# Overclocking i5-4670k



## doveman (Aug 19, 2007)

I just got round to building my i5-4670k/Asus Z97-A system with the Scythe Kotetsu HSF the other day. Did a build for my Dad with the same mobo/CPU but the Hyper 212 Evo HSF a couple of months ago and that works fine at [email protected]


My system at 3.8Ghz and in High Performance mode to keep the CPU at a fixed speed/voltage (monitored with HwInfo)

Idle:
CPU Fan: 780 PM
Chassis Fan: 1000 RPM

CPU: 41c
Cores, 42, 38, 40, 36

The fans were a bit noisy like that so I manually edited their profiles in the BIOS. 

CPU Fan: 742 RPM
Chassis Fan: 318 RPM

CPU: 46c
Cores: 45, 42, 44, 41

Aida64 Stess Test for 30mins: 

immediate:
CPU: 60c
Cores: 59.5, 59, 59, 54

after 30mins:
CPU Fan: 940 RPM
Chassis Fan: 325 RPM (I had this tied to the motherboard temp, so it didn't speed up, I changed it to follow the CPU speed after this)
CPU: 60c
Cores: 60.2, 59.3, 59, 54.5 (Avg), 67, 67, 66, 61 (Max)

immediately after stopping Aida64:
CPU: 47c
Cores: 47,44,44,41

I tweaked the fans a bit more and added a Scythe 120mm intake fan.

Ambient temp was 24c.

Idle:
CPU Fan: 780 RPM
Intake fan: 440 RPM
Exhust Fan: 370 RPM

CPU: 40c
Cores, 41, 38, 39, 33

Aida64 for 30mins:
CPU Fan: 935 RPM
Intake: 435 RPM
Exhaust: 544 RPM

CPU: 55.8c (Avg), 62c (Max)
Cores: 55, 54, 54, 50 (Avg), 62, 62, 61, 56 (max)

I wonder if the fact that core 4 is running a bit cooler than the others indicates that I haven't applied the TIM very well, or if that's just normal?

For comparison, here's a screenshot from testing my Dad's build (with the Hyper 212 Evo) also running at 3.8 Ghz but at 1.173v, whilst mine is at 1.1v. His CPU fan was running at 1000 RPM and there was an intake fan and exhaust fan running at 792 RPM and 969 RPM (not sure which was which). 



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Next, I overclocked to 4.4 Ghz @1.225v (still running in High Performance to lock the clockspeed). Ambient temp was 25c. I tweaked the fans a bit more.

Idle:
CPU fan: 820 RPM
Intake fan: 670 RPM
Exhaust: 530 RPM
CPU: 43c
Cores, 43, 40, 41, 36

Aida64 for 30mins:
CPU Fan: 1080 RPM
Intake: 715 RPM
Exhaust: 870 RPM
CPU: 66c (Avg), 73c (Max)
Cores: 63, 62, 62, 56 (Avg), 72, 71, 70, 66 (max)

immediately after stopping:
CPU: 44c
Cores: 44,43,42,37

So it doesn't seem to be doing much better than the Hyper 212 Evo in my Dad's build. Here's the results with that at [email protected] running Aida64 (ambient was 3c higher at 28c):



Even taking into account he's using a different case and fans, which were running at different speeds to mine (his vs mine: CPU 990 RPM vs 1080 RPM, Intake 1080 RPM vs 715 RPM, Exhaust 915 RPM vs 870 RPM), I was hoping for better results with the Kotetsu. Comparing the max. core temps:

His: 77, 76,73, 69
Mine: 72, 71, 70, 66

and taking the +3c in ambient temp into account, the decrease is -2c for cores 0 and 1 and 0c for cores 2 and 4, which could just be down to my more open Coolermaster HAF XB case compared to his NZXT Source 530 (with top vents blocked off).

It does seem my 4670k just isn't as good as my Dad's one sadly. At [email protected] it was fine with Aida64 stresstest but BSOD running ArmA3, just on the menus not even running a mission, with "WHEA Uncorrectable Error".

