My M18x turned into a zombie...so now I'm building that monster desktop I always talked about.

There is a liquid cooling solution! Dell bought the patent from Asetek remember? dB per dB liquid should cool better than air in the Alienware laptops. And the AW 18 definitely has room to spare for this kit.

Yeah I was impatient and not thrilled about testing new technology so I just went with the sure thing, X79.

Yeah that's my line of thinking 100%.

Yeah I paid up the difference to 4930 and it was only $180 not $300, if it actually was $300 more I probably would have had to think long and hard about it and might have stayed with the 4820.

OH AND UPDATE, THE COOLER ARRIVED THIS MORNING. I am presently copying the entirety of C:/ with the hope that most of my programs can simply be reinstalled on the new boot drive after it has a fresh copy of windows on it.

Sadly ThrottleStop doesn't support Ive E?!

Anyone know if it is possible to copy the C:/ back onto another 2.5" HDD that is going in the R2 without having to re-install Windows again? I don't believe it is possible but am not sure.

IF ALL GOES WELL SHOULD HAVE IT UP AND RUNNING IN A FEW HOURS.

 

Which CPU cooler did you end up with again?

 

Phanteks PH-TC14PE

Here is my post from the RIVBE forum on overclock.net, comparing the air coolers I was looking at and also my decision to remove the heat-spreaders from the memory:

[Official] Asus Rampage IV Black Edition Owners Club! - Page 799


The Corsair Vengeance Pro, in case anyone else is wondering, has a height of 45mm and the clearance from the motherboard floor to the bottom of the heatsink of both the Noctua NH-D14 and Phanteks PH-TC14PE is 2" or 50mm, I have also seen pictures of the Vengeance Pro with clearance. The issue for me was having to position the intake fan higher, it is more of an aesthetic issue as even then with the case I have, a Corsair Air 540 with 195mm of clearance for coolers, doing this wouldn't be a problem, I just don't like having the intake fan sitting half an inch or so higher out of alignment with the rest of the cooler.

Having looked at the option and consequences of removing the heatspreaders from the memory I opted for that solution, as there will be adequate air circulation about the motherboard in this case and from what I gather the heatspreaders are mostly aesthetic, in fact, coming from an Alienware M18x R2, the 4x4G of 1866 Mhz Corsair Vengeance in that HAD NO HEATSPREADERS TO SPEAK OF IN AN ENTIRELY ENCLOSED SPACE.

My only hope now is that this particular RAM actually works.

As far as the measuring contest between Noctua and Phateks goes, here is my take as newcomer with no particular preference for either one, the Phanteks PH-TC14PE outperforms the Noctua NH-D14 by 3 C under load in nearly all of the tests I have come across.

Noctua NH-D15 CPU Cooler Review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5lAbnPml4o

It has the exact same footprint but with a wider selection of colors (this is actually a big deal, the black-and-white is going to fit perfect with the arctic white w/black Corsair Air 540, it will actually look like a custom rig). While the Noctua seems to be about 3 dB quieter under load in most testing and it has to be said that the Noctua seems to have better quality control as it seems the recent Phanteks have some crimping going on near the bottom of the heat-pipes.

[Official] Phanteks PH-TC14PE News, Discussion and Owners thread - Page 133

Were talking about the comparison of the Phanteks PH-TC14PE and the Noctua NH-D14, the newer NH-D15 outperforms the Phanteks by about 2 C in some tests I've come across while it is about on par performance wise in the review above.

Noctua NH-D15 Review - Testing and Results | bit-tech.net

I initially had decided on the D15, the problem is, with certain boards including RIVBE, the additional 10mm of width means that unlike the D14 where it is a tight fight, it will now actually cover the first pci-e slot. I considered this possibility but just a few days ago I confirmed it with Noctua's compatibility chart and reconsidered this cooler, just in case for whatever reason I feel that I need more than one non-reference 780 Ti down the road (playing newer games at 2560x1440 on a G-Sync monitor and wanting 120 FPS perhaps?).

The fact that the Phanteks PH-TC14PE doesn't block the first pci-e slot, has a matching color pattern, offers comparable performance to even the D15 AND was purchased for $40 less than the D15 ($69, on sale newegg). That was a no-brainer.

Only issue now is sorting out the potential lack of PWM and or trying to figure out how to adjust the fans.

Oh and speaking of which, the air cooler arrived this morning so I am going to attempt to put this thing altogether for the first time! It will be exciting, any tips are welcome!

 

The watercooling of Asetek on Alienware never went into fruition. A shame. But like I said, the present heat problem can be alleviated by daisy chaining the heatsink. Everybody is doing it now, look at Macbook Pro, and the new Razer 14, and the MSI GT60/70.

I doubt you will have throttling issues with the Ivy-E, so there isn't really need for TS. You can just set the min processor power state to 100% in the power plan.

