i5 6600k stock voltage/overclock question

[Alumas]

Hi All I recently did a new computer build and I am concerned my motherboard is running a stock voltage a little high. Some of what I have seen have stock voltages at 1.2 to 1.275 volts. Currently when I go into my bios it defaults my stock vcore voltage to 1.30 volts. I just want to verify that this is correct. Here is a link to all the parts I chose for this build.

https://pcpartpicker.com/b/MNKZxr

I built this primarily for gaming and will eventually upgrade the GPU. I chose the Gigabyte GA Z170N WIFI motherboard because of the size and features.

I would like to overclock my CPU and any advice I can get on this would be helpful. I have done some research and I am a little confused on how to verify if a increase in voltage is necessary based on my current stock voltage and what would be a decent OC to aim for.

Also when overclocking do I need to disable turbo boost?

If you need any other information please let me know and I will be happy to provide it.

 

[PROFESSORPANDA]

yes that is true, i know one person running 1.58v through a 6500!!! and it beats my 4.5ghz 6600k in cinebench. He also ran 1.7v on air mind you through a celeron no problem. Its safe to go over 1.35 if required.

What is your Cinebench score? Mine is 767 at 4.6 GHz.

i roughly get around 750 depending on backgroud processes.

I run 1.4v on a 4.7ghz overclock. I have no problems with heat and no issues with stability. I have never had any sort of crash or any instability. I built my system not around the most expensive case made by the most impressive manufacturer, but around the concept of what exhaled the most air away from my components using air cooling alone. Temps on my 6600k have never got above 70 (on one core) after much stress testing on an Asus Maximus viii board. Mostly I'm in the 50''s, if that. If your build has heat retention issues, then limit it to conservative voltage parameters. 1.4v will not damage this chip. It's well within intel''s guidelines despite what others have said. Limitations of chip voltage can prolong life for the person you may sell the chip to in 3 years over your own enjoyment of a perfect, stable, incredibly powerful gaming rig today. Make sure you have the other components to support it (MOTHERBOARD!!!!) and you'll be fine.

That's mostly agreeable. However (as always...), not all chips are built equal, just like "not all men are born equal" which is probably why "many are called, but few are elected" (...OK, I digress). Yes, I too subscribe to the budget MoBo, cheap single fan air cooler, no-frill roomy case, and a few lights from a clearance sale (white with red tape over), and I can also technically get 4.7 GHz at 1.405 V but then my temps go too high and the rig shuts down automatically to protect the CPU (not all that great in the middle of a game or something).

This has also to do with a very important factor which most of you don't mention often enough: the AMBIENT temperature. Mine here can easily go over 32 C. At 22:00 H I still have 28 C in my office (this is Western Australia's summer). Short of having to run our home's air conditioning continuously to remain around 23 C ambient, I stay at 4.6 GHz with 1.355 V and temps around 55 C. under load. Nobody's "censorship of reality" could detect the puny 100 MHz drop. So it certainly doesn't affect my "enjoyment" either, no sweat (pun intended).

Most importantly, I don't hear fans thrashing it out while "Arno" from Assassin's Creed (Unity) walks peacefully in a deserted dark alley of Paris. Otherwise, it sounds like he is walking on the bridge of an aircraft carrier, near a jet priming its turboprops before take off... Censorship of realism is also important... just saying ;-).

So once again, the limiting factor here is not the CPU VCore voltage. I would put it at 1.450 V or even 1.500 V with a cooling loop bathing in liquid nitrogen if I could. As always, ultimately the limiting factor is whether you can adequately deal with the resulting temperature. Remember, the rig will not shut down because the VCore voltage is too high (I tried with 1.600 V for a brief moment), but only because of the resulting package temp. going too high.

Here is a PICTURE of the inside showing the position/speed/CFM of the fans: http://imageshack.com/a/img923/3196/PjaqTS.png

I feel you man, the aussie summer is bad. Also dont need ln2 for 1.5v, mate of mine ran 1.7v through a celeron with a hyper 212 and 1.512v through a 6500 on a hyper 212. not bad temps.

 

[philipew]

yes that is true, i know one person running 1.58v through a 6500!!! and it beats my 4.5ghz 6600k in cinebench. He also ran 1.7v on air mind you through a celeron no problem. Its safe to go over 1.35 if required.

What is your Cinebench score? Mine is 767 at 4.6 GHz.

i roughly get around 750 depending on backgroud processes.

