Decided to auction my Haswell CPU as well

Now that shops in Japan are selling the Core i7 4790K CPU aka the Devil's Canyon Core i7 variant, I decided to give a shot at selling my current CPU. Why? Because my CPU doesn't overclock well at a decent voltage. I cannot think of owning a CPU that doesn’t overclock at least past the clock speed that I could overclock the predecessor to. (I managed to overclock my old Sandybridge 2600K for 4.5GHz)

If there is any chance that I would be able to make my PC shrinking project a reality, I would want a CPU that doesn't heat up like a nuclear reactor. Besides, it is fun to play with a new CPU.

If I sell the CPU to a shop, the most I can make is JPY26,000 which is a little less than what I would want. So auctioning is the way to go.

[Rant] I'm not going to delid my 4770K

Why? Because there is no point. My chip is voltage limited. I cannot get 4.4GHz stable with below 1.3V and I don't want to feed it more volts. Sure some people don't care but I do. I don't want the power consumption of the CPU to increase by 50% just by getting that last 100MHz stable. Sure, if you run the CPU cooler, you can reduce the power consumption. In that sense it is worth delidding because that would allow you to du  the CPU cooler at the same settings. Plus, I have the Liquid Ultra thermal paste with me.

But, no.

I'm going to do it differently. I'm going to see what Intel is going to with Haswell Refresh that's coming in next year. I'm sure it wont be much faster than what's available right now. But it might clock better. Again, there is good chance that I would lose the silicon lottery once more. That's become a bad habit of mine. But I will no do anything else with this CPU. I wont try to tweak it anymore. I wont buy faster RAM because it would not be noticeable. I won't add another CPU fan to make it run cooler. All those are diminishing returns. I would put all best I have towards the G710+ keyboard, G602 wireless mouse and a R9-290X graphics card.

Oh btw, I ordered a new set of headphones. It w's neither the AD700X nor the G430. It's the AD500X. I felt that I was not audiophile enough to notice the difference between the 700X and the 500X. the 500X is about half the price of the 700X. These e are Japanese prices, so usually much less than rest of the world. I'll right about them on a separate post.

[Article] Not AVX Stable @ 4.4GHz, are we now? Shame!

I was able to run Intel XTU at 4.4GHz for 12Hrs+ and I thought it was stable. How wrong I was! It crashed in Handbrake after encoding videos for many hours. Once after 10hrs! After that I figured that there was something that I must have overlooked. When I asked around, I came to understand that XTU doesn’t use AVX in its stress test. Handbrake does, but still it doesn’t bombard it with AVX instructions like Prime95 does. BTW, Prime 95 27.9 (which is the latest version out with AVX support) crashes easily with the settings that XTU ran for hours and hours without failing.

Then I figured that it could be stable everywhere but AVX. One way to check it was to run Prime95 without AVX. That’s version 26.6. I ran it for hours and it didn’t fail. Now I was sure that it was the AVX instructions that caused the issue. 1.285V just isn’t enough when the components that makes AVX instructions work also become alive inside the CPU. I’m sure I would probably be able to escape by using Adaptive Vcore which automatically increases the Vcore by 0.1V when AVX instructions are heavily used. I tried 1.285V Adaptive, but it still failed in Handbrake. Probably the voltage fluctuation is also not a good thing.

Since then I’ve come to accept that you cannot have everything you want in life and 100MHz isn’t worth that increase in Vcore and temps (and increase in fan speed). So, now I’m going to settle with my 4.3GHz OC and tweak it a little bit to get every bit of power I can get with it. I’ve successfully managed to up the Uncore to 39x at just 1.08V and Memory to 1600MHz @ XMP. I’m also in the process of tweaking the Digi+ power delivery settings (image below) to lower the power consumption and the temps as much as possible without crippling stability. The following screenshot was taken while running Handbrake. Look at the fan RPM – bottom right hand side. It’s completely silent. That’s just great. I won’t be able to achieve that with close to 1.3V. The temps it shows is not very accurate though. Those are not the core temps. Core temps hover between 60C and 70C.

I haven’t done a lot of testing, but after dropping the LLC to level 6, enabling Active Frequency Mode and setting CPU Power Phase Control to optimized, at least it is stable in Intel Burn Test, Handbrake and Crysis 3. If it passes 6hrs of Prime95, I say I’m stable enough.

[Article] To de-lid my Haswell 4770K CPU or not?

Haswell runs hot compared to SandyBridge. IvyBridge also ran hot, but Haswell runs even hotter than that because of the existence of FIVR (Fully Integrated Voltage Regulator). SandyBridge CPUs had the heatspreader soldered to the die thus having good heat transfer from die to the heatspreader. IvyBridge and Haswell both don't have it soldered. Instead, they have a thermal paste in between the die and the heatspreader. Intel is cheaping out.

The thermal paste itself isn't the issue. The biggest issue is that the "large" gap between the die and the heatspreader that requires a thicker than ideal layer of thermal paste. This gab is caused by the thick layer of glue that holds the heatspreader in place.

