i7 2600K oc query

[GoldenTiger]

My launch-day 2600K did 4.8ghz all day at low voltage when I got it with an Asus P8P67 Pro.... months later the motherboard recall came for SATA ports so I sent my board in and was sent a B3 stepping replacement. From point, I've never gotten it past 4.4 at the same volts again, and 4.6 with much higher. Even tried a different motherboard (MSI Z68-GD65 G3) and same deal. Haven't figured any way to get it to hit those speeds with any newer board.

When I first had it, the setup was around ~1.335v for 4.8ghz. It worked flawlessly and 100% stable. The only thing I changed was one day to the next putting in the new B3 stepping board, and it wouldn't go past 4.6 with 1.44v stable at that point, or 4.4 with 1.345v. I always have used internal PLL overvoltage and high LLC with the chip. I later ended up going for the MSI Z68 board mentioned above, hoping it would let me get higher again, but same story. I've tried virtually everything I know (which is a lot of things...).

Is there something obvious I'm missing here? Was it common for Sandy Bridge chips to OC well then suck after the B3 stepping boards hit the market? I can of course provide settings if not. I never really spent much time hassling with it but with BF4 and other games hammering the CPU, I want all I can get out of it for gaming again.

 

[GoldenTiger]

Hmmm... my googling isn't managing to turn up anything much that's similar. Anyone have the same experience?

 

[W.Feather]

Degradation on the chip? Could just be freak timing it happened when the board swapped.

I know mine went from 4.8 stable all day long 24/7, to needing the same volts for 4.5, then 4.2 .... now I just leave it @ stock in my dads box, not worth the headache (all on a B3 board, no experience with earlier ones).

 

[GoldenTiger]

Degradation was my thought too, but it literally worked on the old board, I swapped it out for the new one and booted right back up only to find it wouldn't work @ 4.8ghz, after literally having been shut down on the old board clocking to that speed. We're talking a span of about an hour here. The timing and swapping of the component really makes me think something else changed that I'm not thinking of, rather than degradation.

Thanks for the reply, by the way .

 

[spine]

Recent bios updates made the voltage droop alot more so you just need to raise the voltage more to get the same actual voltage when under load.

Use CPUz to monitor voltage in windows, and be sure to have LLC set to Ultra High in your bios.

FYI, I've been running my 2600K for well over a year now at 5.2ghz with 1.53v and it's showing no sign of degradation.

*edit*

my P8P67 Pro is a B3 revision. Oh yeah, and see the following link for everything you need to know about overclocking these Asus boards:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1578110

 

[GoldenTiger]

Yeah, I have it on an Msi z68a-gd65 g3 at this point and can't get it to oc back up still.... I find it implausible that it degraded in the course of being put of a system for an hour frankly but I'll be darned if zi cam figure it out. Sometime soon I will have to figure it out....

 

[kirbyrj]

Yeah, I have it on an Msi z68a-gd65 g3 at this point and can't get it to oc back up still.... I find it implausible that it degraded in the course of being put of a system for an hour frankly but I'll be darned if zi cam figure it out. Sometime soon I will have to figure it out....

I agree...implausible that degradation is the culprit as a not being used isn't going to degrade the chip.

All other components the same? Memory, etc.? Maybe something just not playing nicely anymore.

 

[GoldenTiger]

I agree...implausible that degradation is the culprit as a not being used isn't going to degrade the chip.

All other components the same? Memory, etc.? Maybe something just not playing nicely anymore.

They were, yes. I now have different memory than I used to, though, 2x 8gb oc'd to 1866 c9 = 16gb. I'm still convinced it is a settings issue somewhere.... But I don't know what for the life of me. I'm going to sit down tomorrow and see if I can nail this finally.

 

[Pitbully]

My 2600k has some of the same degradation as well. It once only took 1.36v to hit 4.8GHz on my chip and now takes over 1.42v to hit the same speed. This used to drive me crazy because the difference between 1.36v and 1.4v was between 10-15C in heat alone and my poor little H-60 with push/pull fans was struggling to keep up. Last week I installed a new XSPC watercooler and it brought the temp back down to 68C under full load, from 78-85C. At this point, I don't see any advantage in upgrading anything and the chip is nearly 3 years old so I'll probably run it until she dies. This chip has been beat to death BTW, folding 24/7 for nearly its entire life.

 

[GoldenTiger]

I'm still not sure why it has such trouble hitting 4.8 particularly since it was the same day and all that I did was shut down the rig, and then put in the new mobo, but it'd been stable on 4.6 for ~12 months not so long ago. and I have it back on 4.6 now with the same voltage I had been using, rock-solid still. I guess it's not really worth the hassle for me to try to chase down that last 200mhz... and it might not be good for the chip if I did, either. I'd like to ride this chip out for awhile yet since it's still a strong CPU, honestly...

 

[doz]

No degradation here yet. Im running an i7-2600k @ 4.9ghz, 1.488v since January 2011. No issues at all, running on a P8P67 vanilla board. Oh, and I had the same clock prior to the B3 and after the B3 board.

 

[/usr/sbin]

No degredation here, but my overclock/volts (4.4GHz / 1.32v) are pretty mild, and I'm using the C states so it clocks down to 1600MHz/0.98v when idle.