You've gotten some good advice. Overclocking the 3770 is about as easy as it comes UNLESS you want to push it hard.

 

First get a good cooler and install it properly - several have been mentioned

 

Second - follow the guides to clock the chip - don't worry about voltage or memory. the performance difference is only for purists. For your first clock - just kick the CPU.

 

Only change I would suggest , or in addition to what was suggested above -

 

For FSX/P3D - using the Prime95 bench is old hat - use a program called OCCT - it is more relevant to FSX/P3D because it stresses the combination of memory and cpu that P95 does not.

 

For general burn in testing, P95 is fine but I have seen systems pass P95 with flying colors and crash when running FSX. If it passes OCCT for an hour with good temps - you should be good to go.

 

Vic

I second what Vic says here with regards to Prime95. My 3770K can run for ages 5.0ghz @ 1.4v VCORE voltage in Prime95, but it will crash almost instantly in P3D.

 

Another place to look for warnings of potential problems, is the Windows Event Log.  I think it´s under system, you can see hardware related errors and warnings. In my experience, if the OC is unstable for P3D/FSX, Windows will post some WHEA-warnings quickly. I think many of the CTDs people report, often are related to a bad OC. If you are able to get rid of the WHEAs,

 

I´m not familiar with your BIOS, but I would switch off the Hyperthreading-feature - it will help with temps, and I´ve never seen a significant improvement in either FSX or P3D with HT on. I went for the lower temps:) (with a custom loop, connected to three rads, a big reservoir and a GTX980 Classified, it runs at 50c in P3D - 4.9ghz @1.4v VCORE).

 

This guide is brilliant - has a nice table of voltages etc:

 

http://www.overclock.net/t/1247413/ivy-bridge-overclocking-guide-with-ln2-guide-at-the-end

 

Happy hunting:)

You've gotten some good advice. Overclocking the 3770 is about as easy as it comes UNLESS you want to push it hard.

 

First get a good cooler and install it properly - several have been mentioned

 

Second - follow the guides to clock the chip - don't worry about voltage or memory. the performance difference is only for purists. For your first clock - just kick the CPU.

 

Only change I would suggest , or in addition to what was suggested above -

 

For FSX/P3D - using the Prime95 bench is old hat - use a program called OCCT - it is more relevant to FSX/P3D because it stresses the combination of memory and cpu that P95 does not.

 

For general burn in testing, P95 is fine but I have seen systems pass P95 with flying colors and crash when running FSX. If it passes OCCT for an hour with good temps - you should be good to go.

 

Vic

 

 

I second what Vic says here with regards to Prime95. My 3770K can run for ages 5.0ghz @ 1.4v VCORE voltage in Prime95, but it will crash almost instantly in P3D.

 

Another place to look for warnings of potential problems, is the Windows Event Log.  I think it´s under system, you can see hardware related errors and warnings. In my experience, if the OC is unstable for P3D/FSX, Windows will post some WHEA-warnings quickly. I think many of the CTDs people report, often are related to a bad OC. If you are able to get rid of the WHEAs,

 

I´m not familiar with your BIOS, but I would switch off the Hyperthreading-feature - it will help with temps, and I´ve never seen a significant improvement in either FSX or P3D with HT on. I went for the lower temps:) (with a custom loop, connected to three rads, a big reservoir and a GTX980 Classified, it runs at 50c in P3D - 4.9ghz @1.4v VCORE).

 

This guide is brilliant - has a nice table of voltages etc:

 

http://www.overclock.net/t/1247413/ivy-bridge-overclocking-guide-with-ln2-guide-at-the-end

 

Happy hunting:)

I really can't stress enough how useful your advices are.

I already bought the cooler, will start working on it in the next few days! Will report here my (hopefully!) improvements.

You've gotten some good advice. Overclocking the 3770 is about as easy as it comes UNLESS you want to push it hard.

 

First get a good cooler and install it properly - several have been mentioned

 

Second - follow the guides to clock the chip - don't worry about voltage or memory. the performance difference is only for purists. For your first clock - just kick the CPU.

 

Only change I would suggest , or in addition to what was suggested above -

 

For FSX/P3D - using the Prime95 bench is old hat - use a program called OCCT - it is more relevant to FSX/P3D because it stresses the combination of memory and cpu that P95 does not.

 

For general burn in testing, P95 is fine but I have seen systems pass P95 with flying colors and crash when running FSX. If it passes OCCT for an hour with good temps - you should be good to go.

