**OcUK Extreme Haswell bundle - A review!**

[pgi947]

After much looking about for my new Haswell build, I came to a conclusion, to get the best performance I need either a naked chip (risky, no warranty!!) or a binned chip which ultimately led me to this:

OcUK Extreme Intel Core i7 4770K @ 4.6GHz+ Extreme Overclocked Bundle

With the release of 8 Packs ultra high end systems came many questions about the chance to lay your hands on the best binned chips available, if you were one of these people then read on

The bundle & ordering

I opted for the bundle to come with the fantastic Gigabyte Z87X-OC motherboard with my choice of cooler being the EK Supremacy waterblock, total cost (including a TWO deal) came to something like £705.

No option to change the memory? I phoned CS about this to see if I could change out to some 2600mhz stuff, the only memory they will allow you to change to is another 1866 or lower kit - the overclock cannot be guaranteed otherwise. I suppose this is a smart move, as if they start throwing high perf kits at these bundle, they may find one with a weaker then usual IMC that can't cope! I will address the memory situation later next week (if prices haven't gone through the roof).

Option I would like to see - more say in the waterblock you want, I don't mean other brands by that, but it would have been nice to be given a choice between Acetal or Plexi tops! Or indeed nickel or copper surface.

Arrival & Installation

My order only took 4 working days to process and get out of the door, ordered Sunday morning and was dispatched the following Thursday, in my hand Friday! So quicker then the estimated 7 day build time, obviously this will change during busier periods.

Everything arrived well packed, as usual

Invoice, this should ease the minds of some who were after binned chips!!!

All the goodies readily installed from the shop, all you have to do is fit the cooler of your choice. Excuse photo quality, restricted to a phone that loves to flash (if you hadn't noticed!) for just now.

Side note - EK really need to step up a little, the threads on the backplate were all kinds of messed up, fortunately I had an M4 tap to sort it out, others may find the posts will strip if they're forced!!

Testing

CPU is being cooled by an SR-1 360 with 3 Akasa Vipers, driven by a D5 pump W/ EK-XRes. A very much thrown together loop mostly from parts of my last build, delayed Enthoo has seen me keep the shed in place just now.

CPUZ with the OcUK profile loaded!!

These were the temps from around 15mins of AIDA64 stress testing:

Final Thoughts!

If you want the very best Haswell chip without playing 'the lottery' this is just the ticket, superb bundle. I had a CS thread open throughout the process and was updated almost daily by Evoaddict on what was happening and when it was likely to ship.


Happy to take requests on any other testing, I will be going for a higher OC either tomorrow or when my PSC kit arrives on Tuesday and will update as such then

 

[pgi947]

Will be having a play with the clocks tomorrow, first 4.8 then 5.0 for some benches, I'll probably leave it at 4.6 for 24/7 use. Then on to memory testing, I will try with the Kingston dimms provided but I can't see them being up to much.

Just about to order some 2666mhz TG Extreme C11, so should have them around the same time as the ripjawsX C6 kit that is en route

 

[pgi947]

TG for raw mhz and RJX for stupidly low cas

4.7 seems fine so far with no additional voltage increase. Onto 4.8 & beyond!!!

 

[pgi947]

If you break the pricing down, you are paying in the region of £390 for the chip + OC service, though does this make it worth it:

4.8Ghz, gave it a very minor voltage bump of 0.010v for good measure, 10 mins AIDA64 stability testing at 100% load all threads...

Unless I hit a voltage wall this should be doing 5ghz with relative ease

 

[pgi947]

Nice.

Been thinking along those lines also for Haswell, apart from the overclock you know everything should work straight out the box.

Yep that's always another bonus, especially as I hate troubleshooting without spares available

£390.00 isnt bad at all tbh as yor guaranteed the oc. Ive spent a lot more on a few different cpu's in the last year, (x2 ivy bridge, current 4770k). Managed to boot into windows ok at 1.2625v at 4.5ghz. Not tested for stability yet. Though the previous owner had it running at 4.6ghz on 1.2500v. Board was a maximus VI extreme.