I think just copying the file won't work, you will need to clone the drive. There's the Master Boot Record or GPT header which is hidden. I have seen Mr. Fox suggesting Acronis True Image ( Award-winning PC backup software - Acronis True Image 2014), it's not free but there's free trial but I have never tried it. You get nice GUI to work with.

I used Clonezilla a few times before. I boot into DOS with a USB: Clonezilla Live on USB. You don't have GUI, you have to do this in command line. I have copied SSD to HDD without problem. It's a freeware.

The Best Disk Cloning App for Windows

How To: Upgrade your hard drive by simply cloning it - Tech2

 

Best Pc Mark 7 score with [email protected] scracy`s PCMark7 score: 7213 marks with a Core i7 3930K Vs Best Pc Mark 7score [email protected] scracy`s PCMark7 score: 8636 marks with a Core i7 4770K as i said some benchmarks to run better with Haswell clock for clock but 3D ones will run better on LGA 2011.

 

In the words of Tim "The Tool-Man" Taylor, "MORE POWER!!!"

 

I notice that your 3930K PCMark 7 score is less than my 4930MX PCMark 7 score ( see side-by-side comparison). It is just barely better than my 3920XM PCMark 7 score ( see side-by-side here) and I wonder why it is so low, especially considering it is a 6-core CPU. Did you tune and tweak things for the 3930K in the same way you have the 4770K to get better PCMark 7 results? I know the settings you shared with me made a HUGE difference in the benchmark score, so if the 3930K did not get the same treatment the comparison may not be conclusive.

 

Careful, too much power and you might blow a fuse (or your PSU)

On a more serious note though, all this talk about monster rigs got me thinking: how much power can a typical household outlet safely handle? If we go by the standard 120V 15A specs that would come out to 1800W. Let's say you have an overclocked 4960X + quad-SLI Titan rig. You're looking at 1130W just for the CPU+GPU at stock. Overclocked it would probably push beyond 1300W or even close to 1500W. I suppose as long as you had a dedicated outlet just for your monster rig and nothing else, that would probably still be ok correct?

 

Update: It booted up! Memory is ok! Mobo is good! I'm now figuring out how to transfer over my Origin games before wiping the SSD and installing windows on it in the desktop.

 

This has always worked well for me: [Guide] Moving/Reinstalling Origin and Games Without Re-Downloading

 

Mr Fox same clock speed same GPU same tweaks employed only difference 2 disk RAID 0 for 3930K as opposed to 4 disk RAID 0 for 4770K (because i can) which doesnt account for such a huge difference in scores. Z87 and now Z97 dont have quad channel memory support such as LGA 2011 but the memory controller itself is much stronger on Z87 and even stronger on Z97 (from all reports) in terms of having a very high memory clock speed but also having a relatively high overclock,something the aging LGA 2011 does struggle with. Ultimately if Vulcan 78 is happy with air cooling and X79 so be it,at the end of the day he only has to please himself

 

Fire Strike returns better scores with Windows 8, even though almost everything else benches better with Windows 7. There is clearly an aspect of PCMark 7 that gives Haswell a nod that does not exist in most of the other benchmarks. The 4930MX doesn't hold a candle to my 3920XM in most things, but the PCMark 7 score is better. Content creation seems to be an area where Haswell beats Ivy. If that is relevant based on how someone uses their machine, it might be more important than performance in other areas where Ivy rules. XTU gives favor to Haswell also. My 3920XM cannot beat the 4930MX in the XTU benchmark, but the tables are turned in favor of the 3920XM with wPrime and Physics scores in 3DMark11 and 3DMark Vantage. For those that want to dominate in every test, the only solution is to have multiple hardware and OS configurations available for benching because there is not a single option that wins at everything.

Plan B is to find the benchmarks that like your CPU/GPU/mobo combination and run those only, and ignore the ones that don't return results worthy of bragging rights. That's how the hardware is marketed as well. They usually only show the test results where the product shines brightest.

 

After the crap with my laptop - which is still sitting here crippled, unable to game in Crossfire due to artifacting, because I can't send it in to Dell's depot during my exam season and they refuse to do anything else at this point - I'm considering going down the desktop route too. But with no money to spare, it'd all depend on how much I could sell my laptop for.

Even if you need mobility, you can make some pretty small but still pretty awesome mini-ITX builds. One of the Silverstone SG-08s with the Asus Impact mini-ITX mobo, a 4820k, one of the small Zalman CPU coolers (I think anything bigger would obstruct the RAM unfortunately), 780 Ti...faster than an M18x in a small, mini-ITX footprint.

Sadly, it's still just a dream for me to own something like that, realistically I still need the mobility of my M18x.

With any luck, its next failure will be when I'm in America in August, so I can get half-decent support instead of the crap I've had to deal with over here in the UK. I'll be pissed if I end up with another pair of 7970s that are bound to fail again in a couple of years.

 

Mine would be itx with dual gpu card and m.2 so no cables except power apart from maybe the ODD.

