My auto voltage seems high

[chiller2333]

Hello Everyone,

I just bought a 6700k, MSI Titanium Z170 mobo, 32GB of DDR4 Tridentz at 3000. I have turned on XMP and have overclocked the CPU to 4.7. Now here is the issue. My CPU voltage at auto runs at 1.56! I know this is way to high but why would this be the auto? I have tried 1.325 and it won't even load. I get BSoD and it won't boot with that voltage. I have tried 1.38 and it seems okay but my question is, why would the auto set the voltage so high?

 

[lindsay24]

NEVER use the auto voltage. So many people have fried their CPUs doing that... The motherboard likes to leave "lots of stability breathing room" to make sure there is no crashes on the auto setting.

Think of it this way. Say Intel prints 1000 i7s. Most of them can overclock nicely to 4.7gHz @ 1.38v. However, a few (say 15) turned out particularly well and can hit the same clock at 1.30v. Now of course, it goes the other way too. Some (say, another 15) will only hit that speed at 1.56v. So the manufacturer of the motherboard has to make a tricky call here. They can either set the auto to be the average voltage needed across the remaining i7s, or high enough that any 6700k can hit 4.7gHz, which is clearly what they chose to do.

 

[chiller2333]

NEVER use the auto voltage. So many people have fried their CPUs doing that... The motherboard likes to leave "lots of stability breathing room" to make sure there is no crashes on the auto setting.

Think of it this way. Say Intel prints 1000 i7s. Most of them can overclock nicely to 4.7gHz @ 1.38v. However, a few (say 15) turned out particularly well and can hit the same clock at 1.30v. Now of course, it goes the other way too. Some (say, another 15) will only hit that speed at 1.56v. So the manufacturer of the motherboard has to make a tricky call here. They can either set the auto to be the average voltage needed across the remaining i7s, or high enough that any 6700k can hit 4.7gHz, which is clearly what they chose to do.

So should everything AUTO under all of the voltages be changed or just the CPU voltage?

 

[lindsay24]

NEVER use the auto voltage. So many people have fried their CPUs doing that... The motherboard likes to leave "lots of stability breathing room" to make sure there is no crashes on the auto setting.

Think of it this way. Say Intel prints 1000 i7s. Most of them can overclock nicely to 4.7gHz @ 1.38v. However, a few (say 15) turned out particularly well and can hit the same clock at 1.30v. Now of course, it goes the other way too. Some (say, another 15) will only hit that speed at 1.56v. So the manufacturer of the motherboard has to make a tricky call here. They can either set the auto to be the average voltage needed across the remaining i7s, or high enough that any 6700k can hit 4.7gHz, which is clearly what they chose to do.

So should everything AUTO under all of the voltages be changed or just the CPU voltage?

It's good practice to set everything to its default manually and only change it as needed. That said, if you're just starting off and you're only overclocking your CPU (and you don't touch any memory or motherboard components) you should be fine with just the CPU voltage.

 

[chiller2333]

NEVER use the auto voltage. So many people have fried their CPUs doing that... The motherboard likes to leave "lots of stability breathing room" to make sure there is no crashes on the auto setting.

Think of it this way. Say Intel prints 1000 i7s. Most of them can overclock nicely to 4.7gHz @ 1.38v. However, a few (say 15) turned out particularly well and can hit the same clock at 1.30v. Now of course, it goes the other way too. Some (say, another 15) will only hit that speed at 1.56v. So the manufacturer of the motherboard has to make a tricky call here. They can either set the auto to be the average voltage needed across the remaining i7s, or high enough that any 6700k can hit 4.7gHz, which is clearly what they chose to do.

So should everything AUTO under all of the voltages be changed or just the CPU voltage?

It's good practice to set everything to its default manually and only change it as needed. That said, if you're just starting off and you're only overclocking your CPU (and you don't touch any memory or motherboard components) you should be fine with just the CPU voltage.

Okay, yeah I don't plan to overclock the memory or components other than GPU and CPU. I turned on XMP but that is all.