[SOLVED] Can I use preset overclock profiles on asus mobo?

[oliver.elgersma]

I'm fairly new to oc'ing, and I have attempted to overclock my 8700k manually twice (using strix z370-e) and both times they ran fine in stress tests but always had issues like opening chrome or sometimes my screen would go black, so I considered it unstable and reverted to optimized defaults.
I'm wondering if I use the preset overclock profiles in the bios would it work ok? I don't even want that high of an overclock. I was never aiming for 5000mhz but I just want to push performance on my rig. If anyone has a suggestion or tip it would be much appreciated.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Presets and automatic utilities are not desirable. They overvolt everything to err on the side of caution which seriously limits your overclocking headroom.

The first question needs answered is what CPU cooler you have and what the rest of your cooling configuration consists of?

The second question would be, WHAT "stress tests" were you using to test stability, specifically?

What is the model of your power supply? Exact model.

What kind of configuration is your memory in? Is the XMP profile enabled? Is it a matched set or do you have mixed modules? What are the part numbers or kit number?

What kind of voltage were you running it at and what was the full time maximum frequency? What other settings aside from the core voltage and multiplier did you make adjustments to in the BIOS?

 

[oliver.elgersma]

Presets and automatic utilities are not desirable. They overvolt everything to err on the side of caution which seriously limits your overclocking headroom.

The first question needs answered is what CPU cooler you have and what the rest of your cooling configuration consists of?

The second question would be, WHAT "stress tests" were you using to test stability, specifically?

What is the model of your power supply? Exact model.

What kind of configuration is your memory in? Is the XMP profile enabled? Is it a matched set or do you have mixed modules? What are the part numbers or kit number?

What kind of voltage were you running it at and what was the full time maximum frequency? What other settings aside from the core voltage and multiplier did you make adjustments to in the BIOS?

Cooler: Corsair H100i v2
I used Intel Extreme Tuning Utility and Prime95
PSU: Evga 850 GQ Gold
I had xmp on both times
I ran 4.7 ghz at 1.3v
its worth noting that in prime95 my frequency would drop to 4.4ghz? and temps were great. Never spiked over 80 on Prime95

 

[Darkbreeze]

"I used Prime95" is pretty vague. There are many versions and several different tests that can be run from Prime. Which of the torture test options were you running? Small FFT, Large FFT or Blend? What VERSION were you running? Version 26.6 or something newer?

Intel extreme tuning utility is IMO worthless for thermal or stability testing. Certainly it has some value, but not for thermal or stability testing in general.

Frequency should never drop while running under full stress unless there is a thermal issue or you have not configured settings properly. Usually, only a thermal issue would cause this, but it's also normal stock configuration boost behavior, so if you did not manually assign a CPU clock frequency it could be relevant. Also, in the BIOS settings I would find and disable the Speed shift setting. I would enable the Speed step setting. I've seen a number of systems where Speed shift does not work correctly and allows the CPU to downclock under full stress loads OR never allows the CPU to downclock to idle speeds that are below the base clock speed when idle. Neither of which are desirable results.

It may help you to take a look at this, read it, understand it, and then return to this idea afterwards.

*Basic CPU overclocking tutorial

 

[oliver.elgersma]

"I used Prime95" is pretty vague. There are many versions and several different tests that can be run from Prime. Which of the torture test options were you running? Small FFT, Large FFT or Blend? What VERSION were you running? Version 26.6 or something newer?

Intel extreme tuning utility is IMO worthless for thermal or stability testing. Certainly it has some value, but not for thermal or stability testing in general.

Frequency should never drop while running under full stress unless there is a thermal issue or you have not configured settings properly. Usually, only a thermal issue would cause this, but it's also normal stock configuration boost behavior, so if you did not manually assign a CPU clock frequency it could be relevant. Also, in the BIOS settings I would find and disable the Speed shift setting. I would enable the Speed step setting. I've seen a number of systems where Speed shift does not work correctly and allows the CPU to downclock under full stress loads OR never allows the CPU to downclock to idle speeds that are below the base clock speed when idle. Neither of which are desirable results.

It may help you to take a look at this, read it, understand it, and then return to this idea afterwards.

