts overall that I possibly can, none I have found pulls more on the GPU. In my case its 610Watt top end, never got over 610W pulled from 220V plug, 94% eff, then.

 

 

Run Aida64 stress test until it runs at least 1h without error, then use the NON-AVX prime95 26.6 version from mersienne prime website ( original site ). Run this, if it fails, UP the vCORE or LLC/Phase. If it runs Aida but fails 26.6 then UP the vCore 1st by a LITTLE value, like 0.005 or 0.010v only and rerun it, if it takes longer to fail..up it same value again..until stable. IF it wont get stable after 0.030v you should consider DIALING back to original Aida64 stable value and UP the LLC and Phase steps, set control to extreme. If that alone also dont help, apply a mix of vCore up in asmall step and some LLC/Phase. Slowly you will get a feeling which error and how it occurs needs which volatge to be stabilizted, it takes just time and patience and an observing mind that draws conclusions based on repeated behaviour of the machine. There is no miracal or magic, just patience.

 

 

Last question, #3:

 

Try to use Adaptive in your final findings, you may use fixed vCore to get to a certain cornerstone, but then try to achieve the same with adaptive.

 

--> If as you say p95 sfft fails with adaptive, try the LLC ! I could almost bet that will fix it or be 75% of what you need. Volts should remain same, up LLC and Phases according to my jpeg.

 

:) ...be patient...took me over 2 weeks with many bad evenings with NO success at all.

 

What looks very easy, "Oh, look at Bit, thats the Volts he uses" is easier said than found out ! Lemme tell you this!

[BitMaster]

Hi

very lame question, what benefits do higher clock speeds bring to performance in DCS?

 

If the pareto principle is true, at what point do the efforts outway the benefits (excluding the actual enjoyment of learning something new of course!)

 

Neal

 

That all depends from where you start at !

 

I overclock for 25 years now, with pauses in between ( P4 times ), and started again with the i7 series.

 

My first oc was for a very good sim called EF2000 with 1 or 2 Voodoo 3D-Cards in true and working SLI on PCI bus with a P166, upped it to 187.5 and it worked wonders fps wise.

 

The second one was a PII-266 that got a 300 oc, worked well, got more FPS in EF2000 and successor, the D.I.D. TAW series, which then ran on a PIII-550 that I oc'ed to 667 iirc, mostly for Flanker by SSI ( our ancestor to DCS ). I then had a PIII for Flanker as well but even oc did not gain the speed Flanker needed back then and I gave up on FlightSIms because of Flanker 2.x being so bad in performance that no oc could fix it. My following P4 did not get overclocked at all, I used them as WS mainly, played some BF1942 and BF2 and overclocked a friends P4 2.4 to 3.0 with the 1st wc-custom loop I built...what a nightmare back then LoL. It helped my pal to get a speedy PC but I disliked the involved stress with Watercooling and Towers not beingmade for 3x120 rads. I then moved to high end gaming laptops and macs and overclocking was not on my agenda at all, I flew R/C airplanes and helis and had no inzterest at all in going back to Flightsims at all, I did my IT business and gamed FPS games, flew a bit in R/C simulator and that was about it. about 6-7 years ago I checked back for what became out of the A.-10c declared back then, also the Ka-50 was announced some years ago...I checked..saw..and waited another year or 2 or three with regular checks how far this old Flanker game developed. 3 years ago I decided that I will give up R/C flying almsit completely due to lack of interest and astronomic costs on models and all that belongs to a fully equipped R/C hobby...I went overboard and decided to give it up...went back to the DCS site and decided that it's stage is now where it shoud have been 2001 and that I wanna game online again, FLYING.

Well, I had a MacBookPro Retina 15" and an Asus G73 ROG laptop. Both were not good enough, the mac was even faster tbh, so I tortured my Mac for over 1 year, almost daily to learn the Kamov. It WORKED good enough to have lots of fun.

 

1 year after this I consolidated a customers servers and was granted all the parts and pieces, including a 2600k, Asus mobo, tons of RAM, SAS controllers, HDDS etc etc..

 

It was enough to build my rig, added the Waterloopand 980GTX, better RAM and a few SSDs and it was set ( ok, Warthog hotas, 27", etc etc etc ).

That 2600k went from 3.4/3.8 to 4.8/5.0 and YES, this is noticable.

 

Tbh, now, its mostly a hobby. My GPU aint fast enough to make it worth I guess, the benefit is not big and the default 4.5 is PLENTY IPC.

 

Just if you have a 3.6/4.0 CPU and can gain 4.5 or 4.6, yes this you will see in fps and smoothness IF you also have a GPU that will NOT bottleneck then.

[Bearfoot]

Bearfoot,

 

... snip ...

 

Wow.

 

Thank you soooo much for such a detailed and incredibly informative response!!!

 

It's going to take a while to digest, but I dived immediately into my BIOS anyway to see if I could find the LLC setting. .... problem is that I could not! I have a different BIOS software from yours, so it looks different, and it may be under a different name? I searched all the sections and couldn't find it. Could it be called something else in my BIOS? Or is there another software I should run from inside Windows rather than BIOS to set this?

