Did Asus EZ Tuning do anything at all?

[steedsofwar]

SKIP TO 'PROBLEM' BELOW for actual issue.

I am over 30 and finally got the courage to try my hand and build my own PC. So it's my first ever build and I'm plagued with lots of uncertainties, even though everything actually functions just fine, on the face of it. I am still learning, reading forums and watching lots of videos.

I'll be posting my separate issues as different threads or would it be better to list them all here? Please advise, admin.

Build:
Corsair 380T case.
i7 4790k.
MSI GTX 980TI.
Asus Z97i plus MOBO.
16GB 1866(?) Kingston Hyper X DDR3.
250GB Crucial SSD.
Corsair RM650 80PLUS Gold.
H100i with noctua f series pushing air out, low voltage cable connected.
Noctua s series 120mm exhaust, low voltage too.
Corsair 120mm x2 quiet editions for intake.
Oh, and an Acer XB270HU 144hz, 1440p G-sync monitor LOL.

Primarily for gaming, a new hobby of mine. I know I'm too old for this yeah yeah, I don't care. I'm studying animation so I'm planning to do lots of rendering and video editing in near future.

PROBLEM:

I don't understand the over clocking science fully, so I read somewhere that Asus EZ tuning is like a set of presets for noobs like me. So I followed the onscreen questions and it says it is targeting a clock speed of 4.5x GHz and core voltage of 1.3x. Is this safe or correct?

However, using hw monitor, cpuZ, asus suite III and windows task manager 'performance' tab, I'm not seeing these figures. Still shows 4ghz and I don't even know what voltage reading to look for as some it says vccin, vid, core voltage etc. CAN SOMEONE TELL ME IF EZ TUNING DID ANYTHING AT ALL?

I loaded prime95 v26.6 and ran small fft for ten minutes for each 'clocking preset' in EZ tuning and found that base preset (no clock) temperatures at idle are 30°c and prime at 70+C. EZ tuning higher preset (gaming mode, water cooled, Asus optimal setting, turbo enabled, speed stepping disabled, epu power saving disabled) I get idle at v high ~44°C and load at the terrifying upper 80s, kissing 90s! No BSODs or anything but I'm not sure if an over clock is applied as all I'm seeing is higher temps.

Playing BF4 for short periods sees CPU temp flattening out in the mid to lower 60s! The 980ti exact same temps too.

IS EZ TUNING HAVING A PLACEBO EFFECT?
WHERE CAN I SEE aCtUaL CLOCK SPEED AND VOLTAGE?
ARE THESE (44-90) TEMPS SAFE/NORMAL?
PLEASE SEE LINK BELOW FOR SCREENIES
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xikuy96wjb159aq/AADMQlpEF8VMMcqcly75GtZFa?dl=0

I appreciate it you guys, been reading and reading these boards for months and now need hands on help.

Cheers.

 

[Reaper_7799]

You can always change the sleep mode in balanced mode though, I don't ever use sleep...I do turn off my monitor after like 20 min or somethin but no sleep or hibernation in balanced mode. I don't think it's good for it.

 

[Reaper_7799]

Check to see if in windows, when you set it at default in the bios, if the voltage moves or if it only moves after you go through auto tune. If it doesn't move then try how I did it and see if it will lower your voltage some. It may or may not though but worth a try.

Okay, I've gone and set bios to adaptive, cpu cache to adaptive, both on their original plus signs. In windows, using AI suite, did an auto tune. It said it 10% improvement made. bumped up to 4,6ghz, everything on adaptive. Please see three different scenarios below.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/722opq9cm1252ol/AAAbPoWxS-7JyMla614KoXIOa?dl=0

Well that's looking better, maxing at 1.23V but why is your voltage not dropping down in idle? That's your windows setting, I have mine set to balanced so that the min processor state is 5% in balanced but in performance mode it stays at the max setting all the time and voltage wont change.

