Newb Questions voltage/heat/gigabyte

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_dawn_chorus_

_dawn_chorus_

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Just built my second pc and am trying out overclocking for the first time. Having a little fun revving my engine before I set up all my music software, because I really just want to get to a nice frequency and keep things stable and not really mess with it down the road much.
i7-8700k dellided
Dark Rock Pro 4
Gigabyte Aorus Pro Z390

I gather that more voltage=more heat=shorter cpu life, but is it just the heat that shortens the life? I keep seeing recommendations to not go over 1.35v on the vcore but it seems that is just because of heat. My cooling is really doing its job, last night I ran the stress test in Gigabytes extreme tuning utility for a bit at 4.9ghz all core, 1.35v and it never got above 72c. I moved the Vcore down a bit to 1.3v and just ran the test again and it never got above 61c.
SO:

-Does voltage alone damage the cpu (within reason), or is it just the heat?

-How can I more finely tune the voltage on the gigabyte bios? It has is set to auto and then I have to type in a Vcore value, but when I typed in 1.33v it just rounded it down to 1.3v. How can I better tune this?

-How long should I run tests before I can be sure my system is stable?

-Are there any dangers in undervolting the CPU?
 
Solution
Barty1884
Does voltage alone damage the cpu (within reason), or is it just the heat?
Click to expand...

Within reason, not really. Depends on how far down the road you're talking. With temps in check, the *cpu* should be fine for years. Problems can be with the VRMs etc, if they're not designed to sustain higher voltages - and they get really warm. Typically rated for ~105'C.

-How can I more finely tune the voltage on the gigabyte bios? It has is set to auto and then I have to type in a Vcore value, but when I typed in 1.33v it just rounded it down to 1.3v. How can I better tune this?
Click to expand...

I believe the round down is just for show? you'd need to verify elsewhere whether 1.33V is taking or not. Something like HWMonitor can be used inside...
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Barty1884

Barty1884

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Does voltage alone damage the cpu (within reason), or is it just the heat?
Click to expand...

Within reason, not really. Depends on how far down the road you're talking. With temps in check, the *cpu* should be fine for years. Problems can be with the VRMs etc, if they're not designed to sustain higher voltages - and they get really warm. Typically rated for ~105'C.

-How can I more finely tune the voltage on the gigabyte bios? It has is set to auto and then I have to type in a Vcore value, but when I typed in 1.33v it just rounded it down to 1.3v. How can I better tune this?
Click to expand...

I believe the round down is just for show? you'd need to verify elsewhere whether 1.33V is taking or not. Something like HWMonitor can be used inside Windows and give you an idea of the voltage being applied.

-How long should I run tests before I can be sure my system is stable?
Click to expand...

This is a matter of debate. Some will say 24hr+ of Prime95. IMO, it depends on the workload you intend to use it for. Do you need "stable-stable"? An hour or so of Prime95 or Aida64, some blender & Cinebench runs to verify... that's what I typically do.

-Are there any dangers in undervolting the CPU?
Click to expand...

Potential instability, but that can be fixed by increasing the voltage back. If you mean physically, then no.
 
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_dawn_chorus_

_dawn_chorus_

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Firstly, Thanks! Secondly I have some weird happenings in my HWInfo that I don't understand.

https://imgur.com/a/MZabWl1

-The maximum voltage has gone all the way up to 1.39, way over the 1.30 I set it at in the BIOS. What is that about? Are voltage spikes a normal and "safe" occurrence?

- Also while the Core Clocks maximum stops at 4,902 the average is in the low 3's. Is it normal for an all core OC to fluctuate that much? I thought adding the manual OC on all cores meant it would always be running at 4.9ghz.

(FIXED IMAGE)
 
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Barty1884

Barty1884

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There's 'adaptive' voltage, and you'd need to set an offset to control this -- or you can set a static VCore.
Adaptive will allow the CPU to idle at lower voltage/TDP. Static is exactly as it sounds - set to 1.3xV permanently.

That's SpeedStep (EIST) perfectly normal. Allows the CPU to idle at lower clocks/voltages when not really being used.
You can disable it in the BIOS, or you can enable the "High Performance" power plan inside Windows.

There's various power states that can be enabled/disabled. For the outright maximum overclock, you'd probably want to disable.
For daily use though, having it idle lower/drawing less power etc, is certainly not a bad thing.
 
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_dawn_chorus_

_dawn_chorus_

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What about the spikes? up to almost 1.4v, is that safe and normal? That kind of makes the number I punch in seem like a relative suggestion.. meaning if I set the number to 1.35 I may be spiking up to 1.45?
 
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_dawn_chorus_

_dawn_chorus_

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I see. Sorry but is that offset something I change for the voltage? I only am aware of the AVX offset and I thought that was just for the clock speed to dip under AVX loads.
 
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