Gigabyte Z97X-UD5H-BK and 4790K; Always on Turbo Boost/ 4.4ghz+Question of XMP

[ThatDude]

Hello there, I recently built a new computer and I have a few questions.

I have not touched anything in the BIOS, other then just looking at how things are going on there. I found that my 4790K is running at Turbo Boost, constantly, at least in the BIOS, it shows 4.390 Mhz, whenever I enter the BIOS, which is basically 4.4ghz, which is the max of Turbo Boost on this CPU, from what I gather.

This is what appears on the BIOS:

CPU Core Frequency

4390.85Mhz

CPU Vcore
1.236V

CPU VRIN
1.776V

CPU VAXG
0.012

CPU Temperature
31.0 C

CPU Fan Speed
766 RPM

Are these settings good or is the voltage to high? Will the CPU be fine running this at all times?

Is it possible to manually set better settings here or should I leave it alone? Also, I installed CPU-Z and I dont get the same stats there as in the BIOS, they do change sometimes though when running games but quickly change after alt tabbing or closing the application in question. I suppose idle stats on Windows is different then idle time on BIOS?

Another thing that is bothering me, is that I have 2 sticks of RAM modules, each 8GB, so 16GB of ram, Corsair Vengeance Pro. They are set on dual channel mode, at least if all it takes is putting them on their corresponding RAM slots, which the MOBO manual said was slot 3 and slot 4.

However, their speed frequency is advertised as 2400mhz, but from what I understand, I need to use XMP to bring them up to 2400mhz.

At the moment, the RAM modules are running at 1330.52Mhz, with the voltage of the RAM being 1.500V.

I tried to enable XMP Profile 1 (Profile 2 did not appear at all under the options). After enabling XMP and restarting, the voltage of the ram went up to 1.65V. Would that voltage be fine? What was bothering me and made me disable XMP, was that the color of the text on the RAM voltage in the BIOS, changed from white to yellow. Is that normal when you enable XMP?

Also, coming back to the CPU, which was already running at max Turbo Boost, 4.4ghz, on the BIOS. After enabling XMP, it went up to 4.5ghz. Is this normal?

From what I had read before on the net, when you enable XMP, Turbo Boost gets enabled, and I thought well, sure that seems fine to me, as long as it doesnt exceed 4.4ghz, as I did not want to overclock the CPU.

But the situation I find myself in is that Turbo Boost is already activated, BEFORE enabling XMP, at which point I basically would be overclocking the CPU, going over the 4.4ghz limit of the CPU, passing into overclocking territory.

Any recomendations on how to procced so that the CPU is not constantly running with Turbo Boost enabled, prior to enabling XMP, and that later with XMP enabled, it does not exceed the 4.4ghz limit?

[dmdilks]

CPU Temperature 31.0 C

That temp is really good. That is what you want to look at. If the temp does go up a little to 40c. Like when you are gaming. You should be fine. One thing I have learn in the past don't always worry about what you see in the bios.

Things will run a little different in windows. Windows does control a lot of stuff. It will only use what it needs. Plus one other thing is that CPU really only supports 1333 & 1600 memory.

So when you put in the 2400 and enabled the XMP. What happens it will set your CPU to run that memory. Because it needs to OC the CPU to run the memory at that speed.

So if everything is running fine in windows you should be fine. Just check the CPU temps once in awhile to make sure you are not over heating.

[ThatDude]

Hello dmdilks, thanks for the response! I have not been able to use the computer the last few days so havent been able to check and update on things. While gaming (Arma 3) the temperature went up to around 55c and maxed out at 58c. Is that normal with the voltage the 4790k is running at, CPU Core 1.236v and with the CPU cooler Noctua NH-DH15s?

This is the first build I do and I am learning as I go. I have read abit around and it seems that the BIOS of this board (Gigabyte Z97X-UD5H-BK, BIOS V.F6) not only uses more voltage then necessary on the 4790k, but in addition to that, on the BIOS, it runs the CPU at max Turbo Boost to apparently make sure that it runs well without any problems at max settings.