I bumped it up to 1.25v and it's fine now. I might be able to decrease it a bit still from there. Even though I'm using the superior Scythe Kotetsu HSF compared to my Dad's Hyper 212 Evo, temps were about the same at [email protected], so it'll be running hotter at 1.25v. I haven't bothered running Aida64 @1.25v yet though, so I'm not sure exactly how much higher but ArmA3 only pushed it to about 60c, so it's fine for normal use.

I was hoping to overclock it a bit higher than 4.4Ghz but it's not the end of the world if I can't. I do want to make sure the HSF is cooling properly though, so I'd welcome any advice as the Kotetsu doesn't seem to be doing as well as it should.

I have to admit, I wasn't entirely happy with my TIM application. The guides suggest a 1mm vertical line but that's tiny and seems impossible, as pushing the plunger on the syringe (MX-2 in this case) doesn't give great control and it tends to come out with a bigger amount than is ideal, so I just try and spread that down in a line, adding a bit more if it starts to run out. In this case, I ended up with a bit of a gap in the middle, so added some there to make sure it was covered. I took a photo of it just in case it didn't seem to be performing very well:


I don't think my application when doing my Dad's build was much different though, except for the extra blob in the middle as I think I was able to just spread it down in a line in one go in that case.


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## doveman (Aug 19, 2007)

Damn thing just gave me "WHEA Uncorrectable Error" again, whilst at [email protected] Surely I don't need to increase the voltage even higher for this basic overclock?

I was running DCS World at the time. Played ArmA3 for several hours the other day at these settings, which was what triggered the same error @1.225v.

Had some weird stuff happening shortly before it BSOD as well. First, I noticed that VAC (Voice Assisted Commands) wasn't working, so I opened the editor to check and the My Documents\VAC folder was completely empty. OK, I thought, at least I'm running Crashplan to backup my files, so I tried to restore with that but each time it would say completed but in the results it showed 0 restored files and indeed, nothing was restored. After rebooting following the BSOD, Crashplan worked fine to restore these files (it restores them to the desktop for you to move to wherever) but then I checked My Documents\VAC and all the files were already back again!


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

All CPUs are different. People with the exact same setup can get different results .

Usually the WHEA error is down to some windows files being corrupted and nothing to do with your overclock run sfc /scannow from the command line.

It could be a psu issue but doubtful.


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## doveman (Aug 19, 2007)

Yeah, it seems this one needs 1.26v to be stable at 4.4Ghz. At 1.25v it's fine with Aida64 but BSOD with games (ArmA3, DCS World).

Regarding that WHEA error, I've read that it's actually sent directly from the CPU and nothing to do with any software or the OS, although I'm sure it's possible for a corrupt or malicious file to trigger it falsely nonetheless.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

run sfc /scannow and see what happens if it's ok then ivestigate your psu voltages in the BIOS. If they are ok then you will have to raise the vcore.

can you post all the changes you have made such as if you have set the RAM voltages and times etc.

I know some people that have had to raise the vcore on that cpu to 1.28 even for 4.4 although I know someone who has it at 4.7 and they have it at 1.28.

Some asus boards such as mine require you to mess with the VCCSA when overclocking as it causes the memory manager to go a bit screwy.


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## T_Rex (Oct 21, 2012)

Let me ask, what does your 3.4 ghz processor not do that you want it to do? Overclocking is basically pointless with new processors these days and it voids your warranty. Just a thought.


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## doveman (Aug 19, 2007)

ChronoGeek said:


> Let me ask, what does your 3.4 ghz processor not do that you want it to do? Overclocking is basically pointless with new processors these days and it voids your warranty. Just a thought.


I play games like DCS World and ArmA3 that depend on fast single-threaded performance, so the more speed the better for them.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

a lot people dont like overclocking, but in certain things it does really help. I have always overclocked and I always will.

The warranty argument is **** because intel now sell warranties to cover overclocking screw ups which is technically hard to do these days and you dont even need the warranties anyway.


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## Rich-M (May 2, 2007)

I agree with Chronogeek here, these days the difference you will see in performance is not worth the risk. I don't see what you are using for ram but if you have at least 1866 ram 8Gb-16Gb and a decent video card, the little gain you get from such an overclock isn't worth the risk IMHO. You can see a lot more by upping the ram and video card frankly.


