System agent SA voodoo. Intel 1700

[D007]

Can somebody please help me understand this? I’m going up and down in system agent voltages between 1.1 to 1.35. And I’m modifying a bunch of other voltages as well, working on a more aggressive overclock for my memory.
I get to a point where things are stable and I decide to start messing with system agent by itself just to check it out.

So question… Why in the name of everything that makes sense does this seem so nonsensical?
OK, here’s what I mean. I manually set my system agent to 1.25 and I booted into the operating system. A little bit sluggish on the log in screen.
So I set it to 1.3 and it seems kind of similar.
At 1.3 I get memory errors..

However, and this is where my brain starts to hurt.
If set it to auto, it defaults to 1.296 in HWinfo, runs snappier and has no errors in anta777extreme…
Like… Huh?


Sidenote:
I’m having serious doubts about people statements in regards to the memory controller voltages. Hell, other voltages as well..
I’m not sure a lot of what I’m reading is accurate and in all kinds of different form topics.
And since when did over clockers become so scared? It’s like everybody is so fast to scream that some voltage is too high or, throw up big red flags and honestly, I have a hard time believing that most of them actually know for a fact if they’re right.
It’s like they just have the urge to enforce this narrative to assert their dominance on a subject.
Am I crazy? Lol

 

[ir_cow]

Don't forget about the Ring Cache (Ratio). That will change too and Auto ...and the SA affects that. So it could be that for whatever reason the ring is 45x on auto sa and 49x on manual SA, even though it's set to auto as well.

This stuff too hurts my head and my solution isn't a good one. Settings everything I can manually.

1.3 SA for 11gen would be a dead CPU. 12th gen had some reports of degrading IMC from that. 13/14th. No complaints yet, though I rather not find out the hard limit. I've push to 1.5 with the 13900k briefly. Didnt kill, but it sure didn't help with stability and higher memory. At least I'm air.

 

[D007]

Don't forget about the Ring Cache (Ratio). That will change too and Auto ...and the SA affects that. So it could be that for whatever reason the ring is 45x on auto sa and 49x on manual SA, even though it's set to auto as well.

This stuff too hurts my head and my solution isn't a good one. Settings everything I can manually.

Wow man…
I was reading through a topic that you had posted in back in 2022 and it was honestly some of the best information I found on the subject. It kind of put me down a rabbit hole here. Lol cheers.

So I rebooted and now the SA voltage has defaulted down to 1.15.
But no errors in anta yet… lol

 

[ir_cow]

Glad I could make things worse for ya . I am just one and not always correct either.

 

[D007]

Glad I could make things worse for ya . I am just one and not always correct either.

NAH, never worse, man. It honestly broadened my understanding of the potential ways things work. So it’s given me some options to explore. So thank you.

I’m really starting to think that leaving most of this stuff on auto is the way to go.

 

[ir_cow]

I think my ring default is 45. Buy I've seen bot auto to 49. That's where I leave it for testing. 51 errors out on me.

The 12th gen if I remember needed the ring matching or lower than E-Cores and 10th ... I forgot now. Point is that it will change seemly every generation and that's why people might say a voltage is too high. Could be remember a different gen.. or they know the truth.

 

[sneekypeet]

Wow man…
I was reading through a topic that you had posted in back in 2022 and it was honestly some of the best information I found on the subject. It kind of put me down a rabbit hole here. Lol cheers.

So I rebooted and now the SA voltage has defaulted down to 1.15.
But no errors in anta yet… lol

Lol. I mentioned in one of your older threads that some of these chips do better with much less SA. My sweet spot is around 1.2 across many kits, only going well past 8k do I need more. Hynix that is, micron seems to want a bit more on my apex.

 

[D007]

I think my ring default is 45. Buy I've seen bot auto to 49. That's where I leave it for testing. 51 errors out on me.

The 12th gen if I remember needed the ring matching or lower than E-Cores and 10th ... I forgot now. Point is that it will change seemly every generation and that's why people might say a voltage is too high. Could be remember a different gen.. or they know the truth.

I think people just like acting like they know something. Unfortunately, it just spreads the stupid around like a big ole stupid disease and it’s highly contagious. Lol
It’s like you see one person say the wrong thing and then a bunch of people believe him and then they spread that wrong information around everywhere. It really makes figuring things out difficult sometimes.

Lol. I mentioned in one of your older threads that some of these chips do better with much less SA. My sweet spot is around 1.2 across many kits, only going well past 8k do I need more. Hynix that is, micron seems to want a bit more on my apex.

Yeah, it’s weird but it’s even more weird when I set my SA to manual 1.3 and get memory errors but then I said it to auto and HW info says it’s 1.296 and I don’t get any errors. Lol.
Like is 1.296 really that different from 1.3? lol

I did just manage to push my 6000 to 7000 with at CL 30 though. Even tightened some timings. That was fun. lol
But the biggest thing I took from that whole experience that I spent the last 10 hours messing with, was that leaving a lot of things on auto is a great place to start lol.

 

[ir_cow]

SA gets even stranger for manual vs auto voltage.

Also... Which should have been pointed out before. The setting in the BIOS doesn't always match the output. Look at HWInfo and see what the dip is. One could say they only need 1.15 because that is the final value. The BIOS could be set to 1.2 to compensate for the vdroop.

For the gigabyte Tachyon I needed 1.2v as a base and the MSI Z790 ACE was 1.25v. the Apex has been the lowest for me. Yet they all read 1.15~ in software. For Apex I set my LLC for SA to High to prevent a drop. The other two MB in my example was auto SA LLC rail. I really am setting it to 1.15v in the BIOS for this Apex MB or whatever values I say.

 

[D007]

SA gets even stranger for manual vs auto voltage.

Also... Which should have been pointed out before. The setting in the BIOS doesn't always match the output. Look at HWInfo and see what the dip is. One could say they only need 1.15 because that is the final value. The BIOS could be set to 1.2 to compensate for the vdroop.

For the gigabyte Tachyon I needed 1.2v as a base and the MSI Z790 ACE was 1.25v. the Apex has been the lowest for me. Yet they all read 1.15~ in software. For Apex I set my LLC for SA to High to prevent a drop. The other two MB in my example was auto SA LLC rail. I really am setting it to 1.15v in the BIOS for this Apex MB or whatever values I say.

Wow, high LLC is pretty hot.
guess the apex is more for memory than processors?

 

[ir_cow]

Wow, high LLC is pretty hot.
guess the apex is more for memory than processors?

It is for both, but mostly memory unless you doing LN2. I get the same CPU OC on a $200.