Question about AI Suite 3 OCing an i5 4690k on an Asus Z97M-Plus with Corsair PC-10700 (XMP 1600)

[Darkmatterx]

I'm using AI Suite 3 to OC my PC and before I did a fresh install of Windows 10, AI Suite 3 OC'd my 4690k from 3.5GHz to 4.5Ghz. Since my fresh install of Windows 10 it will only (using auto settings) go up to 3.9GHz. I tried upping the BCLK from 100MHz to 125MHz which got me to 4.5GHz and my ram was running at 2000MHz (double sided total) instead of 1600MHz but the timings were relaxed from,
9.0, 9, 9, 24, 208 to 11, 13, 13, 35, 260. Is this a big difference or will the ram running at 2000MHz instead of 1600MHz make up for it? My other option is to leave the BCLK at 100 and try upping the Ratio from 39 to 45 but I tried this once and when I got to about 41 or 42 I BSOD.

I don't know why AI Suite 3 isn't able to OC me back to 4.5GHz since the fresh install...

Thanks

 

[Eximo]

You probably just need to change the performance settings in Windows. If you wanted memory bandwidth, you certainly achieved an increase, latency is a little higher though.

Though I don't recommend using AI suite at all, usually applies far too much voltage. Seems like your memory can run fairly fast, I would go ahead and reset the BIOS to defaults and follow through on a simple overclocking guide like this one:

http://www.overclock.net/forum/5-intel-cpus/1411077-haswell-overclocking-guide-statistics.html

Or another one I like:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-1722630/intel-god-quick-dirty-guide-4ghz-haswell.html

 

[Darkmatterx]

Thanks. I've told AI Suite 3 not to mess much with the voltage. Quite frankly, as someone who doesn't do a lot of OC'ing changing voltages scares me. I'll take a look at the guides.

But if I may ask, which is better, the higher DDR3 speed with the increased latency or the lower speed with faster latency?

Thanks

 

[Eximo]

You could attempt tweaking the timings down, but really either is probably acceptable for gaming. A little then some of the low end kits.

I would probably overclock it the proper way, then see if I could get the memory to run at 1866 with more reasonable timings.

 

[Darkmatterx]

OK just to be clear since I haven't read both articles yet, when you say OC the "right way" I assume your talking about doing it from within the BIOS? Should I use Asus's BIOS AI Tweaker option or do it manually?

 

[Eximo]

Manually.

You can try out the AI Tweaker, but then you should see what it did and compare that to the overclocking guides. As I said, those tools go for maximum compatibility and success rate, not the ideal settings for your specific CPU.

They are getting better though. A lot of newer motherboards include profile presets, and they were pretty close to the mark for me, but that is on a 7th gen chip. I still had to tweak the CPU for stability at that point, but it certainly gave me a good feel for what voltage the CPU needed.

I never made an attempt with my z87 board to use any of the onboard tools, just did it the old fashioned way.

 

[Darkmatterx]

OK first thing I did was reset AI Suite 3 to default, rebooted and uninstalled it. I then went into the BIOS and made these changes. Basically trying to get my machine to as vanilla as I could.

You can see the changes I did here,

https://ibb.co/f2T2Bn

Am I ready to start? lol

Correction: I uninstalled all of AI Suite 3 except the USB 3.0 Boost.

 

[Eximo]

I would start from a BIOS reset myself. But as long as you achieve results without overheating or running too much voltage then it will be fine.