High Temperatures & unstable CPU in my custom 6700K Z170-A Build

[Bo Black]

Hi,

I recently bought:
i7 6700K 4Ghz,
Asus Z170-A,
4x 8gig vengeance DDR4 for total 32GB RAM,
Corsair RMi 750W power supply,
a Master Hyper cooler 212 EVO
and an SSD to run everything on
etc.

I did try to Overclock early on without really knowing what I need to do but went back to the Default settings quite rapidly because the BIOS nor windows was running smoothly. surprisingly, CPU-Z still shows me results up to 4.4Ghz Core speed after going to Default BIOS settings.

Now, I want to use this computer for one thing mainly: Ableton and other DAWs that might need a bunch of CPU. When I open it, only having a KICK pattern without any processing already makes the CPU jump up to 100%. As if playing a Kick was too much for this system to handle..

Anyways, running a stress test from the ASUS 5-way optimization program, the Voltage went up to 1.4 and Temperatures rose to 85* at 4600Mhz - this is when I decided to stop it and ask here whether this is normal or whether i am doing something wrong. A test with Prime95 showed very similar results.
When there's nothing running on my desktop CPU stays around 800mhz, Volts at 0.8 and temperatures between 25* and 30* but as soon as i open ableton/Pro Tools or any other heavy Game (Installed source just to try out the capacities of this build), CPU starts going up and down from 800 up to 4.4 and temperatures rise to 28-35*.

I'm pretty sure this isn't the best this computer can do.
Please Help, thanks.

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

If you have the BIOS settings at default, then that's the standard behavior of pretty much any CPU. It's supposed to stay in low-power mode until you put any load on the CPU, and then it ramps up to its Turbo speed. So it will go from 800MHz to 4.4GHz when you play a game or run your music software, and then go back down to 800MHz when you're just browsing the web or writing something in Word.

I don't know what you were expecting, but that's been the way computers have been running for a good while.

If you mean overclocking when you say "the best this computer can do" then you'll have to do that yourself. Read some Skylake overclocking guides (plenty to find via Google) to get a good baseline, and go to it.

Prime95 (especially the newest version) is actually too good at stressing the CPU, and many people don't recommend it any more. Use programs like ASUS Realbench or AIDA64 to stress your system to test stability.

 

[Bo Black]

Yeah that makes total sense but what doesn't is this build can't handle a project which worse computers run without any problems..

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

What do you mean, it can't handle the projects?

If you're still thinking that because it jumps up to 100% clock speed on something minor, that it can't handle something requiring more CPU power ... then you're wrong. CPUs are designed to jump to 100% at the slightest provocation -- any load at all -- to get the best performance.

Trust me when I say that you have one of the most powerful consumer CPUs that money can buy. And those that are actually more powerful would operate in exactly the same way, jumping from minimum to maximum clock speed with any load at all.

Also, as far as voltage and temperature go ... when you leave the voltage setting on Auto, the mainboard will apply as much voltage as it wants. That's how your stress test got you to 1.4v and 85°C. Most 6700Ks don't need 1.4v at 4600MHz -- 1.3v maybe. You need to set the voltage manually, so you have more control.