 

After using dual-GPUs for many years, I believe that they're more hassle than they're worth unless you absolutely need the added performance.

A GTX 780Ti is more than sufficient to drive almost every game maxed out at 120fps at 1080p. If you don't need more than that, then I really don't see the point of going dual-GPU.

Laptops are a different matter, of course, because we don't have anything near as fast as a 780Ti. We need the twin GPUs to hit top framerates maxed out, unfortunately.

 

Err for double posting/quoting myself, can anyone verify if what I just said makes sense?

 

You could be right Mr Fox even my PC Mark 7 score is up there with only an i3 l:thumbsup: scracy`s PCMark7 score: 7128 marks with a Core i3 4340 benches like super pi 1M seem to score really well with Haswell.

 

I think you're gonna regret the 3GB frame buffer on that 780 Ti. Many people who've been playing the leaked copy of Watch_Dogs have noted its extreme VRAM demands. Even 1080p, High/Ultra settings will max out the 3GB, causing stuttering and low GPU usage.

 

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4930K,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. RAMPAGE IV BLACK EDITION

Check out the temps:

View attachment 112434

Ambient: 75-79 C

Multipliers 48,48,47,47,46,46

1.4VCore

It took me about 4 hours to put it all together because I was taking my time and I had never put together a PC before. Started around 1 PM Saturday afternoon, around 6 I was installing the CPU cooler and getting everything connected to the PSU. It was a real relief to have it POST on first attempt. I got hung up on the Windows install, at first I couldn't even use the mouse to figure out what the problem was until some research indicated USB 3.0 ports don't work until after OS loads, then I had to convert the boot-drive from MBR to GPT format.

I was in around 10pm and around midnight was trying a few games when I ran into Octiceps in Planetside 2.

Thing is absolutely amazing.

PWM works not only for the air cooler but all of the case fans as well.

Sound wise the air cooler and GPU fan cannot be heard over the case fans, which themselves do not exceed 35 dB. With the case fans under full load it sounds about as loud as the M18x R2 with the fans manually set to 2k.

After half an hour of Prime95 Torture Test temps flirted with 80C @ 4.65 V, again with 75 F ambient, and that was with Vcore at 1.45 V, not the 1.40 it is at now.

I still need to do more stress testing, but it holds Prime95 for 10-15 minutes right now (no crash, just terminated program), I just don't have the patience at the moment to sit around for an hour or more with Prime95 making the computer unresponsive, especially after having to re-install Windows because of a mistake I made with my custom theme (having a few issues I replaced the x86 ExplorerFrame file in Win32, as both x64 and x86 are included, WITH NO INSTRUCTIONS I might add, only to find that its either x64 or x86, if youre playing around with custom themes don't make this same mistake, you will be greeted with a "explorer.exe couldn't open or something or another" where Windows usually loads. You can't even get into safe-mode.

With all of my particular preferences above and beyond all of the drivers that need to be installed (Chipset, LAN, Sata etc.) and all of the various programs (Creative Sound Blaster, Hwinfo64, MSI Afterburner, SteelSeries 3, and about 20 others etc.) with this literally takes all day and I am still not entirely finished.

I did take a video with my phone yesterday, this thing is a beauty. If I get Kies going I will try to transfer them from my phone to the computer and then try to upload them to youtube (or try and figure out USB debugging mode for a Tmobile Samsung Galaxy S3).

The programs that come with RIVBE are very nice, AI Suite allows one to change all of the various voltages, core multipliers and PWM fan settings very easily.



As far as overclocking goes, I am a little underwhelmed, just a little. For one thing the 3DMark Physics score is only 14k, it should be around 16k at ~4.7Ghz. A 4930 at 4.3-4.4Ghz can do 14k Physics. Another issue is, In BIOS, if I don't run XMP, there is a good deal of instability with the OC's. But it seems that XMP, although it is supposed to set your RAM frequency to the highest default (2133 Mhz) it seems to drop back down to 1333 Mhz. Manually overclocking beyond the multiplier and VCore settings is extremely non-intuitive, there are a multitude of settings. Any ideas? I've already experimented with disabling C-States.

I have been appreciating a lot of the features, even though I am not the most knowledgeable power user.

There is so much to say, I cant think of it all right now. I'm going to do Firestrike and come back.

Oh and I need help with an issue, whenever there is an "Open file" dialogue all of the files and folders are absent from the window and navigating anywhere is impossible. Anyone know how to fix this?

 

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4930K,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. RAMPAGE IV BLACK EDITION



That's +120 core/+450 memory, about as high as you can go with the default voltage in the EVGA vbios.

GPU: 62 C!

Here is one default clocks, "only" 1006 core, 1150 boost:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4930K,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. RAMPAGE IV BLACK EDITION

 

Thats a delicious physics score you have there

 

Video uploaded to youtube!

"M18x RX" LOL!

