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Xross
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Greetz All

 

I am currently running the following and reused as many bits and pieces as I could as I was in a bit of panic mode after lightning wiped me out. Asterisk (*) indicates parts salvaged from x58.

 

Case: Silverstone TJ-10 *

PSU: PC Power&Cooling 860 *

Mobo: ASUS Z97 Sabertooth 1

CPU: i7 4790K

GPU: EVGA GTX780FTW 3GB

APU: SB-Z

RAM: 16 GB of Corsair 1866 *

OS: Win7U x64 SB

SSD: 1 TB Samsung 840 EVO

SSD: 512 MB Toshiba *

HDD: 1 TB WD Velociraptor *

HDD: 1 TB WD Black *

ODD: 2 x ASUS DVD *

Mons: Dell U3011 2560x1600 + ASUS 28" 1920x1080 (# escapes me) *

Cooling: Corsair H80i installed with H100i on hand. Had to order rails from Silverstone to mount the H100i and haven't yet installed it. Corsair Link has been a mess (see their forums for more) so I'm controlling fans from BIOS for now.

 

I had been running a simple 4.5 Ghz OC (45x100) but it was far from optimal. My tinkering with it resulted in a full reset to default in BIOS last night (3/2/15).

 

I went with a Sabertooth board due to the purported component quality. Testing indicated that the mobos I've toasted over the years have all been due to VReg failures. I needed dependability over performance but have been second guessing myself ever since I made the choice.

This build was an exercise in crisis/time management so it is what it is. Resisting the urge to go with an X99 was the toughest part I think. There is a significant performance increase over the old OC'd x58. A pleasant 'surprise' as I was building just to get back to business so the performance bump was a bonus. The SSD, quicker I/O, et al helped a lot.

 

Haven't been doing any gaming but it would be nice once in a while. I've got TS installation on my to-do list so hopefully I'll be able to drop if it's not a bother and say hello, perhaps pick some brains. ;)

 

Great to hear from everyone and truly hope you and yours are doing very well.

 

Cheers

 

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I have a Z97-A the same CPU and an R9 card a very similar setup, in World Of Tanks and Elite Dangerous it doesn't flinch with everything on Ultra. Enjoy your machine mate it should rock.

 

The X99 didn't look worth the extra bucks and I was tempted.

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that is too aggressive an OC believe it or not for the cpu in my opinion.

The newer i7's (models after the 2600K) have too high a chip density to cool properly. Test have shown that even with very slight increases in cpu voltage the core temps sky rocket.

 

If you want a stable safe clock I would not exceed 4.2 ghz. and really I would not go beyond 4.0ghz if it was me and my machine... only because that way cooling is much less an issue.

None of the newer intel cpu's overclock well past 4.0 ghz. you can get them to 4.5 but it is pretty dodgy.

 

The 2600K's will go to 5.0 ghz in most cases without much issue... but that is a much larger chip with a much lower chip density.

The higher density chips just don't cool properly internally for major overclocks. The result is yes you can get it there... but eventually

your throttling with the internal safeties under severe load over a long period like a 2 hour gaming session.

 

It is actually much faster to do a small overclock so the internal safeties never kick in. I found 4.0 ghz was a nice speed. Everything seemed to remain happy.

You cannot override the internal safety on any intel cpu with any program. There are several programs out there that claim to be able to adjust those internal over temp safeties but

in my experience they do not work at all.... Intel has those hard coded in the chip, so nothing outside the chip is going to override them.

 

In addition, as long as you have a decent video card, you really do not need a major overclock with a quadcore processor.

Planetside 2 has a reputation of bringing high end gaming rigs to their knees with high graphics settings. They eased this a bit when they switched it to 64 bit.

I have my cpu locked at 3.4 ghz (stock speed) with 8 gigs of corsair ram and an ATI 7970 HD OC vid card. I run 60 to 120 fps depending on whether there are

15 people in the battle or 200 people in the battle. I also ran it at 4.0 ghz for awhile... I saw little if any difference since most modern games are more GPU dependent than CPU dependent although

they do require a decent cpu to run properly because of all the physics calculations.

 

I have built a couple of rigs for folks using the sabertooth board. It is a very good board.

Personally I am using an ASUS Maximus Extreme, but that is overkill for what I am doing.

 

I think all the problems your experiencing are likely due to you putting too aggressive an OC in that rig.

They just will not do that reliably.

Edited by Zathrus~SPARTA~
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Custard!

