Quick question about overclocking.

[Evil-Erthanu]

Hi everyone,

 

I just have a quick question about overclocking. When you overclock your CPU, does that mean that it will run at that clock speed full time? or can windows still drop the clock speed down when not needed, which I assume saves power and puts out less heat, but with the ability to go to a higher maximum speed.

 

I'm on a 4690k (Z97) btw

 

Thanks!

[runit3]

Yep. You'll overclock with manual voltage then, once you have stability, most boards have some form of an adaptive voltage setting which allows you to set a min/max threshold to coincide with the Intel C-states (varies processor clock with load).

[W-L]

Hi everyone,

I just have a quick question about overclocking. When you overclock your CPU, does that mean that it will run at that clock speed full time? or can windows still drop the clock speed down when not needed, which I assume saves power and puts out less heat, but with the ability to go to a higher maximum speed.

I'm on a 4690k (Z97) btw

Thanks!

 

Basically what runit3 said where you use manual voltage to overclock and stress test, where once you get a stable overclock changing over to adaptive voltages will allow it to go into an idle state by lowering clocks and voltages.

 

Just one thing to note is when on adaptive mode no stress test should be run since they can push it past the set max adaptive voltages, only real world benchmarks like cinebench should ever be used on adaptive mode.

[Evil-Erthanu]

Thanks!

[D2ultima]

When you all say "manual" voltage... do you mean "static" voltage? Because I'm pretty sure you can use "manual" and "adaptive" voltage at the same time...

[runit3]

When you all say "manual" voltage... do you mean "static" voltage? Because I'm pretty sure you can use "manual" and "adaptive" voltage at the same time...

Most boards refer to maintaining a static voltage as "manual" mode. I have yet to use a board that calls it static within the menu options. You do have to manually set the adaptive voltage limits, if that's what you're referring to.

[incarnate]

As others said you want to stress test at manual voltage. You can leave turbo and cstates on for stress testing since at full load, they don't come into play. Adaptive voltage can be hard to stabilize if you don't use manual first. After I find my stable limit (1.165v for 4.4 ghz on my cpu) I set my adaptive voltage to that and set the offset to 0.005v just to be sure.

After that, my cpu runs like stock but with a much higher turbo which is perfect for a 24/7 overclock

[D2ultima]

Most boards refer to maintaining a static voltage as "manual" mode. I have yet to use a board that calls it static within the menu options. You do have to manually set the adaptive voltage limits, if that's what you're referring to.

Maybe it's because I used Intel XTU back in the day and it had adaptive and static. Here, look under the reference clock at the top left. It's locked because core voltage is on default, but if I manually adjust the slider I get to pick between static and adaptive. Also, it's an old pic, so ignore the temps and whatever. I don't have XTU installed right now (I think).

[runit3]

Maybe it's because I used Intel XTU back in the day and it had adaptive and static. Here, look under the reference clock at the top left. It's locked because core voltage is on default, but if I manually adjust the slider I get to pick between static and adaptive. Also, it's an old pic, so ignore the temps and whatever. I don't have XTU installed right now (I think).

Leave it to Intel to add another synonym for voltage settings. I've never used software to OC, figured I would only mention the tried and true BIOS terms. XTU keeps getting recommended to me for quick settings tweaks, maybe I'll give it a try one of these days (I only use it for benching and stress testing).

[D2ultima]

Leave it to Intel to add another synonym for voltage settings. I've never used software to OC, figured I would only mention the tried and true BIOS terms. XTU keeps getting recommended to me for quick settings tweaks, maybe I'll give it a try one of these days (I only use it for benching and stress testing).

My BIOS keeps forgetting my current limit so I used XTU (and now I use Throttlestop). I haven't looked for the option in my BIOS, though I can do it in my BIOS, so maybe that might explain things.

 

Either way if intel makes the CPUs and the software and they make the terms, I'm pretty sure it's the mobo makers like Gigabyte/ASUS/MSI/etc that are making up synonyms