Review of I7-4770K / 780GTX system

[Delly]

See bottom of post for full specs

So after a couple of weeks of use here is my review of this high end machine and feedback on my experience.


The Good
Super fast everywhere, booting, games, windows, never seems to lag on any action. Every game runs at 1080p maxed out (without OC)
Very well built (no scratches or dents) with care and attention to details, cabling is done very nicely.
Looks really cool but still understated. R4 is a very nice case.
After initial ordering problems (https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?28938-Impressive-but-flawed-ordering-system) delivery was quick and received nicely packaged and in good condition.



The Bad
Well there are quite a few bad points noted here but not all of them are PC Specialists fault.

Hardware configuration
Generally nicely built, the only thing I dont like is the Sound Blaster being jammed right next to the GTX card, this is not advised and most builders wouldnt dream of doing this for thermal reasons alone. This could be the reason for the problems I get to further on.

For the GTX780 I would have liked a bigger name brand than PALIT although I had a PowerColor in the past and it was excellent.

Perhaps it would have been nice to see an extra top fan thrown in for free given how much it cost?

Software
I really don't like seeing PC Specialist branding on the boot screen every time I start the machine.
Very light install which some may like but most of the supplied software and drivers were not installed!
ASUS Suite, latest Intel chipset drivers, Corsair Link, Office, Creative Sound Card software + drivers and a few other things were all missing. Maybe some don't like all that 'bloatware' but at least the latest motherboard and soundcard drivers should be there? If this is the policy it should be noted that the PC is not ready/upto date to use when shipped.

The Windows 8 supplied needed a special hotfix to install 8.1 (special bulk install perhaps?). That was an absolute mission to find and no one knew anything about this when I contacted PC Specialist, I think given how long the preview has been around they should have been geared up for it.

Windows 8.1 then caused the supplied Corsair Link software to not be able to detect the H80 cooler (due to the new USB drivers in 8.1), that was fixed with an unsupported registry hack.

So on the software side of things there was a lot of work to do. Still smiling just at this stage.


Overclocking
Once up and running I started trying some games. Immediate BSOD, after just a few minutes even with low temps.

It is now clear that the 4.4GHz overclock I ordered is not achievable even pushing the voltage up abit (1.31v), I am 'unlucky' in that even with low cpu and board temps the system is unstable from about 4.2GHz and up which is well below the average for I7-4770K, so it looks like I got a bad chip or maybe its the DRAM, who knows, I know what I am doing and have been through all the guides for the new ROG Asus boards and carefully pushed it from stock with voltage and multiplier but it cannot OC over 4.2GHz. Some people have 4.7 @1.27v which is disappointing.

What's more annoying than getting a bad/poor chip is the claim that PC Specialist do a 'hot room' stress test, this is quite clearly not the case as they would have seen very quickly that it crashes under reasonable load at their supplied OC even with the fans on max and temps not breaching 70degrees.

I also see temp spikes under load which might suggest poor thermal paste application or seating but I can't be sure, certainly no one else is seeing frequent 10degree spikes.

Ok, so I got a bad chip, unlucky but that's life, so I started working the overclock myself and I have settled at 4.2ghz / 1.285volts and its stable in windows so far. Apparently this is bottom 5% of 4770K chips.

But here's the real problem, the Sound Blaster Zx is not stable at any OC above stock! At this mild overclock after extended use the card will start the dreaded crackling (mainly on rear speakers). I have re-installed drivers, cleaned etc. but it seems that it is the overclock because once back down to stock it seems solid (not for definite but hasn't happened yet). I think you need to add sound card testing to your process because the Creative cards are fickle, I believe from my research it is down to BLCK frequency or PCI-e bandwidth issues. I am going to try moving the card as far away from the GTX as possible and if that doesn't help I will haunt the Asus/Creative boards :surrender:



Summary
I ordered a super fast top-end PC which looks great but was not properly configured. I paid top dollar and even extra for an overclock that was not achievable and doesn't seem to have been tested properly. I am happy with the base performance (its really fast stock) but I am not really impressed due to the issues I have had and a lack of ability to OC.

