CPU Overvoltage setting

[spind426]

Hi i have been looking for over an hour to find a straightforward answer to this question. I have seen other people ask the same question but in a confusing manor, which turned up varying anwers.

Ok so I have an asus motherboard (m4a88t-m with 1090T Black edition unlocked, 3.2ghz, and rosewill 730w PSU) And i just want to overclock it to a comfortable 3.6ghz by just changing the multiplier to 18x and increasing the voltage from the stock 1.2v to 1.4v

Instead of showing CPU VCORE voltage.. it shows an option called "CPU OVERVOLTAGE"
And i am skeptical that these are NOT the same thing because when I go to change it, it starts at an absurd 0.000035v rather than the 1.2v that i was expecting to see it set at.

When I begin to adjust it, the voltage numbers go up in EXTREMELY small increment, so in order to reach 1.4 volts i have to press + for about an hour.. this worries me. I am thinking that it only goes up in such TINY increments because its main purpose is not to change the vcore voltage..but to simply extend the RANGE of electricity that can be sent to the cpu.

So will CPU Overvoltage just mean that it will allow your cpu to go 0.0000385 volts over the stock 1.2volts that it already provides? (For example if i set it to 0.00000385Volts than will my motherboard now think the max voltage it can send to my CPU is 1.200000385v?)

I am just so scared that if i type in 1.40000V to the "CPU OVERVOLTAGE" Field that instead of setting the vcore to 1.4v it will increase the maximum allowed RANGE to an explosive 2.6VOLTS (1.2v plus the 1.4v i added)

Anyone know?

P.S. Is the stock voltage of the 1090T really only 1.2V? When i go to bios hardware monitor it shows VCORE voltage at a steady 1.200-1.216v. And the same thing shows in CPU-Z. When the amd TURBO BOOST technology kicks in it just shows the multiplier switch from 16x to 18x and the voltage goes from 1.216 to 1.346. So to keep it at a steady 3.6ghz on all cores all i have to do is go into bios, change the multipler to 18, and set the cpu voltage to 1.346 volts right? Or should i set it to 1.4volts to be safe? (And i know to disable turbo boost, c1e and cool n quiet in the bios as well)

 

[drums101]

never having had experience with this motherboard i would say this thought is correct

"So will CPU Overvoltage just mean that it will allow your cpu to go 0.0000385 volts over the stock 1.2volts that it already provides? (For example if i set it to 0.00000385Volts than will my motherboard now think the max voltage it can send to my CPU is 1.200000385v?)"

This seems about right....also if you are planning on overclocking to 3.6ghz you DO NOT need 1.4v that is way way too high....you gotta mess around with the settings to find what voltage you need...i would imagine 1.25v - 1.3v at the most depending on your chip....the vcore is most likely around 1.2v they can vary in small amounts 1.216 would make sense

 

[spind426]

Thanks for your fast reply! Hmm so if i want to only add .1 one volts you think i should go ahead and set "cpu overvoltage" to 0.1000? Im just confused as to why my bios does not have an option to change the vcore voltage.. And i do have the latest bios version. Cant find it anywhere.

 

[drums101]

yea i would put the setting of cpu overvoltage to that and then boot into windows and check the voltage with cpuz....it should show you what it is...i wouldnt start off at 1.3v though....up your speed and test for stability by using prime95 while watching the temps..if its not stable up the cpu overvoltage from 0 to .02 or something like that. repeat process until its stable at the desired speed

 

[spind426]

thanks man i was gonna go ahead and try it but this micro atx mobo i hear has a poor arm some people said? or something like that.. Others said it was just not meant for overclocking.. even some experienced overclockers said they could not even get it to post past low .2ghz increases.. Oh well maybe i can get a new one for christmas but who knows if another letter would even reach the north pole in time

 

[cuecuemore]

Tweaking it a little and booting to see if there is any change is the right way to go, but if you try setting it to 1.2v you're going to run out of patience pretty quick, because there is a 0% chance it will boot at that voltage. Stock is 1.3v for that CPU, possibly 1.325 depending on the batch you're running. 1.21 or whatever it's reporting will not sustain any AMD CPU under load.

 

[spind426]

So nobody knows for 100% sure what cpu_overvoltage means? Because there is also a memory overvoltage setting (just in case somebody wanted to up their mem voltage to 1.65 from the stock 1.5)

I really want to try an overclock but im scared if i put in 0.1 volts in "cpu overvoltage" that my pc will break because of the extreme low amount of currrent sent to the cpu.. why is asus so lazy they cant just write what it does in description.. so annoying

These days why do you even have to type in the volts? arent cpus more advanced now? it would be nice if i could just set the multiplier to 18x and it took as much power as it wanted

 

[drums101]

I am 99% sure that cpu overvoltage means voltage on top of the stock voltage...so .1 added to 1.2 or what ever your VID is. That being said if you were to severly undervolt or overvolt your pc it wont necessarily cause damage to your pc it prolly wont even boot...if that happens just remove your battery and restart. Chances of you causing severe damage are slim go for it man.

 

[spind426]

Hey guys i finally grew a pair and decided to try an overclock! Everything went great! I found out that "CPU OVERVOLTAGE" just plain and simple means "vcore voltage" If i set CPU OVERVOLTAGE to 1.4 than that is what the voltage is. But while i am here i just want to ask for a second opinion on how i went about overclocking my cpu. The first thing i did was I just increased the multiplier from 16 to 18 (3.2ghz up to 3.6ghz) and did not touch anything else (to test stability).. It worked for about 15 minutes into a game than i got BSOD and that is when i decided to up the vcore voltage.. After multiple tests ranging from 1.3v all the way up to 1.4v I ended up finally setting it to 1.34 volts (because i wanted to keep temps low using stock fan) and i have been using it for a week without a single BSOD or freeze or any problem at all. (i ended up going with the 1.34v because with 1.33volts arma2 stopped responding twice during a four day period of playing) so basically the reason for this post is i just wanted to know if that is a reasonable choice for somebody who wants to stay at 3.6ghz stable. I was guessing that some people would say to give it a little more voltage for wiggle room, but i figured i want to keep my cpu as cool and low volted as possible. Even tho im asking for a second opinion, i personally havent seen one hint or indication to suggest that the cpu needs more voltage. So yeah, what do you guys think about using 1.34 volts rather than the 1.4volts many overclockers seem to suggest?

P.S. What is the stock voltage that AMD sets their cpu's at? I have the AMD 1090T Black edition 3.2ghz sixcore and i went to press + and - next to "cpu overvoltage" to see the default value but it didn't show. This forced me to do some guesswork for what new values to use for my new 18x multiplier setting but i seemed to have found the sweetspot.