How much should I bump my voltages when OC'ing

[rds1220]

Had a question. When overclocking a CPU and you hit a wall how much should you up the voltages? Lets say your stock voltages are 1.24 volts. You overclock a few hundred MHZ then hit a wall. Should I bump the voltages up .1-.2 or go bigger like .5?

 

[volkgren]

What CPU are you talking about? You would never want to go up .5V that would kill your CPU.

 

[rds1220]

i5 2500k. I'm going to be building a new computer soon but I'm trying to get the most out of this CPU while I build up the money for a new computer. I'm at 4.3 GHZ now but I heard of people easily able to get 4.5 and on more extreme ends 4.8 GHZ

 

[volkgren]

Typically 1.4V is your max safe voltage on an Intel CPU. I like to use 1.35V as a starting point and then work my way down from there checking for stability to find the lowest voltage I can run an overclock.

 

[The Original Ralph]

what i use, basically the Fred Flintstone approach to optimizing my 4790 was to download Intel's XTU (extreme tuning utility) https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/24075/Intel-E...

Once installed, one option will be to run a benchmark - run one. After running, it displays your score and offers to upload it to their website to compare to others. Do that, then once there, go to the analyze page - there'll be a graph showing your score relative to others. Above the graph there will be some buttons - you can select to only compare to other identical CPUs and motherboards. Do select that. Then as you move your cursor over the "dots" on the graph for others' scores, it will display their actual score and the percentage compatibility with your system. When you see a score higher than yours, rated 85% or higher compatible, clik on it, then on the right side of the screen you can download their settings - download it and save to your desktop.

when you download it label or rename it so you'll know which one it was.

In the "profile page" of XTU, you'll see an icon "import" profile - clik on it and point it to the download settings you want to try.. Then select that profile and clik "save". And run a benchmark test. you'll find some of the profiles will not work with your system, and others will - but you can at least start to learn what settings do what for your CPU.

One nice feature of XTU, is it will allow you to change BIOS settings from within windows - a few of the profiles will require a reboot though.

One warning - i'm not sure why, but whenever i left XTU installed on my computer, my BIOS settings seemed to become unstable and change inexplicably. Once i found a profile i liked, i un-installed it and my BIOS became stable again. FYI, my other rig is i7-4790 on an ASUS Z97m-Plus mobo.

Hope that helps