 

Hey mate .. very good to hear you can run Elite Dangerous on Ultra. I couldn't recall the name but that's the one which caught my eye. It looks like something I could just hop on as time permitted and have a bit of a romp which would fit my limited schedule quite well.

 

I don't begrudge anyone running X99 and more power to them (literally ;). It just was uber overkill for my current needs so I opted out. That said, I would like to move this box of bits of to a more secondary duty at some future point.

 

It seems the intervals for releases are getting shorter, perhaps it's just my perception. It's pretty remarkable how quickly the tech continues to evolve so the premium for the new stuff is getting more difficult to justify as my needs simply aren't that haughty.

 

I'm installing TS so hopefully, perhaps by this weekend, we can catch up a bit. Would be a treat my friend, truly a treat.

 

 

@Zath bud so you're in Az?

 

Sounds like you're staying pretty current on all of this tech. Yea, I have a tendency to push my hardware a wee bit. lol Old habits ya know. The x58 was rock steady at 4 Ghz for what seemed like an eternity. At least five years. But you're right, sooner or later it will bite ya.

 

I took a massive lighting strike to a tree not far from the house not long ago and it just took everything out. I'm still sorting through the smoldering remnants.

 

The Z97 and Devil's Canyon processor are totally foreign to me. I think I'll take your advice and maybe just run it at stock for now. What's more important to me is to get the services load down and keep the snappiness up. It's just difficult for this old dog to keep my mitts out of the BIOS.

 

Glad to hear you say the Sabertooth was to your liking. I'm still a bit on the fence about it but it's installed so I doubt it's going anywhere. The massive failure caught me well behind on the current h/w so I was scanning forums/sites/reviews as quickly as I could. I kind of like, but am not yet convinced, of any advantage in terms of air flow in this ST setup. Theoretically it should help and the probe temps are well to my liking so, fingers crossed. Time will tell I suppose.

 

I know the x58 had the longest life I ever got out of a build but since I wasn't gaming much it's not very accurate data. What bugs me is that it's never the CPUs .. it's the Voltage Regulators that are ultimately going except for one case of a botched BIOS update that bricked a board but that goes back quite some time.. That makes my head hurt a bit as the VRs should not be the weak link. Which brings me back to why I opted, albeit hastily, to try a Sabertooth board instead of my preferred RoG variant.

 

Are you doing any gaming these days bud? If not, I understand, lots to do. If so, what are you into these days?

 

I've got to run and I'm shooting for this weekend to be up and running with TS and have some audio sorted.

 

Really hope to catch up with everyone soon.

 

Thanks for the insight and while I still want to know what's going on with all the new bits in the Z97 UEFI I'll try to behave. lol Yea, that'll happen. ;)

 

Cheers!!

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Yes Xross I am currently playing Planetside 2 which is a massive scale FPS (holds guiness world book of records for largest battle with 1056 players in a single battle)

I am also prepping for Star Citizen, which I think is probably going to be a game that has something for everyone.

 

If I were you, I would lock the cpu at a decent clock(3.4 to 3.9 ghz) and leave it. Leave the voltage totally stock. Raising the voltage even miniscule amounts can cause core temp problems in the newer i7's and i5's.

They are just too dense for that.

The good thing is... you really do not need to OC the cpu at all I am finding. As long as you have a solid video card and a reasonably fast quadcore cpu, there do not seem to be many issues with current games.

 

Even Star Citizen runs fine on my rig so far on high graphics settings.

 

Sometimes faster is actually slower when it comes to cpu clock in todays cpu's. I have cleared up several peoples problems by returning their cpu clock to something around 3.9 to 4 ghz and locking it.

when the cpu starts to throttle the system can experience a plethora of problems when it is running under maximum load.

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it would be a crime not to overclock, you paid for the privilege of an unlocked multiplier so use it seeing as you have a nice cooler to go with it. :]

it's a bit ridiculous to say none of the newer intel chips work well past 4ghz when this is an actual 4GHz chip with a boost clock of 4.4GHz at stock. stock air cooler might be a different story but hey noone buying an enthusiast chip uses stock cooling. need some temps first before saying there is any kind of issue. look how poorly i7 4790K's overlock :D

 

 

suprised you picked up a GTX780 over a 970 for example especially as you use a high res, what were you using before?

Edited by PANiC
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there is a huge difference between locking the processor at 4.4 ghz and allowing it to speed step to 4.4 ghz because in reality they never stay at 4.4 ghz very long during speed stepping.