*Basic CPU overclocking tutorial

I was using blend on prime95 and I followed all directions on this video

View: https://youtu.be/CoUtA7DKXhU
which I was recommend many times. I guess something went wrong in the process. I’ll tske a look at those settings

 

[oliver.elgersma]

Also, I just checked coretemp and my clock speed is at 4.4ghz?? (bear in mind that I set back the oc to optimized defaults) how is that so?

 

[Darkbreeze]

That is normal. You are likely seeing normal boost behavior. The boost behavior on the 8700k looks like this.

It's likely you had three cores under boost at the time you looked at Core Temp.

Here is what I would suggest you do. First, go into the bios and make sure that Speed step is enabled. DISABLE Speed shift. (You can enable it later if you wish. I leave it disabled as I've seen that the implementation is spotty depending on the motherboard model and chipset).

Save settings and exit bios.

Boot into Windows. Go into the control panel power options by typing control into any search or run box. Open the control panel and then open the power options.

Make sure that the Performance plan is selected. Click on "Change plan settings" next to the power plan. Click on "change advanced power settings".

Scroll down to Processor power management. Expand that setting and change the Min processor power state to 8%. Leave the maximum at 100%. Save and exit.

Download HWinfo (NOT HWmonitor. Totally different).

Install Hwinfo. Open HWinfo and choose the "Sensors only" option. Uncheck the "Summary" option if it is checked. Click run.

Scroll to where you see "Core 0 clock", "Core 1 clock", etc.

Make sure no other programs are running. No browsers, or other applications. Let it sit on the desktop for a few minutes. Clock speed should drop to something like 800-1000mhz.

Now open Prime95 (Make sure you are using version 26.6, ONLY, no other version. Newer versions use unrealistic AVX instruction set loads and are not recommended for thermal OR stress testing. Version 26.6 does NOT use AVX instructions and is suitable for steady state thermal load testing, and is acceptable for preliminary stability testing. Blend is not a good stability test for the CPU but it is a great stability test for the memory configuration. Realbench is a great CPU stability test utility.) version 26.6 and choose the Small FFT option.

It should load ALL cores to 100%. Check HWinfo Core clock readings and see what the all core max turbo boost is running at.

This same procedure is a good check against the manual overclock configuration when you need to verify that things are running where they are supposed to be, when overclocking, as well.

 

[Darkbreeze]

For future reference, when you get back to overclocking.

Quick and dirty overview of overclocking/stability validation procedure.

Set CPU multiplier and voltage at desired settings in BIOS. Do not use presets or automatic utilities. These will overcompensate on core and other voltages. It is much better to configure most core settings manually, and leave anything left over on auto until a later point in time if wish to come back and tweak settings such as cache (Uncore) frequency, System agent voltage, VCCIO (Internal memory controller) and memory speeds or timings (RAM) AFTER the CPU overclock is fully stable.

Save bios settings (As a new BIOS profile if your bios supports multiple profiles) and exit bios.

Boot into the Windows desktop environment. Download and install Prime95 version 26.6.

Download and install either HWinfo or CoreTemp.

Open HWinfo and run "Sensors only" or open CoreTemp.

Run Prime95 (ONLY version 26.6) and choose the "Small FFT test option". Run this for 15 minutes while monitoring your core/package temperatures to verify that you do not exceed the thermal specifications of your CPU.

(This should be considered to be 80°C for most generations of Intel processor and for current Ryzen CPUs. For older AMD FX and Phenom series, you should use a thermal monitor that has options for "Distance to TJmax" and you want to NOT see distance to TJmax drop below 10°C distance to TJmax. Anything that is MORE than 10°C distance to TJmax is within the allowed thermal envelope.)

If your CPU passes the thermal compliance test, move on to stability.

Download and install Realbench. Run Realbench and choose the Stress test option. Choose a value from the available memory (RAM) options that is equal to approximately half of your installed memory capacity. If you have 16GB, choose 8GB. If you have 8GB, choose 4GB, etc. Click start and allow the stability test to run for 8 hours. Do not plan to use the system for ANYTHING else while it is running. It will run realistic AVX and handbrake workloads and if it passes 8 hours of testing it is probably about as stable as you can reasonably expect.

