[SOLVED] Overclocking 7820x

[cardey88]

Hi,
I'm looking to overclock my i7 7820x and was hoping for some advice.
This is my first time overclocking a CPU, the most I've done in terms of overclocking is my GPU with Afterburner. And undoing an unstable overclock my motherboard had as standard when I bought it, that's about it.
My motherboard's the Asus TUF X299 Mark1 and I'm using Corsair Hydro Series H115i PRO for cooling.
For the overclock I'm using the TUF AI suite 3 which is a bit overwhelming with all the settings, I'm aware the majority of the setting don't need touching I just don't know what's what and would appreciate some advice.

I'm just looking for a mild to moderate overclock, nothing too extreme.
I'll leave a couple of pictures below of the AI suite I've found on the net, the left one is basically like for like but with 6 cores instead of 8, the right pic is the only one I could find of the setting, but it's not quite like for like with it being a different CPU in the pic, mine has 9 settings either side and this picture only has 6 either side. Although I'm guessing these settings are for the most part irrelevant to me?
If I can find a way to post my own pictures I will or I can just list the settings out if it helps, just ask.
Any info will be greatly appreciated, thanks.

 

[cardey88]

I tried to edit my original post but I keep getting a server error. Just to add I'm looking to get around 4.4 to 4.6ghz on all cores as a target.

 

[Phaaze88]

Just do yourself a favor and uninstall crappy AI Suite. Make your adjustments from bios instead.

Just to add I'm looking to get around 4.4 to 4.6ghz on all cores as a target.

Not happening with what you currently have. Granted, I don't have the best nor the worst 7820X bin; I had Silicon Lottery delid and bin mine(4.6ghz):

Spoiler

Skylake-X	All Core SSE Frequency	All Core AVX2 Frequency	All Core AVX-512 Frequency	BIOS Vcore	% Capable
7820X	4.50GHz	4.20GHz	4.00GHz	1.225V	100%
7820X	4.60GHz	4.30GHz	4.10GHz	1.237V	Top 98%
7820X	4.70GHz	4.40GHz	4.20GHz	1.250V	Top 76%
7820X	4.80GHz	4.50GHz	4.30GHz	1.262V	Top 41%
7820X	4.90GHz	4.60GHz	4.40GHz	1.275V	Top 12%

Over the course of 3 years, I went through quite a bit to get that 4.6ghz thermally stable...
Before the SL delid, I couldn't do more than 4.3ghz in Prime 95, Small FFT, AVX off, with a Noctua NH-D15S.
[I almost forgot to add that the reason I even considered the cpu delid in the first place was the 13C temperature delta between the hottest and coldest cores. 10C or less is acceptable.]

After the SL delid, 4.4ghz was possible... but it was still too hot. At this point, I started using a 90C thermal limit in bios; it didn't make much sense to let it get higher than that, so why not?
Anyway... cpu would hit 90C in Prime95, so it was a fail.

Next, I would invest in a 360mm hybrid cooler. 4.4ghz was now possible.
4.5ghz, not so much. Doable on a cold day, but on a hot day... nope.

Finally, I would go about removing that bothersome lid off. The reason gpu cooling is so effective is because they're mounted directly to the die, so the same should apply here...
I took that darn lid off and used liquid metal - I actually used paste before that, but it didn't work out very well...
4.6ghz was now possible - it still got really toasty, with the hottest core hitting 88C.
I am now trying to work with lower Vcore than what SL has stated, and it has been going well, but I've had to put it on hold lately, because the system freezes when running Asus Realbench and games. Culprit is either the gpu or psu.
Once that's resolved, I will go back to alternating between Realbench and Cinebench R23 until I find the lowest Vcore for the 4.6ghz overclock.



TL;DR: You are not going to get very far with the crappy TIM(Thermal Interface Material) Intel applied between the die and IHS, and just throwing a bigger cooler on it.
Depending on the application, 4.3ghz all core isn't ideal; the cpu already has a single core turbo of 4.3ghz - it's 4.5ghz with Turbo Boost Max 3.0.

 

[mdd1963]

It'd possibly be much easier tossing in an extra 100-200 MHz to all-core turbo goals from within Intel's XTU, which overrides /implements relevant chosen BIOS settings after bootup; any instability resulting in an unclean shutdown results in stock/default settings at next bootup. If your temps get above 80C, I'd stand pat...

 

[cardey88]

Thanks guys really appreciate all the info! I'll sack off AI suite like you said and switch to BIOS.

Just do yourself a favor and uninstall crappy AI Suite. Make your adjustments from bios instead.


Not happening with what you currently have. Granted, I don't have the best nor the worst 7820X bin

Yeah I'd read these CPU's get real toasty with overclocks, I'll reel back my expectations a bit. Most guides I find for overclocking talk about altering the CPU vcore voltage. But I can't find it anywhere, could it be labelled under something else? I've found "CPU core voltage" in the bios but no "vcore". With it being my first CPU overclock I'm being very cautious about touching the wrong settings as to not fry my CPU.
Without a delid though it looks like my gains are going to be minimal/ non existent anyway.
My reasoning is I have a 3080 on preorder and should have it within the next couple of weeks, I'd looked into if my CPU will be much of a bottle neck. The website I used showed an average 6% bottleneck @4k 11% @2k and %20 @1080, I don't game at 1080p so 11% @2k is about the worst bottleneck I'll see, which I'm not too concerned about I was just looking to close that gap a little if possible.