 

Thank-you sir, 3DMark 11 should be higher, around 16k at these clocks (48,48,47,47,46,46)

 

Overclocking purists will tell you to disable c states but personally i would recommend leaving them enabled because at idle and during low cpu usage your pre set Vcore will automatically be lowered which in turn leads to less heat. As far as i know on some Asus boards as soon as you enable XMP the bios resets your cpu to stock settings,this may or may not apply to your particular board.

 

Yeah setting XMP does that, I have experimented with EIST off and there is no difference in benchmark scores, C-States off though seems to result in a 2k difference in 3DMark 11 Physics, with it on its only 12k! I need to do more testing to confirm this though.

Playing around with overclocking last night, it was stable at 4.75 Ghz, or 48,48,48,47,47,47 @ 1.45 V and after enduring Prime95 Torture for 16 minutes I was getting ready to end the program at 20 minutes when I was treated to a big fat BSOD. Real dissapointment. Oh and the temps didn't exceed 72 C but there was lower ambient of 70 F down from nearly 80 F.

It passed all the benches with somewhat of an improvement but nowhere near where I think it ought to be for this Mhz. HardwareCanucks had their 4930 at 15.5k Physics with only 4.65 Ghz so something is not right:

Intel i7-4930K & i7-4820K Ivy Bridge-E Review - Page 17

VS 14.5k Physics at 4.75 Ghz:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4930K,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. RAMPAGE IV BLACK EDITION

Firestrike

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4930K,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. RAMPAGE IV BLACK EDITION

And then after that BSOD it seemed that returning to previous BIOS values would not alleviate it. I have a good amount of suspicion that the problem is OS related as theoretically returning the values to where they were should restore system stability, there is something out of the equation and I think it is Windows. After getting BSOD I re-entered BIOS without doing a full-system shut-down, basically the computer reset itself, and I think this is where the problem might lie as even every subsequent BSOD or change that I made I only did so by closing Windows down via "reset" and not "shut-down". I will try shutting-down right after my follow up video, "Acoustics and Heat" is posted to youtube, this process seems to take forever.

 

What was the BSOD bug check code? That should give the best indication of the cause.

 

All of the bug-check codes were: 0x00000124, BlueScreenView shows hal.dll and ntoskrnl.exe.

Here's the follow up video showing the noise under full load and heat generated under Prime95 at 4.75Ghz with 1.472 V.

 

That bug code is Vcore related so bump up your Vcore slightly or lower your clockspeed slightly.

 

Damn you knew that off the top of your head? That is how I know i am not a "power user". Thanks for the help, it seems that it will no longer hold at 47x6 with 1.472 (Offset Voltage Setting) so now I am back on 47,47,47,46,46,46. I no longer believe its an issue with the memory, I made some changes in this regard and it didn't increase the stability. I suppose ambient temperature has something to do with it as its about 80 F again, this might go some way in explaining how late last night it was stable at 48,48,47,47,47,46 with 1.45V but right now 47x6 with 1.472 V results in a pretty quick BSOD.

Oh and I fixed the "Open folder dialogue" issue, one of the .dll files, "Actxprxy.dll" wasn't working right and running "sfc /scannow" in cmd.exe seemed to repair it after a reboot.

How To Fix Actxprxy.dll is Missing or Not Found Errors

What I believe happened was I ran a program that enables third-party Windows themes, "universal theme patcher" before Windows had full updated and this probably replaced the aforementioned .dll.

Everything works right, I just hope I am stable at 4.65 Ghz with 1.45 V.

Now just to confirm, sky is the limit as far as voltage goes as long as temps don't exceed 80 C correct? Meaning, it isn't the voltage that is the problem, but the corresponding temperature?

Well for peace of mind I went ahead and purchased that Intel Tuning Plan for $25. I still can't believe how awesome this is, I can basically OC the snot out of this thing and if it fails within 3 years I am covered, all for only $25.

 

There is no escaping it, the M18x R2 is still the best thing in town if you absolutely need the mobility. To be brutally honest, comparing the default Firestrike and 3DMark 11 GPU scores my non-reference 780 Ti has posted with that of my 680M's at +250/+500 @ 1.025 V there really isn't that much of an improvement.

780 Ti, this sample, default clocks: http://www.3dmark.com/fs/2183597

680M SLI, this sample, +250/+500: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/1929071

(Only compare the GPU score)

780 Ti, this sample, +120/+450 default voltage:

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/2190998

Yes it is only one GPU and yes the temps now that I have changed the fan profile via MSI Afterburner (65 C is now 100% fan speed whereas default 85 C was 100% fan speed) are about 10 C cooler under load (62 C versus 71 C). But it is still absolutely amazing that the M18x R2 is capable of that kind of performance WITH A 330 W PSU.

But it has to be noted that three of the games I am playing at present all have marginal or no SLI support: Mass Effect 2 (no SLI), Planetside 2 (poor SLI support), and Titanfall (no SLI).