 

And yes, you can get just about any reasonable quad core to 8 ghz when you have them cryogenically cooled. I am talking about your average desktop gaming rig, not something a guy just spent

$5000 on so he could claim the fastest cpu.

 

The fact is, intel has been slow to admit it, but the newer processors do NOT do well when locked over 4.0 ghz. Any increase in the core voltage is likely going to activate your cpu throttling.

Analysis has shown that due to the density of these newer chips, they do not cool internally like the old chips did. increasing the thermal load on them just does not work.

They have been working on this problem behind the scenes... but it is a difficult engineering problem.

 

Typically you can OC the newer i7's as fast as it can go and remain stable with stock voltage. It is increasing the voltage even very small fractions of a volt that seem to engage the internal

throttling in very short order.

 

So you might have paid for the privilege to have an unlocked multiplier... but if you want a fast reliable gaming rig that is very stable, don't clock it past where it will go on the stock voltage.

Doing so is going to create all kinds of problems when the cpu starts throttling internally.

Edited by Zathrus~SPARTA~
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Hey Zath ..

 

Yea the 4790K is a 4/4.4 setup as Panic pointed out. I hear ya though and as I'm not (yet) pushing it I'll let it cook at stock .. for now. ;) I'm so far behind on the tech I've got some studying to do so that will slow me down considerably.

 

Star Citizen? I 'think' I may have seen that in it's beta days. Planetside 2 I am not familiar with but I'll give it a look. Something I can drop in and out of is what would best fit my schedule currently. Thanks for the head's up!

 

@Panic

 

Hey mate! Yes I've seen these hit 5 Ghz with a fortunate die draw but since I'm still recovering perhaps I should take it slow and steady for a bit. I want to get the H100i installed before I do anything too foolish.

 

Plus if the games simply don't need the horsepower that will take any perceived pressure off to pour the coals to it too early. I've just got some tinkering in my blood so it's difficult to toss them around a bit.

 

You're spot on regarding the 970. That was just pitiful timing and zero research on my part. I had been running an old 580 so the 780 is a step up. I could have gone through the return process and swapped it for a 980. I just was rushed for time. No regrets as the 780 seems to be a good card but I haven't really tested it yet.

 

Cheers for the link! I'll give that a look, much appreciated.

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I have been finding there is absolutely no reason to do massive cpu OC's anymore on gaming rigs. The GPU's are what are most important.

Any quadcore processor running between 3.4 and 4 ghz is more than fast enough for todays gaming software as long as the GPU can hold up its end of the load.

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I do have a buddy with a 4790K locked at 4.4 ghz. But in my experience he has an exceptional cpu chip. It is very stable at 4.4 ghz on stock 4.0ghz voltage, that is not the norm in my experience.

Most of them don't like going much beyond 4.2 ghz on stock voltage.

 

Don't get me wrong, you can clock a 4790K to 4.8~ 5.0 ghz if you want to, as long as you run the core voltage up... but the problem is, it is going to throttle after a very short time... so what have you accomplished?

 

I am talking about reliable speed that is very stable and is turnkey with no worries. I am sure I could get one to benchmark for me at 4.6 to 4.7 ghz, but it would start throttling toward the end of the test in my experience.

 

So I think you misunderstood me Panic. Of course you can get them to do it, but try getting one to do it locked there for two hours under heavy gaming load. It will throttle... that is what screws people's gaming up. I have fixed several

gaming rigs for friends that were OC'd too far on these newer chips simply by declocking them back down to a more reasonable clock.

 

We have paid a huge penalty (we = performance enthusiasts) so that the big data centers could get a major power consumption decrease. This was the purpose of going to the smaller die and increasing density, to reduce power requirements for a given CPU speed. This was a huge problem for big data centers which the newer generations of i5's and i7's have eased significantly.

The problem is... it made the chips less OC friendly.... luckily, it seems most of the quad i5's and the i7's running just at their stock base clock is more than fast enough for today's gaming software.

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Zath, that's quite interesting and I admit to not knowing about that thermal problem.

 

I'm a little confused so perhaps you can help me sort this out in my mind. Intel had an issue, if I understand correctly, with the TIM (thermal goop) between the die and the heat spreader for quite some time which was wreaking havoc with the cooling. Is that related to what you're referring to or is it strictly due to the die density? One of the reasons I ask is this TIM issue, which Intel was very slow to acknowledge, was reportedly corrected on the Devil's Canyon chips which include the 4790K and I'm not sure what, if any, others it was corrected on.