Set it to balanced at least for now so that at idle it wont have 1,22V...mine idles at .800 Ghz speed and voltage is .77V. It doesn't slow anything down, it jumps to 4.6 in ms, so you don't even notice it's clocked down.

That should drop your idle temps down quite a bit and also help with light browsing, so those temps should also go down some.

Sorry Reaper but what are you referring to when you say 'in windows'? Also,, is balanced mode set in bios, as I believe i'm already on power saving mode. Or are you referring to AI Suite?

In any case I tried changing the offset sign from plus to minus and changed the value 'default' to a lower 1.x figure but I was getting reboots. I will keep tweaking and awaiting your response to above. Thanks for staying with me, man.

You're welcome man. Like in the 3rd picture, I'm assuming that was taken at idle but it still shows your processor at 4.5Ghz so your voltage will stay high unless you set your min processor state to say 5% or 10% in the power settings, under balanced mode in control panel. Then it will clock your processor speed down if you aren't doing anything and your adaptive voltge will drop down also.

EDIT: If that was taken at idle and you have the min processor state alredy at 5% and it's not lowering your voltage, then there may be a setting in bios you need to change to have it do that but I'm 90% sure that speedstep and c states and all of that which help downclock to save power,etc should be turned on with default settings.

Aaaah Yes! I never thought power management would do anything for the voltage levels... I know how stupid that just sounded but you'll be very surprised how very few people make this connection. So, yes that third pic was of idle and as per your instruction, it is now idling at 0.7v and 799hz speed, so great tip indeed. Although temps are still in the upper 30s kissing 40 in idle, there is a reduction in temps during browsing just like you said. Kudos.

Good deal man. Your temps should end up being really low, or lower than before, once you get your h100 installed again. You can mess around and do a diff overclock if that isn't fast enough for you once you get that h100 back.

 

[Karadjgne]

I've set sleep for s3, sleep is just fine, and if an OC can't sleep then personally I feel it's not really stable. Turning off the monitor is a good thing, it can and will extend the life of the pixels and can prevent 'burn in' although that's quite rare with today's monitors.

Don't use hibernate at all, ever, its for laptop use as a battery saver that saves everything in ram and current hdd use back to hdd, waiting for re-use at same point. Slightly different from sleep, but same basic theory, but way different in actual implementation. Uses up a bunch of hdd space and can kill performance on a pc which has 0% need for battery saving tech.

 

[steedsofwar]

Check to see if in windows, when you set it at default in the bios, if the voltage moves or if it only moves after you go through auto tune. If it doesn't move then try how I did it and see if it will lower your voltage some. It may or may not though but worth a try.

Okay, I've gone and set bios to adaptive, cpu cache to adaptive, both on their original plus signs. In windows, using AI suite, did an auto tune. It said it 10% improvement made. bumped up to 4,6ghz, everything on adaptive. Please see three different scenarios below.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/722opq9cm1252ol/AAAbPoWxS-7JyMla614KoXIOa?dl=0

Well that's looking better, maxing at 1.23V but why is your voltage not dropping down in idle? That's your windows setting, I have mine set to balanced so that the min processor state is 5% in balanced but in performance mode it stays at the max setting all the time and voltage wont change.

Set it to balanced at least for now so that at idle it wont have 1,22V...mine idles at .800 Ghz speed and voltage is .77V. It doesn't slow anything down, it jumps to 4.6 in ms, so you don't even notice it's clocked down.

That should drop your idle temps down quite a bit and also help with light browsing, so those temps should also go down some.

Sorry Reaper but what are you referring to when you say 'in windows'? Also,, is balanced mode set in bios, as I believe i'm already on power saving mode. Or are you referring to AI Suite?

In any case I tried changing the offset sign from plus to minus and changed the value 'default' to a lower 1.x figure but I was getting reboots. I will keep tweaking and awaiting your response to above. Thanks for staying with me, man.

