Solrac Oreca :
I'm new to PC too. I'm planning to get a Z97 board and the 4690K for future proofing (like overclocking when I need the performance? I don't really know how overclocking is needed when you just bought the CPU)
I'm curious if it's necessary to immediately overclock your new CPU or is just how people crave for free performance?
I'm asking this because I don't want to void any warranty when it's new.. giving it time (maybe 3 or more years) before I claim that 'free performance' overclocking gives you.
Unless you have a reason to overclock, there is no need at this point. It won't make anything open faster, or run significantly faster than you are used to. However, if you do need it, credit for this link goes to Fudoka711
http://www.overclock.net/t/1198504/complete-overclocking-guide-sandy-bridge-ivy-bridge-asrock-edition
to start off, with a graphics card, you should not be using any onboard video. So you are doing something wrong I think. You do have the video connection plugged into the graphics card I hope, right? Secondly, depending on what you are doing, you may not even want to overclock your system. I OC'd mine to 4GHz, but I have all the intel features that downthrottle the processor when no loads are present , ALL ACTIVATED. This doesn't save much power, but it might increase the life in my processor, and thermal paste, before I have to get a new batch on there, when I compare my speed to what other people are doing.
If you want to OC for gaming, save the effort, it's not worth it. You won't see any improvement, as intel already is top dog. To OC and maintain high loads, you need better cooling than the stock cooler. I would recommend an extremely affordable AND EFFECTIVE Coolermaster hyper 212 evo. They are less than $35 USD, but even cheaper from ebay. Get arctic silver 5 thermal paste, or anything because it doesn't matter really. Please get paste, not arctic alumina epoxy, haha that will ruin your whole system. But if you have the proper cooling, and are video converting, encoding, etc., then here is how I would do it:
in the BIOS, I would recommend speedstep and turboboost both enabled. This allows your PC to get faster, and slower when the PC is under a stressful load, or is idleing. I believe speedstep can bring the clock speed down to 800MHz when idle, and mine is doing it. It alllows performance, and power saving.
Set the clock speed to a practical x40 or x42 somewhere in there.
Depending on your cooling, you may have to sacrifice power saving for stability. but if good cooling and not much of a need for power saving is the case, I would keep the voltage on auto, so it lowers on less load and increases on high load. The problem with auto voltage (cpu core voltage that should be around 1.20-1.25 so you know you are modifying the right one) is that on high loads, the mobo gives you unrealistically high voltages which makes a lot of heat. you could try to follow the link guide I had given in this post, to find out what your system can handle (the highest clock with a lowest voltage) because every CPU is different, or just stick with what I am saying.
speedstep, turbo core enabled, auto voltage, good cooling, multiplier at x40 - 44 for normal (base) clock. You don't need to mess with the cache. This increases the performance with turbo core and base core, while not overhauling your system.
P.S. I scored a noctua NH-D14 for $70, which is one of the best air coolers. I would recommend it if SPACE AND TALL RAM IS not an issue. 240mm liquid cooling is popular because it has no stress on the motherboard, may or may not be more quiet (my HDD and optical drive is the loudest thing on my system) than your system, and has very good cooling powers. Prime95 has my FFT stress test temperature never hitting 70C, which is very acceptable. the 212 evo will perform very similarly if not better for LIGHT overclocking.
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