CPU upgrade, is it worth it?

I looked up your cooler, I would concur with Bit that a bigger cooler (240-360mm) would be more appropriate for a 9900K but looks like the double fan push/pull configuration of the H80i makes very efficient use of the surface area of the radiator.

I'd be curious to see the voltage drill down on HWMonitor. Relevant stats are Vcore and VID.

It looks like you got a winner my friend. I bought a 5.0 all core binned chip last year and had it delidded but had to pay a premium for it. You could definitely increase your multiplier without hitting 85 C. But with the 9900K you definitely hit diminishing returns for just a little more OC. The voltage will put out a lot more heat with a more aggressive OC.

T junction max spec is 100 C but only get close to that for short periods for benchmarking or stress tests as it can degrade your chip over time. The standard rule of thumb is below 85 C and 1.4V for daily use gaming for 14nm Intel chips. The lower the better for a given OC. I usually keep voltage on adaptive per this video. It's the best reference guide I've found for OC in video form. It's helpful for everybody but is focused on 9700K/9900K with Asus motherboards/BIOS.

It's a long one but worth the time investment, I don't have a timestamp but somewhere in there he talks about core ratio overclocks for less than 8 cores. I have my chip at 5.2 on 2 cores, 5.0 on 4 cores, and 4.9 on 6 and 8 cores. You will be able to OC higher with Hyperthreading off and only 2 cores for DCS. Hyperthreading on and OCing all 8 cores will get you better synthetic benchmark scores but show no benefit for DCS, lower your OC headroom, and just use more volts and put out more heat.

Bonus, it makes a fun drinking game for every time he says "essentially" :drunk:

As I don't normally OC my PC, it should be fine for a while.

The H80i V2 radiator is about double the thickness of the H80 and the H110/H150, the radiator itself is about the thickness of the H80 plus an attached fan, the pump is different as are the fans on the H80i.

I tried putting the fan from the H80 on the radiator of the H80i and it did not give the same level of cooling as a single fan that came with the H80i and having the two fans on the radiator did make a difference from just having one fan on it.

I made a mistake in putting the H80 fan on with the H80i fan and that was noisy, it was that which made me look at the different fans and try them out in different configurations.

here is the HW monitor readings you enquired about, but not from the test earlier today just from sitting here as it is now.

Ok challenge accepted, … goes gets bottle of beer (Kasteel Donker 11%abv) I essentially hope he does not say that word too often ;)

Just finished watching the video, very interesting and it explains a lot I did not know before.

Once my new graphics card arrives (prob. Tuesday) I will look in to it further and see what I can do.

Now, I did see on the video that the motherboard is the same as mine as is the CPU, it also rates the cooler and his came out at 161, mine is rated at 164 by the motherboard.

I guess I have to make sure that it does not fill up with cat hair :D

As I don't normally OC my PC, it should be fine for a while.

What you at least should do is make safe that your 9900 stays at the top turbo frequency all time.

DCS is extremely dependent on the clock speed(it does only use one core really hard, and another core at half load. Rest of the CPU is more or less idling when gaming DCS).

I dont know for your motherboard but in most(?) cases there is a need to use other settings than stock to keep the turbo clock over time.

The Intel turbo mode is for a limited time, lets say 30s or so, then the CPU goes down to the basic clock, and you loose important performance.

The 95W TDP is the reason, and is made to make it possible for normal CPU-coolers to cope with it. Short time doesnt bring the cooler temps that high.

The H80i is quite good though, for its size. I used it but with dual Noctua fans, and it had no problem keeping my old i7 3770K@4.7-4.8Ghz/1.33V (delid) at 55-60 degrees.

There is a lot more power when letting the 9900 speed up, so you’d make sure it is up to the task.

Hi

 

Would I see a noticeable VR performance by changing CPU. I'm using the Rift with the wire.

 

Currently using an Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4790k (4.0GHz), 32 gb Ram, GTX 1070 Ti

 

I'd upgrade CPU, ram and mother board, but keep SSDrives and graphics card.

 

But would upgrading the processor and Ram make a large difference?

Cheers

Have you verified your Clock Speed when under load in DCS, I thought the 4790K was supposed to be at 4.4 under load with standard boost speed enabled in the UEFI Bios settings.

I'm running my pc without side panels now. I've bought a couple of fans for later if I want to put the side panels back on.

 

Do you have any info on upping the 2 core overclock? I've had a look at the Internet, but there are so many different opinions out there I'm a little confused.