You're welcome man. Like in the 3rd picture, I'm assuming that was taken at idle but it still shows your processor at 4.5Ghz so your voltage will stay high unless you set your min processor state to say 5% or 10% in the power settings, under balanced mode in control panel. Then it will clock your processor speed down if you aren't doing anything and your adaptive voltge will drop down also.

EDIT: If that was taken at idle and you have the min processor state alredy at 5% and it's not lowering your voltage, then there may be a setting in bios you need to change to have it do that but I'm 90% sure that speedstep and c states and all of that which help downclock to save power,etc should be turned on with default settings.

Aaaah Yes! I never thought power management would do anything for the voltage levels... I know how stupid that just sounded but you'll be very surprised how very few people make this connection. So, yes that third pic was of idle and as per your instruction, it is now idling at 0.7v and 799hz speed, so great tip indeed. Although temps are still in the upper 30s kissing 40 in idle, there is a reduction in temps during browsing just like you said. Kudos.

Good deal man. Your temps should end up being really low, or lower than before, once you get your h100 installed again. You can mess around and do a diff overclock if that isn't fast enough for you once you get that h100 back.

That's right. I've disabled sleep on all my power management modes. Simply because I am downloading stuff and it keeps going into sleep.

I've since turned off the Auto Tune applied OC to default too as I wasn't comfortable at all with gaming at 80Celsius. Let me see what happens when my h100i arrives. If miraculously, it can drive the temps on OC down to low/mid 60s, I'll be a happy bunny. If not, then I may have to leave my case side open and try your push pull config to force it down. Failing that, then I'll only OC to 4.5ghz instead of 4.6 ala Auto Tune. That better do the trick. I'll be in touch soon.

 

[steedsofwar]

I've set sleep for s3, sleep is just fine, and if an OC can't sleep then personally I feel it's not really stable. Turning off the monitor is a good thing, it can and will extend the life of the pixels and can prevent 'burn in' although that's quite rare with today's monitors.

Don't use hibernate at all, ever, its for laptop use as a battery saver that saves everything in ram and current hdd use back to hdd, waiting for re-use at same point. Slightly different from sleep, but same basic theory, but way different in actual implementation. Uses up a bunch of hdd space and can kill performance on a pc which has 0% need for battery saving tech.

Oh, I can use sleep as a flag in testing the stability then. Absolutely agree about hibernate though. Never really did this on my laptops neither as I actually found storage was being swallowed by it and other performance related issues.

 

[Reaper_7799]

I've set sleep for s3, sleep is just fine, and if an OC can't sleep then personally I feel it's not really stable. Turning off the monitor is a good thing, it can and will extend the life of the pixels and can prevent 'burn in' although that's quite rare with today's monitors.

Don't use hibernate at all, ever, its for laptop use as a battery saver that saves everything in ram and current hdd use back to hdd, waiting for re-use at same point. Slightly different from sleep, but same basic theory, but way different in actual implementation. Uses up a bunch of hdd space and can kill performance on a pc which has 0% need for battery saving tech.

Yeah, it's just a personal thing for me...most of the time I have something downloading while I'm sleeping or something like that, so I just leave it off. Mine does sleep just fine, I just don't do it. I read back and forth whether or not it's better to turn off every night or leave it on and just let it rest once every few days.

It depends on my schedule cause I have an office at home and half the time I'm here so when I'm here I'm on it most of the day and then in evening I just leave it on, cause I may play a game for a bit or something and if I have no appointments next day I usually leave it on and if I'm out for the next day, I'll just turn it off and let it rest.

 

[Karadjgne]

Stupid phone has wierd spam advertising I've never been able to get rid of, and just now metro pcs. scrolling app got in the way and I accidentally voted you down. Ack! Sorry 'bout that.

 

[steedsofwar]

You can always change the sleep mode in balanced mode though, I don't ever use sleep...I do turn off my monitor after like 20 min or somethin but no sleep or hibernation in balanced mode. I don't think it's good for it.

