Overclock losing stability

[EpIckFa1LJoN]

Please see the rig in my sig

Sorry for the long post, I'm really trying to keep this as short as possible, please bear with me as it is a TALE.

So I have been learning to overclock and at first it was working great but the performance keeps degrading pretty quickly. All I know is it has something to do with the voltage.

At first I was using Asus' eztuning wizard in the BIOS, but that proved unstable as the voltage was far too low, (basically they just make sure it will boot) the problems at that point were that games would stutter badly once every dozen seconds or so (sound and audio stop for about .25-.5 seconds) but the system as a whole was pretty stable.

But then I got much helpful advice and started doing it the right way. I had the "CPU SVID" support on as well (even though it says it is recommended off for overclocking, but I never really saw or looked at it), but I just kept increasing the multiplier, doing tests for about an hour or so (LinX twice, Prime95 Small FFT's for about 10min, Asus RealBench for 30min) play a couple games for a few minutes each to make sure it wasn't stuttering, rinse repeat, until I got to 4.7GHz, and then I starting failing tests off the bat. I assumed it was temp since I was hitting like 87C during stress tests so I put it back to 4.6GHz and called it a day.
I also posted about that online, was told it was not temp it was voltage, and decided to give 4.7GHz another crack. I then set my voltage to 1.35V (based on an Asus overclocking guide for my board family)(found SVID support and turned it OFF, also noticed I could no longer see my CPU voltage in CPU-z) fired it up and viola, it worked, passed all tests, and was even stable for gaming.

However the next day (I also leave my computer on always) I noticed there was some stuttering, even though it was kind of minor, and my system was a little wonky (WoW kept crashing, g-sync/v-sync wasn't working, fps drops all over the place). During a WoW raid I also noticed that my CPU was performing EXACTLY THE SAME as without any OC at all. I then got so frustrated I removed the CPU overclock entirely and reset the entire BIOS back to default EXCEPT the RAM OC which I kept at 3200MHz.

Anyways I decided to give one more shot since I was low FPS again and apparently I had gotten used to the 15-20fps increase I was getting with the overclock. I set voltage back to 1.35v, set my multiplier to 4.7GHz, left SVID ON, fired everything up. boom. 100% stable, nothing crashing, everything working right, gaming performance fantastic. Saw voltage was rock solid at 1.376V in CPU-z.

Next day, computer once again on all night in idle mode. Voltage was all over the place and way lower than what it was at the day before. like 1.29-1.34v, not even close. Set the voltage to 1.375v in the BIOS, and that is now where I am at. Games are micro stuttering every few minutes, just video very minor, performance dips and fps drops at heavy CPU usage times. (moreso than usual). Im at the end of my rope here.

Do I just need to turn off my computer when I am not using it? That seems like the safest option. Or am I just missing a setting somewhere? Does that 0.001v make that much of a difference?? (1.375 vs. 1.376) I just really don't know what I should do here.

I've been mostly playing Fallout 4 and WoW but I play BF1 to test the system as well which usually just produces the results more frequently than FO4. WoW's optimization is just trash so it tells me if there is stuttering within the first minute of being on if the CPU is stable or not, since it is constantly using a single core at 80-90%.
Some stats. I really don't know what all I am doing. I have almost every settings set to auto which is part of my problem but I have no idea what I need to tweak. There are about 4 other voltage settings or so and I am afraid to mess with them.

Ai OC tuner: Manual
Asus Multicore enhancement- Manual
CPU BCLK- 100MHz
CPU core ratio limit- 47
CPU SVID Support- Auto
CPU core/cache current limit max.- Auto
Min. CPU cache ratio- Auto
Max. CPU cache ratio- Auto
CPU core/cache voltage- Manual
CPU core voltage override- 1.375
DRAM voltage- Auto
CPU VCCIO voltage- Auto
CPU system agent voltage- Auto
CPU Graphics voltage- Auto
PCH Core voltage- Auto
CPU Standby voltage- Auto
(I can get actual numbers when I get home, this is going off memory and a video of the BIOS options)
(I DID NOT set the adaptive/offset mode as Asus suggested in their guide, as I have no idea what the point is)

Prime 95 Small FFT test temps: 93C Max
LinX test temps: 89C Max
Asus RealBench temps: 81C Max
Gaming temps: Spikes up to 65C, between 45-55C normally, as low as 24C at idle.
Ambient temp: ~21C

Using these guides:
https://rog.asus.com/articles/guides/guide-overclocking-core-i7-6700k-on-the-maximus-viii-extreme/
http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2103175/bios-overclocking-beginners.html

NOTE: I am not a fan of testing the system for 24hours and such. There's no way I can do that. I work 7 days a week (at least a couple hours a day, and I am absolutely terrified that something will go wrong while I am not there, and I will fry my $4,000 rig. I am also not a fan of cooking my CPU at UNGODLY temps for that long. Gaming temps get nowhere NEAR stress test temps and I am trying to preserve as much of the life of the CPU as possible, as I fully intend to upgrade to 8th Gen when it comes out and I want to sell the 6700k. If I need to do a certain stability test for 24 hours I may do it once but there is no way I am willing to do more than that!