Perhaps I should ask for a credit back for the 45% overclock? But that would be of very little consolation as I have just paid through the nose for a system that can be matched by a 2 year old overclocked system that costs half the price. I suppose I got a little stung or just unlucky. Maybe I will keep the OC and use the Realtek motherboard sound card or buy a Xonar. Advice welcome!

Lesson learned
I always knew but now I really know PCs are a labour of love and pain free operation is 100% not guaranteed :sweatdrop:


Machine Specs

Case Define R4
CPU Overclocked Intel® Core™i7-4770k Quad Core (3.50GHz @ max 4.40GHz) NOPE, its 4.2GHz
Motherboard ASUS® MAXIMUS VI HERO: PCI-e 3.0, SATA 3.0, USB3.0
Memory (RAM) 16GB KINGSTON HYPERX BEAST DUAL-DDR3 2400MHz X.M.P (2 x 8GB KIT)
Graphics Card 3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780
1st Hard Disk 480GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 15x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE
Power Supply CORSAIR 850W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ MODULAR TXM-850 V2-80 PLUS®
Processor Cooling Corsair H80i Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card Creative Sound Blaster Zx 5.1 PCI-E Soundcard
Wireless/Wired Networking WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps

 

[Delly]

Update. And it's good news.

I have had some success today with getting the system stable and fixing my crackling Sound Blaster FX.

For the soundblaster crackle, I uninstalled and re-downloaded the latest drivers then after they installed and ran the Creative Update Driver app and selected everything (even stuff I didnt want like Creative Music Server) and so far I have not had any crackling. Fingers crossed.

Actually I think it is more likely OC changes (manually setting BLCK to 100 in BIOS) that have cured it.


So in terms of getting the overclock stable I am posting my settings here for others who might face similar issues..

I started with this guide:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1722630/intel-god-quick-dirty-guide-4ghz-haswell.html


I wasn't able to achieve his 44 overclock but Im stable at 4.3Ghz with quite a big deviation from the PC Specialist overclock settings which are unstable and lead to very high voltage and temperature.

Here's what worked for me:












I believe the memory could be the biggest issue for overclocking haswell.

I noticed that setting the DRAM (accidentally ) to half of its 2400Mhz capability allowed me to clock up higher than 4.3 but led to lower performance in IntelBurnTest (fairly obvious if the RAM is crippled I guess).

I also used (in the last screenshot) the DRAM Current Cabability.. this appears to be more stable on IntelBurnTest, without this: BSOD.

It's interesting that I have managed to get it stable at 1.264v which is quite a low voltage, PC Specialist OC had the VCore at full whack 1.3v, which leads to very high temperatues.

Also I had to turn Cache Ratio down to from 39 to 35 (as per the TH guide), I was getting lots of BSOD CPU CACHE errors previously.

I also had to set the CPU Cache Voltage to 1.15V from Adaptive. Before I did this it could not boot to 4.3GHz.


Amyway, so far so good. personally I believe PC Specialist need to revise their overclocking practice. To me it looks like they are simply poring in a load of voltage to ensure of the overclock without fine tuning for each chip, I suppose its taken me days to get this stable so perhaps its impossible to expect this level but if I was doing this day in day out I think I would have at least been able to send it out stable, that should be the starting position and I certainly could'nt recommend people pay for PC Specialist to Overclock their rigs. Google and patience.

If you know the overclockers (or you are one) please take note of these OC settings for lower Voltage it may lower your RMA's I am pretty sure of that.

Main thing is, its working!

Thanks.

 

[Rustilol]

Hey mate,

I am sorry your overclock was not stable when you opened the box.

I paid for a 4770k at 4.4 too but it was crashing even transferring files. I too have a badish chip but with lots of work I have found a good overclock. I am now at 4.4ghz and I hope you get there too! Try these settings but its important to do it directly from the bios!

