i5 2500k Overclocking information

Skeng · 22 Jun 2012 at 20:59

So next month I'm thinking of upgrading the the i5 2500k reasons for this is based around I've had my 920 for about three or four years now and I've recently been getting random blue screens, which I think may be some part of my hardware starting to fail not to mention I want a SSD but lack the 6GB/s ports.

So I was just wondering how rare it is to get a unlocked 2500k to 5Ghz?

Leeroy123 · 22 Jun 2012 at 21:08

Very common.

Jokester · 22 Jun 2012 at 21:10

Not stabely it isn't. 4.6-4.8Ghz is average.

pgi947 · 22 Jun 2012 at 21:17

Depends how you look at it, the vast majority will do 5ghz stable, but at what voltage is pure luck.

Depending how you plan to cool it I'd aim for a more conservative ~4.6ghz speed.

Skeng · 22 Jun 2012 at 21:39

pgi947 said:
Depends how you look at it, the vast majority will do 5ghz stable, but at what voltage is pure luck.

Depending how you plan to cool it I'd aim for a more conservative ~4.6ghz speed.

I use watercooling I have two triple rads.

Jokester · 22 Jun 2012 at 21:59

The vast majority will not do 5GHz stable on normal cooling.

shawsy109 · 22 Jun 2012 at 22:02

Ive had mine @ 5ghz on air, but boy it was hot, hit 90c under prime95 load. Had it on auto volts in bios and it would hit 1.56v on the Vcore. I wasnt happy with it so went back to 1.51v and 4.5ghz. But mine was rock solid at 5ghz, ran prime95 for about 2 hours with no probs but the room was like a sauna. Water cooling or very good air cooler would be needed imo

Jokester · 23 Jun 2012 at 09:11

2hours is just Prime warming up!

shawsy109 · 23 Jun 2012 at 18:26

Jokester said:
2hours is just Prime warming up!

I read that a lot of people run it for 8hrs + and some for 48 hours!! that seems a tad OTT. If its stable for 2 hours that seems fine to me. I guess its horses for courses.

hyperst · 23 Jun 2012 at 19:11

shawsy109 said:
Ive had mine @ 5ghz on air, but boy it was hot, hit 90c under prime95 load. Had it on auto volts in bios and it would hit 1.56v on the Vcore. I wasnt happy with it so went back to 1.51v and 4.5ghz. But mine was rock solid at 5ghz, ran prime95 for about 2 hours with no probs but the room was like a sauna. Water cooling or very good air cooler would be needed imo

That's a lot of voltage for 4.5ghz, have you tried lower?

spixelspixel · 23 Jun 2012 at 19:14

1.51v for 4.5ghz ? holy ****

mayebaza · 23 Jun 2012 at 23:37

Mine’s running quietly at 4.8 using 1.33v and it stable at 5.2 on air (But I can’t stand noisy PCs). I do find the auto overclock settings in the BIOS overly aggressive on voltage. But from reading lots of forums, it appears that these chips voltage requirements vary quite a bit, with some requiring 1.45v to stabilise at 4.5.
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AsRock Z68 Ex4 G3, [email protected] 1.33v, Ballistic Tracers 16GB,
5850 1GB(CFX), CM90 II Advanced, Crucial M4 256GB, 4 HDDs,
NH-D14, XFX 850W BE, Xonar Essence STX, BlackGold HD DVB.

shawsy109 · 24 Jun 2012 at 11:09

hyperst said:
That's a lot of voltage for 4.5ghz, have you tried lower?

Ive not tried lowering, i just leave it on AUTO in bios, think il try lowering it now ive read this.

Edit - Went into the bios, the auto setting would have Vcore at 1.39v when idling. But as soon as i started Prime95 it would jump to 1.51v. I turned auto off and locked it to 1.4v and have started prime95 and load temps have gone down from 75c to 57c lol. Why didnt i do this sooner. Hopefully a few hours of prime and it will be stable at 1.4v

Edit2
Upped volts to 1.45v and multiplier to x48 to give me 4.8ghz. After an hour of prime95 max temp was 68c. Under auto volts at 4.5ghz it hit 75c, so not only am i on less volts, with a higher clock, im on lower temps. Cheers for questioning my volts guys or i wouldnt of bothered to change it.

Vegeta · 25 Jun 2012 at 10:33

How much of a overclock is needed? I can get my 2500K at 4.6ghz with 1.35V's. But do I really need 4.6ghz for games? What would be enough?

Stinger53 · 25 Jun 2012 at 11:09

i currently have my 2500k at 4.2 just with the oc genie. is it worth upping it? to 4.5, 4.6?

StonedPenguin · 25 Jun 2012 at 11:13

I think anything over 4.6ghz is pointless and just for e-peen, Unless you have a super duper chip that'll do 5ghz @ 1.33v.

reflux · 25 Jun 2012 at 11:15

shawsy109 said:
Ive not tried lowering, i just leave it on AUTO in bios, think il try lowering it now ive read this.

I think anything above 1.375v is bad for the chip... there's a sticky on here somewhere with that info in.

My 2600K does 4.5ghz at 1.35v, but I've not fiddled with it much.

Vegeta said:
How much of a overclock is needed? I can get my 2500K at 4.6ghz with 1.35V's. But do I really need 4.6ghz for games? What would be enough?

Depends how long you want the chip to last. I've stuck with a fairly conservative speed because my machine's fast enough as it is.

Vegeta · 25 Jun 2012 at 11:31

Have any games shown any performance increases when using one GPU and changing from say a conservative 4.2ghz to the higher end OC of 4.6-4.8ghz?

Thomas@Asus · 25 Jun 2012 at 12:34

When Sandy Bridge was first released 4.8Ghz-5Ghz was the normal for high end air cooling. Now though it seems like the general quality of 2500K's has lowered as the best CPU's are binned as 2700K's. I would expect most 2500K's to reach 4.6-4.8Ghz on a sensible voltage.

shawsy109 · 25 Jun 2012 at 13:33

reflux said:
I think anything above 1.375v is bad for the chip... there's a sticky on here somewhere with that info in.

My 2600K does 4.5ghz at 1.35v, but I've not fiddled with it much.

The safe limits on Vcore is 1.52 as ive read. Not sure if thats 100% true though. Im at 1.45V on he vcore. hasnt gone above 70c yet.