 

[TheFluffyDog]

Ok so at stock on my RAM, the latency timings are 15-15-15-36, at 2133MHz, at 1.2v, so will I see any difference at XMP 2 with 16-18-18-36 at 3200MHz, at 1.35v? or is it moot?

http://www.techspot.com/review/1089-fallout-4-benchmarks/page6.html
http://wccftech.com/fallout-4-performance-heavily-influenced-by-ram-speed-according-to-report/

it is moot. Also the chip uses an integrated memory controller, so by keeping the ram speed low you may even get some extra clocks out of the core. 4.5 vs 4.7 on the core will yield much more than anyhting ram could offer. Especially DDR4 (there are difference in DDR4 operation and DDR3 both are moot in game performance, but DDR4 is already faster than DDR3 so it becomes even more moot)

So should I even bother trying to OC the RAM to its tested ratings? Because as is in some parts of the game I struggle to stay much over 70. I'll set all to default and see what happens but from the benchmarks it looks like a couple hundred MHz of RAM on DDR3 have a very significant impact in FO4.

yeh i would just get your core clock in check first, then turn on the XMP settings. If i were you i wouldn't shoot for the moon if you dont plan on overnight stability tests. Maybe lock your voltage at 1.33 and just bump up the multiplier until it crashes. then go down one. IF it crashes again go down until it stops, and just bring the multiplier down until it stops crashing. you may not crash in the stability test but crash the next day or something, but again jsut lower the multiplier by one until it stops. for games, core is king, so dont worry about all the other overclocking stuff.

on the CPU or the RAM? Because it seems like I was able to get a great OC at 4.7GHz and I'm pretty happy there if it works. Temps are good and i'm very happy with the performance there. Even with the RAM situation how it is, I can only assume performance will increase once I reset the RAM to stock.

this is what i would do step wise:

Reset to stock in BIOS

VCCIN 1.8-1.9V (keep this 0.5V above Vcore) <this is to improve voltage delivery from the MOBO to the Chip
V-core to 1.3-1.4V (not adaptive)

Look for your ring bus multiplier and set it to stock manually dont leave it on auto. for that chip its 40x or 4000Mhz. If you want you could even lower this to like 3.8 which may help you get a more stable over clock.(but at the very least set it to stock)

then bring up core multiplier until it crashes. then do the step down. if you already have a good starting point with the voltage and clock rate you mentioned earlier feel free to start there, but make sure adjust VCCIN and the ring bus as i described. both of those should help with stability.

use intel burn test to test (not the best program but definitely quick and will work for you because you dont want to over night it.) http://www.techspot.com/downloads/4965-intelburntest.html set the level to very high and run 10 cycles if it passes i would say you can move on to next ratio. if it fails set it down one and move to ram.

When your happy, go back to bios and just turn on XMP. It will raise all the necessary numbers. then run your stress test again. At this point, give the FO4 situation, feel free to leave on XMP and bring down your multiplier so you can get a nice balanced performance profile for that title.

Then going forward:

if you notice a crash liek 2 days later ( i had this happen on a friends build the other day) just bring the multiplier down one. The only way to be sure about your overclock is to stress it using a program designed to stress it as soon as you do it otherwise your cant be sure if the crash was caused by something else (well you could always read the dump)

 

[EpIckFa1LJoN]

If the ring bus is referring to the cache frequency. Mine is set to 4100 MHz, it is on auto as far as I'm aware. And right now I am using a combination of LinX, Prime95 Small FFT, and Asus RealBench to do my stress testing. Probably stop doing Prime95 since it heats up my CPU way more than the other two.

 

[TheFluffyDog]

If the ring bus is referring to the cache frequency. Mine is set to 4100 MHz, it is on auto as far as I'm aware. And right now I am using a combination of LinX, Prime95 Small FFT, and Asus RealBench to do my stress testing. Probably stop doing Prime95 since it heats up my CPU way more than the other two.

yeh the cache is it. Just leave it at 4100 or 4000 but set it manually, other wise it will rise with core frequency and it wont help performance noticeably.

