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Looking for a Cross Fire / Over Clocking Combo Build for 3 Monitor Pla


abdqeb

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Hey everyone. 

 

So I have been running my new system for a little over a week now. Here are my specs:

 

Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4

Processor: Intel Core i5-2550K CPU LGA1155 @ 3.40GHz (OC to 4.5 at v1.325)

CPU Cooler: CORSAIR Hydro Series H80 (CWCH80)

RAM: G-Skill 8GB DIMM DDR3 1600 9-9-9-24

Video Card: MSI AMD Radeon HD 7970 OC to 1125MHz, 3GB DDR5 6.6GHz

 

Used Far Cry 3 for testing the difference. It is a PC heavy game. At villages, I used to get 35-45 fps on my Phenom BE 955 3.2Ghz same video card. Around the island I used to get around 70s with a 2 settings set to low. 

 

Now, I get 68-82 FPS on an OC i5 2550k at 4.5Ghz at the VERY worst in villages. It's really about 75ish and only dips to below 70 for a second or two. Oh, and I am running ultra settings. Oh, and those hickups are now rare. Around the island it is 80ish. Huge increase while at villages which is where I think the CPU was bottle-necking. 

 

Am I happy? You bet I am!

 

I was able to overclock to 4.5Ghz after about 3 days of fiddling. It over heats during prime95 but while gaming with %82 cpu usage, it does not go above 65c. Worst come to worst I found I can run 4.4 without a heat problem. 4.5 at v1.325 and 4.4 at v1.295. I think my H80 could do better with better fans, but I am happy with how it is now and have spent too much already! hahaha

 

Thanks again to everyone for your time and help!

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Thank you for coming back and letting us know how it went, it's nice to hear back from people :)

 

One suggestion I would have is to downclock your CPU until you get better fans for day-to-day use. By all means bench at 4.5GHz, but otherwise it's not worth damaging your chip just for an extra 0.1GHz. Most people have two levels of overclock for this reason. You can save your BIOS profiles to a flash drive so you can switch between them without too much hassle if you like, but other than that, nice one :thumbsup:

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You're right. I have CPU temp on screen while gaming and I do keep an eye on that. But sometimes when you are very into the game one will lose track. I will dial down to 4.4 and test with prime95. 

 

Btw, which setting on prime95 is the one I should test with? I use the middle one, which is meant to generate the most heat (I think).

 

I also found a program which I am loving called OCCT. If you know it, which setting is the safe one to test for gaming? 

 

I dont do any video encoding, this is strictly a gaming PC. 

 

Thanks!

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OCCT is my personal choice for stress testing suites as it had everything in one place. I personally use CPU Linpack for stress testing, I find it works well. The real-time graphs and the post test summery are great features too.

 

Happy gaming! :D

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Testing with CPU OCCT now, it has been running for 1h 15min at 75-80 temps. This is at 4.5GHz v1.325. I read on the OCCT site that Linpack us the most heat generator, but the OCCT is better for finding errors. I dont think games can be as hard on the CPU as prime95, LinX, or Linpack (correct me if I am wrong! This is only my assumption). I am pushing for 3 hours. If I dont hit above 85 in 3 hours, I think I am safe to game at 4.5. Yes?

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You are correct in saying most games will not push your CPU to 100% utilization at any time, however it is recommended that you are stable in this situation in order to prevent any issues from occurring. 3 hours is pretty much all that I would use for gaming, however true stability would be tested over longer periods of time; anything from 6 to 24 hours.

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The PC has been running with those settings for a week now. I have gamed, moved files around and surfed and not needed to restart since. I'm not stressing the system by any means, this PC is mainly used for gaming.

 

I think I will let it run tonight for a 8-14 hour test. My only reason for not doing this yet is I am not comfortable keeping the CPU at 75-80 temps for that long...

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Finished successfully. Core 2 reached 82 max and Core 0 reached 76 max temp. Total max was 76-82 for 3 hour run. No errors. 

 

I think I will skip the night test. I'm jumping down to 4.4GHz v1.295 and sticking to that for the next little while...

 

I will run another 3 hour test now using those new settings. 

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