Finally a new build but...

[BadKarmaPT 48]

I finally got all the parts I needed and built a new PC for P3D and maybe finally try X-Plane.

These are the parts I got:

 

Intel Core i7-9700K Octa-Core 3.6GHz Turbo 4.9GHz 12MB Skt1151

Asus Prime Z390-A Motherboard

G.SKILL Trident Z RGB 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-3200MHz CL14

One M.2 2280 Samsung 970 Evo Plus 500GB MLC V-NAND NVMe SSD

One 3.5" Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM 256MB SATA III HDD

One Corsair TX850M Semi Modular Power Supply

One Corsair Hydro Series H115i PRO RGB CPU Cooler

One Corsair Carbide SPEC-06 RGB Tempered Glass ATX Case

One Zotac GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Twin Fan 11GB

One MSI Optix MAG341CQ VA 34" UWQHD 21:9 100Hz FreeSync Curved Monitor

 

The hardest part of the build was cable managment. In the end I think I did a pretty decent job with almost no cables showing.

My idea was to overclock this system to 4.9 or 5.0GHz.

I know very little about overclocking so I followed a couple of Youtube videos on overclock (namely one by Boosted Media) and was able to overclock it to 5.0Ghz with the reference settings shown.

The problem is I can´t get a stable overclock. Using OCCT to stress test the system, I usually get a BSOD two minutes into the test. Sometimes the test stops with a lot of errors reported and a "#4 core overheat" message.

Is overclocking my system to 5.0Ghz worth it? Will I see such an increase in performance to justify the trouble I'm having getting it stable?

Can someone with a similar system and/or who knows more about overclocking than I do point me in the right direction?

Thank you in advance.

 

Edited August 24, 2019 by BadKarmaPT
spelling

[nas123 160]

1 hour ago, BadKarmaPT said:

 

 Throttle down to 4.8 GHz. You won't be able to see any difference between a 5 Ghz and a 4.8GHz with your eyes. You will maybe gain  1-2 FPS, but that is not worth a possible unstable system.

Edited August 24, 2019 by nas123

[diajohn 164]

That motherboard will overclock for you.  Try it and you may be surprised.

[micstatic 4,316]

If P3D running with the stock boost goes to 4.6 ,how is OC'ing to 4.8 worth it, but you say the difference from 4.8 to 5 is not noticeable?  Literally just curious. 

[AnkH 2,233]

Actually it is slightly different: the 9700K has the following turbo boost steps:

4.9GHz turbo if only one core is under load, 4.8GHz if two cores are loaded, 4.7GHz for a four core turbo and 4.6GHz for all eight cores under load.

Means: 4.8GHz would be a very slight overclock for all core turbo and four core turbo and actually the same (two cores) or even 100MHz below the single core turbo.

If a 5.0GHz overclocking fails on a 9700K, basically only some reasons are possible:

1. the CPU does not receive enough core voltage for those clock rates.

2. the CPU gets too hot.

3. the cache clock rates are too high.

Each of those three points have to be addressed individually with some tweaking. As the topic starter does not give much information on HOW he tried to reach 5.0GHz, help is rather difficult to give...

[micstatic 4,316]

For what it's worth as a 9700k user.  In a stock setup using P3D runs in 4.6 boost mode. My question still remains 

[BadKarmaPT 48]

Thank you all for your input. It is greatly appreciated.

On 8/24/2019 at 4:51 PM, diajohn said:

That motherboard will overclock for you.  Try it and you may be surprised.

I read somewhere that you achieve better results by tweaking than letting the motherboard do it for you. That the "stock" ASUS overclock tends to be way too "generous" when it comes to voltages causing unecessary heat?

4 hours ago, AnkH said:

Each of those three points have to be addressed individually with some tweaking. As the topic starter does not give much information on HOW he tried to reach 5.0GHz, help is rather difficult to give...

I followed this guide on Youtube. Like I said before I don't know much about overclocking.

[AnkH 2,233]

51 minutes ago, BadKarmaPT said:

I read somewhere that you achieve better results by tweaking than letting the motherboard do it for you. That the "stock" ASUS overclock tends to be way too "generous" when it comes to voltages causing unecessary heat?

I followed this guide on Youtube. Like I said before I don't know much about overclocking.

I would NEVER let the mainboard do it's job alone, this is even worse than just following a guide step by step, because the guide at least prevents you from dangerously high voltage settings...

Regarding the guide, you could try this:

- put the CPU Cache on 45 max, not "auto"

- put a value of "3" into the AVX Instruction Offset

- Increase both system agent and VCCIO voltage to 1.25000

This will of course increase the temps, but you should still be fine. If those two 1.25000 values result in a stable OC, you could start reducing them until the OC is unstable again. Or, if the temps are OK, just leave it.

