Stop me before I break something!

[Lwizzit]

So I just built my 1st rig. Wanted to do it right, so I watched a ton of tech videos for about 6 months before committing. Wanted to do it right.

 

So it's done. Asus Strix Z270e, i7 7700K cooled by the NZXT Kraken X52, Asus Strix Gaming  GTX 1080 TI, 16gb of G.Skill 3300 DDR4, Samsung Evo 960 250gb for boot, WD 2TB Black powered by an EVGA Nova 850W all tucked into the NZXT S340 Elite. Very nice build, if I say so myself.

 

So I spend the 1st week or so just tooling around with, playing with RGB lighting (I now hate CAM, but like Aura), do some light gaming at which I suck because I'm new to it too - but it's fun! Everything seems good.

 

Time to overclock, right? Right. I watch some more vids, and quickly establish a stable OC of 4.9GHZ on the core; I don't mess with the cache speed or base clock as I basically know $h!t about any of this. Oh, I needed to bring the RAM down to 2933 for stability, but I guess that's fine.

 

Brings us to right now. I want to benchmark it, right? I download what everyone seems to use. Passmark, 3DMark, Cinebench, and Heaven. I should also mention here that I also got MSI Afterburner to OC my already OCed GPU, which I VERY gently OC further. Like 130 Mhz more on the clock and 75 on the memory. I like that it has those great running graphs to monitor temps. I figure I'll leave those on screen while running benchmarks so I can monitor temps.

 

So I decide I'll just use Cinebench 1st. From what I've read it's a pretty quick run. So - I set everything up and go to run the CPU test. BTW, I never thought to run a baseline with my overclocking settings off. Or I did, and I'm lazy and don't want to have to redo everything. So I run it and..... I am getting 95-98 degrees C across all cores.

 

At which point I say 'whoa', stop running benchmarks and come here to ask WTF am I doing?

 

CPU is currently at 33 degs - I have CPUID running as I write this.

I am pretty sure my thermal paste application is fine - I went with the pre-applied paste on the Kraken even though I had an extra tube - it seemed the safest route. I POSTed the mobo outside the case, but never had to remove the cooler doing the install. Everything dropped in nice and easy.

 

So is just my OC causing this? Should I back everything off and retest? I have a fair bit of moolah invested here and being a noob I really don't want to mess things up any further.

 

Go ahead - I'm all ears (or eyes, I guess)

 

 

[Enderman]

What voltage?

[The Sloth]

clear CMOS and start again( take out the CMOS battery) 

[Lwizzit]

12 minutes ago, Enderman said:

What voltage?

Sorry - Should have mentioned this . 1.35 on the core. Only voltage I manually fussed with.

 

OK - I turned off all OC and re-ran Cinebench. High 60s, brief low 70s now. But my score fell from 1073 to 979.

[Lwizzit]

14 minutes ago, nerdslayer1 said:

clear CMOS and start again( take out the CMOS battery) 

Explain please. I don't see the connection here.

[Guest]

Just now, Lwizzit said:

Explain please. I don't see the connection here.

battery on the motherboard

looks like a US quarter dollar. 

[Enderman]

1 minute ago, Lwizzit said:

Sorry - Should have mentioned this . 1.35 on the core. Only voltage I manually fussed with.

 

OK - I turned off all OC and re-ran Cinebench. High 60s, brief low 70s now. But my score fell from 1073 to 979.

Try removing the thermal paste and applying some new stuff like MX-4 or NT-H1 or something, then remounting the cooler.

You can also try overclocking with less voltage.

[Lwizzit]

Just now, fpo said:

battery on the motherboard

looks like a US quarter dollar. 

Lol. I know what it is. I don't get the connection between resetting my mobo and hot cores.

[Enderman]

1 minute ago, fpo said:

battery on the motherboard

looks like a US quarter dollar. 

Why would resetting his CMOS magically lower his temps?

[Guest]

Just now, Lwizzit said:

Lol. I know what it is. I don't get the connection between resetting my mobo and hot cores.

idk someone recommended it. It would reset your overclock settings. I don't overclock also your post was tldr I don't know your problem. 

[Lwizzit]

Just now, Enderman said:

Try removing the thermal paste and applying some new stuff like MX-4 or NT-H1 or something, then remounting the cooler.

You can also try overclocking with less voltage.

So, you're saying that if a 49X multiplier at 1.35V is stable, I should be OK? Is it possible that I just got a 'hot' chip? I know some don't overclock as well - can some just run hotter off the shelf, too - or react badly to overclocking?

[Lwizzit]

1 minute ago, fpo said:

idk someone recommended it. It would reset your overclock settings. I don't overclock also your post was tldr I don't know your problem. 

Yeah. I'm not doing that. I can reset my overclock just fine without booping the whole board.

[Enderman]

1 minute ago, Lwizzit said:

So, you're saying that if a 49X multiplier at 1.35V is stable, I should be OK? Is it possible that I just got a 'hot' chip? I know some don't overclock as well - can some just run hotter off the shelf, too - or react badly to overclocking?

No 90C is too high, try 1.25 or 1.3v and then see what OC you can get.

[Lwizzit]

Just now, Enderman said:

No 90C is too high, try 1.25 or 1.3v and then see what OC you can get.