The only option is to either lower the temps by lowering voltages thus lowering the overclock OR to de-lid the CPU. That means, you pop open the heatspreader, scrub off the glue, clean off the thermal paste, put a better thermal paste and putting back the heatspreader. If properly done, people have been seeing up to 30°C drop in temps after doing this. THAT is massive.

Lower temps help overclock higher, or run your fans at a lower RPM. But it also lowers the power consumption of the CPU. What? How's that possible? It has something to do with these Tri-gate transistors. More voltage obviously increases power consumption. Higher temps also increase power consumption. Well, if you use power saving features - and your should - this will only happen at full load.

I compiled a list of FAQ below and will keep adding more stuff as time goes by.

[Article] Overclocking my 4770K – breaking 4.3GHz

You must be wondering why I want to overclock a super fast CPU like the 4770K. Fun, man, fun! No other reason. All the chips that I have had so far, maybe not my Core i5 750 which clocked +50% at stock volts, have been poor to average clockers. My previous 2600K CPU needed about 1.34-1.36V for 4.5GHz.

Unfortunately, my 4770K chip doesn’t break that spree. When it comes to Haswell, there is a simply criteria for checking whether the CPU is a good one or a bad one. If you can boot to Windows with 4.6GHz with just 1.2V, then you have a very good CPU. If you can do that with 1.25V, still your chip is above average. So the first thing I did was to set 4.6GHz and 1.2V in BIOS and check if it can boot into Windows. Nope, it couldn’t. I was greeted with a BSOD just before Lock Screen. I checked 1.25V. Still no go. Dreams shattered!

So I set 4.2GHz and 1.2V and slowly went up. With a lot of testing, I found out that 4.3GHz at 1.24V was stable enough for my liking. This is not the end of everything as I had to lower the cache ratio to 35x and memory clock to 1333MHz SPD. That sucks, but none of them can match the benefits of a 100MHz overclock on the core. Besides, you can increase them later and find the sweet spot. Right now I am only concerned about core clock. 4.5GHz is my ultimate goal, but from the way things are going, I might not be able to get there without a de-lid.

To summarize, here are my 4.3GHz stable settings.

• Vcore: 1.240V manual
• Uncore multiplier: x35 (min = max = 35)
• Uncore voltage: AUTO (1.05V)
• RAM speed: 1333MHz
• RAM timings: 9/9/9/24/2T
• RAM voltage: 1.50V
• Extreme Tweaking: Disabled
• EPU Power Saving Mode: Disabled
• Everything else: AUTO

With the above settings, I managed to pass

• Prime 95 v27.9 blend test for 6Hrs
• Handbrake H.264 encoding for 2.5Hrs
• Crysis 3 Multiplayer gaming for 2Hrs
• AIDA64 stress test for 1Hr.

That’s stable enough for me. I don’t want to run Intel Burn Test or anything because if it passes Prime95, that’s all I need. The others are just for insurance.

Right now I’m testing 4.4GHz. I had to bump the Vcore to 1.28V. It passed AIDA64 for 2.5hrs. I’ve been running H.264 encoding for almost 2hrs. I haven’t been able to run Prime95. For some reason, when I ran it, the core clocks were fluctuating between 4.2GHz and 4.4GHz. I couldn’t understand why that was. Maybe some software glitch. I will check it after I finish with the H.264 encode. Maybe a simple reboot with fix it.

Hope it will be stable after I fix Prime95 issue. Wish me luck.

[Article] Upgraded the rig. Haswell it is.

So, I moved to Haswell after all the bad things I said about it. This was the primary reason, but I wanted to try out something new as well. Right now I'm trying to find the best overclocked settings for the CPU and it is hard work.

I only bought the CPU and the motherboard, but I made some other changes as well. Replacing the X-Fi Titanium with onboard SupremeFX audio and removing the fan controller are the two main things.

To the newest specs then.

CPU: Intel Core i7 4770K @4.4GHz / 1.280V in BIOS (still testing)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright SilverArrow SB-E Extreme
Motherboard: Asus ROG Maximus VI Hero
RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengeance CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 9/9/9/24/1T/1.35V
Video Card: Palit GTX670 JetStream @1056MHz (base clock)/6800MHz RAM
SSD: Samsung 840 series 250GB
HDDs: Toshiba DT01ACA300 3TB, Western Digital Caviar Green WD30EZRX-00DC0B0 3TB
Display: Iiyama Prolite E2773HDS
Case:  Silverstone Raven RV-03
PSU: Corsair TX850
Mouse: Logicool G500
Mouse Pad: Steelseries QCK / Razer Sphex
Keyboard: Logitech G15 V2
Headset: Roccat Kave 5.1
Speakers: Logicool Z623
Webcam: Logicool C910

Still there is a lot of things to check with the new setup. I've been trying to get my overclock stable. Currently trying 4.4GHz. The temps go up ridiculously when you stress test with Haswell CPUs, and I have to use a different method to stress test. So it is taking a bit longer.