 

I was reading a bit about people de-lidding their CPUs by brute forcing the heat spreader to separate from the die. This was risky to say the least but it seems some accomplished. They would then clean everything and apply a quality TIM, re-attach the heat spreader, and when successful the temps reported were markedly better. This was a primary reason I went with a 4790K as Intel had finally fessed up and corrected it.

 

Actually, the point of diminishing returns in overclocking seems to be upon us. I could get a 50% overclock on an x58 cooled by air but now going from 4 to 4.4 Ghz and locking it there is a mere 10% OC. Hardly worth the risk imo. 4.8 Ghz is still only a 20% OC. That's why it seems, at least to me, the returns are diminishing rapidly in terms of percentage gains which I feel is a more fair comparison than just raw speed.

 

But, all of that aside, with the diminishing die sizes, on-die GPU (that really bugged me), there certainly are a lot more junctions per cubic area than in generations past so I definitely see your point. Also a great point regarding the data centers wanting/demanding more efficient power consumption which you point out left the enthusiast market as an after thought.

 

Whether this applies to the 2011 chips or not, I don't know. But your point is well made and while I have seen people reach 5 Ghz without anything more than maybe an H100 or equivalent doing the cooling.

 

I think you've convinced me to just wait and see how the games actually run, let this kit burn in for the time being, and take it from there.

 

Really appreciate you making me aware of what you've come across, the undefeatable on die throttling, et al. I'm not going to say it makes an old tinkerer very happy, but it's certainly good information and thank you for taking the time to elaborate on it.

 

As an aside to Panic .. the other reason, actually a primary reason, I didn't really get too excited about not getting a 980 and going with the 780 for now is the G-Sync vs Free Sync arrangements and the associated monitors. I don't know a thing about any of that and since my monitors are getting pretty long in the tooth plus I wasn't doing much, if any, gaming I just decided to stick with the 780 until I could get my head around the aforementioned kit.

 

You lads have been a great help and I'm very appreciative of your insight. Thanks for taking the time.

 

Targeting this weekend to be able to join you on TS. Looking very much forward to it.

 

Cheers

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well the problem intel has is not a simple one to correct. They have essentially reached a point where physically they have packed the chip so dense, that it does not cool very well internally.

I am certain they will make numerous changes over the next few months to try and help it. But the simple physics in this is as you increase the density, the chip is going to become harder to cool.

The difference in temperature (delta T) between the cores and the cpu heat sync surface is much larger now due to the higher density.

Under max load, that delta T is going to be even higher than during idle.

 

The Devils Canyon chips may be improved over their predecessor, but the simple physics involved here say it is never going to OC like your old X-58. It is not physically possible.

 

When this was initially discovered, I began trying rigs with the speed step turned off and locking the cpu somewhere in the speed step range at stock voltage.

This made a huge difference because the cpu was no longer throttling itself periodically during testing.

 

As I said earlier, there was really no advantage to going to smaller dies and higher density chips for gamers. This was done for the commercial end since the power consumption and heat generated at a data center is enormous.

This change was made to help with the power requirements needed by the cpu's. Less power means less heat to dissipate also. This has been a huge help to data centers... who are important to all of us gamers since those are where the servers are

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To be clear, this has little to do with how good of a heat sync you put on the cpu.

This has to do with the chip's ability to release heat.

The higher the density, the slower heat dissipation is inside the chip itself.

 

On Vid cards. (note I have been an ATI guy for about 12 years now, but nVidia has done something special with the 900 series GPU)

 

Panic is pointing out that the nVidia 900 series GPU's are a massive improvement over all previous GPU designs by any manufacturer.

In the 900 series, they have installed "filters" that essentially dump black and blank pixels before the GPU has to process it.

This means the GPU on a 900 series has much less data to deal with than its predecessors. Therefore it can handle much larger loads than its predecessors with much lower power requirements.

This helped enormously with cooling, which has been a problem for nVidia for some time now. They have virtually eliminated this problem. In addition, the design has greatly increased the efficiency

of the GPU itself since it is only dealing with pixels that need something.

 

It is an engineering coup by nVidia. Nobody has pulled this off before and it seems to work very well.

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I get what you're saying Zath and you've given me a lot to think about. Very much appreciated.

