Help to Overclock i5-2500k on MSI P67A-G45

Ok, so as the title says, I have an i5-2500k on the MSI P67A-G45 and would like some help to OC.

I've looked around and read through some guides and through other forum posts but I'm still not 100% sure exactly what I need to change.

I thought I could just change the CPU Voltage and the multiplier then Prime test it for stability but some places are saying to change a whole lot of other things =/


So, if anybody who has this board (or similar, I think it has some limited options to change compared to GD53 upwards though) could help me out it would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance


P.S. I'm looking to OC to about 4.4GHz and was going to start on 1.28V.

Start with your voltage settings on auto. Just change your multiplier for now. Once you see what your CPU will do on Auto then you can fine tune.

Keep an eye on your temps and set upper limits before you start the process.


Oh and enjoy the journey.

change the multiplier to 44x

disable the Intel turbo

set the RAM voltage & speed correctly for your memory

set the CPU voltage to about 1.35V

Prime test for stability. Assuming that is stable, reduce the CPU voltage a bit and repeat the test. As 1Day said, keep an eye on the CPU temps, I wouldnt usually recommend OC'ng on the reference cooler.

Rinse & repeat until you find the minimum stable voltage.

You can leave all other voltages (other than CPU & DRAM) on Auto if you wish, the board will handle those fine at those sort of speeds.

Thanks for the replies guys!

I'll get on it now, hope all goes to plan!

[Edit]
Forgot to mention I have the Antec Kuhler H20 620

ScottiB said:

disable the Intel turbo

Click to expand...

Quick question before I start stress testing,
Does disabling Intel Turbo Boost mean it will always run at 4.4GHz? Will it not clock down if I disable it?

EIST (speed step) reduces the multiplier
Turbo increases it

you can use EIST without Turbo but as far as I can remember, not the other way around

Ok, atm I have set Multiplier to 44 and then voltage to 1.35 as you said and disabled intel turbo boost. But CPU-Z is reporting the core speed is at the full 4400MHz all the time =/
(Not started Prime 95 yet)

I've tried a number of things, such as disabling EIST, re-enabling Turbo Boost.
But to no prevail, the Core Speed is staying at 4400MHz constantly.

I thought EIST would decrease the Multiplier to 16 at idle?

IdiotCoder said:

I've tried a number of things, such as disabling EIST, re-enabling Turbo Boost.
But to no prevail, the Core Speed is staying at 4400MHz constantly.

I thought EIST would decrease the Multiplier to 16 at idle?

Click to expand...

EIST does reduce the multiplier when idle mate. I've enabled this and set the multiplier at 46, with 1.31v, which I'm sure you'd be able to do. I'm on the GD65 by the way.

Big Kev said:

EIST does reduce the multiplier when idle mate. I've enabled this and set the multiplier at 46, with 1.31v, which I'm sure you'd be able to do. I'm on the GD65 by the way.

Click to expand...

I must have done something wrong then, CPU-Z isn't showing the multiplier changing from 44. Even when Core Temp reports Load as being almost 0%.



[EDIT]
This is with EIST enabled and Turbo Boost disabled.

[UPDATE]
I tried putting all settings back to what they were before (33 Multiplier) and CPU-Z shows the multiplier changing down to 16x when idle.
So I tried just changing the multiplier back up to 44, changing nothing else, keeping voltage on Auto too, and now it's stopped going down to 16x when Idle again.

Wasn't expecting to be having so much trouble ¬.¬

*SIGH*

Looks like I'm going to have to give up on OCing.
Can't work out what's wrong.

So much for it apparently being easy.

I did it!

CPU-Z is now reporting the multiplier is reducing to 16 at idle!

I just followed this guide:

http://www.overclock.net/intel-motherboards/963798-msi-p67a-gd55-review-oc-guide.html

Worked a treat.

Right....

Easiest way to OC on this board (mines a P67A-GD65) if you are not looking for the absolute MAX but just a decent stable OC.

Please note that this is only my personal opinion but I do after all have a similar MSI board.

Forget about changing the CPU ratio and fiddling with the voltages (or anything else come to that).

Load default safe settings, making sure you set anything that you definately need (like AHCI for the SATA ports).

Go to the OC setting menu, scroll down to the bottom and select CPU Features. Then change the turbo settings on the 4 cores from 37/36/35/34 (assuming here they will be set as per my board) to say 42/42/42/42. Leave voltages and EVERYTHING ELSE unchanged. Save your changes and re-boot.

JOB DONE.

What you will have now is a system that throttles back the volts/ multiplier when not under load but ramps up to 4.2 GHz under load.

