questions about overclocking g3258 on z97 board

[Gkschick]

I am relatively new to the over clocking thins but I have a Gigabyte z97-hd3 MOBO and could not get any results with changing the multiplier or voltages in the BIOS. Every time i changed anything, it would always show 3.2ghz after booting in windows 8.1.

I had gigabyte easytune installed with the MOBO drivers so i tried playing around with its preset OC settings but those didn't work either. I finally was able to get results in the advanced OC settings tab on easytune where i manually adjusted the multiplier and voltage myself. I am set at 4.3ghz and 1.224V at the moment with no problems at all.

I did notice the clock speed on cpu-z always shows 4.3 even when idle even though it would drop down when idle before the OC and only show max when doing a stress test on prime95. Should I be alarmed at this or no?

thanks.

system details:

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97-HD3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 270 2GB TWIN FROZR Video Card
Case: Cougar Solution (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Rosewill Hive 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit)

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-08-21 22:16 EDT-0400

 

[clutchc]

If that is a Rev 1 board, Do you have the latest BIOS for that MB?

 

[Gkschick]

I have rev 1.0 i think. The easy tune actually didn't work at all until i updated to the newest version from gigabyte website. the preset oc settings on the older version were ridiculous with 3.3 for mild up to 3.6 for extreme.

Shouldn't i be able to use the rev 1 bios to oc though? It is set to 4.3ghz right now but my concern is cpu-z shows it always at that speed and never changes even when idle. I am new to overcooking so i am not sure if this is safe for long term.

 

[clutchc]

You must have a late enough BIOS then if it recognized the G3258 and allow a multiplier increase. Are you OC'ing w/software or in the BIOS?

 

[Gkschick]

i did the current OC with gigabyte easy tune but with the manual 'advanced settings" options since the preset ones didn't seem to work. I am getting great performance at the moment but i don't want to be messing anything up in the long run. I have not gone over 40C in temp yet either even while playing tomb raider on max settings and getting steady 60fps.

 

[clutchc]

When you were making changes in BIOS, did you safe the changes when exiting?

 

[Gkschick]

i hit save and exit every time

 

[geofelt]

You should have the ability to specify speedstep (or C1E) which will lower the multiplier when there is little work to do. No idea what it is called in your bios.
It is probably not anything to be concerned about.

 

[Gkschick]

should i do that or is it fine without?

 

[geofelt]

should i do that or is it fine without?

Being somewhat of a perfectionist, I would try to implement speedstep.
Use google to find more about overclocking on a Gigabyte Z97 motherboard.

There is also a setting that will reduce the vcore when not under load. The name escapes me at the moment.