I run 1.4v on a 4.7ghz overclock. I have no problems with heat and no issues with stability. I have never had any sort of crash or any instability. I built my system not around the most expensive case made by the most impressive manufacturer, but around the concept of what exhaled the most air away from my components using air cooling alone. Temps on my 6600k have never got above 70 (on one core) after much stress testing on an Asus Maximus viii board. Mostly I'm in the 50''s, if that. If your build has heat retention issues, then limit it to conservative voltage parameters. 1.4v will not damage this chip. It's well within intel''s guidelines despite what others have said. Limitations of chip voltage can prolong life for the person you may sell the chip to in 3 years over your own enjoyment of a perfect, stable, incredibly powerful gaming rig today. Make sure you have the other components to support it (MOTHERBOARD!!!!) and you'll be fine.

That's mostly agreeable. However (as always...), not all chips are built equal, just like "not all men are born equal" which is probably why "many are called, but few are elected" (...OK, I digress). Yes, I too subscribe to the budget MoBo, cheap single fan air cooler, no-frill roomy case, and a few lights from a clearance sale (white with red tape over), and I can also technically get 4.7 GHz at 1.405 V but then my temps go too high and the rig shuts down automatically to protect the CPU (not all that great in the middle of a game or something).

This has also to do with a very important factor which most of you don't mention often enough: the AMBIENT temperature. Mine here can easily go over 32 C. At 22:00 H I still have 28 C in my office (this is Western Australia's summer). Short of having to run our home's air conditioning continuously to remain around 23 C ambient, I stay at 4.6 GHz with 1.355 V and temps around 55 C. under load. Nobody's "censorship of reality" could detect the puny 100 MHz drop. So it certainly doesn't affect my "enjoyment" either, no sweat (pun intended).

Most importantly, I don't hear fans thrashing it out while "Arno" from Assassin's Creed (Unity) walks peacefully in a deserted dark alley of Paris. Otherwise, it sounds like he is walking on the bridge of an aircraft carrier, near a jet priming its turboprops before take off... Censorship of realism is also important... just saying ;-).

So once again, the limiting factor here is not the CPU VCore voltage. I would put it at 1.450 V or even 1.500 V with a cooling loop bathing in liquid nitrogen if I could. As always, ultimately the limiting factor is whether you can adequately deal with the resulting temperature. Remember, the rig will not shut down because the VCore voltage is too high (I tried with 1.600 V for a brief moment), but only because of the resulting package temp. going too high.

Here is a PICTURE of the inside showing the position/speed/CFM of the fans: http://imageshack.com/a/img923/3196/PjaqTS.png

I feel you man, the aussie summer is bad. Also dont need ln2 for 1.5v, mate of mine ran 1.7v through a celeron with a hyper 212 and 1.512v through a 6500 on a hyper 212. not bad temps.

Thank you... no worries, I can always do 4.7 GHz when it's not 37 C + outside. --> So in winter she'll be right mate...

 

[DeathPrime]

Pro-Tip:

Take 15 seconds and check this really quick - Control Panel -> Power Options -> Change Plan Settings -> Change advanced power settings -> Processor power management -> Maximum Processor State

Mine was set to 99% and being a bonehead it took me a good 15 min to figure out it wasn't OC'ing because it wasn't triggering turbo to hop up over the 3500 or so.
So many settings, in so many places, but that 1% made all other efforts meaningless.

 

[philipew]

Pro-Tip:

Take 15 seconds and check this really quick - Control Panel -> Power Options -> Change Plan Settings -> Change advanced power settings -> Processor power management -> Maximum Processor State

Mine was set to 99% and being a bonehead it took me a good 15 min to figure out it wasn't OC'ing because it wasn't triggering turbo to hop up over the 3500 or so.
So many settings, in so many places, but that 1% made all other efforts meaningless.

This is a good point worth noting ;-).

