Overclocking Advice

Liamb2005 · 12 Sep 2012 at 21:16

Ive recently purchased a rig from OC which is a gigabyte

Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor

Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7850 OC Windforce 2X 2048MB GDDR5

TeamGroup Elite 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit

Thermalright True Spirit 140 CPU Cooler

NZXT Phantom 410 Midi-Tower Case with 2 extra case fans

And have a couple of questions i could do with help with, my pc is running at 27 degrees when idle

1. Im a little confused about the CPU its stated as 3.5ghz yet in windows it says its running at 3.9 ghz and ive not overclocked it, does it overclock itself or change from 3.5 to 3.9ghz? in the bios its set to 35 x 100

2. Ive been running BF3 on it in full settings ultra etc and im only getting around 35 45 fps, what kind of fps should i be getting on a i7 clocked at 3.9ghz ? a friend of mine has a 1st generation i7 and says he can run at full at 60fps ?

3. What speed can i safley overclock upto and how should i do it, do i change to 45x100 or not ?

4. What speeds can i safley upgrade my memory to its 1600hz and is it worth upgrading my memory ?

5. Is it possible to upgrade the graphics card, if so how ? is it best to OC GFX or should i focus on the CPU.

Any help would be appreciated

thanks

Liamb2005 · 13 Sep 2012 at 09:03

anyone ?

Lazy · 13 Sep 2012 at 13:58

1. Thats speed boost. It will increase the frequency from 3.5GHz - 3.9GHz if it is needed for the task(s) you are doing.
2. This is varied based on the resolution you are playing at. Aswell as other factors which we would need to know.
3. No one could answer this as you could have a brilliant chip or a very poor one. Its all based on the silicon. You also have other things that can affect it like the airflow in your case and the room temperature or the motherboard itself etc. But you should be able to get around 4.5GHz, just google for an overclocking guide for Ivy bridge cpus or 3770k overclocking etc.
4. Overclocking RAM only really gives a benchmarking advantage, you are unlikely to notice the difference.
5. You could overclock the 7850, again do some searches which will give you detailed steps and max voltages and temps associated with it. If this system is purely for gaming then I would try to go for an average overclock on the CPU for more cpu intensive games and have a go at OC'ing the 7850 for a bit more performance.

Anyone wanting to change/add to that go ahead.

Liamb2005 · 15 Sep 2012 at 13:35

thanks lazy thats great, i found increasing it to 45x100 4.5ghz made it crash but i didnt want to put that much strain on it anyway most of the time so have set to 4.2 ghz max and it runs fine and never really goes above 35 degrees for general use and thats with case fans on low.

I will have a look into overclocking my graphics card then thanks