 

[EpIckFa1LJoN]

If the ring bus is referring to the cache frequency. Mine is set to 4100 MHz, it is on auto as far as I'm aware. And right now I am using a combination of LinX, Prime95 Small FFT, and Asus RealBench to do my stress testing. Probably stop doing Prime95 since it heats up my CPU way more than the other two.

yeh the cache is it. Just leave it at 4100 or 4000 but set it manually, other wise it will rise with core frequency and it wont help performance noticeably.

Okay so assuming I make it to get the core speed stable at 4.8GHz (I feel it is totally capable of it) and get the Cache to about 4500, everything is stable... Then I set the XMP?
What do I do if that makes the system unstable? Increase the voltage?

 

[TheFluffyDog]

If the ring bus is referring to the cache frequency. Mine is set to 4100 MHz, it is on auto as far as I'm aware. And right now I am using a combination of LinX, Prime95 Small FFT, and Asus RealBench to do my stress testing. Probably stop doing Prime95 since it heats up my CPU way more than the other two.

yeh the cache is it. Just leave it at 4100 or 4000 but set it manually, other wise it will rise with core frequency and it wont help performance noticeably.

Okay so assuming I make it to get the core speed stable at 4.8GHz (I feel it is totally capable of it) and get the Cache to about 4500, everything is stable... Then I set the XMP?
What do I do if that makes the system unstable? Increase the voltage?

If the RAM OC makes it unstable my friend, then your opening up the fight for 0.1Ghz. When your talking about holding everythign the same beside core voltage and core multiplier, usually a little more voltage can get you there, but when you start mixing all these different frequencies sometimes voltage only gets you so far. Also your already at 1.375V and i wouldn't want my chip much higher than that for a 24/7 OC. It should be safe up to 1.4V but if you need to go from 1.375-1.4V for 0.1Ghz i wouldnt do it. better off trying to get the RAM and core to agree at a lower voltage than turn down the ram and shoot for an extra 0.1.

Now me, i would spend probabnly a good 20 hours over a few weeks. There are always places to squeeze one more 0.1Ghz out. and at the end of 2 weeks i might get an extra 0.2-0.3 from tweeking everything. But that means over night stress, and hours of settings and small benchmarks inbetween.

I tried to ensure my advice was more for the "gamer/overclocker." now if you enjoying all this stress testing and tweaking i suggest you get a full Skylake OC guide from someone with a lot more experience than me and read about all the different settings as well as a MOBO and DDR4 guide and start really digging.

 

[EpIckFa1LJoN]

I do not want to be a crazy overclocker. I definitely just want to get the most gaming performance out of my rig. So I'll just aim to make it stable at 4.6-4.7 rather than push it higher. I'm about to start tweaking and testing so I'll give it a few days to a week and see how it goes.

 

[EpIckFa1LJoN]

OK, so i've already run into a problem... I downloaded HWmonitor to check out voltages a little better and I see that there are two values for what I am trying to accomplish. VCORE and VID...

When I set the voltage to override I am not sure what it is doing. And turning off SVID takes aways reading for VCORE.

In any case I couldn't even get anything close to stable yesterday. Like I said I think I fell ass backwards into a decent overclock that only became unstable a day later....

When I set the core voltage in my BIOS (1.38 at 4.7GHz), I saw the VCORE go up to 1.46v (aka WAAAY to dang high).

So once again, I have absolutely no clue what I am doing.
On the flip side... I tested it around with default values. 4.2GHz on Turbo boost, ram at default, and then I enabled XMP for my RAM, it underclocked my CPU to 4.0GHz and increased my RAM, but I noticed I got slightly worse performance in WoW but I actually got like 10 fps more in Fallout... So if I can get all this figured out that would be great... It doesn't help that I have no idea how to navigate my BIOS and set up the RAM manually so it doesn't interfere with the CPU by enabling the XMP.

 

[TheFluffyDog]

OK, so i've already run into a problem... I downloaded HWmonitor to check out voltages a little better and I see that there are two values for what I am trying to accomplish. VCORE and VID...

When I set the voltage to override I am not sure what it is doing. And turning off SVID takes aways reading for VCORE.

In any case I couldn't even get anything close to stable yesterday. Like I said I think I fell ass backwards into a decent overclock that only became unstable a day later....

When I set the core voltage in my BIOS (1.38 at 4.7GHz), I saw the VCORE go up to 1.46v (aka WAAAY to dang high).