Before I go into my settings or what I found worked for me, ofcourse all chips are different but I think you can reach 4.4 with a few tweaks or a little more voltage in the right place.
Be aware if you are stress testing on offset or adaptive voltage, some stresstest programs will draw more voltage than the maximum and there is no way to stop this.
Use Intel extreme tuning utility for stress testing and monitoring voltage and temps and clock speeds! (IntelBurnTest is dangerous!)

BLCK should be at 100
Processor multiplier x44, cache multiplier x39

MANUAL voltage - once you find your stable voltages and stress testing is over, we can use adaptive with an offset to the same voltage, so take advantage of power saving
vcore 1.25v (maximum PCSpecialist will use on there overclocks, but it is pretty safe to go up to 1.3v, just watch temps)
cache voltage 1.22v (max 1.25)
VRIN/VCCIN 1.9v (should be a minumum of .3v above your vcore, so we will do 1.9 to be on the safe side until we find stability) (max 2.0)

Some other settings to tweak for more stable and better performance:
cpu spread spectrum - disabled
load-line calibration - 4
CPU power phase control - optimized

Now do some stress tests -
if you are stable, try reducing cpu voltage by 0.01v each time until unstable, do this for both core and cache one by one.
if you are unstable, try increasing by 0.01v each time. You shouldn't have to go over 1.3v core, or 1.25v on chache.

You are right in saying your ram frequency can be causing slight instabilities, make sure you load the XMP profile if you havnt already, and you can go upto 1.65v on the ram (sometimes it wont change the ram voltage on XMP and it stays at 1.5, causing instability)
If you still cant get stable, reduce your ram to 1600mhz and test again. I think I read 4770k only 'officially' supports 1333 or 1600?

Let me know your results and I will check this thread again tomorrow.

Good luck

 

[Armin2222]

This post gets me worried since I have ordered something similar to this. Hopefully I will be luckier.

 

[Rustilol]

This post gets me worried since I have ordered something similar to this. Hopefully I will be luckier.

More than likely

I have a feeling it is a very rare thing. The only thing that gripes me a bit is the fact that mine wouldnt run stable even transferring a file until I made changes, so there is no way atall it passed 24hr stress test (surprised if it could have even stayed on for 24hrs before my tweaks)

I think they must have tested it, realised its a overlock, then applied thir stock overclock settings, then shipped before retesting or somthing like that, or the tester wasnt doing his job properly!!

 

[Delly]

Thanks Rustilol, yea I went up to 1.65 on the RAM and that seemed to help with stability (see last pic)

I want to correct you on the max vcore that PC Specialist will set being 1.25, not true, mine was 1.3 and temps were high out of the box. The adaptive is from what I have heard NOT a good idea because it can cause voltage spikes as you mention, this is what I was seeing, 10+ degree jumps from 60 to 70+ under moderate load running a game (not BurnTest).

Also I couldnt set Cache Ratio to 39, but I will try some of these things again now I am comfortable at 4.3 one by one, thanks very much. This box is predominately for FSX so every single MHz makes a big difference!

Incidentally, one other thing I noticed was the H80 cooler doesn't really cool any extra over 2200rpm so it is important to use Corsair to build your own curves. If you run a test and the CPU is at 75degrees with cooler at 2600rpm (LOUD!!!) you can turn it down to 2000RPM and the temperature will remain stable. I think it indicates the limitation of the H80 (why I wanted the H100 but it wouldnt fit). Interesting and worth looking at to keep your rig quieter during gaming.

 

[Rustilol]

Oh right, I phoned tech support explaining I changed my 4770k vcore to 1.24 to get stable, and is this OK? They said the only recommend a max of 1.25vcore so what I have done is Ok!
Yeah I agree about the h80i, took me a long while to find a good custom setting. The problem is, if you then change your clock speed or vcore then it effects the temps and you have to do it again!