I'm back guys. It's not looking too good if I'm honest. I had my h100i back and I had a number of issues. First, the fins on the rad had a 5p size dent. Then, the water block didn't seem to sit well. I could move it about despite locking the thumbscrews tight and backplate fitted properly. Then there was the noise. A quiet but high pitched persistent buzz. I know it was the pump because my noctuas disconnected and all fans disabled was still producing this noise. Plus, the temps were only 10*C cooler than on the stock cooler in idle but under prime stressing, still soared into the upper 90's. With no overclock, the temps just about climb past 90.

So, I have sent the cooler back for another RMA today, and stock cooler is refitted now. I am on balanced mode in windows, default settings in bios apart from choosing green optimal to drive the temps lower. Temps are still high. For example, during battlefield 4, the temps sit between 72 and 75*C. I don't know if this is good for gaming a stretch of say three to five hours. I'm worried this is gonna degrade the components long term. I tried prime once and it kisses 100 so i stopped it after 20 seconds into the run.

What do you think? If i crank it up from optimal in bios to 'normal' or 'performance', temps climb super high. In idle, it is say 55*C. So back into bios, I tried increasing one core to 46, 2 to 44 and 3 & 4 to 43. I manually forced the voltage at 1.25v and the idle temps were in the mid 30s so I was pretty pleased but bf4 would crash and freeze my system after just loading the map.

Basically, do you think my chip is luck of a bad draw? I'm wondering that this chip simply cannot handle an OC. Heck it can't handle bf4 unless I set it to optimal in bios and even then, temps are 75*C.

 

[steedsofwar]

Stupid phone has wierd spam advertising I've never been able to get rid of, and just now metro pcs. scrolling app got in the way and I accidentally voted you down. Ack! Sorry 'bout that.

No problem. Could you maybe assist with my above inquiry pls? Plus, is there some way to remove the long chain of quotes bar the last relevant quote?

 

[Reaper_7799]

Wow...that's some bad luck there. Sorry you have to rma again. Again you really wont be able to tell how good your chip is until you have a fully functioning cooler. The stock is meant to be used stock speed and even then the temps while gaming are usually higher than what I would like but shouldn't damage anything for now. If you did at those temps for years and did everyday yeah.

I don't think running at 75 C for a month or so will hurt it and 75-80 while gaming, falls right in line with what a stock cooler should do. Once the cooler is finally working, then you'll be able to determine where your chip lies and what it's capable of and such...no point in comparing numbers from the stock cooler or thinking it's a bad chip producing those temps, when the stock cooler just sucks compared to even cheap aftermarket ones. Let us know how things turn out though when the other one comes in.

 

[steedsofwar]

@reaper

Thanks for the reassurance. I'm obviously getting paranoid after this spot of bad luck. The computer is super fast trust me. Even my missus is seriously impressed. So I don't need to over clock but I got that itch now you know? It would be a travesty to leave an unlocked i7 untouched. Anyways, I've asked for a refund and ordered the GTX version of the same cooler. Arriving tomorrow although I'm doing a spot of camping up in Norfolk. I'll get my hands on it Sunday night. Can't wait actually.

While on the point on gaming temps, what temps do you get playing BF4 on your 980ti? I'm flatlining at 72°C. Often less, occasionally maxing 75°C.

I haven't run benchmarking on this apart from unigine heaven a few short runs back to back and I get max temp of 72°C at both 1080p and 1440p.

At 1080p I get 80 something fps and a measly score of 2xxx. And at 1440p, it gets 57 fps and a lower score of 13xx. Seem alright to you?

 

[Karadjgne]

Gaming temps are going to vary somewhat, apart from resolution changes, there's also degrees of settings and physical cards to take into consideration. 72° is a little on the high side for a gpu under gaming conditions, but perfectly fine for a max temp under stress test.

