Is overclocking my i7-4790K worth the added expense?

[gerr]

Current system:
i5-4690(non-K)
CM Hyper 212 EVO (SP120-push, AF120-pull)
ASRock Extreme 4 mobo
16GB G.Skill Sniper 1866@CL9
2x250GB 850 EVO's in Raid-0
MSI GTX 970(will get a 2nd one for SLI this Xmas)
Rosewill Capstone 750W
Fractical Design Core-3000 case with 2 front intake fans and 2 top exhaust fans, all with green LED's.
Asus 24" 144hz HD monitor(will likely upgraded to a 27" 1440 monitor this Xmas)

I recently upgraded my CPU to an i7-4790K and tried to overclock it, but not liking the temps I am seeing. I just don't think I got a good OC'ing CPU. I have all cores at 4.4Ghz at 1.20v and the system seems stable(8 hours on AIDA64's System Stability Test), but it pushs my temps pretty high. Average load temps were upper 70's with max temps spiking to the high 80's and even one core hit the low 90's. That seems too hot to me.

I backed the CPU back down to stock and to be honest, I don't notice the difference. I would probably need to spend $75-$100 to get a better CPU cooler. My 1st choice would be a CM Nepton 140XL and put some better fans on it. I prefer AIO's as I would like to upgrade my RAM to 32GB one day, but most air coolers would block the remaining 2 slots.

My question is if it's worth the extra $75-$100 to get a better OC out of my system, and since the i7 I have is already running at 4.0Ghz at stock, will I really even notice a difference going to 4.5Ghz as I doulbt even a top cooler would be able to take my CPU to 4.6Ghz as it does't appear that I got a good OC'ing CPU.

Thoughts?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

You won't notice the difference unless you are running the system with enough load to take advantage .... kinda like if you are commuting to work in traffic on 55 mph speed limit roads, would you get to work faster with a car that can go 140 mph ?

The 140XL would be a complete waste .... doesn't cool as well and is louder than comparably priced air coolers.

The $55 Phanteks PH-TC14-PE keeps your CPU 3C cooler at the same fan rpms and tho the 140XL manages to tie the Phanteks in this test, it's much louder with the 2000 rpms fans... the XL is also $15 more

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835709002
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103197

You don't wanna be stress testing with AIDA 64 or P95. While there may be some satisfaction gained from being P95 or AIDA stable, these synthetic benchmarks put unrealistic loads and therefor produce heat numbers that unnecessarily limit your OC. Older versions of these synthetics do not have AVX and other modern instructions sets and won't produce these unique heat situations, but since these instruction sets are not tested, passing proved what ?

I have found that I can be AIDA 64 stable , P95 stable, Intel XTU stable and still crash using real application suites like RoG Real Bench. So at this point, I just skip the synthetics and go right to RB. Real Bench includes AVX but in a normal application based manner...so while you may see a short 0.10 - 0.13 voltage boost you don't see the prolonged, constant boot of voltage and heat that you see w/ the synthetics.

The Hyper 212 tops out at about 1.20 volts on haswell.... by topping out I mean max temp on any core < 75C. Here's what I recommend for the various voltages

Up to 1.200v = Very Good Air Cooler (Hyper 212)
Up to 1.250v = Best Air Coolers (Phanteks PH-TC14-PE, Silver Arrow or Noctua DH14) ....... Dual 140mm CLC / AIO Cooler w/ 1500 rpm fans (Corsair H110)
Up to 1.275v = Extreme Speed Dual Fan CLC / AIO w/ 2700 rpm fans (too noisy for most folks)
Up to 1.287v = Best air coolers (Cryorig R1 / Noctua DH-15)
Up to 1.300v = Swiftech AIOs ( Swifteh H220-X / H240-X)
Up to 1.325v = Custom Loop w/ 15C Delta T (3 x 120mm / 140mm) *
Up to 1.400 = Custom Loop w/ 10C Delta T (5 x 140mm or 6 x 120mm) *

* At this level having the GPU(s) also under water is assumed

Also, if you are not running AVX, you can add as much as 0.10 to all those voltages.

Now again, that's Haswell, you have Devil's Canyon which is more thermally efficient so you should be able to jump a half of step...say to about 1.225 and still stay in mid 70s.

 

[gerr]

The latest version of Prime95 took my temps to the upper 90's within 60s, so I dumped that tool and went with AIDA64 per other recommendations I read. I am open to using other tools like the RoG RB you mentioned.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

I ran AIDA for two hours and I was stable great. Now I run RB or another two hours and I fail..... that 1st 2 hours in essence was a waste of time. RB is real applications so it simulates what you actually do with the puter. It also does performance benchmarking in those applications so you can compare the results of different OCs.

Also, there's more to OC'ing then Vcore ....cache adjustments, VCCIn, cache voltage will come into play.

 

[gerr]

My cache was stock(auto-adjusted) voltage, but OC'ed to 44x. I'll try RB tonight.