 

You're right that the physical structure would seem to make it apparent that internal heat transfer very well may be compromised as the shrinking continues. I've got plenty of other things to contend with currently so I'm just going to let it run at stock settings for now. As an office computer it's plenty quick enough. TBD on the gaming and how much time I'll actually have to try to get some in.

 

lol .. I get it, I should have gotten a 980. ☺

 

If it turns out I can put one to use, I'll get one .. perhaps two. I ran into a guy on the Corsair forums when I was trying to figure out wtf was wrong with CorsairLink that was running 4 980s on X99 5960 build. Not even sure he was a gamer but he is a s/w developer so he built the beast to sort his code out on.

 

When I got the 780FTW the only 980 I could have traded for was the initial reference design. That, my non-gaming phase, G-Sync/Free Sync musings, plus wondering why such a card 'only' had 3 GB of GRam not yet knowing how it had been optimized, and lastly my absolute nightmarish rush to get 'something' reasonably powered up and running as quickly as possible simply found me using a 780 .. for now.

 

If you saw the mess my office was still in after the epic lightning strike perhaps it would be more evident why a GPU is not currently at the top of the list. lol I don't even have audio sorted yet. Losing that discontinued Medusa which had served me forever has left me scrambling. It made it very convenient to switch between my headset and my monitors. I 'think' there may be light at the end of the tunnel .. likely a train coming my way though. ;)

 

I'll be pretty busy until the weekend but I've got TS downloaded so I'm hoping by maybe Friday evening or thereabouts I'll be able to drop in to say hello. I'm looking at 3 or 4 games it seems are popular at the moment but I'm not sure if I'll be able to get that far by this weekend. It's officially on the list though. ☺

 

Thanks again for giving me some solid food for thought before I just crank this rig to the hilt for no apparent reason .. other than it's hard to stop myself. ;(

 

Cheers and catch up soonest!

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thinking of this build as a replacement for my pc, as my son's pc dies slowly (my previous previous rig core 2 duo 6200 socket 775)

 

Scythe Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B SCBSK-2100 - Koeler voor processor
WD Red WD30EFRX - Vaste schijf - 3 TB - intern - 3.5'' - SATA-600 -buffer: 64 MB cache
Corsair Vengeance LP - DDR3 - 16 GB : 2 x 8 GB - DIMM 240-pins - 1600 MHz / PC3-12800 - CL9 - 1.5 V - niet-gebufferd - niet-ECC
Crucial M550 - Solid state drive - 512 GB - intern - 2.5'' - SATA-600
Intel Core i5 4590 / 3.3 Ghz - 6 MB cache - LGA1150 Socket - doos
MSI Nightblade Z97 - SFF - LGA1150 - RAM 0 MB - geen HDD - Killer Gb LAN - USB 3.0 - 600 Watt - geen ODD - geen OS
Gigabyte GV-N960IXOC-2GD - Grafische kaart - GeForce GTX 960 - 2 x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort

 

it'll set me back €1240 but it'll do the job for the coming years.

My current rig intel I5 2500K 8 gig ddr 1600 256 gig ssd couple of hdd's geforce 660Ti OC will go to my son.

Maybe I'll transfer the soundcard to the new rig (Asus thingy....)

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In all honesty... I might keep that 2500K.

Your current rig is actually more than adequate for awhile if you were to add something like a GTX970 to it instead of that 660

 

I am still running my 2600K, I actually just put it on a new motherboard (picked up a brand new Asus Maximus Extreme mobo for it on ebay for only $175)

The 2500K and 2600K will easily overclock if needed. However I have not found the need currently so I locked it at its stock base speed of 3.4ghz.

coupled with a good vid card, it has absolutely no issue at all with even very hardware mauling games.

 

Just trying to save you some cash, but really for the price of a video card... you could breath new life into your current rig me thinks and give it some staying power.

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I understand.... I would strongly encourage you to see about putting a gtx 970 instead of the 960 in that build.

Especially if your going to be playing any of the newer games that are running in 64 bit. The 64 bit games allow the cpu to breath so to speak as it allows the cpu to use multiple cores.

In PS2 for instance my computer is typically using 5 virtual cores while running that game. This means it is very easy for the GPU to become the bottleneck in your system.

A video card with only 2 gigs is NOT adequate for many of the newer games in my opinion.

 

My system routinely uses 3 gigs of Vram while running a resource intensive game like PS2.

 

Many of the newer games I have been observing tend to use somewhere between 2 and 3 gigs of vram. You really don't want to spend that kind of money and have your vid card bottleneck your system.

That would be irritating.

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