cpu governer leaves v3d only at 600mhz at one pi4 while going tot 815mhz on another pi4

akamming

@mitu said in cpu governer leaves v3d only at 600mhz at one pi4 while going tot 815mhz on another pi4:

@Riverstorm said in cpu governer leaves v3d only at 600mhz at one pi4 while going tot 815mhz on another pi4:

Hey @mitu ok, thanks for the information. Is that a recent firmware change or does their website need an update? This is what they have current and several references on the forums to the warranty bit, revision tables for all the versions, etc. on the Pi 4 as recent as April. I couldn't find anything different from what is posted below.

See this post by a RPT engineer:

The "warranty" bit was added as a way of pacifying suppliers who were nervous that allowing overclock may result in a large number of dead Pi's being returned. But since the first Pi was released we've never seen a Pi that appears to have died through overclocking.

We don't even set the bit on Pi 4, so feel free to experiment. Obviously too high an overclock may make a Pi unstable and crash.
Don't do it on a Pi with valuable data on it without a backup.

The benefits of overclocking newer Pi models is much less than on the original Pi 1, as the default speed is so much greater.

That's interesting! this would imply i could try to overclock more by increasing the voltage without reducing the lifespan or limiting the warranty. Has anyone alread tried if this is really the case? (set force_turbo and over_voltage>6 and then check the warranty bit?)

Riverstorm

@mitu - That's very interesting, that kind of changes the ball game a little and the thinking on overclocking. It's only a small bump in power going to 8 (the max value) using force_turbo but it may help stabilize a slightly higher overclock.

I'm a little surprised as it implies for the most part you can't damage the Pi or warranty from overclocking but I suppose they still have controls in place with a cap at 1.4V. If you can zip the temp straight up fast enough through high voltage maybe but I don't know. I'll have to let that soak in as that's just interesting information.

On the inverse you can set a bit to lock the Pi so you can't overvolt at all.

It's similar to Intel's K line of chips. You basically pay a higher price I suspect to offset the cost to the company for a higher burn percentage on unlocked chips.

It's not much different than Alienware or Falcon that do a 3 day burn-in test that voids even the Intel warranty but they cover it for the life and then an additional year or two. Falcon's come at a very premium price though with those custom paint jobs.

Of this beauty a Silverdraft Demon coming in at a hefty $49,500! You need this for proper MAME gaming! ;)

@akamming - I never worried much about shortening the lifespan of the Pi. I've pretty much have "junked" every generation of Pi long before it ever had a chance to burn out.

I honestly think as hard as I've been running my Pi 4's they will still run for years and years with a proper cooling solution. The testing is such a small part of their life. If you keep it cool enough I would even venture it will last just as long. Heat aside I have no idea if slightly higher voltage through capacitors and other components shortens their life.

One thing I found the hard way is always overclock test with a backup image. Each lockup slowly corrupts the image, even though it still boots fine. I thought the image was clean until I used pishrink. It will not compress down properly with any errors in the image file structure. In fact it tries to correct them and fails more times than not.

With performance it's going to bump to the highest frequency based on the up_threshold within the limits of the min/max values and hold it there based on the sampling_rate.

On-demand will start adjusting the frequency based on the up_threshold and load (estimation) but within the limits of the min/max values and hold it there based on the sampling_rate.

powersave will operate on the opposite end making frequency adjustments based on the min values set.

It makes sense what you're saying about better performance. Basically performance will peg at the set frequency but on-demand will bump it up and down based on "load sampling" and not necessarily set it to the max frequency.

If you're Pi is in one location I think you could build a sufficient passive solution for higher overclocks. It might be a bit larger than average but it wouldn't have any moving parts!

mitu

@Riverstorm said in cpu governer leaves v3d only at 600mhz at one pi4 while going tot 815mhz on another pi4:

Of this beauty a Silverdraft Demon coming in at a hefty $49,500! You need this for proper MAME gaming! ;)

Actually, if you closely look at the Q&A section, they don't recommend it for gaming. Plus, only 198Gb memory at this price and no SD card slot ? C'mon.

We would not suggest this super high end gaming workstation for gaming. As the processor and multiple video cards of this type are not geared toward gaming.

Riverstorm

@mitu - Well shoot! No gaming and you would think you could get a SD card slot (or dare I say, two!) for that price. I knew it was to good to be true at 50 grand.

198Gb...it's impressive, that's almost as much RAM as our boot drives on M.2 SSD's.

Kind of off topic but that's the other thing Intel is doing that I don't care for are the newer KF chips. Basically they have the unlocked multiplier (K--as always) but the (F) means no integrated graphics. There's nothing like having a way to selling defunct chips.

They failed QC for one reason or another with the integrated graphics but they still sell them at almost the same premium price as the regular K chips that have integrated graphics.

Companies like Dell are picking them up (I'm sure at a discount) and re-purposing them in their Alienware line.

Anyway a minor rant for an otherwise great gaming rig!

Clyde

@Riverstorm said in cpu governer leaves v3d only at 600mhz at one pi4 while going tot 815mhz on another pi4:

Of this beauty a Silverdraft Demon coming in at a hefty $49,500! You need this for proper MAME gaming! ;)

You could get approx. 1,400 2GB Pi 4 with collectively 2,800 GB of RAM for that, or 660 8GB Pi 4 with 5,280 GB total RAM, and then build a RPi cluster:

(Yes, there are newer videos of RPi clusters, but this is the most beautiful that I know of. 🤩 )

That said, actually I would very much like to see how such a cluster would fare against the Silverdraft Demon. 👹

Riverstorm

You could get approx. 1,400 2GB Pi 4 with collectively 2,800 GB of RAM for that, or 660 8GB Pi 4 with 5,280 GB total RAM, and then build a RPi cluster:

Whew, that's going to take up it's fair share of space for the Pi's alone. Minus racks, cooling, power, etc. for the Pi's I used the bigger number just for fun.

Pi dimensions - 56.5 x 85.6 x 11 mm = 53.2004 cm^3

53.2004 cm^3 x 1400 = 74,480.56 cm^3

So if those calculations are correct you're going to need 74,481 cubic centimeters which is roughly 745 cubic meters for the Pi's alone. You're gonna need a fair sized room!

OR

The Silverdraft Demon - 43.18 x 43.18 x 27.94 cm

Riverstorm

Don't forget you might need a bit of extra room, a mm or two for the SD card protruding from the side!

mitu

@Riverstorm I think you can netboot the Pi4 without the sdcard, since now the bootloader is in the EEPROM, so you don't need any storage for the systems.

Riverstorm

@mitu - I like the way you're thinking, with a bit of creative engineering we've already reduced the footprint! I think we're on to something here... ;p

Clyde

@Riverstorm said in cpu governer leaves v3d only at 600mhz at one pi4 while going tot 815mhz on another pi4:

So if those calculations are correct you're going to need 74,481 cubic centimeters which is roughly 745 cubic meters for the Pi's alone. You're gonna need a fair sized room!

That's true, but a) it's cool, and b) with a little work on the interior design, you may be able to actually live in it! 🤓

(The video's creator already had shrunk the power supply quite good by serialising it.)

@Riverstorm said in cpu governer leaves v3d only at 600mhz at one pi4 while going tot 815mhz on another pi4:

@mitu - I like the way you're thinking

I wanted to say that to both of you guys. One thing that remains is a proper name. Off the top of my head, the rather unspectacular "MegaPi" came up, quickly followed by "ClusterF*ck". 😉