Cheers.

[Article] Haswell, here I come: 4770K + Maximus VI Hero.

Two years and one month ago, I got my SandyBridge CPU (2600K) and motherboard. Yesterday, my motherboard broke. Well, after a long sleep, it came back to life. Still not completely stable, but it is working at least. But I decided that I’m gonna get a new motherboard anyway. It’s a matter of time this board will die imho. I just hope I will be able to sell the motherboard.

I had been sitting on the fence in dilemma, uncertain whether to stick with my SandyBridge 2600K CPU or to upgrade. I first felt Haswell was not worth it. Then the feature-set of the new boards won me over. I even considered the upcoming IvyBridge-E CPUs. But they will be using the two generations old x79 chipset. The prices would be pretty steep (3930K costs JPY57,000 even now), so I decided that route is not for me. That's JPY80,000 or more.

I had been reading the motherboard reviews to decide on a board. Three boards came out on top. The Asus Z87 Pro, Asus ROG Maximus VI Hero and MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming. I felt the software/UEFI support of Gigabyte boards was cheesy and ASRock boards not so good in terms of power delivery circuitry, software and even price - which was their strong point until now.

[Article] Upgrade itch is so strong! Feeling like upgrading to 4770K Haswell from 2600K SandyBridge after all.

Many shops are giving JPY5,000 worth discounts if you buy a Haswell CPU and a Z87 motherboard these days. Sofmap.com has a eye-catching offer: Core i7 4770K and a Asus Z87 Pro motherboard for about JPY51,000. I sometimes feel like giving a shot at Haswell. I know it won’t give me much benefits over my current CPU and motherboard. But this upgrade itch has been crawling beneath my skin in the past few months. Worse case would be that I will get just about same performance as my current CPU and motherboard combo. That’s if I can only overclock to like 4.2GHz. If I can somehow manage to overclock to 4.5GHz, I will be able to sneak in 10% or so more performance. The temps definitely will play a vital role, especially with the temperature in the summer.

It’s not the CPU that is great actually. Z87 is a great chipset. It performs really well, plus, it uses so little power. It also comes with a lot of stuff my current motherboard doesn’t have, natively. I will get a much better motherboard. I can use the integrated fan controller and throw away (don’t take things literally unless I say so) my current Scythe fan controller. I have been wanting a fan controller that controls fan according to temps. With Asus’s unprecedented fan control software, I can achieve it. I hate the cable mess the current fan controller has created behind the motherboard tray.

Is it worth upgrading to Haswell from IvyBridge or Sandybridge?

The official Haswell reviews came out at the beginning of this month (June, 2013) and they proved that the information that was leaked few weeks ago is completely accurate. Haswell is only having a single digit (percent) performance advantage over IvyBridge and they get very hot when overclocked. It seems you need a lot of luck and cooling power to even hit 4.4GHz. However, what you have to do to overclock the Haswell CPU should be quite simple.

Those new z87 motherboards are so delicious though. You get 6 SATA-III ports, 6 USB3.0 ports, PCI-E 3.0, integrated Wireless 802.11ac (certain models), much better integrated audio (certain models) and nice looks overall. Some people would even upgrade to Haswell for this alone. 

Check this HARDOCP article to see how Sandybridge, IvyBridge and Haswell all stand against each other when overclocked to 4.5GHz. This article also mentions all the pitfalls of overclocking Haswell. It's a good read. You should read it if you are planning to get a Haswell CPU and want to overclock it.

BTW, if you are planning to get a non-K CPU hoping that it would allow you to overclock at least a few hundred MHz, you would be disappointed. Only K-editions are overclockable. Others will be stuck to their stock Turbo Boost algorithm. You can try increasing the BCLK, but it won't get your much farther. 

On top of that, you don't get VT-d and TSX instructions support on the K-editions. They are only available on non-K editions. Intel is messing with the Overclocking community it seems. It clearly shows that they don't want use to overclock, because it handicaps their sales because people might not upgrade if their current CPU overclocks pretty well and is faster than the new CPUs. (This seems to be the case with a lot of SB and IB users against Haswell)

I evaluated a bit where the economics stand. I would obviously sell my existing CPU and motherboard if I upgrade to Haswell. According to the current second hand prices, I would only get like ¥22,000 for both of them. I might even add my Creative X-Fi Titanium audio card to that so I might get like ¥24,000 (because integrated audio on these boards is so good). But the Core i7 4770K alone costs little more than ¥35,000 and then add another ¥20,000 for a good motherboard. (It's the massive price you have to pay for getting stuff at launch here in Japan. Prices will drop few thousands in the coming months.) That's about ¥30,000 extra for almost no performance increase (well 15% best case increase isn't a lot). I must be insane to go ahead with the upgrade. 

Thus, my upgrade plans are officially done. I'm keeping my trusty Sandybridge. But being the geek I am, I won't stop there and give up. There are newer CPUs coming in few months, from both Intel and AMD. Hopefully I will be able to upgrade to one of them.