If you wish to check stability further you can run 12-24 hours of Prime95 Blend mode or Small FFT.

You do not need to simultaneously run HWinfo or CoreTemp while running Realbench as you should have already performed the thermal compliance test PLUS Realbench will show current CPU temperatures while it is running.

If you run the additional stability test using Prime95 Blend/Small FFT modes for 12-24 hours, you will WANT to also run HWinfo alongside it. Monitor HWinfo periodically to verify that no cores/threads are showing less than 100% usage. If it is, then that worker has errored out and the test should be stopped.

If you find there are errors on ANY of the stability tests including Realbench or Prime95, or any other stress testing utility, you need to make a change in the bios. This could be either dropping the multiplier to a lower factor or increasing the voltage while leaving the multiplier the same. If you change voltage or multiplier at ANY time, you need to start over again at the beginning and verify thermal compliance again.

A more in depth but general guide that is still intended for beginners or those who have had a small amount of experience overclocking can be found here:


*CPU overclocking guide for beginners

 

[oliver.elgersma]

For future reference, when you get back to overclocking.

Quick and dirty overview of overclocking/stability validation procedure.

Set CPU multiplier and voltage at desired settings in BIOS. Do not use presets or automatic utilities. These will overcompensate on core and other voltages. It is much better to configure most core settings manually, and leave anything left over on auto until a later point in time if wish to come back and tweak settings such as cache (Uncore) frequency, System agent voltage, VCCIO (Internal memory controller) and memory speeds or timings (RAM) AFTER the CPU overclock is fully stable.

Save bios settings (As a new BIOS profile if your bios supports multiple profiles) and exit bios.

Boot into the Windows desktop environment. Download and install Prime95 version 26.6.

Download and install either HWinfo or CoreTemp.

Open HWinfo and run "Sensors only" or open CoreTemp.

Run Prime95 (ONLY version 26.6) and choose the "Small FFT test option". Run this for 15 minutes while monitoring your core/package temperatures to verify that you do not exceed the thermal specifications of your CPU.

(This should be considered to be 80°C for most generations of Intel processor and for current Ryzen CPUs. For older AMD FX and Phenom series, you should use a thermal monitor that has options for "Distance to TJmax" and you want to NOT see distance to TJmax drop below 10°C distance to TJmax. Anything that is MORE than 10°C distance to TJmax is within the allowed thermal envelope.)

If your CPU passes the thermal compliance test, move on to stability.

Download and install Realbench. Run Realbench and choose the Stress test option. Choose a value from the available memory (RAM) options that is equal to approximately half of your installed memory capacity. If you have 16GB, choose 8GB. If you have 8GB, choose 4GB, etc. Click start and allow the stability test to run for 8 hours. Do not plan to use the system for ANYTHING else while it is running. It will run realistic AVX and handbrake workloads and if it passes 8 hours of testing it is probably about as stable as you can reasonably expect.

If you wish to check stability further you can run 12-24 hours of Prime95 Blend mode or Small FFT.

You do not need to simultaneously run HWinfo or CoreTemp while running Realbench as you should have already performed the thermal compliance test PLUS Realbench will show current CPU temperatures while it is running.

If you run the additional stability test using Prime95 Blend/Small FFT modes for 12-24 hours, you will WANT to also run HWinfo alongside it. Monitor HWinfo periodically to verify that no cores/threads are showing less than 100% usage. If it is, then that worker has errored out and the test should be stopped.

If you find there are errors on ANY of the stability tests including Realbench or Prime95, or any other stress testing utility, you need to make a change in the bios. This could be either dropping the multiplier to a lower factor or increasing the voltage while leaving the multiplier the same. If you change voltage or multiplier at ANY time, you need to start over again at the beginning and verify thermal compliance again.

A more in depth but general guide that is still intended for beginners or those who have had a small amount of experience overclocking can be found here:


*CPU overclocking guide for beginners

Thanks so much for all that info that is really helpful. I think I'll give it another go when I have the time for it. Much appreciated!

 

[Darkbreeze]

For sure. No problem.