High Stock Temps - What am I Doing Wrong?

[oswaldm]

To crack the die is very very hard (due to the gap left behind after removing the seal). Whoever did that clearly did something terribly wrong.
The CPU socket has spring loaded pins and when the CPU is placed on it, the springs will take/make up for the gap and then there will be a slight (very minute) flex of the CPU PCB as well when the cooler is pressed down onto the IHS. So nothing to worry about.

OK. Good to know

Some people actually lap (grind) the bottom ridge (that used have the seal) to INCREASE the gap.

You mean decrease. If I grind the IHS from the adhesive side it will sit closer to the DIE i.e. decreasing the gap between the DIE and IHS.

The advantage of using offset is that most of the time, the Vcore will be lower thus running cooler and quiet and hence prolonging the CPU life.

That is like the one and only reason for the OFFSET method.

The disadvantage of offset voltage is that when there is demand on the CPU, Vcore will up slightly higher than really needed (around 0.01v to 0.03v) but that depends on the how good the VRM implementation is on the board. Gigabyte VRM is rock solid. E.g. I can get stable run (24 hours+) of Prime95 at fixed 1.400v for 4.9Ghz but if I use offset by setting DVID = 0.175v, Vcore would rise to 1.416 (sometimes to 1.428v) for the same Prime95 24 hour run.

On my stripped Asus board those settings are unclear and do not provide for a stable overclock. It takes time, fiddling and a lot of guessing how the board will behave under certain conditions. I kind of loved how LGA775 handled OC. It was very straightforward and provided for good, stable results that involved changing very little settings comparing to where 1156 and 1155 took us.

Now I'm facing another issue which is choosing a good graphics card that won't ruin my budget, will work with 2 monitors and provide full acceleration and least kext modifications possible. And this is a challenge. Especially when I have a 100% working hack right now

 

[macnb]

You mean decrease. If I grind the IHS from the adhesive side it will sit closer to the IHS i.e. decreasing the gap between the DIE and IHS.

No. I mean INCREASE the gap between the IHS and CPU PCB so that when the CPU bracket is closed, it will press down on the IHS even further (to close the gap between the IHS and the CPU PCB). Lapping the underside of the IHS (the bit that touches the die) is extremely tricky (and risky) and not recommend. The risk is that you cannot lap it perfectly parallel and flat unless you have a very high precision milling machine. Lapping modern CPU IHS does not give significant benefits - may be 3-4 degC reduction and is only worth doing if you have a really really bad CPU and need every degree to cool it (in my opinion).

On my stripped Asus board those settings are unclear and do not provide for a stable overclock. It takes time, fiddling and a lot of guessing how the board will behave under certain conditions. I kind of loved how LGA775 handled OC. It was very straightforward and provided for good, stable results that involved changing very little settings comparing to where 1156 and 1155 took us.

Actually it was a lot more completed to OC in the old days. With the new CPU's, Intel have done a great job to make it easier to OC. Basically, now you just change the multiplier and adjust two to three voltages, and you are done. OK, it is iterative process but straight forward - providing you a board designed for OC'ing.

Now I'm facing another issue which is choosing a good graphics card that won't ruin my budget, will work with 2 monitors and provide full acceleration and least kext modifications possible. And this is a challenge. Especially when I have a 100% working hack right now

Actually, with my Z77x-UP5-TH boards, I can easily run three screens at full-hd and still process videos and photos with ease. The OC'ed CPU is good enough for my needs. OK, if I was a hard-gamer, then I would get a GPU card but I am not.

 

[oswaldm]

Actually it was a lot more completed to OC in the old days. With the new CPU's, Intel have done a great job to make it easier to OC. Basically, now you just change the multiplier and adjust two to three voltages, and you are done. OK, it is iterative process but straight forward - providing you a board designed for OC'ing.

Easier? Well that may be true but not quite. You need to buy an unlocked processor first and then you can start the party. After that it's easy, you just need to familiar yourself with new offset system and new options such as PLL, LLC etc. and experimenting may begin. Now if one decides to drop some extra $$$ on a board "specifically design for OCing" it gives way to a few more advanced options/extended settings etc.
But in general yeah, why not - one can change the multiplier and leave everything else on auto and if his lucky, he can enjoy an overclocked system with no hassle at all.

Now back in the good-ol-days...
On LGA775 you could buy a low end CPU and sub 150$ MoBo and get a 100% clock increase if you found a good chip. All that by changing FSB and vcore. You could also buy a top of the line CPU and MoBo which would enable more timing options, provide for a much more stable system (better power design/section) and so on.

Overclocking got trendy, OEMs sniffed it out and decided to give us "OC enabled parts" (which are more expensive to buy than their predecessors used to cost us in the past) and "everything else" (which has very limited OCing potential)

Now please tell me more about the HD4000 - you run multiple monitor with absolutely no sleep/wake problems and full qe/ci? On mavericks 10.9.2?