5960X Overclock

I've recently purchased a 5960X and Asus Deluxe USB3.1 board and have a few questions as previous setup was AMD.

Looking to start overclocking it and wanted to double check a couple of things.

Is my power supply suitable to run my machine or should I be looking to replace for a higher wattage/better rated one especially if looking to overclock?

What overclock should I be looking to achieve - the CPU is a L batch? Believe 4.5Ghz is rated an average chip?

I've looked through a couple of online guides and the general consensus seems to be not to go over 1.3V on air so will avoid that and 80C is the max you want to go to?


Specs:

i7 5960X
Asus X99 Deluxe USB3.1
Kingston Fury 32GB 2400Mhz
Noctua PH-TC14PE
Gigabyte Windforce 7850 2GB
XFX Pro 650W 80 Bronze
2 x Kingston HyperX 248Gb SSD's
CoolerMaster CM690 II Advanced

Hi,

The power supply should be ok - how old is it though? 650watts should be ample considering the rest of your spec.

As far as overclocking goes - not familiar with the L batch, but generally an average chip should achieve 4-4.3 Ghz or so. A good chip will do maybe up to 4.5Ghz, with a top notch chip you may exceed 4.5Ghz. In all cases try to stay below a maximum of 1.35Volts, but heat will more likely be the limiting factor as you don't ideally want to exceed 70-75, but up to 80 is ok. On air you are correct about not going over 1.3 volts, but again depends on heat control.

Need any more help or info, just shout - plenty of us on here to help. Might like to look at 8Packs overclocking guides too - very helpful.

Mark

Generally notching up the voltage on these chips will also in turn ramp up the amount of heat emitted. Once you start going past 1.1 ghz or so, temps rise pretty quick. I would say if going on air try and work to find a stable temp while remaining within voltage limits. I expect you will hit a thermal wall before you do voltage on a air cooler.

Here is a pretty good guide I used initially: https://rog.asus.com/15522014/overclocking/rog-overclocking-guide-core-for-5960x-5930k-5820k/

Radox-0 said:

Generally notching up the voltage on these chips will also in turn ramp up the amount of heat emitted. Once you start going past 1.1 ghz or so, temps rise pretty quick. I would say if going on air try and work to find a stable temp while remaining within voltage limits. I expect you will hit a thermal wall before you do voltage on a air cooler.

Here is a pretty good guide I used initially: https://rog.asus.com/15522014/overclocking/rog-overclocking-guide-core-for-5960x-5930k-5820k/

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Think you meant 4.1 Ghz or so. Lol or was that figure meant to be volts per chance?

Awesome, thank guys. I'm away this weekend but i'll have a tinker around on Monday and report back.

PSU will be four years old in November as bought it from OCUK and to be honest when I shut the machine down it makes an awful coil whine but seems fine when powered on. The whine is so bad I have to flick the switch to physically power off the PSU.

Kidge said:

Awesome, thank guys. I'm away this weekend but i'll have a tinker around on Monday and report back.

PSU will be four years old in November as bought it from OCUK and to be honest when I shut the machine down it makes an awful coil whine but seems fine when powered on. The whine is so bad I have to flick the switch to physically power off the PSU.

Click to expand...

I would suggest in that case you might like to consider changing it - get a premium brand though.

Just had my first attempt now and seemed to go quite well.

Simply changed AI Overclock Tuner to XMP, core voltage to 1.2V and synced all cores to 4Ghz. Passed a run of Real Bench with max temps of 57C.

tipes said:

I would suggest in that case you might like to consider changing it - get a premium brand though.

Click to expand...

XFX was recommended in the past as I believe it has Seasonic parts in. I may see if it is still under warranty but doubt they would repair/replace under coil whine would they?

If not then I'll just get a new one after my birthday as I've been looking at a fully modular superflower leadex. Would 750 be enough if i wanted to cover myself for SLI in future?

Kidge said:

XFX was recommended in the past as I believe it has Seasonic parts in. I may see if it is still under warranty but doubt they would repair/replace under coil whine would they?

If not then I'll just get a new one after my birthday as I've been looking at a fully modular superflower leadex. Would 750 be enough if i wanted to cover myself for SLI in future?

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Should be fine with leadex 750W for SLi.

This is an excellent guide, got mine to 4.5ghz with his exact settings. http://www.tweaktown.com/guides/675...-spec-qfra-cpu-overclocking-guide/index4.html Completely stable, not tried for more than 4.5ghz. Been running this for 3 months on those settings and no problems.
I use 2666mhz ram and to make it stable lowered the memory to 2133, running at 2666 caused problems and seeing as theres no real world difference it didn't much matter.

tipes said:

Think you meant 4.1 Ghz or so. Lol or was that figure meant to be volts per chance?

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Whoops yes sorry, meant once you start going last 4.1-4.2 the temps rise fairly dramatically as you need to up the voltage accordingly.

Have I been lucky getting 4.5ghz with 1.3v or is that normal? Max temps on aida64 75 24hours stress test. Sorry to ask in someone else's thread, seeing this just got me curious.

AdamScott85 said:

Have I been lucky getting 4.5ghz with 1.3v or is that normal? Max temps on aida64 75 24hours stress test. Sorry to ask in someone else's thread, seeing this just got me curious.

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That is fine and about in the normal range of volts for 4.5Ghz - but still a good overclock. Have you tried a smidgeon lower on volts - until you get instability, then notch up by one or two points.

Yeah I will try lowering the volts a little, thanks.

Been on holiday for the past week but just bumped up to 4.2Ghz and got the below.

Haven't really had much time to play with it but also don't really want to exceed 70C highest was 63C on this run:

Try the guide Kidge , it got my 4.5ghz stable without hassle on mine and my friends 5960x http://www.tweaktown.com/guides/6755...de/index4.html

AdamScott85 said:

Try the guide Kidge , it got my 4.5ghz stable without hassle on mine and my friends 5960x http://www.tweaktown.com/guides/6755...de/index4.html

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Will give it a try now and let you know how i get on.

Cool mate, I was struggling to keep 4.2ghz stable before finding this guide if I am honest.

I had a read of that link but unfortunately it's a different motherboard they're using so different settings/naming - not entirely sure what CPU ring voltage is on Asus?

I still had a go at 4.4Ghz whilst on 1.275V which booted to windows but then blue screened during RealBench near the end. Temps were creeping in to the low 70s too.

Will try the same settings but 1.3V tonight but if it goes over 75C i'll probably just leave it on 4.2Ghz & 1.2V as I'm only on air compared to your custom loop.

Ahh ok mate, I use a gigabyte board so was able to follow pretty much exactly. I use 1.32v and gaming it never reaches 70, stressing hits 75 ish max so I am happy with that.