... runs at 5.1 on all cores at rather low voltage (1.275bios, about 1.266 load LL3) ... would much rather ... at over 1.4 at 5.3 or something ... nocuta nh-15 ... massive bump in voltage ... to run at 5.2 ... 1.390 ... should i settle for 5.1 @ 1.275v ... sell my noctua and find a nice cooler and go for 5.3 because i know that's stable at just over 1.415 ...
Your voltage and frequency values don't make sense ...
5.1 @ 1.275 to 5.2 @ 1.390 =
110 millivolts increase
5.2 @ 1.390 to 5.3 @ 1.415 =
25 millivolts increase
Here's an example of a Core Voltage / Frequency Curve:
With respect to the voltage / frequency curve, if your 10900K is indeed stable at 5.1 GHz with 1.275 Vcore, then 5.2 GHz should require no more than about 1.34 Vcore, whereas 5.3 could conceivably require as much as 1.41 Vcore to achieve stability. Your processor should follow a similar curve. Considering your Vcore value of 1.39 for 5.2 GHz is a 110 millivolt increase from 5.1, but only a 25 millivolt increase from 5.2 to 5.3, your numbers suggest that you may have been a bit hasty in finding your processor's stable overclock settings, and that your test methods were perhaps inconsistent and somewhat less than thorough.
To achieve the highest overclock, keep in mind that for your final 100 MHz increase, a corresponding increase in Core voltage of about 50 millivolts (0.050) is needed to maintain stability. If 70 millivolts (0.070) or more is needed for the next stable 100 MHz increase, it means you're attempting to overclock your processor beyond its capability.
Each Microarchitecture has a “Maximum Recommended Vcore”. Here's the values per Microarchitecture from 14 to 65 nanometers since 2006:
Each Microarchitecture also has a "
Degradation Curve". As a rule, CPUs are more susceptible to electromigration and degradation with each Die-shrink. However, the exception to the rule is 14 nanometer (nm) Microarchitecture, where advances in
FinFET transistor technology have improved voltage tolerance.
Here's how the Degradation Curves correspond to Maximum Recommended Vcore for 14 nanometer 5th through 10th Generations, which for comparison, differs from 22 nanometer 3rd and 4th Generations:
It is typically recommended that you
should not exceed 1.4 Vcore, however, if you look very closely at the chart, you can see that 1.425 is about as high as you should go on 14 nanometer processors. This agrees with the recommendations of
Intel's own Overclocking Test Lab Engineers (see paragraphs 8, 9 & 10), who stipulate that you
should not exceed 80°C. (See
Intel CPU Temperature Guide 2021)
Nevertheless, although the Noctua NH-D15 is
the top-of-the-line air cooler, it's not capable of adequately cooling the 10 Core 20 Thread i9-10900K at the Core voltages you're proposing, due to the
extreme Power consumption (over 325 Watts) that such voltages will drive. Even at stock settings, a 360 mm AIO or a custom loop is instead recommended.
I suggest you heed the good advice that
jay32267 and
hotaru.hino offered, and read the links I provided to learn more about overclocking, so you don't inadvertently subject your new CPU to the effects of
Electromigration and
Degradation. It simply isn’t worth pushing your processor beyond recommended Core voltage and Core temperature limits just to squeeze out another 100 MHz, which is less than 2%, and has no noticeable impact on overall system performance.
CT