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## T_Rex (Oct 21, 2012)

Green you know I'm a very long time overclocker. I fully understand it - the benefits and the caveats, but to readily and enthusiastically advise someone in a tech help forum to overclock can be sketchy. If done it should be done with high quality components, and with the full forethought that you are now a "voided warranty" type of enthusiast. Todays processors generate enough speed to not ever have to touch overclocking, and gaming wise stability is paramount to lengthy intense gaming sessions. It's also paramount if you are using the same PC for critical data/work functions. I have had this 4670k @ 4.6 for 48 hours prime stable 5 instances but it would not do 4.7 stably that's the combination of the boards limitations and the chip. Also my frame rate improved only about 5-10 (10 being the most) in any given game. So to reduce any chance of instability because I do work on this PC -- I backed it down to stock speeds. The R9 290x does the rest as far as gaming goes.


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## doveman (Aug 19, 2007)

Rich-M said:


> I agree with Chronogeek here, these days the difference you will see in performance is not worth the risk. I don't see what you are using for ram but if you have at least 1866 ram 8Gb-16Gb and a decent video card, the little gain you get from such an overclock isn't worth the risk IMHO. You can see a lot more by upping the ram and video card frankly.


The games I play tend to push the CPU more than the GPU. Sure, they benefit from a decent GPU as well but they do a lot of calculations for the AI, etc that greatly benefit from upping the CPU speed as much as possible.

I'm running 16GB 1600Mhz RAM. The benefit in going to 1866Mhz or even 2400Mhz RAM, regardless of benchmark results, is minor in terms of game performance from what I've seen and certainly not worth the price premium.

I'm not worried about any risk. I'm keeping temperatures well under control with the Scythe Kotetsu.


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## doveman (Aug 19, 2007)

greenbrucelee said:


> run sfc /scannow and see what happens if it's ok then ivestigate your psu voltages in the BIOS. If they are ok then you will have to raise the vcore.
> 
> can you post all the changes you have made such as if you have set the RAM voltages and times etc.
> 
> ...


Files and voltages are fine. I haven't touched the RAM settings, using the XMP profile for that. Pretty much only adjusted the CPU Input voltage (1.8v) and Vcore (1.26v) and it seems stable now. I did disable Spread Spectrum and I think there were a couple of other things it said to disable when overclocking, although it probably does that anyway if I leave them on Auto.

I don't think I changed anything else on my Dad's build either, other than perhaps disabling SpeedStep, C-States and all the other power-saving features, as they're not used anyway with it running in High Performance mode, which I found was the only way to prevent high latency issues being triggered by Internet/NIC traffic. Main difference between the two builds is he only has 8GB and I have 16GB.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

the more RAM you have then the more it can affect the OC. I never use xmp and I always keep speedstep on but disable the c-states.

have you set the loadline calibration or LLC? depedning on what is used it can also affect what vcore you need.

@chrono I agree you do need good components and yes it really isn't needed these days but it can help even if it is just 5fps.


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## doveman (Aug 19, 2007)

greenbrucelee said:


> the more RAM you have then the more it can affect the OC. I never use xmp and I always keep speedstep on but disable the c-states.
> 
> have you set the loadline calibration or LLC? depedning on what is used it can also affect what vcore you need.
> 
> @chrono I agree you do need good components and yes it really isn't needed these days but it can help even if it is just 5fps.


It did occur to me that the extra RAM could make the OC require more finessing, although I think the extra vcore the CPU needs, compared to my Dad's system, is just down to the CPU not being a great OCer.

What is the result of keeping speedstep on but disabling the c-states? What happens and doesn't happen with those settings?

Initially LLC was on Auto, so I'm not sure what it was setting it to. It ranges from 0-9 with 9 being designated at 115% but it doesn't explain what the others set it to. I then set it to 5 and just increased it to 6 now but even on Auto, I think it kept the VID around 1.258-1.260 under load. I'd need to double-check that though.