Here are my current, and ultra stable, BIOS settings for i5 6600K on Gigabyte GA-Z170XP-SLI:
[1] - CPU Core Ratio: 46
[2] - FCLK Frequency For Early Power: 1 GHz
[3] - Uncore Ratio: 46
[4] - CPU Flex Override: Disabled
[5] - Intel Turbo Boost Technology: Disabled
[6] - CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E): Disabled
[7] - C6/C7 State Support: Disabled
[8] - C8 State Support: Disabled
[9] - CPU Thermal Monitor: Enabled
[10]-CPU EIST Function: Enabled
[11]-Voltage Optimization: Enabled
[12]-Residency State Registration (RSR): Disabled
[13]-Hardware Prefetcher: Enabled
[14]-Adjacent Cache Line Prefetch: Enabled
[15]-Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P.): Profile 1
[16]-System Memory Multiplier: 32
[17]-Memory Enhancement Settings: Relax OC
[18]-Channel Interleaving: Enabled
[19]-Rank Interleaving: Enabled
[20]-CAS Latency: 15
[21]-tRCD: 17
[22]-tRP: 17
[23]-tRAS: 28
[24]-Command Rate (tCMD): 1
[25]-CPU VCore Loadline Calibration (LLC): High
[26]-CPU VCore: 1.355V
[27]-CPU VCCIO: Normal
[28]-CPU System Agent Voltage: Normal
[29]-PCH Core: Normal
[30]-DRAM Voltage (CH A/B): 1.360 V
[31]-Internal Graphics: Disabled

 

[Richard_280]

running my 6600k at 5ghz or 4.9 multi core not hight than 1.504 volts, noctua u14s for about a year now

 

[philipew]

running my 6600k at 5ghz or 4.9 multi core not hight than 1.504 volts, noctua u14s for about a year now

OK... can you give me your BIOS settings, especially relating to voltages, frequency, etc...

 

[Richard_280]

running my 6600k at 5ghz or 4.9 multi core not hight than 1.504 volts, noctua u14s for about a year now

OK... can you give me your BIOS settings, especially relating to voltages, frequency, etc...

Please note i'm NOT an expirenced overclocker..so please don't blame me if anything goes wrong..
any feedback is very welcome..
Did some tweaking and testing and got the voltage down to 1.456 and max cpu temp down a bit.
here are my settings and some results..

Intel Core i5-6600K (5 Ghz - 4.9 Ghz)
MSI GeForce GTX 1060 - Gaming X - 3GB (1955 Mhz)
Corsair RM Series RM750x
ASUS Maximus VIII Ranger
Corsair Vengeance LPX - DDR4 - 16 GB 2400 MHz (2666Mhz)
Cinebench CPU 786, OpenGL 160 fps
Heaven 2280, 90.2 FPS

http://imageshack.com/a/img923/4928/JfOQv3.jpg
http://imageshack.com/a/img923/9206/KamUl1.jpg
http://imageshack.com/a/img924/484/rRoHHf.png
http://imageshack.com/a/img924/2583/pjntY8.jpg
http://imageshack.com/a/img923/8964/oGE3mt.jpg

good luck.

 

[philipew]

running my 6600k at 5ghz or 4.9 multi core not hight than 1.504 volts, noctua u14s for about a year now

OK... can you give me your BIOS settings, especially relating to voltages, frequency, etc...

Please note i'm NOT an expirenced overclocker..so please don't blame me if anything goes wrong..
any feedback is very welcome..
Did some tweaking and testing and got the voltage down to 1.456 and max cpu temp down a bit.
here are my settings and some results..

Intel Core i5-6600K (5 Ghz - 4.9 Ghz)
MSI GeForce GTX 1060 - Gaming X - 3GB (1955 Mhz)
Corsair RM Series RM750x
ASUS Maximus VIII Ranger
Corsair Vengeance LPX - DDR4 - 16 GB 2400 MHz (2666Mhz)
Cinebench CPU 786, OpenGL 160 fps
Heaven 2280, 90.2 FPS

http://imageshack.com/a/img923/4928/JfOQv3.jpg
http://imageshack.com/a/img923/9206/KamUl1.jpg
http://imageshack.com/a/img924/484/rRoHHf.png
http://imageshack.com/a/img924/2583/pjntY8.jpg
http://imageshack.com/a/img923/8964/oGE3mt.jpg

good luck.

Thanks mate... will have a look. By the way, what testing software did you use to guarantee that it is stable under stress (heavy load) overtime? Some people test their rig for over 24H under very heavy load to ensure that no core stops working and the temp is manageable. In reality, nothing can really "go wrong" (as you wrote), other than excessive temp. (heat) and the rig then shutting down to protect itself (basically from being toasted). You can go as high as you want with the GHz, but in the end, it is the operating temp. (under load) that determines whether it is useable (viable) or not.