Overclocking the 4790k - VCCIN, VCORE etc.

[chrisprice12]

Hey,

 

I'm going to be reluctantly honest here and say I am a first time OC'er. I'd prefer it if you weren't condescending -- I understand the process and have researched it for a while. I apologise for being blunt.   

 

This will help not just me but others as well; I see people on the internet looking for the same answer as me, but not getting it. So if we were to just clear it up in this thread it'd be great. I'm going to be asking some stupid questions for others to understand even though I know it anyway. I'll mark these with a star. Also, if you could answer the questions in general (not in relation to the 4790k) unless specified otherwise. Put a number before your answer please 

 

I know this is specific, I just want to help others as well as me haha. Any info you have would be great. 

 

1. What's VCCIN?*

2. What's VCORE?*

3. When would you change VCCIN?

4. When would you change VCORE?*

5. What increments should you increase these by?

6. Max safe VCORE 4790k

7. Max safe VCCIN 4790k

 

-- Getting a stable 5.0GHz OC (4790k) --

 

8. Things that should be changed*

9. Best results in relation to voltages you have got (or know about)

10. Any last info you think should be added

 

 

You don't have to answer every question. Just put the number of the question you are answering before.

 

Thanks for everything, really helping me and the community!

 

Chris

[ImBleu]

A 5.0Ghz OC is very unlikely on a Haswell Chip and most people will only achieve between a 4.4 to a 4.7Ghz OC stable. I'd keep your CPU Core Voltage below 1.35v personally and up the multiplier from 40 to 44 and then go through the Stress Test, Measure Temperatures, Increase Multiplier by 01 then repeat until you're hitting temperatures you are unhappy with.

 

I personally won the Silicon lottery and keep my i7-4790k at 5.0Ghz @ 1.325v @ 40C Idle / 75C Load. But this is a very anomalous result.

[chrisprice12]

A 5.0Ghz OC is very unlikely on a Haswell Chip and most people will only achieve between a 4.4 to a 4.7Ghz OC stable. I'd keep your CPU Core Voltage below 1.35v personally and up the multiplier from 40 to 44 and then go through the Stress Test, Measure Temperatures, Increase Multiplier by 01 then repeat until you're hitting temperatures you are unhappy with.

 

I personally won the Silicon lottery and keep my i7-4790k at 5.0Ghz @ 1.325v @ 40C Idle / 75C Load. But this is a very anomalous result.

Thanks, I appreciate the info. Well done haha, bet it feels so good to have reached 5. What would you increase the voltages by?

 

Chris

[Kodiack]

1. The amount of voltage going into the chip

2. The amount of voltage going into the CPU cores

3. When you're overclocking other integrated components, such as the memory controller (not recommended)

4. When you want to get a higher clock speed on your CPU (you'll almost always increase this, and usually only this)

5. It depends on your cooling, what clocks you're aiming for, and just how well your CPU takes to higher clocks and voltages

6. Somewhere between 1.3-1.4V. The lower the better.

7. Unsure. I don't recommend modifying it at all.

8. Don't aim for 5 GHz. But you'll be increasing both your core voltage and your multiplier. Nothing else should need to be changed.

9. My 4770K achieved 4.3 GHz on 1.3V. My 5820K achieved 4.5 GHz on 1.35V.

10. Overclocking Intel K-series processors is really easy, especially with adequate cooling! You may also want to disable Turbo Boost or ensure that the cores are all synchronised at the same clock. Turbo Boost can cause lower real-world clock speeds on many motherboards while all cores are active.

 

Oh, and check out AnandTech's 4790K overclocking!

[ImBleu]

Thanks, I appreciate the info. Well done haha, bet it feels so good to have reached 5. What would you increase the voltages by?

 

Chris

 

I just set it to 1.3 (a very reasonable value) and went as high as I could without running into issues (4.6/4.7Ghz AFAIK) then tried pushing to 1.32 and got to 4.8Ghz. Took the plunge and somewhere around 1.325V I got 5.0 to work. You could set voltage to 2V if you wanted to, but you'd degrade your CPU quickly. Luckily my CPU clocks itself safely and downclocks to about 1-2Ghz and downvolts when doing light loads (like right now )

[chrisprice12]

1. The amount of voltage going into the chip

2. The amount of voltage going into the CPU cores

3. When you're overclocking other integrated components, such as the memory controller (not recommended)

4. When you want to get a higher clock speed on your CPU (you'll almost always increase this, and usually only this)

5. It depends on your cooling, what clocks you're aiming for, and just how well your CPU takes to higher clocks and voltages

6. Somewhere between 1.3-1.4V. The lower the better.

7. Unsure. I don't recommend modifying it at all.

8. Don't aim for 5 GHz. But you'll be increasing both your core voltage and your multiplier. Nothing else should need to be changed.

