Prime95/IBT reliable?

[junkerde]

So on terms of everyday usage on my computer, is using Prime 95 or Intel Burn Test something to rely on? I've overclocked my i5 3570k and managed to pull off 4.2ghz running intel burn (maximum settings) and prime 95 for 8+ hours with no errors. All applications worked as normal BUT when it came to playing Crysis..........it crashes randomly.

 

I mean it just freezes midgame randomly and the windows that tells you it has stopped working appears. Now I am not sure if this is related to my overclock but do games stress CPU's differently than what Intel Burn and Prime 95 stress? I've once had crysis also crash on me without me being able to go to the task manager, and next time i went to boot the game up, it wouldn't load anymore (had no idea what the problem was) and had to reinstall.

 

I uninstalled it again and clocked my cpu back to 4.0ghz stress testing. I won't be able to hit 4.4ghz but I want atleast 4.2ghz on the overclock. here's my specs

 

CPU:Intel Core i5 3570k

Motherboard: Asus p9z77-v LK

GPU: HIS Radeon 6850 overclocked (It cant be the GPU, on my previous build this card used the overclocks I used now and never crashed)

Ram: Slot 1 + 3 = Geil EVO Veloce DDR3 1600 ( (4x2gb), Slot 2 + 4 = G Skill DDR3 1333 (10700) (4x2gb)

Cooler: Cooler Master HYPER 212 Evo (with artic silver 5 thermal paste)

[IVIYTH0S]

So it works fine at 4.0ghz??

 

Have you tried running the 6870 stock clocks and CPU at 4.2ghz?

Edited November 1, 2012 by IVIYTH0S

[Boinker]

Never had a game glitch a processor that Prime95 could not.

 

Just remember Prime95 has different test affinities. Depending on what you used could verify stabilty of one portion of the processor or all of it as a whole. Im not a fan of IBT but it has worked for many so I can see it reliable.

 

On prime95

Small FFT, Test the processor itself and subsystems. With small data that can fit in the L2 cache.

Large FFT, Test the processor and utilizes all cache and some ram.

Blend, Does it all plus fries and a shake.

 

I tend to use Blend as it will needle out instability in a chip and ram easily. when I used IBT I could get it IBT stable but Prime95 would error out early.

 

So what Prime95 test were you using and as Ivy stated did you back down the GPU to test its stability???

[junkerde]

yeah i've tried clocking down the GPU, crysis still froze but I got crysis 2 and warhead to work flawless, maybe it's the game.....but I've also decided to stay at 4ghz, i cant get good temps or a good voltage on 4.2, (1.3v and up on 4.2ghz, and bad temps). seems 4 ghz is the most i can get without upping the voltage. and do you guys know if it is alright to leave c3 c6 bios settings on? on cpuid it says it is running at 4ghz but the voltage is pretty low at idle, while on 4ghz. i thought that might be a problem, should i switch to manual instead of offset and make sure it's always on 1.2v? right now it is fluctuating from .9v to 1.1v on idle...not sure if these are bad voltages on idke

Edited November 1, 2012 by junkerde

[IVIYTH0S]

yeah i've tried clocking down the GPU, crysis still froze but I got crysis 2 and warhead to work flawless, maybe it's the game.....but I've also decided to stay at 4ghz, i cant get good temps or a good voltage on 4.2, (1.3v and up on 4.2ghz, and bad temps). seems 4 ghz is the most i can get without upping the voltage. and do you guys know if it is alright to leave c3 c6 bios settings on? on cpuid it says it is running at 4ghz but the voltage is pretty low at idle, while on 4ghz. i thought that might be a problem, should i switch to manual instead of offset and make sure it's always on 1.2v? right now it is fluctuating from .9v to 1.1v on idle...not sure if these are bad voltages on idke

So crysis 2 and warhead crashed with the GPU overclocked but not with it downclocked??

 

4ghz is still a great overclock, honestly you won't see a difference day to day between the two (4.2 vs 4.0).

 

Why wouldn't it be ok to leave C3 and C6 on?? Usually it's tougher to keep them and stability but if you can, more power to ya!

 

When the chip is idle does the multiplier automatically lower and downclock the chip if so, don't up the voltage. At gaming it should always be at 4.0ghz and the voltage you told it to in the bios so don't worry about that.

[junkerde]

So crysis 2 and warhead crashed with the GPU overclocked but not with it downclocked??

 

4ghz is still a great overclock, honestly you won't see a difference day to day between the two (4.2 vs 4.0).

 

Why wouldn't it be ok to leave C3 and C6 on?? Usually it's tougher to keep them and stability but if you can, more power to ya!

 

When the chip is idle does the multiplier automatically lower and downclock the chip if so, don't up the voltage. At gaming it should always be at 4.0ghz and the voltage you told it to in the bios so don't worry about that.

actually what i meant was the other crysis games worked except for the first one so i guess it is a compatibility issue. And no the multiplier is always the same at idle or even load, and there i had a problem. i read up and it was because my power plan on windows 7 was set to high performance....so intel speed step wasn't working. do u reccomend the multiplier throttling down at idle (speedstep)?

Edited November 1, 2012 by junkerde

[IVIYTH0S]

actually what i meant was the other crysis games worked except for the first one so i guess it is a compatibility issue. And no the multiplier is always the same at idle or even load, and there i had a problem. i read up and it was because my power plan on windows 7 was set to high performance....so intel speed step wasn't working. do u reccomend the multiplier throttling down at idle (speedstep)?

yeah, why not save power when you don't need it

[d6bmg]

.so intel speed step wasn't working. do u reccomend the multiplier throttling down at idle (speedstep)?

 

Change the power plan to balanced. And yes, you should use speed-step. It will decrease the amount of consumed power and it may increase the lifespan of the processor (?).

[Waco]

When you ran IBT did you test with 1, 2, 4, and 8 threads? Because of the way voltage is supplied sometimes fewer threads will crash even when 4 and 8 will not.

[junkerde]

When you ran IBT did you test with 1, 2, 4, and 8 threads? Because of the way voltage is supplied sometimes fewer threads will crash even when 4 and 8 will not.

no i havent done that but i will! I just really wanna hit this 4.2 ghz overclock even if it is a small difference from 4.0. Some other questions:

 

For some odd reason when using intel burn at load, my voltage goes up to 1.2v, and with prime 95 at load it stays around 1.85-1.9v............is that normal for using the same overclocked speed?

Do you think 1.25v @ 4.2ghz voltage too high?

My temps with a 4.2ghz overclock in prime 95 max at 75 and intel burn at 85, are those bad temps?(gaming it never exceeds 60 degrees celsius, are those bad temps) Just wanting to know if the processor will last enough with these temperatures/voltages.

 

For now I'll be running more test with 4.2ghz after finding out about the power option in windows, thanks guys!

Edited November 1, 2012 by junkerde

[Waco]

Those temps (and volts for those speeds) do seem a bit high.

 

Are you using LLC? Setting LLC too high can cause voltage jumps when loading your CPU down completely (which can help stability) but tends to not raise the volts quite so much on lighter loads (which leads to instability).

[junkerde]

Those temps (and volts for those speeds) do seem a bit high.

 

Are you using LLC? Setting LLC too high can cause voltage jumps when loading your CPU down completely (which can help stability) but tends to not raise the volts quite so much on lighter loads (which leads to instability).

it's on ultra high right now, but things have been crashing on startup and my ati catalyst manager crashes and wont open with the 200mhz increase on my i5....and when using chrome flash crashes also....im amazed at what 200mhz can do. Darn i wanted to really aim for 4.2ghz, guesss i have to stick with 4ghz... :/