Overclocking a i7 6700k

oops · 6 Aug 2019 at 12:24

Hello all,

I'm thinking about upgrading my mobo and cpu shortly but I thought I'd try to o/c my present cpu to see just what I can get it to

My spec at present is :-

Mobo - Asrock Z170 Pro s
CPU - i7 6700k Base speed is 4.0 ghz
Cooler - Thermaltake water 3.0
GFX Card - GTX 1080
PSU - 550
300 gb SSD
3 Tb HHD
Windows 10 64 bit

I've got it to a stable 4.4ghz, with both soft clock via easy oc in the bios and also by manually setting the speed on all cores to 4.4ghz and adjusting the voltage to 1.328, but when I try to up it to 4.6 either via the soft clock or manually it crashes after a few minutes, now I've googled this quite extensively and by all accounts the cpu should be able to run to as much as 4.8ghz with no issues, I'm now wondering if it could be my cooler that's the problem, or is there something I'm missing?

Webster · 6 Aug 2019 at 12:52

How do your temps look? If fine then start with 1.4v and see what your CPU seems happy to run at - then once you've found roughly where you think it's happy lower the voltage in increments etc.

oops · 6 Aug 2019 at 15:00

Thanks Webzta, I'm at work atm but I'll give it a try as soon as I get home

oops · 7 Aug 2019 at 12:00

@Webzta I tried setting the voltage to 1.4 but the minute I rebooted it crashed, I wonder if its my cooler?

Webster · 7 Aug 2019 at 15:12

What are your temps? Idle/load?

oops · 7 Aug 2019 at 18:34

Cpu running @ 4.4ghz the idle temp is 25c - 28c load temp is 86c

Webster · 8 Aug 2019 at 09:14

oops said:
Cpu running @ 4.4ghz the idle temp is 25c - 28c load temp is 86c

Idle is good, load seems high, what were you using to load it up? Prime with AVX?

oops · 8 Aug 2019 at 11:23

Hi Webzta, I was using prime 95 m8. I've ordered a new cooler and a new 700w cpu to see if it makes any difference.

Webster · 8 Aug 2019 at 11:28

Temps are normal for Prime95, unless you're using an older version 26.6 or before rings a bell?

What are they like gaming / using cinebench or pull down the older version of prime.

Assuming they're fine have you seen any guides for your board for overclocking? 4.6Ghz+ should be easily achievable.

oops · 8 Aug 2019 at 12:49

I can't get gaming on it atm as I'm decorating the room the computer usually sits in ( I have it on the kitchen table atm

) but once I do I'll d/load cinebench and check it. I only play games in vr now as I'm into sim racing and once you use a HMD its very hard to go back, my motherboard is an asrock z170 pro4s. I have one youtube vid of a guy o/clocking a similar board and the same cpu and he gets it to 4.7 with no bother.
One of the reasons I was thinking of upgrading is that on the Oculus rift s, you can run the debug tool and that gives you an overlay ingame, on that overlay is your frame rate and something called headroom performance or performance headroom (I think thats what its called) when Im running rfactor 2 I run with low settings and I'm getting quite a good response the frame rates are a steady 80fps (thats's as far as the rift s can go) and the headroom performance is in the 30's (the game run smooth) but if I up the settings to medium or higher (were I would like them to be) I still get between 40 fps to 80fps depending what is happening onscreen but the headroom performance drops like a stone to around -50/-60 so I'm thinking there's a bottle neck in the cpu.