Makes me wonder just what case cooling and ambient temps, whether the case is open to airflow or locked in a cubby etc. My Define R5 sits in a cubby, has 2x 140mm intakes, uses 2x 140mm on kraken x61 as exhaust, 4.6GHz 3770k, ambient 23°C and even running DSR @2k resolution on 2x 1080p monitors my gtx970 only sees @54-56°C on AC3 with everything pegged to max at 60fps+. Cpu running at 52°C. Stress test on msi kombuster yields 76°C. My wife's pc 3570k, 660ti, 4.3GHz, with a h55 sees similar temps and sits under a desk.

So my question is, why does it seem like all your temps are higher. Are you looking at ambient temps in the 30+°C range?

 

[Reaper_7799]

He's still using stock cooler.

Yeah, you're heaven scores are fine. In the first pic, I'm at 46, 45, 44, 44...you can see my temps don't go above 50 and for 90% of the time is around 45C. When it touches 50, it's only for a second or two at the most.

In the second one, I was at 46 all cores and max temps say 57 but again that's only for a second and 90% of the time it's between 45-50C, mostly 45-47. I put up a vid of it at 4.6 Ghz so you can see most of the time it's 47-50C...GTA V is about the most cpu demanding I play, crysis 3, witcher 3 and far cry 4 are all about the same as gta v and I'm usually between 47-50C.

I rendered the quality out so I could upload it fast on the one that says test but you can still see my temps...youtube uploads suck.

The others are older decent quality ones but they are also before I put my hyper 212 and hybrid in push/pull and they are at 4.7Ghz. You can see on those without push/pull temps were in the mid 60's at 4.7, which I didn't like.

GTA V-- 4.6Ghz 1080p so you can see more cpu utilization than 1440p or 4k 47-50C with push/pull

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM7hAtSwWcM

Crysis 3--- 4.7 ghz @ 1.34V before I put it in push/pull...push/pull lowered by around 10-15C

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeF9Gm-1nNo

Battlefield 4 4.7ghz @1.34V also before push/pull

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=504zIhcPS7A

 

[Reaper_7799]

Here's the actual heaven test I just did for those pics above...at 4.6 Ghz and you can see 90% of the time it sits at 47-50C. I rendered the quality out but you can still see the temps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glAL2F_VInk

 

[steedsofwar]

Gaming temps are going to vary somewhat, apart from resolution changes, there's also degrees of settings and physical cards to take into consideration. 72° is a little on the high side for a gpu under gaming conditions, but perfectly fine for a max temp under stress test.

Makes me wonder just what case cooling and ambient temps, whether the case is open to airflow or locked in a cubby etc. My Define R5 sits in a cubby, has 2x 140mm intakes, uses 2x 140mm on kraken x61 as exhaust, 4.6GHz 3770k, ambient 23°C and even running DSR @2k resolution on 2x 1080p monitors my gtx970 only sees @54-56°C on AC3 with everything pegged to max at 60fps+. Cpu running at 52°C. Stress test on msi kombuster yields 76°C. My wife's pc 3570k, 660ti, 4.3GHz, with a h55 sees similar temps and sits under a desk.

So my question is, why does it seem like all your temps are higher. Are you looking at ambient temps in the 30+°C range?

My ambient temps are actually quite optimal. 20*C give or take. I'm currently using the stock cooler, with a noctua quiet series 120mm exhaust, 2 additional noctuas exhausting out the side, and two corsair sp120 quiet edition intakes. And my case is not on the floor or under a desk. It is however on a desk but closest to the corner surrounded by two walls, with 5-6" inches of clearance. Of course, it being a mini itx case (the largest miniITX i could get) the airflow and fan options are never gonna be as forgiving as the larger beast cases out there. It was a cosmetic thing that needed spouse approval and a largish tower was out of the question.

I have my aftermarket cooler delivered now so I will install and update you. Thanks for your reply.

 

[steedsofwar]

Here's the actual heaven test I just did for those pics above...at 4.6 Ghz and you can see 90% of the time it sits at 47-50C. I rendered the quality out but you can still see the temps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glAL2F_VInk

Oh dayim! I can only dream to get my temps to kiss 50 or 60 while simultaneously overclocked... Okay, so my new cooler has just arrived. I'm gonna install and let you know what the temps are like. I have a feeling this chip won't allow an overclock though. Let me see. It prolly still has a lot to do with the fact i'm not configuring the OC properly. Stay tuned guys. Appreciate the vids too.