 

Vic

I second what Vic says here with regards to Prime95. My 3770K can run for ages 5.0ghz @ 1.4v VCORE voltage in Prime95, but it will crash almost instantly in P3D.

 

Another place to look for warnings of potential problems, is the Windows Event Log. I think it´s under system, you can see hardware related errors and warnings. In my experience, if the OC is unstable for P3D/FSX, Windows will post some WHEA-warnings quickly. I think many of the CTDs people report, often are related to a bad OC. If you are able to get rid of the WHEAs,

 

I´m not familiar with your BIOS, but I would switch off the Hyperthreading-feature - it will help with temps, and I´ve never seen a significant improvement in either FSX or P3D with HT on. I went for the lower temps:) (with a custom loop, connected to three rads, a big reservoir and a GTX980 Classified, it runs at 50c in P3D - 4.9ghz @1.4v VCORE).

 

This guide is brilliant - has a nice table of voltages etc:

 

http://www.overclock.net/t/1247413/ivy-bridge-overclocking-guide-with-ln2-guide-at-the-end

 

Happy hunting:)

Just a quick update!

It took me a while (mostly because I almost had no spare time), but I finally managed to update my system. I bought a Noctua NH-D14 cooler (which performs better than the liquid coolers I could afford) and changed my motherboard to an ASRock Z77 Pro4, in order to perform a better overclock. Now the CPU runs at 4.6 GHZ and temps never exceed 60c.

I also managed to obtain a good balance between performance and graphics, building a prepar3d.cfg file from scratch. Now the sim runs smoothly and I'm very happy with the result!

 

I just wanted to thank again Vic and Kristoffer for their amazing support!

 

Cheers.

Always happy to help!

 

Enjoy!

 

Vic

Love your work man!

 

I ve heard about the Noctua one - it s brilliant! Same goes for the Z77 Pro from ASRock - it is much more potent. You could try to hit even higher clocks, if you are at 4.6 with 60 degrees. It hits 4.6 at somwhere around 1.3v? What memory speeds are you running at? 

 

Best regards -

 

Kristoffer

 

Just a quick update!
It took me a while (mostly because I almost had no spare time), but I finally managed to update my system. I bought a Noctua NH-D14 cooler (which performs better than the liquid coolers I could afford) and changed my motherboard to an ASRock Z77 Pro4, in order to perform a better overclock. Now the CPU runs at 4.6 GHZ and temps never exceed 60c.
I also managed to obtain a good balance between performance and graphics, building a prepar3d.cfg file from scratch. Now the sim runs smoothly and I'm very happy with the result!

I just wanted to thank again Vic and Kristoffer for their amazing support!

Cheers.

Love your work man!

 

I ve heard about the Noctua one - it s brilliant! Same goes for the Z77 Pro from ASRock - it is much more potent. You could try to hit even higher clocks, if you are at 4.6 with 60 degrees. It hits 4.6 at somwhere around 1.3v? What memory speeds are you running at? 

 

Best regards -

 

Kristoffer

 

Thanks man!

I'm seeing your answer just now.

 

Anyway, I'm running a test with OCCT in this very moment. With HT switched off, as you suggested, I'm hitting 4.7 GHz and temps average 63-65 degrees (max recorded temp is 74 on core 1, for now).  CPU Vcore is stable at 1.3v. Do you think I could push it even harder? My DRAM speed is 666,5 MHz, as per CPU-Z (DDR3).

 

Thank you!

With that DRAM-speed you could hit even higher, although it will get trickier the higher the multiplier is pushed. There are some ways to lower the overall power consumption on Ivys. You could try to undervolt the PLL a bit, and see if that helps. Mine runs 4.9 @ 1.390v 49x multiplier.(1.4, with a little droop/load level calibration) @ 75 degrees in benchmarking, but in the sub 60s in P3D (the loop also cools a GTX 980 Classified). This is with DDR3 2400 10-10-13.

 

I wouldn´t worry about those temps, if they hit 63-65 under hardcore stress testing. P3D or FSX rarely consumes that amount of CPU cycles in the real world.

 

 

Thanks man!

I'm seeing your answer just now.

 

Anyway, I'm running a test with OCCT in this very moment. With HT switched off, as you suggested, I'm hitting 4.7 GHz and temps average 63-65 degrees (max recorded temp is 74 on core 1, for now).  CPU Vcore is stable at 1.3v. Do you think I could push it even harder? My DRAM speed is 666,5 MHz, as per CPU-Z (DDR3).

 

Thank you!