voltage spikes with adaptive mode

[Lapien]

Hello people,

I've spent the last few days oc'ing and testing my new i5 6600k and so far it went pretty smoothly during manual voltage tests.

my pc:
i5 6600k
asus z170 pro gaming
nzxt kraken x61
g.skill 2x8gb ddr4 2666mhz
seasonic s12g 550w


I've been stable at both 4.5ghz / 1.230v and 4.4ghz 1.215v. Both setups using LLC 5 (1-7), testing with Realbench 8hours 16gb ram, P95 v26.6 small fft's, and cinebench r15.

I started encountering minor issues however, when I tried to switch my stable overclocks to adaptive mode. In both cases, I've set the "additional core voltage" to 1.230 or 1.215 respectively and left the "offset voltage on auto", enabled SpeedStep and left C-States on auto, and Windows power plan on balanced.

Now, while I'm aware that stress tests with AVX instructions will cause voltage spikes in adaptive mode, I am witnessing short spikes up to 0.030v above the max vcore I set in the BIOS even on desktop/internet browsing. For the most part the vcore stays close or slightly below the max voltage I set in the BIOS, but these spikes are somewhat worrying since I do not know what will happen when I start doing some long gaming sessions/video editing.

I know that even with these spikes my overall vcore is still well within safe values, but I cannot help but try to bring it under the max values I set in the BIOS. I've also considered to simply use manual mode voltage 24/7 with SpeedStep enabled, although I'm afraid of the long term implications of running max load voltage all the time (could someone elaborate on this?).

Sidenote: setting a -(minus)offset does't seem to help at all, it even caused the pc to crash from BIOS when using the 4.5ghz setup.

Any advice?

Thanks for reading!

 

[KeelinTy]

Dont use adaptive voltage. Use manual. Always use manual when overclocking. Well manual and sometimes manual with offset

 

[Lapien]

Won't 24/7 manual voltage affect the longevity of the CPU?

I've read a ton of stuff on forums, but can never find a definitive answer.

Assuming I'd run manual 24/7, is it ok to leave SpeedStep and C-States enabled to allow the CPU to downclock when idle?

thanks

 

[KeelinTy]

If you have it constantly run at that voltage. But even with manual voltage and speed step, the voltage drops when the processor is not running intensive tasks. I can watch the voltage with CPUZ with my cpu at 5.0ghz 24/7. The cpu stays at that speed but the voltage stays low until its under load which the voltage will jump back to 1.41v. Which is what I have set with manual voltage

 

[Lapien]

Which mobo do you have? My CPU voltage wont drop if I have manual mode and speedtest enabled. It downclocks when idle, but it doesnt drop the voltage, it stays static (watching it with cpu-z and hwmonitor)

 

[Lapien]

Went back to the bios and set it back to manual voltage, kept speedstep and c-states enabled, windows power plan on balanced. Vcore wont drop when idle. Doesnt work for me. 🙁

 

[KeelinTy]

Are you using high performance or balanced in power plan in windows? Use balanced because that will lower cpu speed when not in use. And what are you using to check voltage?

 

[Lapien]

I am using balanced power plan as mentioned on my original post. I am using cpu-z and hwmonitor to check the voltages.

The cpu clock speed DOES decrease on idle state, the voltage doesnt.

 

[Lapien]

You are worrying too much.

Maybe so:lol: It's just annoying that I cannot find a way around it. The oc looks stable even if it's spiking the voltage a bit every few minutes, but still it's bothersome.

 

[KeelinTy]

Yeah I agree, you're worrying too much. If it dies in three years because of it just go to intel and say that it just died on you and they will replace it as long as it is in warranty.