 

[cardey88]

It'd possibly be much easier tossing in an extra 100-200 MHz to all-core turbo goals from within Intel's XTU, which overrides /implements relevant chosen BIOS settings after bootup; any instability resulting in an unclean shutdown results in stock/default settings at next bootup. If your temps get above 80C, I'd stand pat...

That's does sound user friendly, I'll give it a go, seems like it's easy enough to undo if need be. Thanks.

 

[Phaaze88]

There are THREE voltage settings that you will need to tinker with on the X299 platform in regards to cpu overclocking. Quite a bit more involved than just adjusting cpu Vcore on the mainstream platforms.
It's not going to be a quick process.
1)Cpu Input Voltage, or VCCIN.
This one controls the voltage going into the entire cpu, but does not affect thermals as much as the other 2 do.
Now, while lower is still better, you can't go too low, or the cpu will 'Phantom Throttle'. Link to old overclock.net thread on Phantom Throttling, here.

2)Cpu Vcore, or Core Voltage.
This one's a no-brainer. The setting just about everyone is familiar with.

3)Cpu Cache/Uncore, Voltage.
This one is for the mesh bus that Skylake-X/X Refresh/Cascade Lake use, as opposed to the faster ring bus on the mainstream cpus.
This one here was confusing, because for some stupid reason or other, the vendors didn't all agree on a universal setting. They split between just using uncore, cache, or both...
For Asus, they used both, but you only need to touch cache.

The cache clock speed dynamically changes just like core frequency, but between 2.0-3.2ghz on light loads and does a static 2.7ghz on the 7820X on heavy ones - it's 2.4ghz on the 7900X.
Beyond trying to find the lowest cache voltage for a static 2.7ghz, I suggest leaving this one alone. The gains from overclocking this are smaller than core clock OC, and the hit to thermals are just as hard.
I also recall threads where users pushed cache too hard and degraded their chips at around 3.3ghz on it.


One thing at a time though.
If you adjust too many things at once, you're going to have a hell of a time trying to troubleshoot if you run into problems.

 

[cardey88]

There are THREE voltage settings that you will need to tinker with on the X299 platform in regards to cpu overclocking. Quite a bit more involved than just adjusting cpu Vcore on the mainstream platforms.
It's not going to be a quick process.
1)Cpu Input Voltage, or VCCIN.
This one controls the voltage going into the entire cpu, but does not affect thermals as much as the other 2 do.
Now, while lower is still better, you can't go too low, or the cpu will 'Phantom Throttle'. Link to old overclock.net thread on Phantom Throttling, here.

2)Cpu Vcore, or Core Voltage.
This one's a no-brainer. The setting just about everyone is familiar with.

3)Cpu Cache/Uncore, Voltage.
This one is for the mesh bus that Skylake-X/X Refresh/Cascade Lake use, as opposed to the faster ring bus on the mainstream cpus.
This one here was confusing, because for some stupid reason or other, the vendors didn't all agree on a universal setting. They split between just using uncore, cache, or both...
For Asus, they used both, but you only need to touch cache.

The cache clock speed dynamically changes just like core frequency, but between 2.0-3.2ghz on light loads and does a static 2.7ghz on the 7820X on heavy ones - it's 2.4ghz on the 7900X.
Beyond trying to find the lowest cache voltage for a static 2.7ghz, I suggest leaving this one alone. The gains from overclocking this are smaller than core clock OC, and the hit to thermals are just as hard.
I also recall threads where users pushed cache too hard and degraded their chips at around 3.3ghz on it.


One thing at a time though.
If you adjust too many things at once, you're going to have a hell of a time trying to troubleshoot if you run into problems.

Thanks I really appreciate all of that info, you've given me plenty to keep me busy tinkering for a while. I think I may look into getting a delid sorted before I even bother though. There doesn't seem much point if my thermals are gonna be all over the show.
I'll give you a heads up if I run into a bit of trouble, thanks again.

 

[Phaaze88]

I wouldn't say the cpu thermals are going to be all over the show.
You don't have much room to work with because of poor thermal transfer from the die to the IHS.
As I was saying earlier, use of a bigger cooler and high end paste only does so much on the surface(IHS), when the problem lies beneath it.

Skylake-X Refresh(9xxxX) and Cascade Lake-X(109xxX) alleviate this a little bit by using a solder-based TIM, but these Intel extreme chips are just hot and power hungry.

 

[cardey88]

I wouldn't say the cpu thermals are going to be all over the show.
You don't have much room to work with because of poor thermal transfer from the die to the IHS.
As I was saying earlier, use of a bigger cooler and high end paste only does so much on the surface(IHS), when the problem lies beneath it.

Skylake-X Refresh(9xxxX) and Cascade Lake-X(109xxX) alleviate this a little bit by using a solder-based TIM, but these Intel extreme chips are just hot and power hungry.

Yeah by "all over the show", I was referring to the temperature delta between the hottest and coldest cores you referred to in your first post. It wasn't the clearest language on my behalf, my bad.
I was thinking about it though and perhaps it's worth giving a shot before I think about a delid. Just to determine how well my CPU is binning, and to check the temperature delta between my own cores. E.g if it bins poorly I probably just won't bother.
Anyway thanks again for all this valuable information.