Overclocking help if possible

[[VAF] Shocker]

Hi guys,

 

Ok so I am currently clocked to 3.4GHz as standard but want to get it to 4.0 if possible.

 

I have

 

i7 2600k and my MOBO is is P8z68-V PRO

 

As you can tell I have NO CLUE what to do ha ha and I have tried to watch videos on you tube but no luck. Is there anyone who can help me step by step (allot to ask I know) or should I just take it in to a Gaming PC specialist ?

 

Thanks for your time

 

Brad

[Raven68]

Maybe look into your BIOS for the CPU multiplier settings? Try adjusting numbers there but be careful. It can lead to system instabilities.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overclocking

[[VAF] Shocker]

Thanks mate I will check it. I hear DCS is all CPU powered that's why I would like a few more frames. I cant really mone as I have got about 50-60fps atm

 

cheers mate

 

Brad

[Raven68]

I would hope more of the community will chime in on this, but there are more forum threads on this matter.

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=101079&highlight=stuttering

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=68060&highlight=stuttering

 

They are really good tips for increasing FPS.

 

As for me I am having issues with getting more frames as well, but I believe my main bottle neck is in the amount of RAM. Only running 4 GB at the moment, but I will put that issues to bed in another month or so. I am currently specking parts for a new rig. I could just simply up the amount of RAM to get some gains now, but I just want an excuse to go new. ;)

[ENO]

What are you using for cooling OP?

 

A big part of the OC process is in balancing out your OC with your power with your heat. Keep in mind as you start raising your base clock, you're upping your RAM speed as well- so you need to under clock your RAM until you get a stable OC on your CPU.

 

I believe that chipset runs at 100mhz and higher CPU multiplier- but you're going to hit a ceiling with the multiplier. Soon you'll need to start creeping up your Base clock... and as you're doing that you're going to need to nudge up your vcore (voltage to the CPU).

 

The numbers you're looking for in your BIOS are the CPU Multiplier, bclk and vcore... You'll have a memory multiplier as well (probably set to 6-8)... which you'll want to drop down for the OC process. Otherwise if you crash you'll have a hard time figuring out what caused it.

 

Use a program like Prime95 or LinX to test the overclock before gaming... don't think that just because Windows boots that your OC is okay.

 

Speedfan is another good program that will help you monitor your various temps- in the case as well as more importantly on the CPU. During a torture test your temps may get as high as 70-80 degrees... that's very, very warm... you'll want to keep your temps in the 50s or 60s. I was folding (all cores 100% flat out 24/7) in the 50s- but I had a great big beast air cooler (D14 noctua) on board...

 

ALWAYS OC through the bios- don't use software in the windows environment. Some guys say "meh, it works." Well, yeah... "it" works... most of the time. BIOS OC'ing works ALL the time (putting the onus on the user- not on some third party software working in a windows environment... lots can go wrong between those two platforms).

Edited March 25, 2013 by ENO

[mmtaraval]

Brad,

 

I have the same board, but with a i5-2500k. Going to 4ghz with your setup is pretty straightforward. First, you want to make sure you have a few programs installed to monitor your system when overclocking, the three that I use are RealTemp, cpu-z, and prime95.

 

realtemp is to get an accurate read on your cpu temperatures.

cpuid cpu-z will give you an overview of your system devices.

prime95 is a program to stress test your system.

 

If your using the stock cooler a 4ghz overclock should be fine but you always want to keep an eye on temperatures when your stressing your cpu during testing, but don't worry your cpu will throttle down if temps get too high.

 

There are a plethora of settings in the bios but all I changed were two, the turbo ratio and cpu voltage. I set the turbo ratio to "by all cores" and the ratio to 40, on the attached images it shows 42 because I'm at 4.2ghz. I set voltages to manual and set it to 1.120 to start off with. If your pc crashes it is usually due to under voltage, and all you should do is enter bios again and raise the vcore, or cpu voltage, incrementally by .005, to 1.125.

 

Open up cpu-z and realtemp, then fire up prime95 and run a torture test and monitor your temps and frequency ( overclock ) to make sure your running at 4.0ghz. A lot of people run the test for 24 hours to assure stability but I couldn't wait that long and ran it for a few hours. The true test was running dcs, if my system crashed I would up the vcore by .005.

 

A few notes: I use a COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus with one fan and I have my system overclocked to 4.2, and my cpu temps are ~52c at full load, and my vcore is 1.195.

 

In BIOS under memory timings I made sure the timings were the same for my ram.

 

Another thing to keep in mind is your system power options in the control panel, I have two, balanced and high performance, under the advanced settings you can set the processor power management state to a min and max setting. So ,if you ran cpu-z you might notice your cpu running at 1.6ghz, then at load it should go up to 4.0ghz, if it is always running at 4.0ghz then your power settings are probably set at high performance.

 

When I ventured into overclocking I did a ton of research online before I touched my bios but in retrospect I changed very little and my mother board and cpu run like champs, a 4ghz overclock and even a 4.2 are mild. I consider myself a novice so someone might have a better method or insight into overclocking but this worked for me.

 

I attached some pics of my bios settings.

 

Good luck,

 

Miguel

[EtherealN]

Keep in mind as you start raising your base clock, you're upping your RAM speed as well- so you need to under clock your RAM until you get a stable OC on your CPU.

 

Overclocking with baseClock on that platform is pretty much impossible - even the best motherboards can't give you more than 5-7 percent through that method. However, the i7-2600k is unlocked, so bClk manipulation is not necessary at all - just raise the CPU multiplier and you're set.

 

The reason for why that platform can't do much with bClk is that EVERYTHING is governed by it, even USB interfaces. Thus you'll get errors all over the place from everything else being overclocked too - not just RAM - and those components cannot be individually manipulated.

 

Many motherboards today do have an automatic overclock function in their UEFI. While this is usually not the most efficient OC method as regards voltages, they can be a good start - let it do it's own thing and then you can lower the voltages afterwards to see where you end at that point - but obviously, good cooling is a necessity for that. Don't do this with standard cooling fan.

 

Most i7-2600K's will do 4.4 to 4.5 on an "auto-OCer", typically at a voltage that you can then lower if you want.

 

Aside from that, good advice.

[[VAF] Shocker]

WOW,

 

Thank you guys :) I can see you have put in allot of hard work to insure I can over Clock. I will give this ago when I have time off work :) and will let you know If I have any issues.

 

Thanks

 

Brad