So once again, I have absolutely no clue what I am doing.
On the flip side... I tested it around with default values. 4.2GHz on Turbo boost, ram at default, and then I enabled XMP for my RAM, it underclocked my CPU to 4.0GHz and increased my RAM, but I noticed I got slightly worse performance in WoW but I actually got like 10 fps more in Fallout... So if I can get all this figured out that would be great... It doesn't help that I have no idea how to navigate my BIOS and set up the RAM manually so it doesn't interfere with the CPU by enabling the XMP.

VID is the set voltage from BIOS. VCORE is the actual supplied voltage. Under heavy load with intense OC, VCORE will usually dip. You can use the LLC function in the power settings to enable a boost in supply voltage under heavy load. its another one of those 4.6 vs 4.7 type tunes.

I would say keave SVID off as it is likely to cause changes in voltages based on load. How about we try something more modest like a 4.5Ghz OC.

try setting VCORE in BIOS to 1.35V and leave it in overide or manual. bump up the multiplier to 45. and fix cache @ 4.1 (stock). Then use a x45 multiplier and give it a stress test.

I wouldn't worry too much about voltage monitoring with a setting like 1.35V. sure its a nice bump in voltage, but its not 1.45 or somehting, so your not on the boarder of killing your CPU. Also try to find where ASUS is hiding LLC (Load Line Calibration) in the BIOS and set it to max. That should help.

The other thing is its very possible that your chip is just a shitty overclocker. you may not be able to hit 4.6-4.7 just because the chip is in the bottom 50% of all samples. When i got my 4670k i couldnt keep 4.5-4.6 (had to settle for 4.3) and when i swapped with a friend (who only wanted a 4.0Ghz OC) his chip went right to 4.6 with 5C cooler temps on the same cooler. So he agreed to switch since i wanted that OC.

 

[EpIckFa1LJoN]

I actually just got fed up trying to interpret wether my system needed more or less voltage, (because under voltage is the same freaking crap problems as too much voltage), I gave up and looked for a guide online. Found a video that gives generic numbers, but changes everything you said. Cache, LLC, XMP, everything. 4.6GHz core, 4.1 cache, 1.31v VIN (something like 1.34v max VCORE) RAM is solid 16-18-18-36 3200MHz. Tried tweaking those settings to no avail. Increasing the voltage screwed it up, increasing the multiplier screwed it up... lowering it back screwed it up. So I reset to default, booted, raised it, tried again, seemed stable, started stress testing. (Skylake seems infinitely more touchy than previous generations.....)

Everything is stable and fps is about 15-20 across the board. But most importantly stable.
Passed all initial stress tests, while staying under 70C, passed 4 hours of RealBench Last night while I was at work, let it idle overnight, running it another 4 hours this morning to be sure. If it's stable I think we have a winner. All thanks to some random asian lady tech guru.

 

[TheFluffyDog]

I actually just got fed up trying to interpret wether my system needed more or less voltage, (because under voltage is the same freaking crap problems as too much voltage), I gave up and looked for a guide online. Found a video that gives generic numbers, but changes everything you said. Cache, LLC, XMP, everything. 4.6GHz core, 4.1 cache, 1.31v VIN (something like 1.34v max VCORE) RAM is solid 16-18-18-36 3200MHz. Tried tweaking those settings to no avail. Increasing the voltage screwed it up, increasing the multiplier screwed it up... lowering it back screwed it up. So I reset to default, booted, raised it, tried again, seemed stable, started stress testing. (Skylake seems infinitely more touchy than previous generations.....)

Everything is stable and fps is about 15-20 across the board. But most importantly stable.
Passed all initial stress tests, while staying under 70C, passed 4 hours of RealBench Last night while I was at work, let it idle overnight, running it another 4 hours this morning to be sure. If it's stable I think we have a winner. All thanks to some random asian lady tech guru.

happy to see you got the XMP and your overclock. Its always a shame when your putting one thing down to gain another. Everything always feel better when you get it balanced

 

[EpIckFa1LJoN]

Yeah, but I'm just happy its balanced.. I could have even lived with 4.5GHz and no Memory OC, as long as it was stable and running better than stock. Stock speeds are just too low on these poorly optimized games. (FO4 is optimized but not for over 60Hz and not for 21:9, having to mess with a lot of code to get it to run that way, not exactly ideal. Running it stock I would never drop under 60, but I need that 21:9 and its locked at 25 on my monitor lol, so I HAVE to unlock it which introduces a whole host of physics issues, which I am sure is straining my CPU. BF1 runs perfectly fine and dandy at stock lol, GPU usage almost never drops under 100% if I have the frames uncapped)

Anyways here are my numbers. I apologize for the crappy quality, I have yet to figure out how to program my buttons on my keyboard... its pretty annoying... lol.
Anyways, pic: