CPU-Z CPU frequency not changing?

CrazyMike

New Member
Hey,

Specs:
Asus P8Z77-V-Pro
Intel i7 3770K

So I am fooling around with OCing my computer. I change the multiplier to 44 to get a 4.4GHz clock. I just left the voltage on auto and turned off Speed Stepping. Every time I go into CPU-Z, it still says that my multiplier is 39 and my frequency is 3.9GHz. Try running Prime95 and it's like it's capped at 3.9GHz.

What am I missing?
 

salvage-this

Active Member
When you restart after the BIOS saves, load system information in the BIOS. Check what clock speed is applied.
 

CrazyMike

New Member
Actually I noticed that as soon as I enter 44 in the cpu ratio (instead of auto) it automatically makes turbo mode enabled. Can't disable it. But it still doesn't give me 4.4Ghz... wtf?
 

CrazyMike

New Member
It's still only reading 3.5GHz.

Have you ever tried this OC Tuner crap? I don't think that it would optimize the OC as well as manual, but wasn't sure if i should try it.
 

salvage-this

Active Member
I never have. My first board didn't have those features. I had to learn the hard way :p Have you seen anyone else have this problem on that board?
 

CrazyMike

New Member
Check out this video and see if he kinda is doing it right. He didn't disable turbo though. I did, and disabled stepping. I put my ratio in under the "CPU Power Management" area in the video, where it says auto for him. I can't put the ratio in under the Core Ratio Limit when turbo is off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnH0luwrcfE
 

CrazyMike

New Member
So I caved and used the auto tuning software. It placed my CPU at 4.4GHz. I then used the software as well to tweak it to reach approx 4.5GHz. I ran Prime95 for about a half hour to quickly check temps. Now am going to run it for over night to see if stable.

I'm actually curious about temps thought. Realtemp said that it maxed out at 80c but when i used my temp gun, I couldn't find anything over 55c anywhere on the board or components. I adjusted the control for fans and what not, so I might be able to gain a bit more tomorrow.Pretty disappointed in the amount of OC, but then again, it is Ivory Bridge.

Software used: Asus AI Suite II
 

salvage-this

Active Member
Sorry about the late reply, I'm working through some A+ practice tests.

Yeah that guy seems to have it figured out for his system. The OC software isn't necessarily bad but it will never be as fine tuned as doing it manually. Since the auto tune got you out of the problem that you were having earlier, use those settings as a baseline. Try lowering the vcore of your i7 till you find where the lowest stable voltage is for a 4.4GHz OC is. Once you find that, bump the cpu to 4.5 and test again. Go till you hit the clock speed that you want or hit high temps/voltages.

Temp guns will not read cpu temperatures. The temps are read from the internals of the chip. 80c is a bit on the toasty side but I am guessing that is due to the bloated voltage of using an auto OC system. Can you get me the voltage that the CPU is set at currently in the BIOS?
 

CrazyMike

New Member
That's what I thought, the software won't fine tune the OC, but it will at least help me out with the problem I was facing. I ran Prime95 over night, no errors, max temp 80c. I know what you mean about temp, pretty high.

Check out this portion of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=G7jwCe0QXT0#t=587s

Right now my CPU is doing just this. Much like Stepping/Turbo. It's somewhat nice, because I don't need the OC all the time. Now he goes on explaining "offset Voltage".

Video Stamp

Using the Turbo/Stepping feature, this is more efficient to use. If you see in the video, you can somewhat refine the voltage slightly by setting the offset.

Let me know what you think of all this. I can't remember what the voltage was at when at max load, but ya i think it was very high seeing as it was the software setting it. This can be adjusted and I will probably fool around with it when I get home tonight.
 

salvage-this

Active Member
I can see the uses of setting a different OC per core. For me it would only be for setting cores that are less stable to their max OC and letting the more stable cores go higher.

I am pretty new when it comes to offset overclocking but from what I have read, the offset uses the CPU VID and adds or subtracts the offset allowing you too tune both the upper and lower voltage levels of your CPU. I can see the benefit here but if I remember right you can almost do the same thing by leaving the speed step enabled as well as some of the C states. (I might have that wrong)

I don't really see a huge reason to need to downclock the CPU when not in use. the new 22nm chips are really power efficient. Mine at stock is 77w overclocked to 4.5 is uses 105w. Not a huge increase considering a few generations ago we were looking at 140w processors.

Some people worry about their chip degrading faster when overclocked. This is true, however it is not killing your processor as fast as you think. Think about how useless Pentium 4s are as current gaming PCs. you can still find plenty of P4 systems out that there that still function just fine and P4s started coming out in 2000. Performance cpus will be out of date long before you kill them with overcloking provided you are not running a suicide voltage.

AFAIK, heat kills CPUs way faster than voltage does. My chip idles in the mid 30s and will occasionally drop into the high 20s when on the desktop. So keep the temps down by tuning the voltage down as far as you can and you should not see problems with your CPU life.

Long story short, keep heat as low as possible. OCing with a completely manual voltage or with offset is fine either way. Personal preference really.
 

CrazyMike

New Member
Just thought I would update.

So after online research about turbo/stepping and using the offset voltage feature that Asus has, I have learned how to roughly use it. I have been fooling around with this feature and have improved, in my opinion, my OC substantially. I did have an OC of 4.4GHz with a load temp approx 80c. Voltage was high with a voltage of 1.350. After playing around with the offset value I brought up my OC to 4.5GHz with a voltage of 1.280 and temps under load of approx 70c.

Here are two screen shots (one idle, one under load):



Now I am still learning and still fooling around with things, but I feel that using an auto voltage with the catering of offset voltage is an awesome idea. I don't necessarily agree with putting the max voltage for stability for your OC for use all the time. I don't agree with having an OC all the time either. I actually like the idea of the "turbo" and alternating voltages. That is unless problems with this comes to my attention.

I know that degrading of CPU because of high voltages might not happen quickly, but I do believe in not doing any unnecessary harm (how little that is) if not needed. Some might not agree, but unless more damage is being done doing things with auto/turbo (the way I am operating my OC) in which is brought to my attention, I think this way is the way to go.

I'll keep it posted any more changes I make. I'd also like to hear others opinions.
 
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