 

[Reaper_7799]

Here's the actual heaven test I just did for those pics above...at 4.6 Ghz and you can see 90% of the time it sits at 47-50C. I rendered the quality out but you can still see the temps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glAL2F_VInk

Oh dayim! I can only dream to get my temps to kiss 50 or 60 while simultaneously overclocked... Okay, so my new cooler has just arrived. I'm gonna install and let you know what the temps are like. I have a feeling this chip won't allow an overclock though. Let me see. It prolly still has a lot to do with the fact i'm not configuring the OC properly. Stay tuned guys. Appreciate the vids too.

No problem, let us know how it goes once you get it up and running.

 

[steedsofwar]

Gaming temps are going to vary somewhat, apart from resolution changes, there's also degrees of settings and physical cards to take into consideration. 72° is a little on the high side for a gpu under gaming conditions, but perfectly fine for a max temp under stress test.

Makes me wonder just what case cooling and ambient temps, whether the case is open to airflow or locked in a cubby etc. My Define R5 sits in a cubby, has 2x 140mm intakes, uses 2x 140mm on kraken x61 as exhaust, 4.6GHz 3770k, ambient 23°C and even running DSR @2k resolution on 2x 1080p monitors my gtx970 only sees @54-56°C on AC3 with everything pegged to max at 60fps+. Cpu running at 52°C. Stress test on msi kombuster yields 76°C. My wife's pc 3570k, 660ti, 4.3GHz, with a h55 sees similar temps and sits under a desk.

So my question is, why does it seem like all your temps are higher. Are you looking at ambient temps in the 30+°C range?

Thanks for those observations. I have just found out that if I max the fans of my card via afterburner, BF4 sits at 67-68 Celsius. However, your point about the case got me thinking and I opened all three doors and noticed 5-9 degree drop in temps for my CPU. That's the kind of improvements expected when applying push pull config which i'm physically unable due to case restrictions. Please see my post below for screenies of temps using the new cooler.

 

[steedsofwar]

Here's the actual heaven test I just did for those pics above...at 4.6 Ghz and you can see 90% of the time it sits at 47-50C. I rendered the quality out but you can still see the temps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glAL2F_VInk

Oh dayim! I can only dream to get my temps to kiss 50 or 60 while simultaneously overclocked... Okay, so my new cooler has just arrived. I'm gonna install and let you know what the temps are like. I have a feeling this chip won't allow an overclock though. Let me see. It prolly still has a lot to do with the fact i'm not configuring the OC properly. Stay tuned guys. Appreciate the vids too.

No problem, let us know how it goes once you get it up and running.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mdcoefww0f5qj30/AAAbvbqp9BQzDp0pNCmXreE0a?dl=0

Okay some good news and bad news. Good news is the GTX version of the h100i appears to be performing a lot better than the regular model. Bad news is it still is noisy. It can't be just me right? Anyhoo, I'm not sure if I applied an OC properly since I made per core settings instead. 48, 46, 44, 44. Core voltage manually fixed to 1.27 and cache voltage set at 1.22. All in bios. Can't remember the rest of the settings. I'll update later.

I also noticed some discernible benefits opening the case under cpu stress. I am yet to stress for hours. All tests were performed for half hour each and screenie to follow. Apart from the linpack test. I got bored after say 15 minutes of that.

Is that even an OC? How would you describe it?

 

[Reaper_7799]

Good to see you got it up and running, people have said they can be louder than air depending on fan settings and everything. So it lowered temps down that much when you opened up your case...Now that I finally looked at your case ...lol...I can see why temps will be a little higher, I can't believe I never realized this was a sff case. That is a cool little case though.

