Haswell Binning

[Neroxis]

I've recently been doing some research on the variance in overclocking potential of Haswell chips, specifically the 4770K.. I'm currently running a 4770K, Z87 PRO and 16GB Corsair Vengeance@2133MHz. After building I decided to try and use the Asus overclocking suite and see what sort of numbers i could get. First run it topped out at 4.8 on two physical cores and 4.9 on the other. I was shocked to say the least, especially seeing the 1.3+ vCore. I have a custom cooling loop so I wasn't worried about temps, but I clocked back to 4.2GHz regardless. I was satisfied with that for quite a few months until I recently updated my BIOS and had to redo my overclock. I went straight to 4.5GHz@1.2vcore, started stress testing and I haven't had a single crash. 7+ hours of AIDA64 didn't throw any errors and temps were peaking at ~73. From the information I gather this is not par for the course when it comes to haswell chips. I've come across a few reddit posts that compare the overclocking headroom across 5-10 chips. I'd love to see if someone has done a broad section of the haswell chips, see what the percentiles are for required voltage at a given clock speed. 

[deathjester]

I've recently been doing some research on the variance in overclocking potential of Haswell chips, specifically the 4770K.. I'm currently running a 4770K, Z87 PRO and 16GB Corsair Vengeance@2133MHz. After building I decided to try and use the Asus overclocking suite and see what sort of numbers i could get. First run it topped out at 4.8 on two physical cores and 4.9 on the other. I was shocked to say the least, especially seeing the 1.3+ vCore. I have a custom cooling loop so I wasn't worried about temps, but I clocked back to 4.2GHz regardless. I was satisfied with that for quite a few months until I recently updated my BIOS and had to redo my overclock. I went straight to 4.5GHz@1.2vcore, started stress testing and I haven't had a single crash. 7+ hours of AIDA64 didn't throw any errors and temps were peaking at ~73. From the information I gather this is not par for the course when it comes to haswell chips. I've come across a few reddit posts that compare the overclocking headroom across 5-10 chips. I'd love to see if someone has done a broad section of the haswell chips, see what the percentiles are for required voltage at a given clock speed. 

 

I would say 4.2-4.4 is average on air and maybe 4.2-4.5 on water. Under that, F life, Past that? Jump up and down and dance.

 

All random chance man and some will oc on cache and some won't. I do know one thing. The early reports were BS and when people were acting as if they all went from 4.4-4.6? They were on crack. Devil's Canyon might be close to that. I would say look at the guaranteed OC sale on a site like Origin. The 4770k I think they lowered down to 4.0 or 4.1 - 4.6 at one point.

 

Your chip is better than mine though at 4.5. I need 1.22v. I actually backed down to 4.3 1.15v for the summer since it really doesn't seem to matter in any of the games I play. Still faster than a stock DC chip and uses less power than some of them, so I am happy. Maybe I will put it to 4.5 now that the weather is cooler. 

 

My chip seemed better than average though, so looks like you got a winner. Seem them as low as 4.0 and 4.1 on this forum. 

[Neroxis]

I would say 4.2-4.4 is average on air and maybe 4.2-4.5 on water. Under that, F life, Past that? Jump up and down and dance.

 

All random chance man and some will oc on cache and some won't. I do know one thing. The early reports were BS and when people were acting as if they all went from 4.4-4.6? They were on crack. Devil's Canyon might be close to that. I would say look at the guaranteed OC sale on a site like Origin. The 4770k I think they lowered down to 4.0 or 4.1 - 4.6 at one point.

 

Your chip is better than mine though at 4.5. I need 1.22v. I actually backed down to 4.3 1.15v for the summer since it really doesn't seem to matter in any of the games I play. Still faster than a stock DC chip and uses less power than some of them, so I am happy. Maybe I will put it to 4.5 now that the weather is cooler. 

 

My chip seemed better than average though, so looks like you got a winner. Seem them as low as 4.0 and 4.1 on this forum. 

It seems like you're right. There doesn't seem to be a while lot of potential. I've seen most people hitting ~4.3 on air with ridiculous temps. I'm actually considering de-lidding my chip to even out the cores and push it without having that crazy high peak. Correct me if I'm wrong, but won't Devil's Canyon go back to a soldered IHS instead of the terrible quality TIM that are on Haswell? 

[deathjester]

It seems like you're right. There doesn't seem to be a while lot of potential. I've seen most people hitting ~4.3 on air with ridiculous temps. I'm actually considering de-lidding my chip to even out the cores and push it without having that crazy high peak. Correct me if I'm wrong, but won't Devil's Canyon go back to a soldered IHS instead of the terrible quality TIM that are on Haswell? 

