Asrock Z68 Extreme4 BIOS setting question - voltages

[jayc72]

Hi,

I am recently a proud owner of an Asrock Z68 extreme4.

I'm planning on overclocking an i7 2600K.

But I would like a description of various bios settings in relation the voltages.
I know what the "offset voltage" does and I'd like to use it after reading about it's advantages.

But there are several bios settings I'm unsure about what they do...

- Long Duration Maintained (Sec) - what does this do?
- Additional Turbo Voltage - how do you use this in relation to Offset voltage?? And if +0.004v is set, where does it get applied to (CPU?, Chipset?)
- How do you turn off Load Line Calibration (LLC) ?
- When using Offset voltage, where do you specify the min & max voltage range?

Does one of the experts here know?

The aim is to overclock the 2600K in offset to 4.5Ghz, then slowly increasing the o/c to 4.6, then 4.7, etc up to it's limits.
I'd like to keep the Eist, C1E, C States on to gain the benefits of reduced power usage during idle times.

Appreciate your response, and thanks in advance.

[radier]

Re: Asrock Z68 Extreme4 BIOS setting question - voltages

ASRock P67 Extreme4 - updated - Minus

[jayc72]

Re: Asrock Z68 Extreme4 BIOS setting question - voltages

Thanks, but that link doesn't help me.
I don't want to copy someone else's setup, I'd like to understand what these settings do.
So I can apply settings to my own set of components, based on limitations of my pc components.

[radier]

Re: Asrock Z68 Extreme4 BIOS setting question - voltages

There is nothing to explain about those settings because there are obvious.
Then you said thay you know what is Offset voltage and yet you ask about min & max voltage range? I guess that you don't fully understand what Offset voltage is.

LLC cannot be disabled. Don't know why would you want that.

Long Duration Maintained (Sec) means for how long "Long Turbo Power Limit" last. To prevent CPU throttling when OC under heavy load you set turbo power and core current limits way above TDP because while rising CPU clock TDP rise as well.

So stop gathering theory and start real world OC.

[kick]

Re: Asrock Z68 Extreme4 BIOS setting question - voltages

Hey radier,
You got a screenie with that setup under full load,cpu temps, volts n all that?

@jayc
Use the auto overclocks :
I mean load the defaults.check what the readings show in bios when u switch to manual, instead of auto for the different settings.
Then load asnd save the lowest auto overclock,I think its 4.0ghz.then see how the readings will have changed from default settings,when you switch things like multiplier to manual instead of auto.
and so on thru the auto overlocks,whether you can boot into windows or not,just so long as you can get into bios/uefi.

There is no minimum/maximum offset setting, in a sense the offset is only a maximum,you can only set it to one value,but in normal running it may not reach that.
Example:
The autoverclocks add a fixed amount of offset for each 200 mhz speed increase + also increase the base voltage.
In my case 4.8 ghz is .095v offset,4.6ghz is .070v offset,4.4ghz is .040 or .045,not sure Id have to check,but u can do that yourself on your own board.

As radier is saying u will need to experiment/read more yourself.

There wont be any absolute info,
unless a poster with the exact same system as yours responds ,ie same psu, memory ,same cooler,same fan layout and perhaps even the same cpu batch number.
Up to about x42-44(4.2-4.4ghz) it shouldnt matter as most 2000k cpus get there standard.
After that as much info as possible on your components helps also.

Links to check out would be like :

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2011/01/07/how-to-overclock-the-intel-core-i5-2500k/1

and links from that.

Then stuff like :

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=4

and so on too.
and here of course.
Remember there is only 1 "paid expert" here the asrock tech person,who is more a problem solver.
The rest of us are just trying to relate how our overclocking experiences compare to yours and maybe hoping to gain some insights ourselves.

[radier]

Re: Asrock Z68 Extreme4 BIOS setting question - voltages

Some old screens:



Keep in mind that Linx required lower vCore to maintain stable. Prime 95 in Blend mode and real world games tell you the truth.

[jayc72]

Re: Asrock Z68 Extreme4 BIOS setting question - voltages

There is nothing to explain about those settings because there are obvious.
Then you said thay you know what is Offset voltage and yet you ask about min & max voltage range? I guess that you don't fully understand what Offset voltage is.

I know what it should do in theory. But not how it is setup in the CMOS settings.
So yes, I don't understand Offset voltage fully, that's why I am posting to ask. :)
It looks like, from the explanations here, that the offset voltage setting is the maximum (or minimum if you use a negative value) over the base v-core, correct?

LLC cannot be disabled. Don't know why would you want that.

Because, I want to know the real v-droop value.
Because I want to also know the real minimum voltage needed for a particular overclock value, not a boosted voltage value with LLC.
After I complete my overclock, only then will I decide to turn on LLC, if I need to.

If an Asrock tech person is reading this ... please consider this option in the next Bios update.

Long Duration Maintained (Sec) means for how long "Long Turbo Power Limit" last. To prevent CPU throttling when OC under heavy load you set turbo power and core current limits way above TDP because while rising CPU clock TDP rise as well.
So stop gathering theory and start real world OC.

I understand this bit ... "To prevent CPU throttling when OC under heavy load you set turbo power and core current limits way above TDP ..."
But I'm still unclear about "Long Duration Maintained (Sec) means for how long "Long Turbo Power Limit" last".
So does setting a higher value for Long Duration Maintained (Sec) better for a 4.8Ghz overclock on a 2600K
or
is a lower value for Long Duration Maintained (Sec) better for a big overclock ?


Thanks for your replies so far.

[radier]

Re: Asrock Z68 Extreme4 BIOS setting question - voltages

If both Long and Short Turbo Power Limits are set at high value so there is no need to bother about how long "Long Turbo Power limit has to maintain. Leave it to default.

Below is what I have described on another forum:

These are Turbo Power limits. Overclocking Sandy Bridge is about overclocking those Turbo states. It means how far you can go with max Turbo multiplier on all 4 cores. So if you put higher limits, the less likely that it will try to throttle down.

Try to read some of the reviews about Sandy Bridge especially the part about Turbo 2.0 technology. For e.g. The System Agent And Turbo Boost 2.0 : Intel

Default settings for Turbo Power Limits are:
Short 150W
Long 95W

Now keep in mind that default TDP (Thermal Desing Power) for 2500K/2600K is 95W at default clock speed. If you want to OC for lets just say 4,5GHz on all 4 cores during stress you will find out that this 95W is just not enough as the TDP rise up with the frequency and vCore. So this is the part where you adjust UEFi settings to 200/200 (for Short and Long) to prevent CPU throttling down.


I hope this is clear for you now.

[jayc72]

Re: Asrock Z68 Extreme4 BIOS setting question - voltages

Thanks radier.

I get it now.
The "Long Duration Maintained (Sec)" setting is how long in seconds before the TDP limit kicks in and the CPU is throttled down.
So if I have a higher Turbo Power Limit, it will be unlikely to get to a situation where the above setting needs to kick in and take effect.

[radier]

Re: Asrock Z68 Extreme4 BIOS setting question - voltages

Exactly