And there is the issue of cost, in terms of the cost of solely replacing the GPU's, this one non-reference 780 Ti was $679 after rebate, included a free copy of Watch Dogs, and has a three year warranty whereas only one 780M new on ebay is around $750, no free game and no warranty to speak of. And it seems that 780M SLI, aside from having 4Gb of VRAM compared to only 3Gb on the desktop 780 Ti, is about on par with a single 780 Ti performance wise. But here there are issues with available power, youre going to need two PSU's to realize the full potential of 780M SLI in an M18x R2.

Don't worry, by the time you can afford to build a desktop better technology will be out. If I was able to build a desktop two years ago I would be sitting here with an i7 2920, a GTX 580 Ti and an older motherboard for around the same price. Two years from now, you will be glad you didn't build a PC in 2014, when Pascal and Haswell E and beyond are all available and most of the issues recognized and sorted out.

I WILL regret it if Nvidia releases the rumored GTX 790 with 5GB of VRAM in the next few weeks, but other than that 3GB of VRAM should be adequate regardless of what a few developer clowns (Respawn and Ubisoft) are doing. Games can look great with lower VRAM requirement, take Metro LL for example:

Metro Last Light VGA Graphics Benchmark performance test - In-game screenshots

If youve played Titanfell you already know that the 3GB VRAM requirement for "Insane" texture quality with textures that look straight out of an Nintendo 64 game isn't indicative of amazing graphical quality, it is more indicative of developer laziness under the pressure to prematurely release a game to save a flailing console/surveillance Box.

Anything requiring over 3GB of VRAM is ridiculous.

 

Bc code 124 and 101 are Vcore related. I wouldnt put more than 1.50 Vcore (absolute max) even if your temps are ok and definitely wouldn't run that sort of voltage 24/7 or you will risk degregation or death i would try to stick below 1.35Vcore on Air.. I would try and slow your RAM speed down that will help achieve a higher clock speed with a lower voltage and help with stability. Try leaving xmp enabled but lower your RAM multiplier that way the bios should enable you to run tighter timing and performance of the RAM wont suffer significantly if at all. As far as i know there wont be a GTX790 which is why they are releasing a crazy priced Titan Z fairly soon.

 

Anyone who buys the Titan-Z just for gaming needs to get their head checked, especially when the R295X2 is around. If you absolutely must go team green, Titan Black in SLI would still save you $1000. Really not sure why nVidia is pushing the Titan-Z so hard to gamers, maybe they think we're all idiots or something. This blatant arrogance is really starting to pees me off more and more.

 

Actually Titan Z might not even be thing anymore, has all the markings of vaporware at this point. If that's the case, say good-bye to 790.

Also 790 won't be 5GB VRAM, it will be 3GB per GPU.

 

The Titan Z is mysteriously delayed for some mysterious reasons. Even my friend who's works at Nvidia agrees that the Titan Z is overpriced.

Also a triple slot GPU is just not elegant.

So Mr. Vulvan, with +120MHz on the core what is the boost clock speed? Is the max OC/offset still limited at 135MHz? Well even if not the max TDP should be still locked to 250W. You should flash a modified unlocked vBIOS on it: [Official] NVIDIA GTX 780 Ti Owner's Club. It will be the same as doing it on the Alienware. Seems like you're not pushing the GPU hard enough.

 

Yes from what I have gathered since putting this together (but which somehow eluded me for the past three years of Alienware Extreme CPU ownership) is that voltage by itself may actually contribute to premature CPU degradation/failure. I always thought that solely the heat was the problem. Which brings me to a potential new issue, playing around at 4.75GHz I set the voltage to "Offset" to get an idea of what kind of voltage the motherboard would think is needed for stability. Well, I ran Prime95 Torture for about 15 minutes at 1.52V. It was thereafter that I felt I had lost some stability, if you remember my comment from my previous post where I thought something had changed in Windows as even 4.6GHz was no longer stable at 1.45V.

Well, not knowing whether or not 15 minutes or so of 1.5V is sufficient to degrade these chips to that extent I dialed back the multipliers to 4.5x6 and it is rock-solid at 1.375V.

I don't know if I damaged the chip that quickly or if for some unknown reason or setting that I can't remember I got away with 4.75Ghz (48,48,48,47,47,47) at 1.45 (1.472V reported) for a limited period of time, but even that was unstable at that voltage as I experienced a BSOD around 15 minutes of Prime95 Torture.

