Did ASUS Auto Tune give me a good CPU core speed boost?
Did ASUS Auto Tune give me a good CPU core speed boost?
I recently finished my very first gaming computer from scratch and wanted to speed it up a bit. I know not much about overclocking though. All I remember is never going over 1.4 volts on the CPU voltage, keeping the CPU cool below 85 degrees Celsius, and experimenting with the multiplier and base clock until I find the best speed. After every change, I run Prime95 for at least an hour (ideally two days) to make sure it doesn't crash. But instead of that, I used my ASUS board's Auto Tuning feature, specifically the "Fast" option, not the extreme one. It worked great! My CPU got a 24% boost and my graphics card got a 13% boost. After testing for over an hour using Prime95 while watching temperatures and speeds with my ASUS AI suite, CoreTemp, and CPU-Z, there were no errors. Even though the test was successful, I'm still not sure if it's safe because of all the bad things people said about that Auto Tuning software. So here is my question: did ASUS give me a safe speed, or should I tune it a little more? Please note I don't want to go higher than 4.5 GHz and I'd be happy with 4.3 GHz instead. Here are the parts of my computer used for this job only: Motherboard: ASUS P8Z77-V LK CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO (single fan) RAM: 2x4GB Kingston Hyper X, 1600MHz, CL9, Dual-Channel Power Supply: OCZ ModXstream 700W Case Fans: Total of 5 fans including intakes and exhausts. Here are the test results and settings that were used: The max frequency reached was 4224 MHz, the base clock (BCLK) was 103 MHz with a multiplier of x41, the CPU voltage was set to 1.185V (it was actually this low, not 1.85 as I thought earlier), and the voltages for RAM were 1.65V plus extra power supplies at 12.192V for +12V, 5.08V for +5V, and 3.392V for +3.3V. All fans ran to their maximum speed. The temperatures showed the Core 0 was hot at 73C max, Core 1 at 80C max, Core 2 at 77C max, and Core 3 at 75C max, while the motherboard temperature stayed at a cool 32C. Thanks in advance for all your helpful comments! EDIT: I made a mistake on the voltage number. It was set to 1.185V, NOT 1.85 as I originally thought.
The problem is that the automatic settings can be too strong, so it's better to do the overclock yourself. Asus has an AI or CPU level up in the BIOS which I think is better than the auto tune program in Windows. But if you set the option in the BIOS to manual, you can just increase the multiplier by yourself and add voltage only when needed, without even touching the BCLK. You can get about 4.2 ghz over clock without using as much power. Now that you see what the settings are for the auto overclock and how your cpu runs at that speed, try the manual overclock and see if you can reach it with less power used.
lowering the power to its lowest safe setting and then checking if that's what they got. I guess I shouldn't have looked too closely because the answer was already there; just wish I'd noticed sooner. Sorry for being late with my reply! 😛
Thanks for getting back to me! I know that Auto Tuner gave me a great OC, so I decided to try doing it myself. I managed to get 4.3GHz at 1.15V Vcore. I only ran it for 10-15 minutes, and there were no issues. Temps stayed up around 77-78C, and Vcore went up to about 1.195V. While we're here, can anyone tell me if this was a good and safe overclock? Note: I found out that the Vcore goes up from what you set to stop it from going too low.
Here are my test results and settings: ran for over one hour. Max Frequency is 4224 MHz. The clock speed is 103 MHz. I used a multiplier of x41. CPU Voltage was set to 1.185V, which hit the maximum limit at 1.232V. DDR Voltage stayed at 1.65V. The power supply gave me 12.192V on +12V, 5.08V on +5V, and 3.392V on +3.3V. All fans were spinning at full speed. Every single core was at 100%: Core 0 hit 73C max, Core 1 reached 80C max, Core 2 went to 77C max, and Core 3 stayed cool at 75C max. My motherboard temperature is 32C. Thanks in advance if everyone gives me some helpful feedback! EDIT: Oops, I messed up the Vcore setting. It was actually set to 1.185V, not 1.85. BCLK went down to 100 and DDR Voltage dropped to 1.5v
TalonX273 : Thanks everyone for the replies! I know that the Auto Tuner gave me a great OC, so I decided to try doing it myself. I got 4.3GHz at 1.15V Vcore. I only ran it for about 10-15 minutes and there were no issues. The temperatures hit around 77-78C, and the voltage reached 1.195V. While we're here, can anyone tell me if this was a safe overclock? Note: I found out that Vcore goes up from the set voltage to stop undervolting. What did you get with BCLK? Did you leave it at 100MHz? If you got this with a lower BCLK and no increase in frequency, then it's much safer. Also, the RAM should still be at 1.5V. If your temps are MAXXED OUT, that means those are the highest temps I'll ever see. Those are totally fine because in normal use, you'll probably only hit about 60% to 75% of those numbers, and they're perfectly safe.
Hey everyone! Thanks for the replies! Honestly, I don't know everything about OCs yet, but I did make something that runs stable at 4.3GHz, even if it's still a bit messy. Here are my settings and results: I tested it for 8 hours and 15 minutes with Prime95 running Max Frequency at 4300.4 MHz BCLK set to 100 MHz multiplied by x43. The CPU voltage/vcore hit 1.15V (maxed out between 1.192-1.208V). DDR went up to 1.5V, and EPU is active. I used TurboV EVO software to tweak voltages for power saving. Everything else stayed on default or auto mode: +12V at 12.288V, +5V at 5.08V, and +3.3V at 3.408V. CPU Core temperatures were all high (73C, 79C, 77C, and 75C), while the motherboard temperature was a cool 33C because everyone's fans are spinning at full speed. The room stayed around 27-29 degrees C because I used RealTemp, CPU-Z, and ASUS AI Suite to keep track of everything. -_- Oh wait, I don't know how to set voltage to exactly 1.15V while staying in offset mode for power saving, so I have to load the TurboV EVO profile every time I turn on my computer. If anyone can help me get this better, here are my target settings: keep it at 4.3GHz but still lower when nothing is doing, make sure Virtue MVP is on, and try to use the least amount of power and heat possible. Thanks!