Overclocking and voltage?

[Austroknot]

So I feel like I understand the gist overclocking concept-wise but I get completely lost when people talk about voltage. What part does voltage play in overclocking? What happens when there's not enough voltage? What happens when there's too much? How would I be able to know how much voltage is reasonable for how far I've overclocked my system? Does voltage only matter when overclocking the cpu or anything that's overclocked? (gpu/ram etc.)

 

Sorry it's a lot of questions. If you know anything about this to help me understand the basic principles of voltage in relation to overclocking cpu/gpu it would be much appreciated. At this point I feel like just closing my eyes, typing in random number for voltage, and seeing what happens...

[Austroknot]

Just now, Austosaur said:

So I feel like I understand the gist overclocking concept-wise but I get completely lost when people talk about voltage. What part does voltage play in overclocking? What happens when there's not enough voltage? What happens when there's too much? How would I be able to know how much voltage is reasonable for how far I've overclocked my system? Does voltage only matter when overclocking the cpu or anything that's overclocked? (gpu/ram etc.)

 

Sorry it's a lot of questions. If you know anything about this to help me understand the basic principles of voltage in relation to overclocking cpu/gpu it would be much appreciated. At this point I feel like just closing my eyes, typing in random number for voltage, and seeing what happens...

P.S. I'm really new to overclocking and the bios/uefi in general so please keep it beginner level! thanks you guys 

[Imakuni]

5 minutes ago, Austosaur said:

What part does voltage play in overclocking?

What happens when there's not enough voltage?

What happens when there's too much?

How would I be able to know how much voltage is reasonable for how far I've overclocked my system?

Does voltage only matter when overclocking the cpu or anything that's overclocked? (gpu/ram etc.)

1. More voltage allows higher clocks (to a point).
2. Your OC becomes unstable. This can manifest in the form of random errors, stutters or even BSODs.
3. The heat causes the processor to throttle and possibly even degrade.
4. You find out what are safe voltages for your particular CPU and base yourself off of that.
5. Depends on which voltage. If talking about vCore, it's mostly a CPU thing (and on Skylake, a cache thing as well). For other things, other voltages are involved.

8 minutes ago, Austosaur said:

Sorry it's a lot of questions. If you know anything about this to help me understand the basic principles of voltage in relation to overclocking cpu/gpu it would be much appreciated. At this point I feel like just closing my eyes, typing in random number for voltage, and seeing what happens...

What was your CPU again?

[Austroknot]

20 hours ago, Imakuni said:

1. More voltage allows higher clocks (to a point).
2. Your OC becomes unstable. This can manifest in the form of random errors, stutters or even BSODs.
3. The heat causes the processor to throttle and possibly even degrade.
4. You find out what are safe voltages for your particular CPU and base yourself off of that.
5. Depends on which voltage. If talking about vCore, it's mostly a CPU thing (and on Skylake, a cache thing as well). For other things, other voltages are involved.

What was your CPU again?

i7-6700k with evga z170 classified k mobo

[typographie]

Basically there is a balance to be found between voltage and clock frequency. At a given frequency, a CPU will need a certain minimum voltage to be stable, and an unstable CPU will crash/BSoD. Every CPU is different, though, so you have to just find the lowest stable voltage for your CPU through trial and error by stress testing.

[Imakuni]

1 hour ago, Austosaur said:

i7-6700k with evga z170 classified k mobo

K... so you start at around 1.2v and stress test for around 10 min. If temps are good, raise voltage and repeat. Stop raising it once you are peak 80C or more. Or you reach 1.4v, which one comes first will depend on the cooler.

 

At any rate, find your max voltage and then proceed to find your max OC.

[Austroknot]

On 10/12/2016 at 1:51 PM, Imakuni said:

K... so you start at around 1.2v and stress test for around 10 min. If temps are good, raise voltage and repeat. Stop raising it once you are peak 80C or more. Or you reach 1.4v, which one comes first will depend on the cooler.

 

At any rate, find your max voltage and then proceed to find your max OC.

Okay that makes sense. What makes you say to stop at 1.4v? Could it damage my cpu?

 

On 10/12/2016 at 0:53 PM, typographie said:

Basically there is a balance to be found between voltage and clock frequency. At a given frequency, a CPU will need a certain minimum voltage to be stable, and an unstable CPU will crash/BSoD. Every CPU is different, though, so you have to just find the lowest stable voltage for your CPU through trial and error by stress testing.

okay i get it! thanks so much this is really helpful

[Imakuni]

4 minutes ago, Austosaur said:

Okay that makes sense. What makes you say to stop at 1.4v? Could it damage my cpu?

Simply because, why not? Realistically, you could even go a bit further, but that's not something I'd recommend for everyone to do without a more careful analysis. One would probably be limited on cooling anyway, so 1.4 is a nice round number to call a ceiling.

[Austroknot]

4 hours ago, Imakuni said:

Simply because, why not? Realistically, you could even go a bit further, but that's not something I'd recommend for everyone to do without a more careful analysis. One would probably be limited on cooling anyway, so 1.4 is a nice round number to call a ceiling.

Ah I see. Which programs/games would you recommend for stress testing? I hear using just one or two is unreliable in some way so a lot of people will use like five or more different ones..

[Imakuni]

4 hours ago, Austosaur said:

Ah I see. Which programs/games would you recommend for stress testing? I hear using just one or two is unreliable in some way so a lot of people will use like five or more different ones..

I always recommend Prime95 (ver. 28.9), but I've heard Intel IBT and OCCT are also good ones, though I've personally never used them.

[typographie]

14 hours ago, Austosaur said:

What makes you say to stop at 1.4v? Could it damage my cpu?

Many consider 1.4 V with a modern Intel CPU (Haswell or Skylake, maybe more) to be difficult to keep cool and/or high enough to damage the chip on its own. What voltage the chip can actually tolerate probably varies with each chip and other factors, but that seems to be the point where most agree you're playing with fire.

 

Usually when you overclock, you'll reach a point where the next frequency increase is going to need a much larger jump in voltage than the previous. So there can be a sort of diminishing return on voltage. The kind of overclock 1.4 V allows is not always a worthwhile jump in performance over what can be done with, say, 1.35 V.