 

I tried switching to adaptive anyway, and this time it got through 10-15 minutes of Prime95 SFFT without crashing (I stopped the test here because temperatures did reach 99C which made me nervous). I think the difference was that I had the base voltage set to 1.2 with adaptive whereas before it was the default base voltaage and adaptive . IntelBurn ran fine, with temperatures reaching max of 93C after 10 reps. Aida64 also ran fine. So I think I am OK with current adaptive, and I suppose that this is better than manual/fixed?

 

(Note: literally cannot thank you enough because I am not allowed to rep you again so soon!)

[BitMaster]

Wow.

 

Thank you soooo much for such a detailed and incredibly informative response!!!

 

It's going to take a while to digest, but I dived immediately into my BIOS anyway to see if I could find the LLC setting. .... problem is that I could not! I have a different BIOS software from yours, so it looks different, and it may be under a different name? I searched all the sections and couldn't find it. Could it be called something else in my BIOS? Or is there another software I should run from inside Windows rather than BIOS to set this?

 

I tried switching to adaptive anyway, and this time it got through 10-15 minutes of Prime95 SFFT without crashing (I stopped the test here because temperatures did reach 99C which made me nervous). I think the difference was that I had the base voltage set to 1.2 with adaptive whereas before it was the default base voltaage and adaptive . IntelBurn ran fine, with temperatures reaching max of 93C after 10 reps. Aida64 also ran fine. So I think I am OK with current adaptive, and I suppose that this is better than manual/fixed?

 

(Note: literally cannot thank you enough because I am not allowed to rep you again so soon!)

 

 

Bearfoot,

 

welcome, I always like to give to others whatever I can and make it a better place to be ;)

 

Please tell me your mobo model and I will dig in the manual where and how and what LLC is called on your mobo, you definitely do have that feature, 99% sure :)

Depending on your software, you may find LoadLineCalibration ALSO inside Windows-Apps, my last MSI had it and all recent Asus for years back. Z97-K definitely has it, X99 has it etc..

 

 

As you can see, adaptive Volts work.

 

Talked to my pal next door about his 4th gen i5 I built him 6 month ago ( he oc's ) and he says, he never managed to get adaptive working in such that it does not apply to much Volts and heat. Well, start at a LOWER value if it adds on its own.. He is checking if that is true for him.

[Bearfoot]

BitMaster,

 

My motherboard is (as listed) an Asus Sabertooth Z97 (full name as listed: ASUS SABERTOOTH Z97 MARK 1/USB 3.1 LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 ATX Intel).

 

Thanks for looking into this for me!

[BitMaster]

Will look later today, family time ;)

 

 

Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk

[Demon_]

Edited April 2, 2017 by Demon_

[Gunny Highway]

Lots of good info on here. Something important to remember that each individual CPU has its own performance capabilities and limitations, so like was said above, you really have to test it on your own. There is no copy and paste answers.

 

This is a great thread. CPU tweaking is very intriguing to me.

[BitMaster]

Demon :)

 

still all kids in. thx

[Bearfoot]

Thanks, Demon! Appreciate the help! And BitMaster, I know --- kids (and dogs and cats and spouse etc.) all come first. Thanks! EDIT: Never would have guessed that it would be buried in that screen!

Edited April 2, 2017 by Bearfoot

[BitMaster]

Apperently with the newest drivers, win10 as it is and DCS in its current fluent state, I see no reason to oc my rig anymore.

 

with 4.5G I can get 180fps, never drop below 110fps and its ultra smooth, the best of all is that my 980GTX is between 96-99% usage now. ( MiG29 CAP flights on BF ).

 

WHatever happened last couple month, it got A LOT BETTER in utilizing your GPU.

 

Since my screen only does 144Hz and I have it all on max but Shadows FLAT and water MEDIUM , I see no reason to upgrade or oc anything at this point.

 

Still, it's nice to have some reserve if needed.

 

Trying to make a few vids that show actual MSI AFterburner overlay so I can proof it, havent got lucky on my first tries recording anything. Any hint on how to do this best is welcome. Got OBS installed but it only took the sound, screen is BLACK :( Will try NV and Win10 recording next witzh different modules ( Mi8, Ka50, Fw, M2000 etc.. ).

 

I am real happy I can see my GPU fully loaded now, in 1.5.stable

Edited April 2, 2017 by BitMaster

[BitMaster]

GAAAAWD...just saw this on Guru3d.com....Asus has the new 1080GTX-Ti Poseidon.

 

FU&%$%&&: I am tempted :)

[BitMaster]

...apropos going overboard ...where is this 4k 120Hz screen again ???

[Bearfoot]

GAAAAWD...just saw this on Guru3d.com....Asus has the new 1080GTX-Ti Poseidon.

 

FU&%$%&&: I am tempted :)

 

do you mean this:

 

http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/asus_uncovers_rog_geforce_gtx_1080_ti_poseidon.html

 

The big advantage is the -20C native air-cooling and -40C water-cooling over the stock 1080Ti?

[BitMaster]

do you mean this:

 

http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/asus_uncovers_rog_geforce_gtx_1080_ti_poseidon.html

 

The big advantage is the -20C native air-cooling and -40C water-cooling over the stock 1080Ti?

 

Yes, I have a 980GTX Asus Poseidon and it never gets hotter than 45-50°C on water @ 0dB.

 

2nd thing is, no warranty lost by removing parts etc..

 

Unpack, plug in, connect the 2 tubes, done :)