OK. You think I can still go up to 49X with those Vs?

[RGProductions]

8 minutes ago, Lwizzit said:

OK. You think I can still go up to 49X with those Vs?

If you got the right chip I would hope for 48.

[Enderman]

11 minutes ago, Lwizzit said:

OK. You think I can still go up to 49X with those Vs?

Maybe? You can only find out by trying.

[Lwizzit]

2 minutes ago, RGProductions said:

If you got the right chip I would hope for 48.

I set it to 45X at 1.25V and got 79 degrees max on the package during Cinebench. Is that an OK temp? I'll try a higher multiplier at the same Vcore.

I got up to a 983 score, if anyone's interested in that.

[Lwizzit]

Ok - now at 48X, still 1.25V.

Seems stable enough. I was still able to run Cinebench. Now I'm getting low 80s during the run. Max temp on the package was 83. Am I still in 'safe' range??? Not sure what the upper limit is...

 

I am going to try for 49 without kicking up the V. But if I have to go to 1.3 - what should be my absolute upper limit temp? Where do I back off?

Also, I only know the system is stable enough to run Cinebench. What's the best bet for testing long term stability. Just play a bunch of games and see if it crashes?

 

(My score is now 1047 - getting closer to where I started)

[Lwizzit]

I tried 49X at 1.25V.

 

Got as far as the WIndows10 login screen before it went tits up.

 

As one poster above predicted 48 seems to be the max at that voltage. I am going to set it to 1.3, but leave it at 48 and check my temps. If I am ok with them, I'll then try 49.

I'm still not sure what my safe upper limit temp is, though...Anyone?

 

[Lwizzit]

Nope. I did what I last posted. Went to 1.3V, but left it at 48X. It seems stable but hit 92 degrees max on the core during the cinebench run.

Going back to 1.25V, I guess.

 

I really was hoping to get 4.9ghz, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen.

 

I could delid it, I guess......

[Cracklingice]

2 minutes ago, Lwizzit said:

Nope. I did what I last posted. Went to 1.3V, but left it at 48X. It seems stable but hit 92 degrees max on the core during the cinebench run.

Going back to 1.25V, I guess.

 

I really was hoping to get 4.9ghz, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen.

 

I could delid it, I guess......

You run the voltage as low as you can and still have stability.  Stability is usually tested over an extended period like 24 hours of stress testing.

[Lwizzit]

OK. I have been able to (seemingly) have it stable at 1.29V and 49X..BUT, I am just hitting 90 degrees on the package while running Cinebench.

So, I brought it back to 48X at 1.25V where it seems to be most comfortable.

 

I am going to run a few other benches - always keeping an eye on temps. If I'm satisfied with those, I guess I will keep that as my OC.

 

I will follow the previous poster's advice and run a stress test this weekend. What is a good one to run overnight?

 

Thanks everyone for their input, BTW.

 

[Cracklingice]

What cooler are you running?  It may be a good idea to upgrade if you want to try to run that speed.  I'm not entirely sure what temp targets should be, but I'd probably stop at low to mid 80's even though tjmax is like 95 or 100 iirc.  More heat, faster death.
Although I do have a 2500k that I'm going to cool with a Hyper 212 and low 90s will be ok with me on that old cheap chip for a prime 95 burn unless I find that generation doesn't like that temp.  I look at it as temporary anyway.

Also to elaborate I'm speaking of the hottest individual core, not the overall cpu temp reported.  The overall temp of the CPU package is lower than the hottest core.  I wouldn't pass high 70's with your 7700k for package temp just to be safe.

 

[Lwizzit]

15 hours ago, Cracklingice said:

What cooler are you running?  It may be a good idea to upgrade if you want to try to run that speed.  I'm not entirely sure what temp targets should be, but I'd probably stop at low to mid 80's even though tjmax is like 95 or 100 iirc.  More heat, faster death.
Although I do have a 2500k that I'm going to cool with a Hyper 212 and low 90s will be ok with me on that old cheap chip for a prime 95 burn unless I find that generation doesn't like that temp.  I look at it as temporary anyway.

Also to elaborate I'm speaking of the hottest individual core, not the overall cpu temp reported.  The overall temp of the CPU package is lower than the hottest core.  I wouldn't pass high 70's with your 7700k for package temp just to be safe.

 

As posted above, a Kraken X52, so liquid. Thought that would be pretty good - but yeah those temps are pretty high. Really on the high 70s? Even while benchmarking?

What's a good utility to run in-game that will show me CPU core temperature?

[Cracklingice]

3 minutes ago, Lwizzit said:

As posted above, a Kraken X52, so liquid. Thought that would be pretty good - but yeah those temps are pretty high. Really on the high 70s? Even while benchmarking?

What's a good utility to run in-game that will show me CPU core temperature?

I use MSI Afterburner with Rivatuner Statistics Server.
As far as shocked by the temps, Intel dropped the ball big time with the TIM on seventh gen K skus.  Replacing with liquid metal sees drops in temps that are outright shocking to me.
There's an intel software iirc that will show you actual individual core temps in addition to the package temp.  Package temp can easily be 10 degrees lower than core temps.  Core temps are more important in knowing the actual temp of the silicon as a result and why when using package temp you should shoot for a cooler temperature as you don't actually know the core temps.