What I would do...I know it sucks to waste money on fans and such but the 200MM are not that great for intake compared to 2 120's or 2 140's, they don't spin as fast and don't bring in enough air generally. The 200mm is quieter but two 120 would suck a lot more cool air in and being such a small case, it's probably needed. I would stick two 120 mm fans up front and put the 200mm fan aside for the moment.

I also would lower your overclock some first or adjust it because .02V-.03V difference can sometimes mean 5-7 degree difference and in a small case like that, it could help quite a bit. I would try to get away from 1.27V and see what you can get in the 1.24V range...You shouldn't be bottlenecking in any games even at 4.4 or lower. I've been using the 4.6,4.6,4.5,4.4 @1.24V max lately and it's fast enough now, especially since I got my ssd and everything finally working properly. It never holds back or causes issues in games and I play a good mix of them.

 

[Karadjgne]

4.8 isn't too shabby at all lol, but didn't know you had a safe either. Yeah, needs airflow,even with a clc. You'll have 2 main sources of heat when gaming at high OC, the vrm/voltage regulatory circuitry surrounding the socket and the gpu. Clc's in general take about 1/2hr to stabilize the liquid temps. So any stress testing done should be done for at least 45 mins. That said, when gaming or stressing the gpu, you'll be exhausting that heat into the case, just as the VRM's will be radiating heat into the case. With that heat being picked up by the clc fans, you are trying to cool a radiator with hot air. This will lower it's effectiveness, which allows higher temps on the cpu, so the fans spin faster.

If you want to keep the 200mm, crank it up, set its curve much higher. If you opt for 2x120's get ones that'll move some air, quietly, like Noctua s12 or Phanteks 120s. For you, cfm is important.

Since you do have a clc, and do run higher voltages, for system health and OC stability, getting some airflow over the VRM's is important. It doesn't have to be big, or expensive, it just has to displace the heated air. I've seen many ppl just zip-tie one to the hdd cage

 

[steedsofwar]

Good to see you got it up and running, people have said they can be louder than air depending on fan settings and everything. So it lowered temps down that much when you opened up your case...Now that I finally looked at your case ...lol...I can see why temps will be a little higher, I can't believe I never realized this was a sff case. That is a cool little case though.

What I would do...I know it sucks to waste money on fans and such but the 200MM are not that great for intake compared to 2 120's or 2 140's, they don't spin as fast and don't bring in enough air generally. The 200mm is quieter but two 120 would suck a lot more cool air in and being such a small case, it's probably needed. I would stick two 120 mm fans up front and put the 200mm fan aside for the moment.

I also would lower your overclock some first or adjust it because .02V-.03V difference can sometimes mean 5-7 degree difference and in a small case like that, it could help quite a bit. I would try to get away from 1.27V and see what you can get in the 1.24V range...You shouldn't be bottlenecking in any games even at 4.4 or lower. I've been using the 4.6,4.6,4.5,4.4 @1.24V max lately and it's fast enough now, especially since I got my ssd and everything finally working properly. It never holds back or causes issues in games and I play a good mix of them.

Okay, I forgot to update the OP but the stock intake was just a single 140mm which I replaced with a 200mm and now I have replaced THAT with 2 corsair 120 quiet edition intakes instead. So yes, the temps are lower at each intake change I made even if they were minor improvements, they add up. I guess if I went for louder more powerful/higher RPM intakes and exhausts, would make for better cooling but I hate noise. I'm an oldie LOL.

I think your tip to reduce voltage is a good direction. I also believe I'll enjoy lower idle temps which sit flat on 30 on average. I'm just scared of messing up my current configuration, which is otherwise stable with the most basic tests. I simply can't remember what I'd tweaked and what i need to tweak now to reduce those voltages and stay stable. I did it all in BIOS and all the values seem to blend into a garbled mess in my head. So...

1. Is my per core settings still referred to as an overclock? What is my OC right now? 4.4 or 4.8?
2. Should I reduce the 48 to 47? Is 48 overkill? Or are you advising to go for a 46 setup, to closely emulate yours?
3. Then reduce the core and cache voltage by an equal value of 0.3v? Vcore at 1.24 and 1.21?

