[SOLVED] non "Z" and non "K" overclocking?

YKS_Gaming

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Mar 2, 2019
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Hello guys, I was having some questions with CPU clocks of my i7-4790S
I wasn't able to get the advertised turbo boost clock of 4GHz. I was only getting 4 GHz on single threaded workloads, when there is a 4 core load, it only turbos up to 3.6 GHz.
I went into the BIOS and tried to change a few settings: CPU ratios changed to 40, BCLK mode changed to high.
As far as I've concerned, nothing's working.
so I tried to BCLK OC it, but apparently there is no such thing in the BIOS, and the CPU ratio is capped at 40
also for whatever reason, every time I tried to use Intel XTU, It always turns off my turbo boost, making it run as the baseclock (3.2GHz)
Specs:
CPU: i7-4790S
Motherboard: Asrock Fatal1ty B85 Killer
RAM: some ramson ones left over from my old HP machine (8GB of DDR3 1600mHz) (Micron)
Graphics card: MSI GTX 980
3 random SSDs in the system, total storage 480GB
some random 120mm AIO, jerryrigged it with a slim 120mm fan from a low profile air cooler, temps: ~30 degrees C idle, 64 degrees C max,
temps while gaming: CPU: 40~50 degrees C, Graphics card: 55~69 degrees C
 
Solution
Leave that at default values. Changing that will increase chances of instability. It has to do with the amount of data received from the ram, your Lcache, and overstuffing that leads to data errors.

Set bios for factory default values, change xmp, lower vid/vcore if you are able to, but other than that, factory settings are already optimized for best usage.

Wrapping weights around your ankles so that the scale says you weigh more does not mean you can lift more. Just means you can't run as fast or as long. And that's what all this tinkering in bios is doing, artificial and superficial changes to cpu behavior, and sooner more than later the cpu is going to give you the proverbial 'finger' and bsod like a champ.

YKS_Gaming

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Mar 2, 2019
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Your cpu is performing normally.
The advertised 4.0 is only for a single core, 3.6 is the all core turbo speed.
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_i7/Intel-Core i7-4790S.html
I see.
But I have heard that some people have been successful at running single core speeds on all cores
I would really like to get the maximum out of this CPU
Also, would enabling XMP improve the situation? I am going to get some better RAM for my PC this month
 

Phaaze88

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You're already getting the maximum. As long as cpu is running within acceptable temps, it'll stay at it's 3.6ghz max, and one core will boost to 4.0ghz as needed.
If you had a 4790K and a Z87/97 motherboard, it would be different.

Save your money. Intel based systems aren't very sensitive to ram speed. Faster ram will do very little.
Go ahead and enable XMP and set it to your memory kit's advertised speed.
 

YKS_Gaming

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Mar 2, 2019
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You're already getting the maximum. As long as cpu is running within acceptable temps, it'll stay at it's 3.6ghz max, and one core will boost to 4.0ghz as needed.
If you had a 4790K and a Z87/97 motherboard, it would be different.

Save your money. Intel based systems aren't very sensitive to ram speed. Faster ram will do very little.
Go ahead and enable XMP and set it to your memory kit's advertised speed.
My current RAM doesn't support XMP[edit: also has been more unstable lately] , and I've heard that on some motherboards, there is a multicore enhancement thing. Also, even when I set the CPU ratios separately, it was locked at the same speed
 

Karadjgne

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Enabling xmp might help, but being Intel, not to any great extent. Have to figure those ram calculations and data movement happens in the space of nano-seconds, so 5-10k worth of data moving in 10 nanoseconds vrs 9 nanoseconds really doesn't add up to a very large hill of beans at all.

It's a 4790S. That's a low wattage (65w) version of a standard 84w i7 4790. Lack of wattage doesn't mean it's more efficient, it means any higher power requirements are curtailed. The cpu literally can't be forced to be better, there's no muscle to make it happen. Bios is a list of instructions and settings that tell the cpu what's what and what to do, but it works both ways, the cpu also tells bios exactly what it can and can't do.

Any user adjustable settings are there to allow those settings to be lowered, not raised above stock limits as set by the cpu. So you can lower turbo, lower voltages, lower base speeds, but not raise them above stock. Stock settings for turbo are 4.0, 3.9, 3.8, 3.6GHz for 1-4 cores. At 65w, the S doesn't have the power available for all core at 4.0, but it can do all core at 3.6
 

YKS_Gaming

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Mar 2, 2019
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Enabling xmp might help, but being Intel, not to any great extent. Have to figure those ram calculations and data movement happens in the space of nano-seconds, so 5-10k worth of data moving in 10 nanoseconds vrs 9 nanoseconds really doesn't add up to a very large hill of beans at all.

It's a 4790S. That's a low wattage (65w) version of a standard 84w i7 4790. Lack of wattage doesn't mean it's more efficient, it means any higher power requirements are curtailed. The cpu literally can't be forced to be better, there's no muscle to make it happen. Bios is a list of instructions and settings that tell the cpu what's what and what to do, but it works both ways, the cpu also tells bios exactly what it can and can't do.

Any user adjustable settings are there to allow those settings to be lowered, not raised above stock limits as set by the cpu. So you can lower turbo, lower voltages, lower base speeds, but not raise them above stock. Stock settings for turbo are 4.0, 3.9, 3.8, 3.6GHz for 1-4 cores. At 65w, the S doesn't have the power available for all core at 4.0, but it can do all core at 3.6
Kinda weird that I can set the power limit to 105W in Bios tho
Should I turn off one of the cores to get 3c6t and higher clock speed?Or should I just keep it at 4c8t? Because I mainly only do gaming on this machine
 

Karadjgne

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100MHz more is @ 2% difference. If you are getting 60fps in a game, that's @ 1½ more frames per second. You can't physically see the difference. And thats only if you are positive that you can afford to loose 2 threads.

Oh snap! A Skyrim reference! Lol
 
Last edited:

YKS_Gaming

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Mar 2, 2019
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100MHz more is @ 2% difference. If you are getting 60fps in a game, that's @ 1½ more frames per second. You can't physically see the difference. And thats only if you are positive that you can afford to loose 2 threads
I see.
After messing around in the Bios, I found a thing called cache ratio. What should I set it at to get the maximum performance?
 

Karadjgne

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Leave that at default values. Changing that will increase chances of instability. It has to do with the amount of data received from the ram, your Lcache, and overstuffing that leads to data errors.

Set bios for factory default values, change xmp, lower vid/vcore if you are able to, but other than that, factory settings are already optimized for best usage.

Wrapping weights around your ankles so that the scale says you weigh more does not mean you can lift more. Just means you can't run as fast or as long. And that's what all this tinkering in bios is doing, artificial and superficial changes to cpu behavior, and sooner more than later the cpu is going to give you the proverbial 'finger' and bsod like a champ.
 
Solution