Overclocking the Pi5

[FrizzleFried]

I've been playing around with the two Pi5 rigs I have here trying to determine the max I can push each... with the idea of finding that max then backing down a tick or two... and also because... well... overclocking is fun.



What I've noticed is that there can be a pretty big difference between Pi5 units. I have two... bought about two months apart from the same source on Amazon for the same price... (actually I think #2 might have been a couple dollars cheaper). I bought the stock Raspberry Pi branded active cooler for each. I removed the little thermal tab from the CPU of each and replaced it with Arctic Silver Ceramique thermal compound.

Pi5 #1 is in my vertical cabinet. Pi5 #2 is in my horizontal cabinet.

Pi5 #1 is currently running:

over_voltage_delta=15000
arm_freq=3100
gpu_freq=1100

...and after 20 minutes, my laser temperature gun read is averaging readings at the heatsink in the lower 80f range... with NOTHING on the card that I can point at coming in above 90f. This card runs VERY cool.

Pi5 #2 is currently running:

over_voltage_delta=15000
arm_freq=2900
gpu_freq=1050

This Pi crashes after some time at 2900 at the CPU running stock voltage. It ran for about 8 hours solid at over_voltage_delta=25000... but was running pretty damn hot compared to the Pi5 #1 (which at the time was at CPU 3000 GPU 1000). About 10 degrees f hotter. I backed down the voltage to 15000 to see what that does to the heat. I'm getting pretty close to the max on this Pi... at least for the CPU. I might be able to push the GPU to 1100... we'll see. And my first temp check remains consistent with my priors... this card is running about 10 degrees hotter... consistently... than it's brother... but it's been running solid with the 15000mv boost... no need to go to 25000. If it stays solid for a while longer I'll try to push the GPU a little more. We'll see. The hottest point on this card I saw the temp hit 99f...

FWIW... for testing, I run Deathsmiles on the horizontal cabinet and Pink Sweets on the vertical. I also test in attract mode just running. If you can think of any game for both vertical and horizontal that might push the system harder... let me know.



BTW... is there any easy/built in way to monitor actual CPU die temps? The maximum temp before throttling is 80c (176f)... with the maximum temp being 85c (185f). I can't imagine the die is rocking anything close to 176f when the heatsink is maxing out at under 100f (38c)...

[FrizzleFried]

We're now over an hour on both cabinets and still running strong. I'm going to likely kick it to attractmode... then leave it for another hour. The garagecade is cool right now too so I have to keep that in mind (right now it's about 58-60f out there... in the summer it will get up to 80-82f...

That said... it's pretty obvious that it's not HEAT that is the limiting factor. The design itself will prevent more speed well before it gets too hot IMHO...

I'm already amazed at the speeds we get from such a little device. I suspect the Pi6 will best it by 25% or more...

[FrizzleFried]

Dee2er...

Is there a benchmark program I can download and install in some way (or is there one already installed)? Same question ... but re: temperature monitoring.

Thanks.

[dee2eR]

Probably, but I'm not sure offhand.

You could try 'sensors' from the command line which I'm pretty sure is part of Linux. Not sure if it's set up though... If you want it to refresh every 2 seconds run it with 'watch sensors'

EDIT: On the subject of overclocking I discovered today the default XMP OC on my RAM was causing my random compiler segfaults (not a great sign...). Must have missed something with my mod of 274 though...

Sounds like your Pi#1 is a good'un.

[FrizzleFried]

Lets say I find a benchmark program for Linyx... what folder would I install that in to to run it from the command line... or is that something you'd recommend I simply avoid doing?

[dee2eR]

easiest is to put it in the home/pi folder as that's where the console opens to. That said, most Linux software isn't distributed in that sort of way. If you find some software it may be in the repositories already (maybe not on RPi...), you can search with 'apt-cache search [thing your looking for]' and install with 'sudo apt-get install [name of thing as returned by the previous search]'

You may also need to update apt with 'sudo apt-get update', to make it work.

You may or may not break something, possibly set up a new SD card to play with that isn't so huge backup and restore takes forever...