 

Tried overclocking gpu with little success. Pc OK but dcs crashed after a couple of hours.

 

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Andrew...are you running a CPU cooler? Make sure you're monitoring temps...as with aircraft aspirated engines, PCs actually build more heat without cowlings to direct cold air in and hot air out. Shoot for a positive pressure system and closed loop CPU cooler like the Corsair H100 or H110. I have two rigs with the H80V2 and love them. I use CoreTemp to keep track of warm situations! Let us know how you end up.

Hi Juice,

It's happily running at 4.7ghz. I had the machine custom built in 2015 and had a Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler fitted then and it seems still up to the job.

I get a large build up of heat in the case, so I'm experimenting with ways of removing that. Running without the sides on certainly does that.

I've bought a couple of 120 fans that I was going to mount on the side to suck and push air in. But of course I've read to see what the internet says about fan placement, lots of words, 90% contradictory. So until I'm ready to start cutting holes I'm going to leave her undressed.

But I'm happy to say, all seems very stable at 4.7ghz. Not too sure what temps are with DCS I'll take a look and get back to you.

I didn't take the GPU overclocking any further and just decided to concentrate on flying!:smilewink:

Just had a DCS mission.

Package temp peaked at 69 with CPU utilisation at 52%, I suppose that's it running on just 2 cores.

I get a large build up of heat in the case, so I'm experimenting with ways of removing that. Running without the sides off certainly does that.

...I'm going to leave her undressed.

 

But I'm happy to say, all seems very stable at 4.7ghz. Not too sure what temps are with DCS I'll take a look and get back to you.

I'm glad you are using a cooler because if you weren't your CPU probably would have melted years ago, lol. Intel determines their specs based on an open air test bench, there is no requirement for a computer to be in a case. It's more for aesthetics, dust, spills, and to keep kids and pets out. Airflow does help draw away the heat of course, but you can just use any household fan to do that until you have your case set up the way you want it.

I use an open air case but everything is on a custom loop with the only fans on the radiator.

With a 4790K you want to keep below 80-85 C as well. There is a +/- 5 degree differential of accuracy on the CPU thermometers. T junction max is listed as 100 C like the current gen. But with 22 nm chips you need to be more conservative on voltage, keep below 1.3 Vcore and VID. I have read in guides online that VID is determined by Intel for sorting purposes, which is true but it can still vary from chip to chip and your BIOS settings. I recommend adaptive voltage if your BIOS supports it. Auto voltage settings usually give your CPU more volts than necessary which is why OC guides will tell you to fine tune the voltage lower. But manual can then give your CPU more volts than necessary even when at idle. Adaptive does all that for you.

Here are some good general guides that I still reference.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/intel-temperature-guide.1488337/

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/80807/intel-core-i7-4790k-processor-8m-cache-up-to-4-40-ghz.html

I found this guide specifically for 4790K, he uses a Gigabyte motherboard/BIOS.

https://www.tweaktown.com/guides/6486/intel-4790k-devil-s-canyon-s-spec-sr219-cpu-overclocking-report/index.html

For Overclocking, monitoring, and utilities I use:

MSI Afterburner (Free and works will all graphics cards)

-good on screen display to check temps while gaming

CPU-Z (free)

HWmonitor (free)

OCCT (free)

Cinebench (free)

Prime95 (free)

AIDA64 (Payware but has a free trial period)

ProcessLasso (Donation ware)

I went years without learning to overclock as I didn't want to lose my warranty or fry my components. But nowadays OC is very safe and accessible. Intel even sells an extended warranty for K chips.

[quote

I found this guide specifically for 4790K, he uses a Gigabyte motherboard/BIOS.

https://www.tweaktown.com/guides/6486/intel-4790k-devil-s-canyon-s-spec-sr219-cpu-overclocking-report/index.html

Thanks for all of the info.

After reading that I'm pretty pleased with my 4.7 and think I'll leave it at that.

I think that's a good call. Using the performance tests chart in that guide you got a good chip. Pushing it any harder would just increase the risk of degrading your chip without buying a new cooler. Might as well save the money for a new GPU or CPU.

Once my new graphics card arrives (prob. Tuesday) I will look in to it further and see what I can do.

 

I guess I have to make sure that it does not fill up with cat hair :D

New card arrived last night was too busy with other stuff to be able to install it.

Just took it out of the box, boy is it heavy! 1.447kg that's quite a bit more than I expected. Ok now to go install the ROG Stryx RTX2080S A8G

Well that was a bit of a mare!