Im running 4770k 4.4ghz 1.24vcore (4.1ghz clock, 1.24v, was hard getting here!) and my h80i profile is as follows for both fans:

PumpTemp | Speed RPM
27 | 600
29 | 800
32 | 1000
35 | 1400
38 | 2200

I find this works well for me. From what I have seen is that it still gets rid off heat really well even with low fan speed for a while, until the temp of the pump goes up. Basing it on the pump rather than CPU temp means less radical fluctuations. In-game I dont really go over 1500 so nice and quiet. I have the 38 | 2200 there so if if it does go that little hotter then the fans kick in just to make sure my CPU is still happy!

 

[Delly]

Thanks for sharing that, you are right it takes a good bit of tweaking to get the balance between noise vs temp/stability and actually each game or application will have a different heat profile! Also how long you run makes a difference, you might be able to get away with a quiet profile for 99% of regular usage but for that 4hour gaming session you need a different profile.

Personaly I let water temp go to 39 before going up to 2200rpm, a couple of hours on Battlefied 4 and it was sitting nicely at 40 with cpu at 75degrees peaking to 85. I think you could try upping your lower end because frankly 32degrees water temp equates to about 50degrees CPU which seems fine

Fan

31|600
32|900
33|1400
34|1800
39|2200

Then the other fan comes online later and louder for more extreme loads

 

[PokerFace]

This overclocking malarkey seems like a lot of hard work! :sweatdrop:

Is it really worth it?

 

[Rustilol]

This overclocking malarkey seems like a lot of hard work! :sweatdrop:

Is it really worth it?

For a more powerful, reliable and quiet system, yes! I got about a noticeable performance boost and I had a lot of fun and learnt lots along the way!

 

[keynes]

For a more powerful, reliable and quiet system

I think it depends on what you intend to do, for gaming the gains are not going to be significant and an overclocked system is always going to be less reliable than a CPU running at stock clock speed.

 

[Delly]

Haha PokerFace probably not mate, but then what IS worth it? Spending 2k on a PC? Is that worth it?

I suppose it's a bit like gardening in that the enjoyment of succeeding in the task is a bigger part than the practical gains at the end. But with a good OC you can extend the PCs lifespan as it will still be relevant in 5-10 years time when everything moves on.

Also some people who do video editing will appreciate a good OC if it means render times come down, I'm using mine partially for FSX which is totally CPU bound and so higher MHz = better FPS and smoother flight experience. In these scenarios it makes it worthwhile and noticeable. For the majority, no.

Finally dont forget the aesthetic of just 'getting something for free' we all love that!

 

[Rustilol]

I think it depends on what you intend to do, for gaming the gains are not going to be significant and an overclocked system is always going to be less reliable than a CPU running at stock clock speed.

I have compared stock to overclocked, I gain about 8%-12% fps in games which is significant!
In terms of reliability, my 4.4ghz pre-overclock was completely unstable so I spent my own time making it stable. May not be more reliable than stock, but deffo more reliable then when I first got it.

In my eyes, it was well worth it!

 

[keynes]

In my eyes, it was well worth it!

I did enjoy doing the research for OC the CPU and it is quite a lot of fun but I really meant that a stock CPU will be more stable than an OC CPU.

I have compared stock to overclocked, I gain about 8%-12% fps in games which is significant!

For the games I played I haven't found a significant difference in fps when OC my CPU to 4.8ghz or 5ghz but I assume there are some games that benefit from an OC CPU. Which games did you benchmark?

 

[Rustilol]

I am running my ram at 2133mhz instead of its xmp of 1600, and my gtx 770 is running about 80mhz faster than stock.

Borderlands 2
Crysis 3
sleeping dogs (benchmark tool)
GTA4 (benchmark tool)

I also used the benchmark tool on Ungine Heaven 4.0 for a more accurate result, you can see my comparison jpeg on previous page!