Any Point In My Overclock

[protomog]

Hello, everyone, I just have a quick question in regards to my overclock. I have a FX-6300, a Gigabyte GA‑970A‑DS3, and a Hyper 212 Evo. Now then, due to the fact that my board isn't very good for OC'ing (it's not) and I don't have that large of a PSU (520W), I chose to just OC my 6300 at 4.0GHz (already tried going higher, Prime95 fails miserably and cores start to shut down probably due to not having enough juice). The thought that occurred to me, though, is that I wonder if there's any point in my OC if all I can reach is 4.0GHz. The chip is, at default, 3.5GHz and can turbo up to 4.1GHz under load. Would there really be any improvement in performance with a constant 4.0GHz as oppose to 3.5GHz w/ Turbo?

Mind you, I don't have the means to upgrade to a better board or PSU right now because, quite honestly, this is my first build and I've only put it together just a week ago, so I'm a bit drained on cash. I'm mostly just wondering if I should just go back to stock or keep it where it's at. My CPU is cool enough with having a reported temp of 40C under heaviest load and around 20C under idle (as opposed to it being around 15C idling and 35C under load at stock).

 

[amuffin]

Voltage?

BTW you aren't idling at 20C! 😉

 

[protomog]

Voltage?

BTW you aren't idling at 20C! 😉

I had it set at auto.
It's 1.3V pretty even.
No fluctuations.

And with nothing going on right now on my computer at all, it's at 21C.
Max temps reached during both Prime 95 and Intel Burn were 40C.

Unless I'm confusing idle for something else.
In which case, I'm sorry.
First build, first overclock.
I did some research on overclocking prior to actually getting my parts and spent this last week looking into it, as well.
That said, I could be entirely wrong with terms or what I did, so any corrections could help.

 

[amuffin]

You know you can't idle below ambient temps on air? 😛

You need to increase your voltage in order to hit those high overclcoks.

 

[protomog]

You know you can't idle below ambient temps on air? 😛

You need to increase your voltage in order to hit those high overclcoks.

See, I'm a bit worried about that because my mobo has issues with OC'ing, so I'm trying not to get things too hot.
Would it be worth trying to boost up my GHz, or should I play it safe?

Also, I'm assuming you mean my CPU vcore?

EDIT: Upped my votage up to 1.356.
Set it to 4.2GHz.
Running Intel Burn Test at 25 cycles w/ Maximum load.
Guess I'll see how this works out.
Cores started failing before, but I had the VCore set on auto, so...

EDITx2: I'm also trying to play things a little safe, too, since I've got an HD7950 on my 520W PSU, and I know it's a power hog. That, and since it's winter and my room is currently 65F, I'm also trying to account for future summer temps, since my home will easily be 80F to 90F during the summer. That said, provided the Intel Burn Test and a few hours of Prime 95 Blend pass, I'll probably call 4.2 good. I'm currently at 40C, so I think that will give me some heat heat safety. I know 50 to 60C is suppose to be what most people go for, but I'm trying to keep it under 50C.

EDITx3: Yeah, it hit 44C. I think I'm good where I'm at (provided everything passes). If stuff doesn't pass, though, where should I go from here? I know changing around some of the memory settings can provide fruitful. Otherwise, just count my losses and head back to 4.0/stock, depending, as asked in my first post?

EDITx4: I also have Core Temp, CPUID Hardware Monitor, and CPU-Z running in the background to monitor stuff.
Is there anything else I should have, or do I have my bases covered.

EDITx5: Also, just to verify, but a good result for the Intel Burn Test is that all of the values in the results section are the same, right? I just want to make sure of this, too.

 

[Motopsychojdn]

He means you cannot have your idle temperature below the ambient room temperature,
He doesn't know if you live in the desert or the arctic so its possible you are idling at 15'c, although your second edit says room temp is around 26'C so I'd be surprised to see an idle temp on air below 35'c,
I'm on serious water and I don't idle at 15'c unless room temp is less than 10'C 😛
Moto

 

[protomog]

I 'UNNO.
I'm just going off of what Core Temp and HW Monitor are telling me.

Apparently I hit 51C last night while Intel Burn Test ran.
It completed successfully, but I'm not sure how I feel about the result.

EDIT: Been running a Large-FFT test in Prime 95 and everything seems to be okay.
About how long should I keep this going if I already aced 25 pass IBT on Extreme?
I'm thinking about having it run for about 5 to 10 hours.
And the general consensus I got was just to avoid getting my CPU above 60C.
I closed everything up and increased the heat in my house just to see what it gets like at around 75-80F in my house.
Provided things come out alright, I think 4.2 is where I'll stay.
I did try decreasing the voltage, but my computer froze, so I think 1.356 is a good spot to keep it.

EDITx2: Huh, weird.
My CPUs default voltage is, apparently, 1.3 (1.296). I set it for +0.075 in my bios, and it's at 1.356.
Is this normal, or is the voltage you set it at just a max that it can reach?
Alternative conclusion: Is it percentage-based? I wouldn't think so since there is no mention of percentages in the BIOS itself, but I suppose it might be.

Again, I'm all very new at this, so I'd appreciate any help you could give.

 

[mlcaouette]

Every CPU has it's own default voltage, it is set by the motherboard based on what the cpu vid is. Read up on cpu vid, offset/manual voltage manipulation, and LLC if you want to know more about controlling the chips voltage.

Knowledge is power when it comes to overclocking, the more you know the better!