I'll ask you about gaming temps after I can get the OC set right. Because my gaming temps, case closed or open still sit at 68-70 celsius.

 

[steedsofwar]

4.8 isn't too shabby at all lol, but didn't know you had a safe either. Yeah, needs airflow,even with a clc. You'll have 2 main sources of heat when gaming at high OC, the vrm/voltage regulatory circuitry surrounding the socket and the gpu. Clc's in general take about 1/2hr to stabilize the liquid temps. So any stress testing done should be done for at least 45 mins. That said, when gaming or stressing the gpu, you'll be exhausting that heat into the case, just as the VRM's will be radiating heat into the case. With that heat being picked up by the clc fans, you are trying to cool a radiator with hot air. This will lower it's effectiveness, which allows higher temps on the cpu, so the fans spin faster.

If you want to keep the 200mm, crank it up, set its curve much higher. If you opt for 2x120's get ones that'll move some air, quietly, like Noctua s12 or Phanteks 120s. For you, cfm is important.

Since you do have a clc, and do run higher voltages, for system health and OC stability, getting some airflow over the VRM's is important. It doesn't have to be big, or expensive, it just has to displace the heated air. I've seen many ppl just zip-tie one to the hdd cage

I forgot to update the OP but I have replaced the 200mm recently with corsair quiet edition 120mm air flow fans. Temps were slightly worse with the 200mm and the fan didn't really fit my case without forcing the door shut. But the temps I posted above, they are the best I can get it seems. Thanks for explaining how the CLC is actually using the warm air coming off the cpu and the GPU to cool the rad. Makes me wonder if I should reverse the fans to intake cold through the rad instead. Only worry there may be that the other motherboard components may pick up the heat instead, what with only one small exhaust at the back to dissipate it all.

Lastly, do you think 4.8 is too much? Is it really 4.8 if the other cores are 46, 44, 44? I know it does crank to 4.8 as soon as I set windows power settings to performance.

 

[steedsofwar]

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xft73aauxaw4jkz/AAAyLogup1ZxAMT02sHX7cG0a?dl=0

Here are some screenshots of 45 minute stress tests using 46, 45, 44, 44 core ratios and and 42 for cache ratio. Voltages for core are 1.23 and cache is set at 1.20.

And what would you know, @reaper_7799 you were right. It certainly loses 5-6* Celsius and that puts it JUST within what I can consider safe operating parameters for a 24/7 OC. I know that 48 multiplier works stable too but at cost of a few degrees here and there, so I can resort to that if I'm feeling risky. So this leaves only my noisy cooler pump and more importantly, my GPU...! I think I'll discuss that once I can get you guys' feedback on my current set-up.

 

[Reaper_7799]

The way you have it set up is 4.8 for single core processes, 4.6 for two core processes and when it uses all 4 cores it is running at 4.4. There are some programs that use single core power and if you need it you can keep it but for the most part in windows and now in most games also, they are really starting to utilize more cores for all processes. You can see in bf4 it's using all 4 cores at 4.4 Ghz and the majority of my games will use all cores and threads so single core frequency is not used that much.

But yeah it is set up as an overclock now...4.4 when it uses 4 cores simultaneously. Stock speeds are 4.2 Ghz when it uses all 4 cores.

Honestly I would say try to do something closer to mine and if it's fast enough for you, which it should be since you have an ssd, then it should lower temps down some, especially light work, if you do it the way we did with auto tune and offset voltage so the voltage will fluctuate.

I didn't mess with cache voltage so you can lower it if you want or just run auto with it. If you did just a straight 4.4Ghz overclock where your voltage wont fluctuate like you are set up now, you would end up having the exact same power or performance you're getting in battlefield 4 right now but you could probably get your voltage way down to like 1.22V or lower, which should show a pretty good temp reduction from 1.27V.