CPU/Memory issue - i5-4670K + ASUS Z87-DELUXE/DUAL + CORSAIR VENGEANCE PRO 2400

[mainoffender]

Hello everyone,

First off, I'd like to say thanks to everyone who's going to take their time trying to help me out with this.

I've considered myself PC literate for a decade now so this problem really took me by surprise. Yesterday I got this new rig:
- i5-4670K
- Asus Z87-Deluxe/Dual
- 16Gb Corsair Vengeance Pro 2400Mhz
- Gainward GTX770 Phantom
- Cooler Master: Thunder 700W
- Corsair H110
(rest of the config below in the AIDA64 report)

I assembled the parts, started it up, installed Windows 7, got ALL the drivers from ASUS website in place, got NVIDIA's latest drivers, upgrade BIOS to rev. 1707 and thought I was ready to take a ride when I suddenly saw the windows experience score which gave me 7,9 for everything except CPU which was 5.3. I reran the test - same 5.3. This is where I decided to look into BIOS with all the fancy ASUS OC stuff, turbo options for my CPU, XMP etc etc. Half of these didn't even get me to boot properly but I managed to set my CPU at 4700 and reran the test - still there, 5.3. So the big tests followed with AIDA64 (4.20), CPU-Z and Prime95.

AIDA64 got me completely frustrated - I got TERRIBLE results for some tests while others were above expectations.. I decided to take a look at memory tests while there which gave me good reads/writes but left with the LAST latency on the list with something like 400+ms! I was expecting that 2400Mhz would be a pain in the ass to fine tune, but this?.. I took a shot with a real thing - Crysis 3 with settings maxed out. I got a terrible range of 10-50 fps...

CPU-Z screenshots:



Prime95 loaded all cores to 100% and has been running for like 10 minutes without a hickup - 0 errors reported.

I did around 10 hours of googling and random BIOS features enabling/disabling, although I must admit that changing CPU and memory clock/bus/voltage/timing settings is not really my piece of cake. I disabled intel speed step and virtualization as advised on the internet, set the MB switch to TPU I, II, off, cleared CMOS and defaulted BIOS - no luck.

AIDA64 tests results:

Memory Read - 33834 MB/s - Top 6
Memory Write - 34684 MB/s - Top 5
Memory Copy - 30098 MB/s - Top 6
Memory Latency @ 11-13-13-31 CR2 - 422.6 ns - LAST one on the list.
CPU Queen - 4828 - among the LAST ones on the list
CPU PhotoWorxx - 20440 - Top 5
CPU ZLib - 215 - pretty average
CPU AES - 13232 - Top 11
CPU Hash - 3336 - Top 11
FPU VP8 - 898 - almost the LAST one
FPU Julia - 24042 - Top 7
FPU Mandel - 13291 - Top 7
FPU SinJulia - 2707 - Top 17

The complete AIDA64 report is here.

To sum up:
- CPU not being utilizied completely (?) Showing very low mark in windows experience test. Poor performance in real test (Crysis 3), couldn't have been anything else taking the performance down THAT much (?)
- RAM giving very weird test results and running at slow speeds but I guess I will be able to handle the latter once the CPU issue has been sorted.

Any ideas much appreciated!

 

[Tradesman1]

Have some odd readings, you mention OCing to 4.6 yet CPU-Z shows up to 4.2, in the Memory tab it shows tRFC at 361, I haven't had this particular set of DRAM in hand, but 314 sounds more appropriate with the base timings. Is the DRAM set under XMP?

 

[mainoffender]

I've done the tests and reset bios too often so the test must have been taken at a different time. No, memory was not under xmp since I thought I'd first resolve the CPU issue and then take a look at the fancy stuff.

Since yesterday I've done the following:
- clear CMOS
- load defaults
- set CPU core voltage at 1,265v
- set the multiplier to 45
- save and run

I was surprised to see all AIDA64 tests change drastically - for those I had poor performance I suddenly got a 20-30% improvement and for those I had great results (Top5-7) I became Top4-5 right next to those 12 and 8-core server systems. As if by magic my memory latency test showed me 51ns becoming actually the first result on the list! And that is with aida64 telling me I have memory running at 1333 and CPU-Z showing me 1066 as maximum bandwidth...

But despite all this, WEI gave me 5,9 for CPU! What on Earth is this? I mean I got to a point when I had a stable 4.5 oc, I finally ran my crisis smoothly but this WEI keeps me constantly thinking I am not getting the most of my system. Yes, I am crazy, yes I know I should not rely on this test so much but can you please look at the tendency and let me know what I can play with to see if I've reached the top?
Btw, in addition to bios settings I mentioned above, I also set tRFC at 314 and enabled xmp, so far so good. Bios says ddr3-2400 while Aida report still shows 1333 and CPU-z the same 1066 bandwidth.

 

[Tradesman1]

What does CPU-Z show in the memory tab - for frequency it should be at 1200

 

[mainoffender]

Says "DRAM Frequency 1211.8Mhz" (that's after I played with some bus speed in BIOS by setting it to 101.0 instead of 100. NB Frequency is 3835.2Mhz if that makes any difference. So, given the "dual" nature of a DDR, I've actually achieved 1211x2= my 2422Mhz?

 

[Tradesman1]

Correct, think I'd make sure all is stable at the desired OC that you initially set via the multiplier before messing with the BCLK (where you changed it to 101). Once all is stable, save the BIOS settings to a profile so you can call them back up, then would be the time to experiment with the BCLK, voltages, DRAM timings, etc, that way you have fallback to an established stable OCed platform

 

[mainoffender]

Correct, think I'd make sure all is stable at the desired OC that you initially set via the multiplier before messing with the BCLK (where you changed it to 101). Once all is stable, save the BIOS settings to a profile so you can call them back up, then would be the time to experiment with the BCLK, voltages, DRAM timings, etc, that way you have fallback to an established stable OCed platform

Thanks a lot for your help, Tradesman. I think this will wrap up this problem for me.

 

[Tradesman1]

Glad to hear, keep in touch