Initially, 47x6 @ 1.45 (1.472 reported) resulted in a BSOD as well so I am not entirely sure. I believe that this is a 4.5 Ghz chip as the voltage needed to do 46x6 jumps from 1.375 to 1.45. To me that isn't worth it for another 100 Mhz. Oh and I forgot to report that there is only a negligible difference dropping down from 4.75GHz to 4.5Ghz. About 400 points Physics in both Firestrike and 3DMark 11:

3DMark 11 at 4.5GHz: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4930K,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. RAMPAGE IV BLACK EDITION

3DMark 11 at 4.75GHz: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4930K,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. RAMPAGE IV BLACK EDITION

Firestrike at 4.5GHz: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4930K,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. RAMPAGE IV BLACK EDITION

Firestrike at 4.75Ghz: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4930K,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. RAMPAGE IV BLACK EDITION

Also worth noting, 28% of 4930's from 45 binned samples were capable of 4.5GHz at 1.4V. Only 2% are capable of 4.8GHz at 1.4V.

http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthrea...verclocking-Guide-%96-The-Listy-Wordy-Edition

1) In my binning of 45 samples, 2% of CPUs will do 4.8GHz at 1.40V. 20% will do 4.7GHz. Almost 48% will do 4.6GHz at 1.40V. 28% will do 4.5GHz at 1.40V. 2% will do only 4.4GHz at 1.40V. The average frequency is therefore 4.6GHz on a reasonable CPU sample. Not a massive sample size, but I think it gives us a realistic indication of what to expect from retail processors.

I will try 4.6Ghz again at 1.4V just to be sure as it is solid right now at 4.5Ghz with 1.375V and I could probably try 1.36V as well, but 1.344V results in BSOD at this frequency. If I did prematurely damage the chip and the performance continues to suffer, well I am sure glad I paid that $25 for the 'Intel Tuning Plan'! It is almost too good to be true! "Fried your CPU while overclocking? No problem, you can replace it for $25."

I also have another issue, now that I am eminently concerned with voltage, I was/am eager to get "Offset Voltage" working correctly. It doesn't seem to want to drop the voltage from a certain motherboard determined amount (1.392V on Offset) at idle. I learned that if C-States is disabled, or even only on Auto, it can be a cause of this. So I ensured C-States was enabled, along with EIST. Having no luck with the voltage dropping at idle I then went as far as loading the secondary BIOS and applying a default profile. The voltage does drop here but if I go and only make these changes it no longer drops:

OC Mode: from Auto to XMP
Core Multipliers: from Auto to 45x6
VCore setting: from Manual to Offset

I am reading elsewhere that others are getting away with an OC and Offset Voltage. What is the issue here?

Third issue, Vdroop. This drove me a little crazy as I had no idea why VCore was dropping from 1.375V to 1.34 and even 1.32V UNDER LOAD and then returning to 1.375V AT IDLE.

Well I learned what Vdroop is, and its real bad on a 4930. Fortunately there is CPU Load Line Calibration or LLC to counter-act it but the only question I have is, is Hwinfo64 and CPU-Z etc. reporting the actual voltage the chip is seeing or do I need to acquire a DMM (digital multi-meter) and take readings from the motherboard? This is of real concern as the only level of LLC that works with this chip is "Extreme". I can only hope that the 1.375V reported by the two aforementioned programs isn't actually 1.5V.

More on LLC for those who are interested: Hardware Canucks - View Single Post - Asus Rampage Formula X48 Motherboard Review

As far as memory frequency goes, contrary to what most will say, 2133MHz does feel snappier than 1866MHz and DEFINITELY more than 1333MHz. And it also contributes to higher bench scores so I know it isn't psychological. I actually would like to step up to 2400MHz memory to be quite honest, but am definitely leaving the memory where it is at. It is stable right now, the memory is ok.

Any links?

It is totally overkill. Right now a single 780 Ti or R9 290x is more than adequate to play everything including newer games at 60+ FPS. The only reason people feel the need for 780 Ti SLI or Titan Black SLI etc. is 1. if they are playing competitively at 2560x1440 and need 120 FPS or 2. bragging rights.

Watch Dogs Benchmarked: Graphics & CPU Performance > Ultra Quality Performance - TechSpot

Titan Z takes three PCI-E slots???

I'm seeing 1216 Boost, to be honest I am a bit wary of running more voltage than default now that I have zombified one or possibly both of my 680M's in the course of only two years (although it should be noted that they have seen extensive usage day in day out over those two years). I have taken precaution to mitigate any additional heat with the moderate increase of voltage (1.025V) and 90% of the time only saw 65-70C on them, with a few games (Crysis 3, Far Cry 3, Skyrim + ENB etc.) getting them up between 70-74C sustained. This doesn't really deviate from the factory temps, so unless these things have a life-span of only two years with considerable usage (entirely possible, this is a laptop were talking about) there might be an additional, heretofore unconsidered factor, possibly voltage. Thanks for the help looking up that link though, I may refer to it at some point in the future if my single 780 Ti can't quite process some future game at 60FPS maxed out at 1080p (although I do intend to upgrade to a 2560x1440 G-Sync monitor in the coming year or two, but I could always simply add a second EVGA 780 Ti SC w/ACX Cooler, I got the CPU and the PSU for it.)