 

Nah DC just improved temps a couple of degrees, with a few architectural changes and better paste I guess. I wouldn't delid. You got a winner of a chip, you might not get another and when DirectX 12 arrives? OC won't mean as much. 1.2 v on water should be fine on temps for a long, long time. Might hit 70 C in a stress test but you will prob be in the 50's to low 60's gaming. 

 

My best friend is 4.2 on water at 1.3v on a Asus Rog board. I am at 4.5 on a evo 212 on the cheapest z87 board I could find lol. Just the way it is . I say if you got a winner? Don't risk breaking it. A replacement on the Intel warranty plan or whatever could possibly be WAY worse and a replacement DC chip may end up being worse or the same.

[Neroxis]

Nah DC just improved temps a couple of degrees, with a few architectural changes and better paste I guess. I wouldn't delid. You got a winner of a chip, you might not get another and when DirectX 12 arrives? OC won't mean as much. 1.2 v on water should be fine on temps for a long, long time. Might hit 70 C in a stress test but you will prob be in the 50's to low 60's gaming. 

 

My best friend is 4.2 on water at 1.3v on a Asus Rog board. I am at 4.5 on a evo 212 on the cheapest z87 board I could find lol. Just the way it is . I say if you got a winner? Don't risk breaking it. A replacement on the Intel warranty plan or whatever could possibly be WAY worse and a replacement DC chip may end up being worse or the same.

Good reasoning there. I do thoroughly enjoy my chip. I peaked at 73C on an 8 hour AIDA64 stress test. It really bothers me seeing the giant variance in temps per core, though. If they all ran within ~3C of the lowest core I'd have temps around 63C. Amazing to see the amount of variance in these chips. I remember when you could bang out 4.5 on air with a 2500/2600k without a single problem. 

[Faceman]

@Neroxis

 

Congratulations man, that is an amazing chip you have there.  I too used Asus Auto Overclocking to start, but I would like to point out a few trouble areas.  For starters, its strange that it pushed you past 1.275v, that is generally the hard cap on the auto-overclock.

 

The main issue with the auto OC done by Asus is that it sets your Load Line Calibration(LLC) to the maximum 8/8.  This is not good, and in high stress scenarios will ovevolt your chip.  You should lower it down to 4/8.

 

You have a really good chip, that much is clear.  You might want to start experimenting and playing with how efficient of an overclock you can get.  Maybe your chip will do 4.6 @ 1.2 or 4.5 @ 1.150.  Its a game of trial and error and the only way to figure out what the best result is for your chip is to get in there and test it out.

 

Another suggestion is Uncore/Cache.  This is when my overclocking really took off.  Set your Cache Min = 38, Max = 38, and Adaptive Cache Voltage to 1.050.

 

Cache doesn't improve performance and only causes instability,  not that you aren't stable, but when I set it to this, my temperatures decreased and I was able to underclock my voltage while overclocking the speed.  I'm currently running my i5-4670k at 4.2Ghz @ 1.065v with Cache at 38.  I never exceed 49C with my Cooler Master Seidon 240M @ 50% fan speed.

[Neroxis]

@Neroxis

 

Congratulations man, that is an amazing chip you have there.  I too used Asus Auto Overclocking to start, but I would like to point out a few trouble areas.  For starters, its strange that it pushed you past 1.275v, that is generally the hard cap on the auto-overclock.

 

The main issue with the auto OC done by Asus is that it sets your Load Line Calibration(LLC) to the maximum 8/8.  This is not good, and in high stress scenarios will ovevolt your chip.  You should lower it down to 4/8.

 

You have a really good chip, that much is clear.  You might want to start experimenting and playing with how efficient of an overclock you can get.  Maybe your chip will do 4.6 @ 1.2 or 4.5 @ 1.150.  Its a game of trial and error and the only way to figure out what the best result is for your chip is to get in there and test it out.

 

Another suggestion is Uncore/Cache.  This is when my overclocking really took off.  Set your Cache Min = 38, Max = 38, and Adaptive Cache Voltage to 1.050.

 

Cache doesn't improve performance and only causes instability,  not that you aren't stable, but when I set it to this, my temperatures decreased and I was able to underclock my voltage while overclocking the speed.  I'm currently running my i5-4670k at 4.2Ghz @ 1.065v with Cache at 38.  I never exceed 49C with my Cooler Master Seidon 240M @ 50% fan speed.

I've always been a bit intimidated by the advanced voltage controls. To make things clear, I updated my BIOS a few weeks ago and, as such, my system was set back to stock clocks. I did my current 4.5GHz overclock on a clean system and adjusted the LLC to 4, as per one of the guides recommendations. When I stress tested I had manual voltage set at 1.20, since I've switched to adaptive and haven't seen instability. I've been able to render fairly large projects in Blender without issues. I've also heard Cinebench is really good at finding instability and I've passed with no issues. Thanks for the information, I hope to look into the more advanced settings. 