Have you considered delidding and going with a naked mount?

Naked was my original idea, though looking at those temps it may be a wasted effort (especially if I damage the chip!!). Provided I don't hit any absolutely massive temp spikes the lid can stay on

 

[pgi947]

Looking good so far mate
5Ghz and that lovely 2666mhz ram and you're getting some fantastic Physics scores on 3D11

just need a GPU that can compete next!! For now I'll settle for trying to smash my way to the top of the SuperPI table

True, you look like youve got a lot of headroom in regards to temps. Id be quite wary of delidding too tbh as im scared id do some damage.

Exactly my concern too, I'm very clumsy with small objects, its a cert that I'd damage/loose something.

 

[pgi947]

Nice review.

Can I ask why you have a lower bus speed? And does that help in regards to voltages and temps?
Always looking to expand my knowledge, which as you noticed, is a little limited, so any advice or insight is always welcome.

Tbh I'm not sure what is going on with the base clock, its set to 100.00 in the bios so its probably a little fluctuation as can happen with a base clock, iirc a Z68 setup I had would occasionally bounce between 98.00 & 101.00.

 

[pgi947]

I'll most certainly be leaving the lid on now, the gains I'd get from going naked would be negligible at best, at my highest clock I'm still a good 40c away from the TJmax and a good 25-30c away from my comfort zone.

Well all I've managed in a short period of time this morning is:

4.8 = 1.32v, ~57c
5.0 = 1.325v, ~60c
5.1 = 1.33v (BSOD after windows splash)

Haven't changed uncore or anything yet (set at 42) or adjusted any other voltage settings such as LLC.
I'll leave pushing the core voltage any higher until I see what kind of extra strain a better memory kit places on the CPU

I will reseat once I rebuild (hopefully next month! Pull your finger out phanteks!!) as one core seems to be spiking a good 5+c when under load.

 

[pgi947]

Yeah, Evoaddict said typically they require 1.33v for 4.6ghz so a 1.35v limit on their bundles sounds about right.

The only reason for heading north of 5.1ghz is to find an absolute limit I'm happy to bench with, 24/7 it will stay at the provided 4.6ghz clock speeds.

It has paid off, I would encourage anyone after the best HW chip money can buy to look at these bundles

 

[pgi947]

I'm now tempted to hop over the Haswell and pick up one of these bundles
Same board as Nick though

What did 8Pack say the maximum bench voltage on these were? (water) Cannot remember tbh.

I'll be quizzing him next week about PSC so I'll double check with him then, but 1.4v on water sounds familiar.

Can't wait to get some new ram either, better buying now as prices look to have taken a surprising dip over the last few days, no doubt will be on the rise again shortly given the Hynix incident.

I'll try piece together some quotes later today/tomorrow from 8Pack, ScottieB & Gibbo, basically explaining the whole binning process and how these chips have no bearing on what quality chip you're likely to get buying via retail and not bundle.

 

[pgi947]

Hopefully ive been ok with mine, (bought secondhand), can boot into windows and so far ive just ran 3dm11 for a quick test. Needed 1.2625v to get into the os at 4.5ghz. If i can run this speed stable without much more voltage ill be happy enough. Will be faster than my old 3770k too. Temps would be my limiting factor as im on air, (alpenfohn k2) which i see is a cooler option on theese bundles.

The cooler options, I'll try dig out the quote from ScottieB, but in short to cool these bundles well enough, high end air or custom water is required, the AIO watercoolers cannot keep the temps in check under long periods of stress, they gradually build up heat that cannot be dispersed quick enough and end up in a thermal shut down. This is why the only options are the top air coolers (K2 & Phanteks) or a waterblock. So you should be good to go on a K2.