 

I don't think you need to run an offset and honestly considering you have various c states that drop the voltage at idle etc i really see no point in using an offset. I dont think you would have done any damage to cpu if you only ran it for a short time at that sort of voltage,bear in mind that cpu's do have a burn in period and to some extent so do motherboards so considering everything electrically is in need of a settling in period,you may find this can take maybe a few weeks depending on how long in terms of hours the pc has been used. Your machine will feel snappier with faster RAM i know mine does with 2400Mhz RAM but if you enable XMP and play around with memory multipliers tighter timings can actually perform better on some benchmarks,by leaving xmp enabled the bios should tighten the timings for you,you may have cl9 @2133Mhz but at 1600Mhz you might get cl8 for example. I can run my RAM @2666Mhz cl12 but i have found cl10 @2400Mhz actually works better,try experimenting with RAM speed it may allow for a higher cpu clockspeed....at the end of the day cpu clockspeed is KING:thumbsup:

 

Scracy you got even more confused with your remarks on timings, that would be the "Klingon gobbledigook" I mention in my youtube post-build videos lol. What was the original frequency rating of your memory? Man I am so tired of messing with this thing to be honest, I have a free copy of "Watch Dogs" that I have yet to even download, I have been tinkering with it for the past 48 hours or so. After posting my last post I tried Prime95 Torture at 4.6 Ghz with 1.4V and got a BSOD right around the 17 minute mark. I don't know what the hell is going on around this time with this test but if the voltage is inadequate it will fail right around the 17 minute every time. So now, partly due to impatience and partly due to not being thrilled with having my temps between 67-75 C for extended periods of time I just end the test around the 20 minute mark. Oh and temps didn't exceed 72 C this last time around so that's a bit of an improvement, ambient is around 70-75 F or room temperature.

Oh and concerning the Voltage Offset setting, its my understanding that both C-States and Voltage Offset need to be active for the voltage to drop at idle. Meaning, if only Voltage Offset is selected but C-States is disabled it wont work and vice versa.

I'd like the voltage to drop down from 1.375V at idle but at least its not 1.45V and the idle temps are in the high 20's, usually don't get over 60 C and even 20 minutes of Prime95 Torture doesn't get them over ~70 C. Its just the voltage I am suddenly concerned with.

What games are you presently playing?

Thanks for all the help.

Edit: Just read your last sentence, hmmmm, that is food for thought, I might try 4.6 GHz @ 1.4V one last time with the memory at 1866MHz, thanks for the tip. But that would be a toss up for me, 100 MHz more CPU or snappier memory......that's a tough one.

 

The original XMP rating for my RAM is Cl10 2400Mhz but i can run it at Cl12 2666Mhz totally stable at 4.8Ghz,but if i drop my memory multiplier to 16 instead of 24 or 26.6 my RAM timings tighten up to Cl8 simply by leaving XMP enabled. Dropping the RAM to 1600Mhz allows me to run 4.8Ghz at 0.06Vcore lower than at 2400Mhz. My point is with some bench marks such as HWBOT prime for example slighly slower RAM with tighter timings actually performs pretty much the same as if i run Cl10 2400Mhz but i can reach the same clockspeed at lower volts and still be stable. I also have 4GB of GSkill PI RAM which has the really tight timings of Cl6-8-6-24 @1600Mhz which i have found out performs my Corsair Vengeance Pro Cl10 2400Mhz with some benchmarks and allows me to clock the same cpu up to 5.1Ghz stable enough to run HWBot Prime but not what i would call fully stable. I overclocked my other halfs 3570K to 4.6Ghz on an ordinary Corsair H60 without heat or stability issues and hers drops voltage at idle and low cpu usage simply with a fixed Vcore no offset with C states enabled,same architecture as yours so i dont see there being an issue unless Ivy Bridge-E is a little different to the main stream part. I dont game much im more of a Overclocker/Benchmarks person but i have been known to play Battlefield 3 when i have the time. My last sentence holds true cpu clockspeed is KING i wouldnt worry too much about the RAM speed get your overclock on the cpu right first then worry the RAM.Though you have stated that your not interested in RAID 0,a RAID 0 set up combined with reasonable RAM speed and a decent overclock will make your system feel even snappier. "Man im so tired of messing with this thing to be honest" LOL Overclocking is an Art that requires Patience but so rewarding when done correctly

 

Oh this is the first information I've come across comparing G-Skill to Corsair, especially their top tier stuff, Vengeance Pro. It seems most are using and recommend G-Skill these days. Yes that is what I am going to try, I left it at 'XMP' and dialed back memory to 1600MHz, set multipliers to 46x6 at 1.40V. If it makes it past the 17 minute mark in Prime95 Torture I will try 1866MHz.

I am getting some good info on the OC.net RIVBE forum:

[Official] Asus Rampage IV Black Edition Owners Club! - Page 809

Oh and 14k Physics might be about right with this processor as someone else is at 16.5k Physics at 4.8GHz, but I am not sure, I think I should be around 15k Physics at 4.5GHz, oh and this guy is pushig 1350 Boost, check out that GPU score!