9. My 4770K achieved 4.3 GHz on 1.3V. My 5820K achieved 4.5 GHz on 1.35V.

10. Overclocking Intel K-series processors is really easy, especially with adequate cooling! You may also want to disable Turbo Boost or ensure that the cores are all synchronised at the same clock. Turbo Boost can cause lower real-world clock speeds on many motherboards while all cores are active.

 

Oh, and check out AnandTech's 4790K overclocking!

Wow, great answer, exactly what was needed. Cheers dude!

 

Disable turbo boost permanently?

 

Chris

[chrisprice12]

I just set it to 1.3 (a very reasonable value) and went as high as I could without running into issues (4.6/4.7Ghz AFAIK) then tried pushing to 1.32 and got to 4.8Ghz. Took the plunge and somewhere around 1.325V I got 5.0 to work. You could set voltage to 2V if you wanted to, but you'd degrade your CPU quickly. Luckily my CPU clocks itself safely and downclocks to about 1-2Ghz and downvolts when doing light loads (like right now )

Thanks, so if I was just to go straight to 1.325 (I know every CPU is different) and 5.0GHz, I wouldn't damage the chip? (Obviously monitor the temps)

 

Chris

[Kodiack]

Wow, great answer, exactly what was needed. Cheers dude!

 

Disable turbo boost permanently?

 

Chris

I'd recommend disabling Turbo Boost for overclocking, yes. Many motherboards will have specific multipliers/clock speeds for the cores to "turbo" to, and those default values will almost always be below what you'll achieve with a good overclock.

 

Keep everything else enabled, though. The power-saving features are great for keeping temperatures and electric bills down.

[brokencross]

You can leave the vccin on auto. As for the vcore, you should start at 1.25v and increase the multiplier by x1 until it fails to boot. Then you increase .025 at a time until you get a stable overclock.

You should not get above 1.4v of vcore. But that, ofc, depends on your cooling solution. But even with a full loop more than 1.4v is asking for chip degradation.

As for the voltage mode, I always run it at override when stress testing and doing everyday stuff. But you can run it at adaptive mode. Thing is, depending on your mobo, the chip will always run at adaptive (even if it's on override) if you don't disable the c-states.

Also, as previously mentioned by others, disable turbo boost for increased stability (even though it really doesn't make much of a difference).

[chrisprice12]

I'd recommend disabling Turbo Boost for overclocking, yes. Many motherboards will have specific multipliers/clock speeds for the cores to "turbo" to, and those default values will almost always be below what you'll achieve with a good overclock.

 

Keep everything else enabled, though. The power-saving features are great for keeping temperatures and electric bills down.

Thanks dude, will do (y)

[chrisprice12]

You can leave the vccin on auto. As for the vcore, you should start at 1.25v and increase the multiplier by x1 until it fails to boot. Then you increase .025 at a time until you get a stable overclock.

You should not get above 1.4v of vcore. But that, ofc, depends on your cooling solution. But even with a full loop more than 1.4v is asking for chip degradation.

As for the voltage mode, I always run it at override when stress testing and doing everyday stuff. But you can run it at adaptive mode. Thing is, depending on your mobo, the chip will always run at adaptive (even if it's on override) if you don't disable the c-states.

Also, as previously mentioned by others, disable turbo boost for increased stability (even though it really doesn't make much of a difference).

Just to clarify for others to read this - Start at 1.25v and increase the CPU multiplier by x0.1 until it fails to boot. Is that correct? Then increase the VCORE 0.025 until it becomes stable? And don't go above 1.4. The rest I understand.

 

Thanks dude, good advice!

 

Chris

[brokencross]

Just to clarify for others to read this - Start at 1.25 and increase the CPU multiplier by x0.1 until it fails to boot. Is that correct? Then increase the VCORE 0.025 until it becomes stable? And don't go above 1.4. The rest I understand.

 

Thanks dude, good advice!

 

Chris

Yep.

Starting at 1.25 is really just the "go-to average voltage" because if you're lucky you might even have a stable oc with a lower voltage, depending on your target clock.

For stress testing I'd recommend 3 passes on RealBench and 15 minutes of IETU. It really isn't needed much more since it generally fails after a couple of minutes if it's unstable. 

 

Also, make a backup of your windows image. It'll come in handy if the cpu fails to boot and the mbr gets fucked.

[chrisprice12]

Yep.

Starting at 1.25 is really just the "go-to average voltage" because if you're lucky you might even have a stable oc with a lower voltage, depending on your target clock.

For stress testing I'd recommend 3 passes on RealBench and 15 minutes of IETU. It really isn't needed much more since it generally fails after a couple of minutes if it's unstable. 