Somehow corrupted my Windows install and had to re install it all again, this time a clean install.

Almost back up and running … at least the PC is now booting :D

 

 

Thanks for all of the info.

After reading that I'm pretty pleased with my 4.7 and think I'll leave it at that.

How much nicer is the PC at this 4.7 clock now? Using the same setting in VR as before. 15 to 20% gain, that was my guess....

A lot less stuttering and pushing the 1070ti towards or at it's max now. Looks to me like a very nice combo now.:thumbup:

Much nicer. Sweeter as it was a free upgrade. I was wondering how I could get a new machine on the business... I'll think of that for later in the year.

I think it must be at least 15%.

Nice card Alicatt, I hope you get it all sorted.

Much nicer. Sweeter as it was a free upgrade. I was wondering how I could get a new machine on the business... I'll think of that for later in the year.

 

I think it must be at least 15%.

 

Nice card Alicatt, I hope you get it all sorted.[/quote

 

Yes, as long as its the CPU thats the limiting factor the FPS will raise in about the same percebtage as the clock frequency increases.

on the Open Beta in free flight on high settings in the Caucus map with the F-14 I'm getting between 130 and 160 fps over open terrain and between 90 and 120 over cities

Well pleased with that especially after what I was getting before :)

Sorted out my cooling problems!:thumbup:

LoL, like in old days with AT cases and 2 x Voodoo + Matrox + SCSI Controller + Soundblaster 16 PnP card + ISDN card ..and a 40cm fan on the no-more-there door.

Actually, cooling is more efficient when the door is on and closed. If it is not, you have too few fans and/or maybe a bad case. The forced tunnel effect, so I name it, cools MUCH better than an open case or worst, an open testbench setup.

But it looks real cool, full DIY

LoL, like in old days with AT cases and 2 x Voodoo + Matrox + SCSI Controller + Soundblaster 16 PnP card + ISDN card ..and a 40cm fan on the no-more-there door.

 

Actually, cooling is more efficient when the door is on and closed. If it is not, you have too few fans and/or maybe a bad case. The forced tunnel effect, so I name it, cools MUCH better than an open case or worst, an open testbench setup.

 

But it looks real cool, full DIY

I read up on the fan placement etc. But found it ran really cool without the sides. And to clean it every now and again I'll use a leaf blower!

It's also so much more quiet as the only fans going are cpu and graphics card.

And if it does get warm ill use an 18" fan which will also do my feet.

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LoL :lol:

:smilewink: Cool!

Yes, I just upgraded from a I7-7700 @4mhz and saw about a 15% improvement. Don't expect the world though. I get a solid 45fps if not around cities or AI units. if low in Dubai or Las Vegas or around AI units FPS drops into the mid to upper 30's and there is some stuttering when looking to the sides.

How come you have stuttering with your monster setup? You’ve got a 2080 and it stutters?

How come you have stuttering with your monster setup? You’ve got a 2080 and it stutters?

It's a simulation, a lot more complex calculations going on compared to games. And also not properly optimized as it could be. Then, VR is as demanding as 4K where dipping below a certain FPS threshold is more of a tragedy than on a normal screen.

Ive got a I5-9600k, that has 4,3Ghz, when all cores are used, 4,4Ghz for 4 cores and 4,7 for one core.

I now did a moderate overclock to 4,8Ghz on all cores which needed no added voltage.

In some benchmarks I got about 6% increase in perf (3D-mark CPUscore from 5850 to 6210), in some about 10%. Still if that were to go directly into framerate it would give me plus 2-4 fps (at 40fps) on my Rift S, which would mean, that Id get lesser time below 40fps (where my setup is tuned at). But since in VR most of the perfgains should come from the video-card those expectations should be way to high anyway.

I then did test this and did not see any difference; same 20-22ms framtimes on start and 24-26ms low above the town with the same ammount of short dips to 37,5 fps in my testing-scenario. But of course thats just at a brief test. And seeing such a small gain in perf should not be possible anyway....

To me it seems, that my i5-9600k on standard could satisfy the needs of DCS so an overclock in my case does not help; but a I7-4790k might be of course a different story and adding a bit of clockspeed might make for a big difference.

But I did this overclock just for fun and out of curiousity, since the last days I played DCS on the monitor again (which might stay that way also) and there I enjoyed some 70-100Fps with maxed settings in 1440p. So in this scenario its completly irrelavant, if I get 5fps more or not, so Ill probably leave the CPU at standard-settings.