I7-4770K Hot Mess

[Mumbles]

I'm not sure if I simply lost the silicone lottery or I am doing something drastically wrong, but my 4700K is a hot mess. Even at stock speeds, it will throttle down to below 2.6ghz when running Prime 95. When I ran Prime 95 with a 4ghz and 4.2ghz overclock, the temps would quickly spike to 99c. I reapplied Arctic Silver 5 multiple times to see if I didn't apply it correctly and my temps are still a mess. At idle the CPU runs in the low 40s. I am currently using a Corsair H60 and I'm not sure if my cooling solution is the problem or my CPU is just plain wack. Running everyday tasks and games doesn't cause any crazy temps at any of the speeds I've had the CPU at, I've never seen it go past 80c when doing so. What worries me is how hot and how quickly it becomes hot when running synthetic loads like Prime 95. Should I buy a new CPU cooler, possibly shy away from the AIO market and just go with a standard tower solution? I do like the aesthetic of the AIO, but since I will be selling my PC in the upcoming year, I don't want to screw over the next guy to use it.

[DJ46]

Which version of Prime were you running?

[Derrk]

sounds like it's probably your cooler. Does the pump make any noise/vibration?

[Mumbles]

@DJ46 I am using Prime 95 v298b3 using the Smallest FFTs test with 8 threads.

 

@Derrk The pump seems to be working fine. The pump speed is running at 100% and the RPM seems normal. There isn't any abnormal noise or vibrations coming from the unit. Though notably when I got the H60 I had to return the first one because the pump didn't work despite being brand new. Thanks Best Buy.

[pas008]

11 minutes ago, Mumbles said:

@DJ46 I am using Prime 95 v298b3 using the Smallest FFTs test with 8 threads.

 

@Derrk The pump seems to be working fine. The pump speed is running at 100% and the RPM seems normal. There isn't any abnormal noise or vibrations coming from the unit. Though notably when I got the H60 I had to return the first one because the pump didn't work despite being brand new. Thanks Best Buy.

i'd rather use many other air coolers over h60

 

are you applying just enough paste?

what are your voltages? are you using auto?

[Fasauceome]

The H60 is a super skinny radiator, the H80i V2 would be significantly better if you want to go the single rad route. It's nice and thick. Also, 1.2 volts for 4.0GHz? Methinks you left auto voltage on, and Haswell CPUs are notorious for going just a bit overboard on voltage.

[Mumbles]

@pas008 I made sure to put a little more paste than I usually do just to make sure that it covers most of the cpu. I am using the auto voltages. Not sure what the numbers are, but I assume auto is fine since my highest overclock was 4.2ghz and it was perfectly stable expect for the temps when using the synthetic tests.

[DJ46]

18 minutes ago, Mumbles said:

I am using Prime 95 v298b3 using the Smallest FFTs test with 8 threads.

When testing temperatures I stick to v26.6, or I run a render in Blender. That's probably not the main issue here, but the newer versions tended to result in completely unrealistic temperatures. v28.9 made me think I needed a new cooler for a bit, before I looked up more details.

[Mumbles]

@fasauceome When the CPU was at 4ghz I was using the one click overclocking feature on my MOBO. Surely MSI didnt screw up how the auto voltages work on the feature, but I could be wrong. When at the stock settings and no overclock it would still thermal throttle pretty badly.

Edited June 19, 2019 by Mumbles
More info

[Fasauceome]

3 minutes ago, Mumbles said:

@fasauceome When the CPU was at 4ghz I was using the one click overclocking feature on my MOBO. Surely MSI didnt screw up how the auto voltages work on the feature, but I could be wrong. 

It's not that they screwed up, just that it can't compare to a real overclock. When you manually tune the CPU frequency and voltage, you can get as low as possible, but auto OC tools don't have the luxury of validating the stability, so it has to add a little more on top to be sure the overclock will run. Silicon lottery is a very involved process, you may actually have a gold sample but you'd never know with auto OC tools.

Edited June 19, 2019 by fasauceome

[Mumbles]

@fasauceome I've tried changing the voltages a few times in the past when overclocking, but the MSI Z97 PC MATE is not very user friendly MOBO for someone trying to overclock. When changing the voltages and saving the settings, it would change what I had put in screwing up everything.

[DJ46]

3 minutes ago, Mumbles said:

@fasauceome I've tried changing the voltages a few times in the past when overclocking, but the MSI Z97 PC MATE is not very user friendly MOBO for someone trying to overclock. When changing the voltages and saving the settings, it would change what I had put in screwing up everything.

What BIOS version are you running? A friend of mine had the same issue on a Z77 motherboard from Asus. At one point it applied 1.597V to the CPU on the auto OC setting. It never stuck to the values I put in.

After I updated the BIOS it was a lot more stable and stopped changing things on its own.

[Mumbles]

@DJ46 My BIOS version is the last one they put out, 4.B back in 2016. I guess MSI doesn't care anymore about putting new updates out for their older boards, but I don't blame them.

[Mick Naughty]

I’d check to make sure the pump and fan are on max. Figured even that cooler could do better than 99c. Assuming that fancy auto oc didn’t apply too much voltage. 

 

My 4770k runs at the same temps even after the delid for normal tasks. 

[Mick Naughty]

Gaming for several hours with it either at 90% or pegged at 100. Lag fest but it stays cool.