Overclocking (Auto Turbo Boost) Done on my i7 3770K, Discussion with Turbo Boost

[Canskyline137]

Hello, I've been messing around with intel's turbo boost technology on BIOS for a while and at first I recognized I had a turbo boost up to 3.9 GHz as it was advertised when I bought it. When I turned the turbo boost into manual, it automatically set the multiplier to x41, which with the 103mhz bus speed let my CPU reach over 4.2GHz. Upon discovery, I of course left my intel stock cooler to dust and did research and in the end bought the hyper 212 evo. This left me with an insanely stable CPU speed I've been using over atleast the 1 and a half years with the cooler not letting the heat nearly get to high enough for a problem to occur at all.

I'm wondering if anyone else has done some "overclocking" using the intel turbo boost, or they prefer to overclock manually.

"Intel® Turbo Boost Technology can automatically run the processor core faster than the marked frequency if the part is operating under power, temperature, and current specifications limits of the thermal design power (TDP). Performance of both single and multi-threaded applications is increased."

From the common questions answered on Intel's website again;

Can I specify the maximum Intel® Turbo Boost Technology frequency?
No. Maximum frequency for processor function is automatic and dependent on working conditions.


So then how has it found out my max multiplier can be x41 when the max is supposed to be 3.9ghz?

Thanks in advance.

 

[k1114]

Anything above stock is overclocking and although you actually can change turbo speeds, it's no longer "turbo" in intel's eyes. There's really no difference between adjusting turbo multi and normal ocing other than the different speeds per core usage. Although, once you go higher, turbo won't be stable. You can easily push it higher even on stock vcore. If you left vcore on auto, it's putting in a lot more voltage than you need. You might as well get better performance at the same temps/power usage by manually setting it.

 

[Canskyline137]

Anything above stock is overclocking and although you actually can change turbo speeds, it's no longer "turbo" in intel's eyes. There's really no difference between adjusting turbo multi and normal ocing other than the different speeds per core usage. Although, once you go higher, turbo won't be stable. You can easily push it higher even on stock vcore. If you left vcore on auto, it's putting in a lot more voltage than you need. You might as well get better performance at the same temps/power usage by manually setting it.

Since I know it can handle 4.2ghz, I'll try manually setting it to that without changing any voltage, but how come turbo gets unstable?
I'm a bit shaky about the topic of overclocking since I really do not want to experiment on higher when I could be damaging the hardware.

 

[k1114]

You are already overclocking and doing it on auto is worse. Chances are you were overvolting on auto so you already did more "damage" than if you did it manually. I say "damage" because it probably kept in within the safe range at such a low speed so didn't actually do anything. Worrying about damaging components is not even a concern. The issue is exaggerated by people who don't know better. Keep voltages and temps in a safe range and you won't even affect the cpu's life.

Turbo gets unstable because different speeds need different voltage. It won't know how much is needed at what speed. Also anytime it changes between speeds there will be a voltage change and with that is a voltage fluctuation. That's more chances for voltage to go out of stable range and more work for the vrm. Just running at the same speed no matter how many cores are being used is simpler for you to figure out what vcore is needed as well. What's the reason to complicate things with turbo?

 

[Canskyline137]

You are already overclocking and doing it on auto is worse. Chances are you were overvolting on auto so you already did more "damage" than if you did it manually. I say "damage" because it probably kept in within the safe range at such a low speed so didn't actually do anything. Worrying about damaging components is not even a concern. The issue is exaggerated by people who don't know better. Keep voltages and temps in a safe range and you won't even affect the cpu's life.

Turbo gets unstable because different speeds need different voltage. It won't know how much is needed at what speed. Also anytime it changes between speeds there will be a voltage change and with that is a voltage fluctuation. That's more chances for voltage to go out of stable range and more work for the vrm. Just running at the same speed no matter how many cores are being used is simpler for you to figure out what vcore is needed as well. What's the reason to complicate things with turbo?

That's a fair point. I've got a lot of experimenting to do tomorrow. Going to change max TDP and max temp settings along with fan curve on my EVGA gtx970 and change the OC to manual. What I'm wondering is what'll exactly happen when I hit the limit on overclocking. I've not got much experience whatsoever and as a beginner to being someone who utilizes their hardware to do more when it's able to, I just shy away from it. Without changing the vcore, what would I change to overclock up to 4.2 at the start? Keep bus speed unchanged and use multiplier or what? Thanks for all the help by the way. Concerns being thrown into the void.

 

[Canskyline137]

I will of course also research more about the topic since I clearly haven't done enough before hitting the BIOS.

 

[k1114]

Tdp isn't something you change directly. I don't see what your gpu has to do with this.

