Help with first overclock

BA757 · 30 Oct 2012 at 08:21

Hi All

Beginner overclocker here!

I recently got a new system, with an i5 3570K CPU and a Gigabyte Z77-UD3H MOBO.

I have been reading some overclocking guides, and think I have arrived at a stable overclock at 4.4Ghz. Ideally I'd like to go higher if possible.

To get it stable at 4.4Ghz I have had to change the following settings:

Multiplier - 44 obviously!
CPU Base Clock - unchanged (100.00)
Vcore - 1.300
VTT - 1.070 (kept getting BSOD's advising this needed to go up so gone up from 1.050 default)

At these settings, it passed 10 tests of blend under Prime95 and registered max temps of between 68 and 76 on the 4 cores.

So, my question is, are the above settings ok or are they too high? I don't use my PC 24/7 - probably no more than 24 hours in a WEEK.

And secondly, can I go higher? I'm new to this and don't want to cause any damage to my system pushing it too far.

P.S. air cooled not water.

Thanks

BA757 · 30 Oct 2012 at 17:21

Oops, the post should have read 1.320 VCore. This is the lowest I can get the vcore without boot problems.

One other thing...when I enable XMP in the BIOS and set the RAM to it's specified frequency (2000MHZ) i get boot problems. I have to drop the frequency down to 1800Mhz. It's Corsair XMS3.

BA757 · 30 Oct 2012 at 17:25

Oh, and also what is LLC?

In my BIOS I have something called Vcore Loadline Calibration - is this what you mean? It's set to Auto at the moment.

Cheers!

BA757 · 1 Nov 2012 at 07:37

Doomedspeed said:
Spot on, It is Load line calibration your after. What options do you get to change it?

Hi,

It doesn't display any alternative options, just set to auto and allows manual input over it, no menu choices or anything.

Also, an update - I've had to increase the VCore to 1.36 to get it stable during gaming. Kept getting CTDs and BSODs referring to increasing the Vcore.

Looks like my CPU is a voltage hungry one.

Max temp during 3 hours of P95 was 82, is this too high? Maybe I can add in another case fan, would this help? I'd like to go higher than 4.4 ideally but I'm guessing it ain't gonna happen!