Never Overclocked Before - Completely baffled

Bradley1928 · 31 May 2016 at 11:11

Good Morning guys.

I was looking into overclocking. I've been told to change some settings but as soon as I opened the BIOS I was completely out of my depth. I currently have a i5 4690k with a custom loop and a 240mm rad for the CPU.

I've attached images of my BIOS in the spoiler below but have no Idea which numbers are which and which settings are which.

Huge thank you in advance, all these settings and numbers have got me totally baffled and caking myself!

Brazo · 31 May 2016 at 11:17

There are some great guides out there for Haswell (Dc) overclocking have you had a read through? I only ask as it can be a complex subject to fully understand it and thirst would benefit you far more than looking at bios screens.

Bradley1928 · 31 May 2016 at 11:39

Yeah I've read though abit of overclocking information and watched videos. Its just the naming that I'm not sure of. Obviously every motherboard is different to some extend so I'm abit worried that I'll change something that I shouldn't because I think its something else.

Brazo · 31 May 2016 at 14:51

Ok from your first pic change the CPU ratio mode to manual.
Next set the adjusted CPU frequency to your intended overclock. Try 4.5ghz.
Turn off Intel turbo boost.
Leave ring ratio at 3.5ghz but set this to 3.5ghz as at present its in auto.

From your second slide set the vccin voltage to 1.9 do not confuse this one!

Set the CPU core voltage to 1.25v

Leave everything else for now.

Now if PC starts great. Stress test it and if it crashes either increase CPU core voltage or decrease CPU frequency until it stabilises. Watch your temperatures.

If PC doesn't start, pull mobo battery and go back with a lower clock speed.

Bradley1928 · 31 May 2016 at 17:57

Huge thanks. However I've hit a small snag. I can't change the cpu ratio from auto to manual. Just won't allow me. Same for ring ratio. Any ideas?

Bradley1928 · 31 May 2016 at 19:18

Ignore my last message. I was attempted to click to change. Using numbers or +/- worked fine

Jumper118 · 1 Jun 2016 at 00:30

Yes don't even bother using a mouse in the bios, I don't even know why they even have a pointer in these uefi bios as they are always useless. Set your cpu ratio to manual, then it will be 35 to start with or it might say auto. Anyway I would set it to 44 to start with and set the cpu core voltage to 1.3v. Then press f10 then enter to save and exit. It should boot fine at that and you need to let it boot and stress test it for 10-15mins. Then if it doesn't freeze or blue screen or go over 85c, you can go back in the bios and set to 45 and keep it at 1.3v. Just keep doing this bumping it up and stressing it until it won't boot or it crashes. Then you will need to put it back down to the last highest speed that it worked at. Then I would stress test it for a few hours to make sure it's fully stable.

Once you have done that you can do same thing with the ring ratio and ring voltage, but I would start at 38 ring and 1.2 ring voltage as this normally will not go as high as the cpu.

Bradley1928 · 1 Jun 2016 at 07:00

I did as Brazo said. It seems stable at 4.5ghz with 1.25v. Stress tested it with real bench for 30 minutes and the highest temp I got was 54c. Played total war warhammer for a few hours and still no issues. I'm guessing from here I can start upping the cpu ratio till it does blue screens? Or should I leave it at 4.5ghz

Brazo · 1 Jun 2016 at 13:03

Well 4.5 isn't bad but you should either up the ghz or decrease the voltage. So you could stick at 4.5 and decrease the voltage until you run into stability issues, this should lead to lower temps but 54C is nothing!