Stick to the simple ocing method. No need to complicate things. Changing bclk is not recommended so you can change that back to 100. You just need to change multi and vcore. I'd prefer offset vcore just so the cpu can still downclock when idle. Don't go above 1.35v, the evo may not handle it. If you go above what the cpu can handle as far as speed, then it's unstable, you crash. I don't know what kind of answer you were expecting. 4.2 should be easy. I'd aim for 4.5. Why limit yourself on a k cpu? Did you know a non k 3770 can oc to 4.3ghz without touching bclk? Seems pointless to spend more on the k cpu if you are going lower.

 

[Canskyline137]

To be honest, I didn't exactly choose my own CPU, the person who did for me knew I wanted to game and I wanted it powerful and I also had the budget. I doubt I could understand such things from the get go when I was probably about 11-12.

 

[Canskyline137]

Tdp isn't something you change directly. I don't see what your gpu has to do with this.

Stick to the simple ocing method. No need to complicate things. Changing bclk is not recommended so you can change that back to 100. You just need to change multi and vcore. I'd prefer offset vcore just so the cpu can still downclock when idle. Don't go above 1.35v, the evo may not handle it. If you go above what the cpu can handle as far as speed, then it's unstable, you crash. I don't know what kind of answer you were expecting. 4.2 should be easy. I'd aim for 4.5. Why limit yourself on a k cpu? Did you know a non k 3770 can oc to 4.3ghz without touching bclk? Seems pointless to spend more on the k cpu if you are going lower.

The bios wanted to keep the bus speed at 103, so I ended up putting the multiplier up to x44 and it's been running smoothly. It seems the voltage settings are kept automatically and done by the motherboard, and at times I see the voltage changing from 1.064 to even 1.4. The heat hasn't been a problem whatsoever. Motherboard is Asus P8Z77-V LX.

 

[k1114]

You are in an auto oc mode. You should load defaults so it resets and unlocks everything to do manually. Asus mobos like to auto oc without the knowledge of the user. We've had plenty of issues with it and people freaking out from high temps/volts. It'll probably be fine but it's not recommended. You are stress testing right? What are the temps?

 

[Canskyline137]

You are in an auto oc mode. You should load defaults so it resets and unlocks everything to do manually. Asus mobos like to auto oc without the knowledge of the user. We've had plenty of issues with it and people freaking out from high temps/volts. It'll probably be fine but it's not recommended. You are stress testing right? What are the temps?

The CPU maxes out at 75 degress celcius under stress testing and doesn't go much higher, nor does all the cores reach 75 degrees. I realized the auto voltage liked pushing the CPU to nearly 1.394- volts and that's something I'll be looking at to change since that's just extra heat. With the manual settings, I'm guessing I should also change my bclk to 100 and change the multiplier to 45 instead of 44 then?
Since that affects RAM and some others things (as I've read) and my ram is working at 1648 instead of 1600mhz recommended (or advertised).

 

[Canskyline137]

Also realized, while having small snaps to 4.5ghz from the 1.6 with the x16 multiplier, the voltage sometimes (but a bit rarely) goes over 1.4V.. maybe it's hurting the processor to even be running it right now. https://gyazo.com/abbae2fe0a2b6675c5a5070fe81a9f4c

 

[Canskyline137]

Changed the OC to manual, set the multiplier to 45 and bclk to 100. I started with a 1.25 and with that and 4.5ghz, after a failed boot (blue screen), 2nd one went perfectly (as I couldnt have imagined) except for the fact that chrome would crash everytime I try to open it. Explorer didn't have such a problem along with some other apps I tried. Upon research, the reasoning could have been my fairly low voltage (atleast compared to what my cpu was used to) and I changed manual voltage to offset, all worries gone. Now to do a long ass stress test. One other thing, now my cpu fans rev up like a car upon load!

 

[Canskyline137]

Nevermind, start of long stress test ended with huge voltages up to 1.45 or more. Oops. Closed immediately when the temps went 85 degrees+. Nopenopenope. Do I just have to experiment manual voltage going upwards from 1.25 to 1.35 max or so?

 

[Canskyline137]

Well, the huge voltage and therefore heat and therefore the cpu fan reving up under load makes a lot of sense. I'm a noob with this and I accept that a lot and I guess I'm lucky I didnt fuck up things.

I had limited time before going to bed (and I'm writing this in bed aswell) and I ended up bumping core voltage to 1.28V manual which I tested for a minute and got max 73 degrees down to 58. at this point it sounds like a better idea to just keep it at what is comfortable at the start than to push it forward with increasing fixed voltages. I'll do a more long probably p95 test once I get that installed and hope for the best.

 

[k1114]

If you know what others are getting on an average 4.5 oc, then you can use that as a starting point and work your way from there. What was your offset?

 

[Canskyline137]

If you know what others are getting on an average 4.5 oc, then you can use that as a starting point and work your way from there. What was your offset?

I forgot, but I doubt it was even changed from what it was before, which is why I didnt know what it would do then. Thanks for the time you've been spending replying to this, it's a huge amount of support you've given that I couldn't experiment all these without.