But those are just suggestions, for a proper overclocking, you should more or less know what each of the mentioned settings in the videos means and how you can check if you increase or lower this value.

This will need some reading, for sure, but as soon as you have basic knowledge, you will be able to fine tune your overclocking to your needs.

[BadKarmaPT 48]

On 8/26/2019 at 2:56 PM, AnkH said:

I would NEVER let the mainboard do it's job alone, this is even worse than just following a guide step by step, because the guide at least prevents you from dangerously high voltage settings...

Regarding the guide, you could try this:

- put the CPU Cache on 45 max, not "auto"

- put a value of "3" into the AVX Instruction Offset

- Increase both system agent and VCCIO voltage to 1.25000

This will of course increase the temps, but you should still be fine. If those two 1.25000 values result in a stable OC, you could start reducing them until the OC is unstable again. Or, if the temps are OK, just leave it.

But those are just suggestions, for a proper overclocking, you should more or less know what each of the mentioned settings in the videos means and how you can check if you increase or lower this value.

This will need some reading, for sure, but as soon as you have basic knowledge, you will be able to fine tune your overclocking to your needs.

Thank you for your help Chris.

I tried the changes you suggested and did a new OCCT stress test.

I got an "Overheat Core #2" error message and the test stopped three and half minutes after starting.

[AnkH 2,233]

Ok, now you can try to lower those VCCIO and System Agent to 1.23 and then to 1.21 volts and test again. In addition, try a cache of 43. 

[BadKarmaPT 48]

56 minutes ago, AnkH said:

Ok, now you can try to lower those VCCIO and System Agent to 1.23 and then to 1.21 volts and test again. In addition, try a cache of 43. 

Will do and report.

Thank you again.

[BadKarmaPT 48]

On 8/29/2019 at 7:17 PM, AnkH said:

Ok, now you can try to lower those VCCIO and System Agent to 1.23 and then to 1.21 volts and test again. In addition, try a cache of 43. 

I finally had time to do some testing but the results are not what I wanted.

With VCCIO and System Agent of 1.23 (1.23125) and cache of 45, the test ran for two and a half minutes before stopping with a CORE#4 OVERHEAT message.

With VCCIO and System Agent of 1.21 (1.21250) and cache of 45, the test ran for three minutes and fifteen seconds before stopping with a CORE#2 OVERHEAT message.

With VCCIO and System Agent of 1.23 (1.23125) and cache of 43, the test ran for three minutes and twenty seconds before stopping with a CORE#6 OVERHEAT message.

With VCCIO and System Agent of 1.21 (1.21250) and cache of 43, the test ran for three minutes and sixteen seconds before stopping with a CORE#2 OVERHEAT message.

During all these tests the CPU temperature never exceeded 80º C.

I don´t know what to make of these results.

[AnkH 2,233]

Your CPU simply runs to hot. Which is rather surprising, as this 5.0GHz overclock is not that much and your H115i has plenty of cooling power. Are you sure that the cooler is attached correctly to the CPU? Who installed it?

Then, sometimes, those test programs are anyway not really informative, what does a real world test say? Does your computer crash in the daily usage with P3D or with any other heavy load software? And even more important: what does this test give as result when you run it once without any OC at all? Did you do that once to determine the baseline?

Next you could try is VCCIO of 1.21, cache 43 and core voltage of 1.33 instead of 1.35. Then core voltage of 1.31 and so on...

[BadKarmaPT 48]

1 hour ago, AnkH said:

Your CPU simply runs to hot. Which is rather surprising, as this 5.0GHz overclock is not that much and your H115i has plenty of cooling power. Are you sure that the cooler is attached correctly to the CPU? Who installed it?

Then, sometimes, those test programs are anyway not really informative, what does a real world test say? Does your computer crash in the daily usage with P3D or with any other heavy load software? And even more important: what does this test give as result when you run it once without any OC at all? Did you do that once to determine the baseline?

Next you could try is VCCIO of 1.21, cache 43 and core voltage of 1.33 instead of 1.35. Then core voltage of 1.31 and so on...

Is 80º C that hot for this CPU under load? I got the H115i thinking it would have enough cooling power to get to the 5.0GHz overclock mark. Like everything in this system, I installed it myself and I believe I did everything right.

I was going to buy some extra thermal paste but read somewhere the paste that comes with the cooler does a pretty good job. If I ever need to reinstall the cooler then I'll have to reapply paste.

While going thru these tests I was thinking the same... how informative are they really? Maybe I should find some "stable enough" settings and let it run for a few days or until I get some sort of crash? Maybe the software I run on a day to day basis is not enough to cause a crash?

I never ran OCCT with the "default" BIOS settings.

[G-RFRY 1,708]

Turn off HT in the BIOS if you want the best OC on all cores for less heat.