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4930K,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. RAMPAGE IV BLACK EDITION

I will be keeping with the default voltage unless I absolutely need more GPU, and at that point things should be more stable for me financially and I will be able to consider simply adding at second 780 Ti.

I don't know what the issue is with "Offset Voltage" refusing to work right. Any ideas? I have C-States enabled, windows power setting is "balanced", EIST is enabled, what else could it possibly be?

 

I've always had great results with G.SKILL for years, until I bought Ripjaws DDR3L 2133 memory and it's performance sucked. It was much slower than the Kingston 1866 that I had, and when the Kingston was pushed to 2133 there was even more of a gap. The Vengeance DDR3L 2133 is faster than both of them.

 

My thoughts are that offset doesnt work with some of the c states enabled at least thats true with gigabyte boards and it may be the case with asus boards too...maybe try that. Mr Fox i have always been a Corsair RAM man as it is very good quality and performs really well...but G.Skill PI RAM is really good on some benches that like low latency over speed which is something Corsair dont have to my knowledge..cl6 is very low latency for ddr3.

 

Yeah I thought Corsair Vengeance Pro and Dominator Platinum were the best you could go with. Mr. Fox your new avatar makes me laugh every time.

C3 and C7 are disabled by default I believe, thing is, with no OC C-States works, even with the default settings, but at least you gave me something to look into, thanks.

 

Actually just thought of something what are you using to see VID change are you using CPUZ? If so later versions of CPUZ have a bug in them that doesn't show the VID only Vcore (unless Vcore is set to auto in Bios) so try a different version of CPUZ in the case of Gigabyte Haswell boards only version 1.64 shows correct VID none of the other versions do including the latest, its to do with the way Gigabyte implement their Bios so maybe Asus may have a similar issue?

 

You mean VID as in VCORE? If so I'm using Hwinfo64, the latest Beta, but it shows the same as CPU-Z, also pretty new I believe.

 

I strongly suggest using an older or different version of CPU-Z just to be sure Hwinfo64 shows me the correct voltages for Vcore and VID. VID will change with Vcore increase. Basically VID is the amount of needed voltage shot into the cpu at startup, it will increase along with the overclock you are applying.

 

Yeah I almost entirely rely on Hwino64 for my data. Well before this thread fizzles out I should post a few links where my continued shenanigans will be chronicled over on OC.net.

[Official] Asus Rampage IV Black Edition Owners Club! - Page 810

Overclocking i7-4930k Help - Page 91

If anyone on here is also on there, which I am sure is the case, please be sure to say hi.

 

I sent a PM to you there. Seeing that you're building a desktop really makes my hands itchy. But I am holding off till Haswell-E.

 

UPDATE.

I just ran across this while watching LinusTechTips review of Watch Dogs, in it, if you listen closely, the reviewer mentions a 6GB 780 Ti....So I started looking and found a 90 Day trade-up program through EVGA...which I qualify for!

EVGA preparing GeForce GTX 780 and GTX 780 Ti with 6GB memory | VideoCardz.com

HOLY CRAP I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS, 6GB 780 TI AND I QUALIFY FOR THE "STEP-UP" PROGRAM.....

My only criticism of this card was always the 3GB of VRAM and now EVGA is about to release a 6GB version that I can upgrade to, either for free or an insignificant amount.

TOTALLY STOKED.

Its real. 6GB 780 Ti.

EVGA - Articles - EVGA GeForce GTX 780 6GB Step-Up Available Now!

Oh and kh90123 nice to see you on OC.net.

 

Update:

You may have noticed that the only benches I have done were 3DMark 11 and Firestrike, this would be because for some odd reason I thought that these programs needed to be re-downloaded to work properly and one of the few places I could find a download of Vantage from, Guru3D, had the download flagged by my browser, Chrome, as a malicious file. Well looking in my copy of C:/ from my "M18 RX" I figured I would click on vantage.exe, even though it was on an external HDD, and sure enough it started right up. I then promptly copied it over to my Futuremark folder on my actual C:/ and made a run.

I am both blown away and disappointed at the same time.

I thought the GPU score, especially learning now that my boost clock isn't only 1216Mhz, its actually 1269Mhz (+120/+450, default voltage and vbios) , would be at least 55k. It is only around 47.5k for some odd reason, a score that my 680M's were capable of. But the CPU score just blew me away, I was eating a bowl of granola at the time the CPU tests were going on and I literally just stopped eating watching the first test hover around 6900 all the way through and then the second CPU test finishing with 62 operations, having become so used to seeing only 42 operations +/- 1 or 2 for so long, 50+ Flex VID to make 4.6Ghz stable and all.

46k CPU.

As I said, mind-blowing when youve been seeing 30k for the past two years.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4930K,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. RAMPAGE IV BLACK EDITION

Oh and the temps were amazing:

 

Nice :thumbsup:so it seems you have it stable now?