Safe temperature and voltage for i5-3570k?

[seethrough]

Hey all,

I just set up the turbo boost on my motherboard to overclock to 4200mhz on my i5-3570k. I'm not very experienced with overclocking, but after some googling around I got some different information regarding safe voltages for this processor.

I was wondering if anyone had any input if these were stable temperatures and voltages for my processor (and gpu, it's the 670 FTW with the FPS Target set to 60, ussually OCs to just under 1200mhz when playing games).

Also, is there any sort of extra wear and tear that goes along with overclocking my components to these speeds/temperatures/voltages? Will it decrease the longevity of the components?

Here are my hwmonitor readings after an hour of Planetside 2 maxed out:

 

[steddora]

The Ivy, I have heard mixed results on the actual safe voltages but I wouldn't run over 1.3v with one personally. Heck, I try to keep my SB below 1.3v and they are supposedly more apt at taking voltage than the SB.

The GTX, I'm not completely sure on those as I've never played with a 670 yet. None of the people I've built for have ever wanted one (grumble). As for what I see though if those are load temps for the CPU and GPU, those temperatures are nice.

Degradations.. it's like cancer for a processor. Will advancing the voltage kill the processor faster? Absolutely. Hot temperatures and high voltages can increase the speed of the die's degradation exponentially. However, there's no real "formula" to rate this degradation but it is there. Extremely high voltages can kill a processor immediately or in just a few hours while heat can do the same thing. But like everything else; over time the parts will wear out and effectively die.

So do whatever you can to keep temperatures low and expect higher voltages to degrade your gear faster. There's no way if telling that your CPU will handle say 1.3v for 10 years or 10 months. There's no way to truly tell that I've seen. But for the most part; intel processors for the last few generations have been pretty good at lasting. I actually know someone with a 2600k like mine that has been at 4.8Ghz with 1.475v for over two years. However I've also read that people have lasted at that voltage for only a few months.

As for your temperatures though, very nice. My 2600k hits about 50C when running 4.4Ghz with PS2, and my pair of GTX 550's only hit about 40C (it doesn't seem to really run these cards that hard for some reason even though I have it all pretty much maxed aside from AA settings)

 

[Orlean]

What cooler are you using ? I would also use CPU-Z to monitor Voltage it's known to be more accurate, also use Prime95 to test at 100% load and see what results you get. As far as the information you provided the temps don't look bad since Planetside 2 is a CPU bound game so I know the cores are somewhat loaded. But as far as comparison sake Im clocked at 4.2ghz running 100% load topping out at 1.096-1.1v with a max temp of 62-64c under Prime95 Blend test.

 

[seethrough]

hyper 212+ and an exhaust fan on the other side of the motherboard

 

[JohnGalt1]

I would try over clocking it manually. Start at 4200 MHz, 1.265 Voltage, and start dropping the voltage from there. (Or upping the OC if you like). I know that the built in over clock feature on my Asus board had the voltage WAY over what I actually needed to get a stable over clock at 4500 MHz. Chances are you can drop the voltage quite a bit, and still get a stable over clock testing with P95.

 

[seethrough]

Are you referring to tuning the voltage manually? Let's say if I set the voltage to 1.265, will it only get to that voltage when the turbo boost is going, or will it be at that voltage constantly?

 

[steddora]

If you set the voltage to "Fixed Mode", it will disable the speedstep and turbo frequencies.

So if you set say, 1.265v @ 4.4Ghz That is what the chip will get no matter if it's idle or full load. Using fixed voltages is the BEST way to get a stable overclock. Then once you get that stability; if you're anal like me and want low voltage idles; it's time to tinker with offsets.

I found 1.25 to be completely stable on my 2600k@4.4ghz So I tweaked the offset to hit about 1.275v at max so the idle would still be below 1.000v. It took a while since I can adjust by 0.005v on my offset. But once I found the perfect offset for the clock; I was super happy!

The three voltage settings are usually Auto (which reads from the chip), offset (allows changes to what the chip wants), and fixed which is always that voltage. I NEVER run auto unless I'm bone stock. And honestly, the voltages on my processor with Auto on the voltage and stock speed would go over 1.3v occasionally which also caused some nice heat with my older Zalman 9500 cooler. Since then I dropped a Hyper212+ into it and saw dramatic decreases at load.

Either way, I suggest finding the frequency/voltage combination you want and then work with offsets to find where the voltage will be within range for you. Once you run offsets you can actually re-enable speedstep and idle at 1600mhz like I do.