So I have been a bit confused, it seems that when running windows it does seem to downclock the cpu and lower the voltage while idle, so yes, it is not on Turbo Boost all the time.

However, I have read around that some people have been able to run the 4790k with all cores running at 4.4ghz while having a lot less voltage. To recap, my mobo is running the 4790k at 1.236v, with most cores on 4.4ghz. But, some people have said that they have managed to bring the 4790k to 4.7ghz with 1.25v, basically what my mobo is using for merely 4.4ghz!

Also, some people have managed to use 1.13v (allegedly :S) to run 4.4ghz!

What would you recommend me do? I tried to lower the voltage, and brought it down to 1.20v and all cores on 4.4ghz, but then the adaptive voltage got desactivated. The mobos BIOS does not have an adaptive option for me to use, although that was somehow activated under optimized defaults, it worked fine before. The downclocking worked fine though, as long as I chose power saver mode under windows. Sometimes Balanced worked, sometimes not. The voltage stayed the same though, I suppose once I choose a voltage setting for the vCore it gets set to static.

Also, while using CPU-Z, it showed 1.20v but under the BIOS, it said the vCore voltage was at 1.28 and under the BIOS it seemed that I could not pull it any lower. Yet on windows it did detect the 1.20v that I had selected..

My question now I suppose, is should I use the optimized defaults of the mobo or keep the manual, static voltage that I set? And if keeping the manual vCore voltage, is there any danger with only changing that setting or should I change more settings along with that?

To recap, the mobos optimized defaults for the vCore is at 1.236V and the CPU VRIN is at 1.776V.

I decided to go back to optimized defaults until someone with more knowledge can advise me on what is better.

I would rather lower the voltage as much as possible while maintaning all cores at 4.4ghz and if possible to enable adaptive voltage as well. I read something about vCore Offset and that it might be the way for enabling adaptive voltage but would like to know if I should mess with that or not and if so, how should I proceed?

[Kipps]

Don't use the vcore offset - Just manual type in the required vcore (maybe start at 1.2 and work downwards untill you hit instability at the standard 4.4ghz clock speed)

Once you have established the lowest voltage you can run at standard clock speeds, type this voltage manually into the vcore field in your bios. (As long as all the power saving fuctions within the bios are set to auto, the core voltage will reduce as per adaptive voltage)

Do not confuse CPU VID and CPU Core voltage readings when trying to establish if adaptive voltage is working

Here is a screen shot of my system with my voltage manually set to 1.15 (Which equates to the CPU VID reading, the actualy vcore is 1.176 due to the stress test program overvolting the cpu slightly)

http://i.imgur.com/3fCEKlt.jpg

Im runing a Z97x Gaming 7 motherboard with i7-4790k

My Gigabyte stock voltage was 1.243 (CPU VID)

And just for comparison, heres a screen shot taken a few moments ago - Manual voltage set in bios to 1.241 (CPU VID) and turbo boost manually set to 46 for all 4 cores (4.6ghz) All other bios settings left on Auto

http://i.imgur.com/hJFDeyE.jpg

Again the CPU core voltage is slightly higher than the manually set 1.241 due to the stress test program overvolting the cpu slightly.

So in effect, im currently running a slightly faster clock speed, at a slightly lower vcore than the stock settings

EDIT - FInally Ive just gone into bios and set the vcore to normal, with a -0.002v offset (From my understanding, this should take my stock voltage of 1.243 and apply the offset thus giving me a CPU VID of 1.241)

http://i.imgur.com/9Ftb2bX.jpg

As you can see, It gives me a VID of 1.246 (Which goes up and down a couple of mili volts here and there)

Setting the vcore to normal and applying an offset, is my understanding on how Gigabyte boards are meant to work with adaptive voltage - But it applies the offset to all voltages given to the CPU (At load and at idle)

I havnt had much luck with getting this method to be stable though, which is why i stick to a manual vcore (Doesn't downclock to the 0.7 CPU core voltages as per stock auto settings, but does drop down to 0.8 CPU core on idle - Which is good enough for me)