I think the big problem with my Haswell is the temps (hitting over 70ºC with a VCore of 1.17v, 4.3GHz).
That would probably be the reason I'd be so tempted by one of these bundles.
It's also the reason I'm considering delidding...

Delid + liquid metal appears to give the best 'lid-on' performance, heat is certainly the enemy with these chips which isn't helped in the slightest by Intels TIM application. iirc 8 Pack said going naked will knock around 20c from load temps while a good delid wouldn't be too far behind it. If you're confident enough to do it, then do it

 

[pgi947]

Fathoms are great value kits and should arrive in the same plug and play manor as you'd receive an AIO unit

 

[pgi947]

If you dig out 8packs review of a tech lab v8 vs h100, 240 fathom perf should be along the lines of the v8.

They're excellent for getting first timers into the wonderful world of water cooling

 

[pgi947]

^ Delid is probably going to be the most beneficial option

Check out Nickolp's results using regular tim on a custom loop, temps are through the roof

 

[pgi947]

No problem, should be in the bios quite a lot the next few days sorting the memory. Fairly sure igpu is set to auto, which I'd presume is disabled on using a dedicated card.

Spread spectrum I'm not sure on, shall have a look though!

Need to get my head around uncore too, haven't changed it from 42 yet, though I think it works from core multi now, sure back in the day uncore was something to do with memory

 

[pgi947]

Damn, I thought you'd used regular Tim! Safely say you have a stinker

 

[pgi947]

not after he's delidded it, pretty sure everyone checks for that


yeah basically it's the motherboard bus speed. Ideally it should be about x2 behind the CPU ratio or the performance drop off is considerable...that's where a lot of people miss out (& was the cause of 8Pack's little tiff with Tom Logan).

Over 4GHz the benefit of increasing uncore further starts to diminish so we don't bother going over 42, this allows us to keep the ring voltage at a reasonable level and hence controlling the temperature a little better.

I'd love to see what you can really get with your bundle have you ventured up to 1.4V yet?

1.4v will be done later in the week once ive got the 2666mhz ram up and tightened, provided I can get the multi to scale with voltage, hopefully be looking at ~5.4-5ghz ddr2700 c11.

Haha I remember that, lurpack schooled him

 

[pgi947]

I want to know what 8pack said to TTL.

Basically reviewed the m6e and said it was rubbish and did nothing a £150 Board couldnt do, so 8 pack pointed out he had completely ignored certain features sich as uncore. Tom took a strop with it and started crying saying he was going to call 8 pack's boss (gibbo) to get him off of oc3d, 8 pack then took that on board and created another account called 'lurpack' & continued to point out the string of flaws in his review and overclocking methods, Tom and his sheep contined to cry about it as eventually lurpack was banned.

Why on earth some jumped up **** on YouTube wanted to even try argue overclocking with a guy who is not only #1 in the UK but also one of the best in the world I'll never know.

All he had to do was mtfu and take on board what he was being schooled in rather then kick up a fuss.

 

[pgi947]

I honestly couldn't recommend the X-OC highly enough, it even go's as far as offering memory presets for certain kits and some tuned by HiCookie!

Just done 5ghz DDR2666, now to tune memory and the pump the core up!

 

[pgi947]

Sweet Pgi947, that definitely sealed the deal over the IB-E build.
I take it you were using the TG Ram?

Yep, needs tuning though, the XMP profile sets a tRFC of 467
I'll get working on it over the week

What kind of 3D11 Physics score does that give? That's a serious clock with decent memory!
I'm going to have a think about it, offloading a couple of cards already so will have the available £ next week to move if i want.

Can you think of any decent mATX cases for watercooling (except the parvum) Your board is by far the best in that price range though, without a doubt.

Not sure on the 3d11 physics yet, though at a guess it will be somewhere near 13K.

Dedicated mATX cases for WC is a tricky one, most cater for ATX with mATX options or mITX