4690K Overclock - Help Needed :)

[jumeeno]

Evening all.

Been running all cores @ 4.0 GHz using manual override of 1.07v for a while now, all good. All BIOS settings on AUTO apart from BUS=100, MULTI=40 and VCORE=1.07. System as follows:

Core-i5 4690K
Gigabyte Z97N-Gaming 5
2 x 4GB HyperX 2400 MHz

Just been messing about trying to push a little higher and struggling - help!

I've tried MULTI=41 and VCORE=1.18... and keep getting a full system reset after ~10 minutes of Asus RealBench. To be clear, 4.0 GHz at much lower volts is fine in this scenario.

What am I doing wrong as these kinda volts seem to get others much higher clocks??

 

[Danny75]

It may just be one of the lower percentile chips (4.2 @ 1.25v or thereabouts). There was a lot of difference between Haswell chips, some 4.2, others 4.8 or slightly higher. With Skylake and Kabylake that difference seems to have lessened somewhat but they still aren't all the same.

In any case, you should begin by setting RAM to 1600, and see how high a stable CPU OC you can get that way, first. Sometimes it makes no difference, sometimes it does.

Which cooler are you using, and what temps are you seeing just before the crash?

You may also want to update the BIOS to see if newer ones have helped towards obtaining higher OC's.

 

[jumeeno]

Thanks Danny75.

The reason I have brought this up is that I have just transferred my ITX system into a bigger Fractal Define case, but am yet to upgrade the cooler - I currently have a low profile SilverStone AR06.

In terms of temps, I am getting up to 80 in synthetic stressing, and up to about 70 in actual full load usage. BIOS is also bang up-to-date.

It's not a huge issue, I just wanted to see how much headroom I might have over 4.0 GHz before upgrading the cooler now I have the room in a bigger case!

 

[pastymuncher]

You need to increse the vcore much more than that. My 4670k needs 1.275v for 4.4Ghz and anything after that needs a huge jump in voltage. Set vcore to 1.25v (you are good up to 1.35-1.4v) and see how far you can increase the multiplier. Keep a close eye on temps.

 

[jumeeno]

Thanks Pasty.

This is all sounding good advice - as long as there is not some sort of BIOS tweak I should be doing other than more VCore then I'll just give that a go (perhaps after buying a more substantial cooler).

I'd heard all sorts about Uncore this, and Ring Voltage that, and was worried I was missing loads of settings. To be clear, I don't want MEGA-megahertz, just a nice round 4.3 or 4.4ish with as low a voltage and as little faff as possible

 

[pastymuncher]

That's overclocking the cache. You usually have to increase ring voltage to be able to overclock the uncore (cache). I have mine running at the same speed as the core so 4.4Ghz/4.4Ghz. Aside from vcore and the multiplier the only other thing you may need to play with for a core overclock is LLC (Load Line Calibration) and possibly cpu input voltage (mine won't boot at anything over 4.2Ghz unless I set this to 1.90v).

 

[C64]

1.3 volts or less is fine for haswell I'd also look at uncore being just +1 over it's default and raising VCCIN to 1.9-2 volts

Overclocking uncore barely adds any performance gains and can add instability why I leave mine at 33x whilst my cpu is at 4.3hz 43x my vccin is at 1.9 my vcore at 1.3 volts on adaptive voltage so it goes down when speedstep kicks in

Good guide here everything you need is on page 1 http://www.overclock.net/t/1411077/haswell-overclocking-guide-with-statistics