Wanting to overclock, got zero confidence.

[Vidar]

Okay guys,

I have absolutely zero confidence when it comes to FINALLY overclocking my system, I don't know if it's a mental block or just that I'm a bit thick but for some reason I can't seem to get my head around what to do without bricking my machine. I've watched and read guides etc but as someone who learns best from being shown how to do something I could really use some extra help.

Can someone tell me specifically, like you would a child, where and what I need to change in my bios to overclock my system?

I'm running a Asus X79 Sabertooth Mobo with a 3930k and 16gb of samsung green ram.

I'd really appreciate your help.

 

[mattyfez]

You need to increase the clock speed of the CPU, probably called cpu multiplier or multi.
Different bios menu systems are a bit different, but they are all essentially similar.
You'll need to do some very basic maths to understand what number on the multiplier relates to what clock speed.

Keep tuning it up and testing it's stability until it crashes.

That's the basics, but to get better speeds you'll need to increase the voltage (vcore) to the CPU to make it stable at higher speeds, if you don't increase vcore, you won't be able to overclock it much at all.

More vcore means more heat, so you'll need to keep a close eye on temperatures when testing, so you don't over do it.

Personally I do it a little bit backwards, I tend to bump the vcore up to say 1.4, run some benchmarks at stock speed to check temps, then just keep bumping up the multiplier until it fails bench tests, at which point you can lower the multiplier a tad to bring it back stable.


It sounds a bit daunting to begin with, but temperature is king, as long as you keep an eye on that you won't do any damage.

You only really need 3 window apps, a monitoring app and 2 benchmark apps for testing, personally I use hwinfo for monitoring temps etc, and cinebech r15 and Asus realbench for initial stress testing. If those 2 don't crash the system, and you don't get too hot, then you're pretty stable.

Infact it's a good idea to do some benchmarks before you start overclocking, so you can see what scores you get and what temperature you get, note it down on a notepad, and then when overclocking note down the CPU speeds, temperatures and benchmark results as you go so you can easily see your progress.