 

Also, make a backup of your windows image. It'll come in handy if the cpu fails to boot and the mbr gets fucked.

Good tip, especially the backup. Thanks mate.

 

Chris

[bomerr]

although OCing is a good skill to learn I honestly don't think there is any reason to OC a 4790K. I personally run 4.4Ghz on my 5820k at 1.25v and it's stable so I just leave it be. Going from 4.4 to lets say 4.7 isn't worth the time stress testing. 

[Curufinwe_wins]

Sigh. The 4790k turbos to 4.4. 99%+ cards can do 4.8 or higher on 1.3 V or lower. 5.0 is cool, depending on your cooling almost every card can reach it.

Anyways enjoy the rest of the comments.

4790k at 4.8 is known to outperform 5820k at 4.5 and be competitive with 5960x at 4.5 on dx11 games.

[bomerr]

Sigh. The 4790k turbos to 4.4. 99%+ cards can do 4.8 or higher on 1.3 V or lower. 5.0 is cool, depending on your cooling almost every card can reach it.

Anyways enjoy the rest of the comments.

4790k at 4.8 is known to outperform 5820k at 4.5 and be competitive with 5960x at 4.5 on dx11 games.

uhm wut.

 

Most 4790s cannot do 4.8ghz at 1.3v of lower. Most can hit 4.4-4.7ghz and the good OCers can do 4.8-5ghz. However the voltage required at that point isn't worth it as the efficiency drops. Also stress testing is very repetitive and boring and not really worth the time on the CPU as it offers little-no gains. A 4.4ghz 4790k or a 5ghz will both score the exact same fps within a margin of 1 frame. 

 

To make it short with a 4790k you are paying for the conscience of a GPU that's already clocked high and really doesn't need an OC. 

[Curufinwe_wins]

uhm wut.

Most 4790s cannot do 4.8ghz at 1.3v of lower. Most can hit 4.4-4.7ghz and the good OCers can do 4.8-5ghz. However the voltage required at that point isn't worth it as the efficiency drops. Also stress testing is very repetitive and boring and not really worth the time on the CPU as it offers little-no gains. A 4.4ghz 4790k or a 5ghz will both score the exact same fps within a margin of 1 frame.

To make it short with a 4790k you are paying for the conscience of a GPU that's already clocked high and really doesn't need an OC.

bomerr we have had this discussion before. That isn't true at all.

As to fps in games. It may take dual or triple gpu configurations to show up, but there is a distinct difference once the gpu isn't the bottleneck.

[bomerr]

bomerr we have had this discussion before. That isn't true at all.

As to fps in games. It may take dual or triple gpu configurations to show up, but there is a distinct difference once the gpu isn't the bottleneck.

ya and i see you are still posting the same faulty info

 

 

^ 4770k @stock scored better than 4790k hence this benchmark shows OC makes no difference on Tomb Raider as everything is within a margin or error.

 

& 4790k OC'd only gained 1 FPS at 4.7 over 4.4. Yet 5960x at stock scored better than a 5960x OC'd. So again this test shows us that there is a margin of error.

 

The takeaway here is that OCing past 4.4 is really pointless for gaming as you're looking at maybe 1 FPS gain and that is within a margin of error and not worth the headache stress testing or increased power consumption. 

[Curufinwe_wins]

ya and i see you are still posting the same faulty info

^ 4770k @stock scored better than 4790k hence this benchmark shows OC makes no difference on Tomb Raider as everything is within a margin or error.

& 4790k OC'd only gained 1 FPS at 4.7 over 4.4. Yet 5960x at stock scored better than a 5960x OC'd. So again this test shows us that there is a margin of error.

The takeaway here is that OCing past 4.4 is really pointless for gaming as you're looking at maybe 1 FPS gain and that is within a margin of error and not worth the headache stress testing or increased power consumption.

... No. That is only showing that that game is not cpu limited in any fashion with two 770s.

Not relevant.

[bomerr]

... No. That is only showing that that game is not cpu limited in any fashion with two 770s.

Not relevant.

ya exactly. you totally mentioned that in your post O_o

 

Sigh. The 4790k turbos to 4.4. 99%+ cards can do 4.8 or higher on 1.3 V or lower. 5.0 is cool, depending on your cooling almost every card can reach it.

Anyways enjoy the rest of the comments.

4790k at 4.8 is known to outperform 5820k at 4.5 and be competitive with 5960x at 4.5 on dx11 games.

 

 

the only thing not relevant here is your posts. 

[Curufinwe_wins]

bomerr we have had this discussion before. That isn't true at all.

As to fps in games. It may take dual or triple gpu configurations to show up, but there is a distinct difference once the gpu isn't the bottleneck.

@bomerr thanks for coming.