[SOLVED] How do I overclock a locked CPU on an OEM board?

[Budgeteer_262]

Hi All,

I want to overclock my CPU because it is bottlenecking my GPU.

I'm a novice (albeit very determined) hardware enthusiast who has managed to build a Frankenstein gaming PC out of bits that others had thrown away and by heavily abusing a dell OptiPlex 3020. The specs are as follows:

Intel Core i7 4770
AMD Radeon R9 290 4GB
8GB 1600Mhz Kingston DDR3 (Dual Channel)
2 X Seagate 500GB HDD
650W 80+ Wide Ranging Active PFC PSU + 255W 80+ Gold Active PFC PSU

I built this PC for the grand total of £50. I only needed to buy the GPU.

However, the CPU is locked and the motherboard is the cheapo H81 chipset so overclocking would seem kinda impossible. However, I know for sure that other people have managed to overclock on similar dell OEM boards by using Programs like SetFSB along with an identified PPL for their motherboard. I have tried every single PPL on the dropdown menu in SetFSB and none of them applied, albeit these programs rarely receive updates so it may not have had the PPL i was looking for.

Hence I am here to ask if anyone can help me get my i7 4770 singing the song of speed and the poetry of power? I know that the multiplier method works on the H81 chipset. My problem is getting it to work with my specific OEM motherboard (which won't be recognised by preset programs). As for power, the 650W unit exclusively powers the GPU (don't ask why) and the 255W powers everything else including the CPU. I can easily swap some of those 12V CPU pins to come from the 650 rather than the 255 so power for overclocking is no issue, neither are thermals (initially at least). I have already overclocked the GPU (worsening the bottlenecking) which is able to go as far as +203Mhz on the core, even on a crappy reference blower cooler. I also think that my CPU could be high binned too because it performs 6% above average in benchmarks even before overclocking. I will need every Hz I can get out of it to meet the demand of the monstrous 300W+ (now at least ) gas guzzling R9 290.

So any help in getting the chip overclocked would be much appreciated.

Thanks in Advance

An image to give you an idea, note that I am working on fitting watercooling ..... for £30 🆒

 

[Karadjgne]

Yep, so with regards to bottlenecking it is not exactly a huge bottleneck but I am definitely loosing in excess of 10% of my FPS (on the overclocked R9 290) in heavy CPU bound and Modern titles.

No. You aren't.
The cpu takes the game code, uses it to place every object, figure out Ai, do all the processing etc for every frame and then sends all that data to the gpu. THAT is your FPS Limit, the amount of times the cpu can accomplish doing everything for one frame in one second.

The gpu has to create the picture from that data according to detail settings and resolution. It either can or cannot do that.

What you get from a cpu is it, that's the number. FPS is set by the CPU, not the GPU. Just because your gpu might be capable of more does not mean the cpu is bottlenecking it, it just means in those games the gpu has extra resources. In other games it may not and be the bottleneck for cpu fps output.

You aren't loosing anything. You just have a gpu capable of more in those titles. I'd rather have that and be able to play at Ultra, than a fully capable cpu and a gpu requiring Medium settings just to keep up the fps.

 

[Andrewbandrew05]

So I have a laptop with a locked intel CPU in a locked intel motherboard. I did some research and tried my best to find a way to OC it. Turns out, no one knows how to (at least for the 8th gen processors). I do believe that there are some gens of Intel CPUs in which you can increase the BCLK or multiplier (forget which) allowing one to actually OC. I don't know if yours falls under this, but as I believe it was something mobo makers programmed in I'm pretty sure your mobo can't do it. If you want to try you could download Throttlestop and see what happens, there's a BCLK and FCLK button that if pressed will crash your computer if you have a locked CPU (I think). I'd just google and see what you can find. You also maybe could try programming it into the BIOS in assembly. It would be super dangerous to your PC, but I'd assume you could look at the BIOS download for you MOBO and see if you can find something that talks about BCLK or FCLK, google a bunch, and then try changing it. Finally, I think I heard about something where with some locked Intel processors people were able to run some commands to unlock them.

 

[USAFRet]

So I have a laptop with a locked intel CPU in a locked intel motherboard. I did some research and tried my best to find a way to OC it. Turns out, no one knows how to (at least for the 8th gen processors). I do believe that there are some gens of Intel CPUs in which you can increase the BCLK or multiplier (forget which) allowing one to actually OC. I don't know if yours falls under this, but as I believe it was something mobo makers programmed in I'm pretty sure your mobo can't do it. If you want to try you could download Throttlestop and see what happens, there's a BCLK and FCLK button that if pressed will crash your computer if you have a locked CPU (I think). I'd just google and see what you can find. You also maybe could try programming it into the BIOS in assembly. It would be super dangerous to your PC, but I'd assume you could look at the BIOS download for you MOBO and see if you can find something that talks about BCLK or FCLK, google a bunch, and then try changing it. Finally, I think I heard about something where with some locked Intel processors people were able to run some commands to unlock them.

And after all that, it will still never approach the capabilities of a 10th gen i3.
Not even close.

 

[Andrewbandrew05]

And after all that, it will still never approach the capabilities of a 10th gen i3.
Not even close.

He's not trying to reach 10th gen i3 capabilities. He's trying to get as much performance as he can for the cheapest amount possible.

 

[USAFRet]

He's not trying to reach 10th gen i3 capabilities. He's trying to get as much performance as he can for the cheapest amount possible.

Thats what he's comparing it to.
Even worse, an i9.
https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...ed-cpu-on-an-oem-board.3689549/#post-22226145

 

[Andrewbandrew05]

Thats what he's comparing it to.
Even worse, an i9.
https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...ed-cpu-on-an-oem-board.3689549/#post-22226145

No, he's not. He is saying that his GPU is weak enough that his oced cpu would institute a GPU based bottleneck. If that is indeed the case then yes, for his purposes, his cpu would work just as well as even the 3990X threadripper.

 

[Karadjgne]

Afaik, all cpus share an adjustable BCLK. It's how the motherboard software OC works. I know Asus starts out at like 103.7, then a second stage at 105.3 I believe. The problems there is stability since vcore can't be increased higher than its default values, the increased heat can become an issue, and BCLK affects a bunch more items including pcie buss which in turn affects all communications with storage and its parameters. BCLK was open front buss until 6th gen (not sure on that exactly) so affected ram speeds too, but 6th+ that was chopped along with some other components, so no longer changes with BCLK adjustments.

Which is probably why Intel recommended values remain at 100.00 for BCLK, but vendors/AIB partners are free to do as they wish with their products and software.

 

[Andrewbandrew05]

Afaik, all cpus share an adjustable BCLK. It's how the motherboard software OC works. I know Asus starts out at like 103.7, then a second stage at 105.3 I believe. The problems there is stability since vcore can't be increased higher than its default values, the increased heat can become an issue, and BCLK affects a bunch more items including pcie buss which in turn affects all communications with storage and its parameters. BCLK was open front buss until 6th gen (not sure on that exactly) so affected ram speeds too, but 6th+ that was chopped along with some other components, so no longer changes with BCLK adjustments.

Which is probably why Intel recommended values remain at 100.00 for BCLK, but vendors/AIB partners are free to do as they wish with their products and software.

I thought that wasn't the case for locked cpus?

As in intel did not let people edit the bclk?