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## Rich-M (May 2, 2007)

doveman said:


> The games I play tend to push the CPU more than the GPU. Sure, they benefit from a decent GPU as well but they do a lot of calculations for the AI, etc that greatly benefit from upping the CPU speed as much as possible.
> 
> I'm running 16GB 1600Mhz RAM. The benefit in going to 1866Mhz or even 2400Mhz RAM, regardless of benchmark results, is minor in terms of game performance from what I've seen and certainly not worth the price premium.
> 
> I'm not worried about any risk. I'm keeping temperatures well under control with the Scythe Kotetsu.


1600 ram is fine and I agree to move to 1866 will give you next to nothing however you didn't post what ram or gpu you are using so I only guessed at the solution. I just wish more folks would realize that in posting a hardware issue, it is absolutely necessary to point out all relevant hardware onboard to answer properly.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

For the LLC use whatever high is considered to be I would guess 7

as for speedstep with it enabled the cpu will use half its stock speed when not doing much. The c-states do things like disable the internal clocks and lower voltages when having an overclock you dont want a sudden spike of voltage that could screw things up.


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## doveman (Aug 19, 2007)

greenbrucelee said:


> For the LLC use whatever high is considered to be I would guess 7
> 
> as for speedstep with it enabled the cpu will use half its stock speed when not doing much. The c-states do things like disable the internal clocks and lower voltages when having an overclock you dont want a sudden spike of voltage that could screw things up.


OK, thanks. I'll try just with Speedstep enabled then.

My system's still behaving a bit weirdly at times, so I obviously need to tweak it further. For instance, I've just resumed from standby and the taskbar is not showing the running apps, in this case just Google Chrome but it's should show it. I tried killing and restarting Explorer but that didn't make any difference.

Also, I'm currently testing Balanced Mode and before going to standby, it was stepping down to 800 Mhz when idle but after resuming, it was stuck at 3.4 Ghz even though all four cores had barely any load. It's sorted itself out now, perhaps because I switched to High Performance and back to Balanced. I'll probably stick with High Performance mode anyway, as any power savings on Balanced will be minimal (especially considering that the Vcore is fixed at 1.26v) and considering the latency problems I identified when using Balanced.

I checked the Uncore voltage earlier and on Auto, it was fluctuating between about 1.170 and 1.179v, so I set it to 1.18v and now it fluctuates between about 1.179 and 1.192v. HWMonitor shows VID at 1.259v, IA at 1.290v and LLC/Ring at 1.208v. I'm not sure what the last two refer to but I know it's showing some values incorrectly, as it shows Vcore at 1.792v.

I'll look at tweaking VCCSA/System Agent but I'll try bumping VCCIN up from 1.8 to 1.9v first. Currently HwInfo shows VCCSA at 0.848v and VCCIN at 1.792v.

I'm now only running 2*4GB RAM temporarily, as I needed to borrow two sticks for my other system, so that might make it easier to get it stable, although I'll probably have to adjust it again when I put the other 8GB back in.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

I never click on any of that high performance crap in the UEFI BIOS i just leave it be and overclock from standard.

When I first overclocked the system I have now I did click high performance before doing any overclock and I could not get it properly stable also I could not get a proper speed i.e 4.5, 4.6 or 4.7 it ended up being something dumb like 4.656 so I reset and kept performance at standard.

I always use asus boards so I am quite familiar with how the UEFIs are in them.


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## doveman (Aug 19, 2007)

greenbrucelee said:


> I never click on any of that high performance crap in the UEFI BIOS i just leave it be and overclock from standard.
> 
> When I first overclocked the system I have now I did click high performance before doing any overclock and I could not get it properly stable also I could not get a proper speed i.e 4.5, 4.6 or 4.7 it ended up being something dumb like 4.656 so I reset and kept performance at standard.
> 
> I always use asus boards so I am quite familiar with how the UEFIs are in them.


I was talking about High Performance power mode in Windows, not anything in the BIOS. I don't think I saw anything like that. I did try the automatic OC option once when I first installed it but as I recall it wasn't very high, something like 4.2 Ghz, so I prefer to tweak it manually.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

don't use the windows option either, put it at standard.


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## doveman (Aug 19, 2007)

As I explained before, that causes high latency problems, so I can't.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

I don't understand why it should. I have never had an issue with it but I have never had the cpu you have.


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