i5-4670K 4.3Ghz OC @ 1.2V - Need some more advice and thoughts

[IMTECH]

Hello. I've decided to overclock my CPU after many years. I have no experience with overclocking but I've used Intel God's "Quick and Dirty OC" thread as a guideline. I'd like some advice on whether I need to change some more settings in the BIOS.

Here are the BIOS settings:

http://i.imgur.com/gIxFGJG.jpg
&
http://i.imgur.com/ZbrvlF9.jpg

Stress Test Results:

Intel Burn Test (10 runs) + RealTemp: http://i.imgur.com/LN9CsMS.png

Aida64 + RealTemp: http://i.imgur.com/EdnuiB1.png (I made a mistake and clicked "Reset" in RealTemp during the Aida64 test, so the min temps are the actual readings at some point during the test.)

It looks stable overall. Idle temps are around 26-27°C. I just have to try some actual games and see how it goes. I am mostly concerned about voltages. BIOS shows a little bit higher readings than my actual settings. Same goes for Aida. They both Show voltages around 1.216. It's fine, isn't it? Only HWinfo shows these voltages (1.2V) that I set.

My PC:
CPU i5-4670K
Cooler Cooler Master Hyper 412 Slim
MB MSI Z87-GD65 GAMING
GPU MSI GTX 760 GAMING 2GB OC
RAM Kingston HyperX Blu 2x4GB DDR3 1600
HDD Seagate Barracuda 1TB
PSU Seasonic X-series 750W
Case CM HAF 932 Advanced

Is there anything else that I need to change in BIOS settings or is there something wrong/concerning with the current ones?

 

[geofelt]

First of all, use a different stress test.
IBT is intended to generate heat.
Use something more like a real app like OCCT.
Prime95 is no good either, it uses strange instructions.
OCCT will shut down the test if it passes 85c.

The key metric to monitor is VCORE.
CPU-Z is good for that. You will not want the vcore to go past 1.3v.
Also, check to see that when the cpu is idle, that both the vcore and multiplier get reduced. That is done via speedstep and adaptive voltage.

 

[IMTECH]

First of all, use a different stress test.
IBT is intended to generate heat.
Use something more like a real app like OCCT.
Prime95 is no good either, it uses strange instructions.
OCCT will shut down the test if it passes 85c.

The key metric to monitor is VCORE.
CPU-Z is good for that. You will not want the vcore to go past 1.3v.
Also, check to see that when the cpu is idle, that both the vcore and multiplier get reduced. That is done via speedstep and adaptive voltage.

Core Voltage in CPU-Z is jumping from ~0.176V to ~0.850V. Only CPU-Z is showing the "jumpy" voltage, everything else is showing the fixed value of 1.2V. It is not underclocking while idle, though. I've had some issues with slow response from Windows way before I decided to overclock, so I am running "High Performance" setting in Windows which, apparently, doesn't allow the CPU to underclock. Can this pose a problem?

Should I still change the CPU Core Voltage Mode and CPU Ring Voltage Mode from Override to Adaptive? I didn't see speedstep in the settings, but I'll check under CPU features. Is it necessary to have CPU underclock itself while idle, though?

 

[IMTECH]

Update: Changing the Power Settings in Windows back to "Balanced", the frequency goes down to 800Mhz while idle. The voltage is still jumpy in the same range, but it doesn't go to 1.2V unless I run something heavy. (All read from CPU-Z)

 

[geofelt]

You should see the vcore in CPU-Z vary and go higher as the multiplier gets to max.
From what I see, you have a bit more headroom for overclocking and can go higher than 4.3

 

[IMTECH]

You should see the vcore in CPU-Z vary and go higher as the multiplier gets to max.
From what I see, you have a bit more headroom for overclocking and can go higher than 4.3

That sounds great. I started with 4.2 and tested it with IBT/Aida64/Games. After that, I tried to get a cheeky jump to 4.4, but IBT BSOD me immediately after clicking Start. I went down to 4.3 and everything seems fine. I might try 4.4, but it appears that it needs a little bit more voltage. Some voltage settings I do not understand very well, so I might wait for a bit before going higher.

I am getting different readings from different programs. As already mentioned, only CPU-Z shows variable (actual?) voltage and everything else is showing a fixed value of ~1.2. According to BIOS, the voltages should be at fixed points but it looks like that's not the case.

 

[geofelt]

Sometimes it is not clear what various apps are reporting for voltage.
It may not be the actual running Vcore.
That is why I suggested cpu-Z which I believe to be accurate.

 

[IMTECH]

Sometimes it is not clear what various apps are reporting for voltage.
It may not be the actual running Vcore.
That is why I suggested cpu-Z which I believe to be accurate.

I've tried The Witcher 3 in the mean time. It was for a short time, but there were no crashes or anything and temps maxed out at 56°C.

The overclock looks solid, overall. The voltage is concerning, yeah. I'm not sure what program gives the most accurate readings. The BIOS is constantly showing 1.2V. I'd like to believe that CPU-Z is right, because then everything is fine.

P.S. When in the game, CPU-Z shows the voltage jump to 1.216-1.224V and stays there until I close the game. You might be just right that it shows you the correct values. I hope so, at least.

 

[IMTECH]

Another update: There is a CS:GO tournament going on currently and I left it spectating the game for a while. It BSOD after some time. I didn't look at the temps at that time but I went and increased the voltage to 1.21V. I opened the game again and I've checked the temps after a while - they maxed out at 58°C.

What usually causes a BSOD when overclocking? Overheating or low voltage? Temps shouldn't be a problem but who knows... I changed the voltage mode to Adaptive, though. Could it be doing some nasty work here?

 

[geofelt]

Temperatures need to get to about 100c.
That is where the processor will downclock or shut down to protect itself.

Low voltage for the attempted multiplier is the normal culprit.
Adaptive will let the voltage adjust from a starting range depending on the multiplier.
There are added small tuning knobs which depend on the particular bios.

For haswell, the upper voltage limit should be around 1.3v.
For whatever reason, skylake and kaby lake can go to 1.4v.

 

[IMTECH]

Temperatures need to get to about 100c.
That is where the processor will downclock or shut down to protect itself.

Low voltage for the attempted multiplier is the normal culprit.
Adaptive will let the voltage adjust from a starting range depending on the multiplier.
There are added small tuning knobs which depend on the particular bios.

For haswell, the upper voltage limit should be around 1.3v.
For whatever reason, skylake and kaby lake can go to 1.4v.

I backed down to 4.2Ghz and reduced the voltage to 1.19V. Cache/Ring is at 3.8Ghz and 1.165V. These voltage values can probably go down a bit more at 4.2Ghz and I'll test that later. So far, I've been stable on IBT (10 passes), IXTU (15min), RealBench, Metro benchmark (game), CS:GO gameplay.

I don't really need to push it to some unreal temps with other software, I think. Maybe leave Aida64 do some work for a few hours (temps don't go over 63-64c).

I will try to push it to 4.3/4.4Ghz when I have some more time to test the stability and tweak the settings. I am still confused, though, I am not sure what this motherboard is doing - I set the voltages to fixed values, even the offset values to 0.001V and I still see it jump to 1.216-1.224V in CPU-Z when doing stress tests and benchmarks. Same happened before. It always goes over the set value for some reason (all settings are set to "Override" where possible) and I cannot get the idea of the CPU stability at certain voltages because of this.

Thank you for your replies and help, by the way. If you've got any more advice and/or suggestions, please tell!