Obviously run IBT and Prime95 to test stability.

I found exactly what you did. If you change the CPU ratio in the top level OC menu. It applies this OC "all the time" and the CPU voltage is around 1.368v. A bit on the high side for this sort of OC .

Doing it as I suggest. Gives me a stable system with a decent OC. Interestingly, CPU voltages never go above 1.288V (much better) and temps in Prime95 after 6 hours are only around the 60C level. Obviously you need a half decent cooler. Mines the Gelid in my sig. (pretty popular at the moment).

In my opinion, I don't think you need to do it the "traditional way" (IE. fiddle with loads of different settings) unless you want to hit really high OC's.

Only my opinion folks. But it works for me.

Thanks mikeo might have to do that.
After BSODing out of Prime95 on the settings I had, I upped the voltage slightly, and now it's gone back to the same old running at full OC all the time.

I only have two options left it seems, try out what you say or just give up with the OC, I'm getting impatient now ]=

IdiotCoder said:

Thanks mikeo might have to do that.
After BSODing out of Prime95 on the settings I had, I upped the voltage slightly, and now it's gone back to the same old running at full OC all the time.

I only have two options left it seems, try out what you say or just give up with the OC, I'm getting impatient now ]=

Click to expand...

I would be VERY surprised if what I suggested doesn't work for you. It basically means your system is running with a safe default set of settings but with just the turbo boost increased. And from everything I've read, 4.2 GHz isn't that high for this CPU.

I know that a lot of folks will think this is "cheating" or that it takes the "fun" away from OCing. But as you've discovered yourself... One persons fun, is another persons total frustration.

Have a go. Can't see what you can loose.

PS. Can't take credit for this. I found a video on good old YouTube suggesting doing it this way.
PPS. I think the thing with the OC "sticking" is something to do with the Intel C-state seeming to get changed to Off. Could be wrong, but that's what it looked like to me.

mikeo said:

PPS. I think the thing with the OC "sticking" is something to do with the Intel C-state seeming to get changed to Off. Could be wrong, but that's what it looked like to me.

Click to expand...

That is exactly the conclusion I came to.
Each time the system restarts it changes to off, and even when I change it to on I couldn't get it Prime95 stable.

I tried 1.32V for 4.5GHz failed rather quickly in Prime 95 giving me the BSOD. Didn't feel comfortable upping the voltage because I thought it would require a fair bit seeing as it BSOD'd so quick. (About 3 minutes, maybe less).

I've decided to stick it back on stock for tonight at least. I've been at it for damn near 5 hours now. Certainly not as easy as it seems to be made out to be! ]=

Thought I'd update this thread with my latest attempts.

@mikeo I was unable to change the turbo settings.

Anyway...
I just tried the below settings:

along with...


And I ran Prime95.
During the first lot of test in prime95 the voltage was mostly at 1.312V and occaisionally going down to 1.304V (according to CPU-Z).
Then after the first lot of tests, The voltage seemed to stay at 1.304V more often and the longer Prime95 ran the longer 1.304V seemed to stay.

Anyway, an hour came and I was really happy, but thought I would leave it running a little while longer, then after about 1hr4minutes I was BSOD'd!

Before these setting I tried exactly the same settings but I hadn't disabled Turbo and VDroop was set to high. This got me 35 minutes into Prime95.

So, because it BSOD'd after 64minutes I don't know what to do now. I was pretty impressed with the 1.312V and 1.304V that auto set as I thought it would be higher. But it seems even on auto it can't keep it stable!

Anybody any suggestions on what I can change/tweak or would 64minutes until BSOD be enough to say it's stable enough? =/

P.S. My previous issue with the Multiplier staying at 44 is now gone, it now goes down to 16 when Idle and the voltage is reduced too, which I like.

[EDIT]
I forgot to mention temps. CoreTemp reported Max reached on all four cores to be 63-66C

"@mikeo I was unable to change the turbo settings."

Question... why? what was the problem.

Your BIOS looks to be identical to mine.

You should just need to scroll down to the bottom of the page that you've shown above in the BIOS and double click on "CPU Feature". The core-ratio limits should be at the bottom of that page. Shown I would think as 37 36 35 34. Then just change them to 42 42 42 42. Leaving all other settings at auto (including voltages).

Confused I am.

mikeo said:

"@mikeo I was unable to change the turbo settings."

Question... why? what was the problem.

Click to expand...

Yeh... they are there (when Turbo is enabled), but it wouldn't let me change the ratios. No idea why because they weren't greyed out to suggest they weren't changeable.