[Faceman]

I've always been a bit intimidated by the advanced voltage controls. To make things clear, I updated my BIOS a few weeks ago and, as such, my system was set back to stock clocks. I did my current 4.5GHz overclock on a clean system and adjusted the LLC to 4, as per one of the guides recommendations. When I stress tested I had manual voltage set at 1.20, since I've switched to adaptive and haven't seen instability. I've been able to render fairly large projects in Blender without issues. I've also heard Cinebench is really good at finding instability and I've passed with no issues. Thanks for the information, I hope to look into the more advanced settings. 

Thats all really good to hear, you have done everything properly like adjusting the LLC and testing with manual voltage.  All good stuff.  I am wondering if when you did the overclock after your BIOS update, did you do the auto-OC or you did it all yourself?

 

Yes, Cinebench is a good stress test, especially for you if you are using Blender a lot.  It is a very similar scenario to what you will do with your system, so its an excellent test to use. It is not the most strenuous by any means, but it is a good test to run back to back 3-10 times in a row to judge stability.

[Neroxis]

Thats all really good to hear, you have done everything properly like adjusting the LLC and testing with manual voltage.  All good stuff.  I am wondering if when you did the overclock after your BIOS update, did you do the auto-OC or you did it all yourself?

 

Yes, Cinebench is a good stress test, especially for you if you are using Blender a lot.  It is a very similar scenario to what you will do with your system, so its an excellent test to use. It is not the most strenuous by any means, but it is a good test to run back to back 3-10 times in a row to judge stability.

I did the current overclock completely manually. I started building like 5 years ago and had my 2500k clocked at 4.3 on air, so I'm not entirely new to the concepts. I did my main stress testing with AIDA64, cinebench was an afterthought because I'm a benchmark whore. 

[Faceman]

I did the current overclock completely manually. I started building like 5 years ago and had my 2500k clocked at 4.3 on air, so I'm not entirely new to the concepts. I did my main stress testing with AIDA64, cinebench was an afterthought because I'm a benchmark whore. 

What are you trying to achieve from here?  Are you happy with your current OC?  It sounds like it is working perfectly and you don't have to fiddle with anything. If you want, you could try and slowly lower voltage by .005 each time to get the lowest possible temperatures at 4.5Ghz.  Or you could try boosting to 4.6Ghz @ 1.2v to see if you have more overhead.  Basically from here on out, its trial and error. Leave LLC set to 4/8. 

 

Two more settings you could play with are CPU Power Phase Control.  Set this to Extreme. Also CPU Current Capability you can set it between 120-140%.  I have mine at 120% because I'm only doing 4.2Ghz @ 1.060, you might want to shoot for 130%, and if you decide to go for something in the 1.3v range, 140%.

[Neroxis]

What are you trying to achieve from here?  Are you happy with your current OC?  It sounds like it is working perfectly and you don't have to fiddle with anything. If you want, you could try and slowly lower voltage by .005 each time to get the lowest possible temperatures at 4.5Ghz.  Or you could try boosting to 4.6Ghz @ 1.2v to see if you have more overhead.  Basically from here on out, its trial and error. Leave LLC set to 4/8. 

 

Two more settings you could play with are CPU Power Phase Control.  Set this to Extreme. Also CPU Current Capability you can set it between 120-140%.  I have mine at 120% because I'm only doing 4.2Ghz @ 1.060, you might want to shoot for 130%, and if you decide to go for something in the 1.3v range, 140%

I'm debating on going higher, probably maintain the current clocks because any higher will save all of 2 seconds on any production times. I'll probably end up shooting for lower voltages and better temps. I'm running a custom loop and silence is quite important. My desk and bedroom are a whopping ten feet from each other and I've got all my fan profiles set to silent. 

 

Thanks a ton for the information, I'll definitely be referencing these posts for the next few days. 

[Faceman]

I'm debating on going higher, probably maintain the current clocks because any higher will save all of 2 seconds on any production times. I'll probably end up shooting for lower voltages and better temps. I'm running a custom loop and silence is quite important. My desk and bedroom are a whopping ten feet from each other and I've got all my fan profiles set to silent. 

 

Thanks a ton for the information, I'll definitely be referencing these posts for the next few days. 

Happy to help.  Yea, definitely start lowering voltages by .005 until you blue screen.  Once you blue screen, jump back to the last voltage you were stable at and that is your best OC for 4.5Ghz.