Looking for Overclocking Advice

[Zoltron_Laser]

Hello experts!

I'm an overclocking newb, and I recently got an i5-4670K with a Noctua NH-U9B cooler as part of the following system (which I recently finished putting together):

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($199.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U9B SE2 37.9 CFM CPU Cooler ($60.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($119.00 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($214.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($56.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($399.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($399.99 @ Amazon)
Case: BitFenix Shinobi ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.58 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 750W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG BH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($84.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($124.00 @ Amazon)
Monitor: Asus PB278Q 27.0" Monitor ($554.10 @ Amazon)
Total: $2550.57
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-07-12 08:27 EDT-0400)

Now, having never overclocked anything before, I don't really even know where to start. So I'm looking for a few things:

1) Any major "DO NOT DO THIS WHEN OVERCLOCKING YOUR CPU!!!" things I should know?
2) Any links to good guides on overclocking your CPU? I really don't even have any idea of how to overclock it.
3) Anything special I should know about overclocking that relates specifically to the Haswell chips (I'm guessing the guides will be older and not show people overclocking a Haswell)?
4) What are safe overclocking numbers for my chip specifically? How high can the temp safely go without adversely affecting the lifetime of my chip? How can I view/monitor these temperatures to make sure that I'm doing it right?
5) I would like my overclocked processor to still last me a good long while, I'm not looking to overclock it so high that it poops out on me in the first three years or anything like that, so safely overclocking is a priority here.

Thanks in advance for your responses!

 

[William Marino]

Watch your temps when you start overclock don't keep at overclock that makes the temp very high. Or dump silly amounts voltage though the cpu. Should last while I have couple over clocked cpu the machine I am on for instance it has about 10,000 hrs overclock.

 

[n1ghtr4v3n]

hey there, congratz on the new build.

it is actually very easy with the recent hardware, only if you are familiar with BIOS operations.

all you gotta do is to increase the cpu multiplier and not touching anything else.
so how you do it...

your stock cpu frequency is 3400MHz (3.4GHz)

which comes from 100MHz base clock and 34x cpu multiplier. 100MHz*34 =3400MHz

so basically you can run a 4670k at 4.0Ghz or 4.2GHz without the need of pushing extra voltage. Over 4.2 (or sometimes over 4.0G depending on chip, since every chip is unique) you may need to increase the voltage a little. like +0.01V or a bit more. Anyways you shouldnt need voltage setting for 4.2G, usually.

So increase the multiplier to 40x or 42x and you will just save it and boot back to Windows. install CPU-Z application to see if your setup is working as intended. It is a very easy interface showing all you need to know.

To see the temperatures, you can use RealTemp. Your safe limits should be below 75-80C under Prime95 stress testing or IntelBurnTest. Run one of those programs for like 10-20 minutes to see how much your temp's will rise. You can also experience if the overclock is stable or not along with temps with those programs. I advice IntelBurnTest, relatively easier to use than prime95. Does the same job.

Good luck.

 

[Zoltron_Laser]

Thanks for the info! I downloaded IntelBurnTest, RealTemp, and CPU-Z. It seems that RealTemp wants me to use Prime95 instead of IntelBurnTest. Also, RealTemp hasn't been updated for 4xxx Haswell chips (last thing mentioned was January 2012, for Sandy Bridge).

Before I change any multipliers, I wanted to test my system as it currently is. RealTemp seems confusing to me, because it is talking about TJMax and testing my sensors. Like I said, I've never overclocked anything before, so the idea of running an IntelBurnTest to give my overclocked CPU really scares me. What happens if my CPU is too overclocked? Will it then fry my CPU and motherboard?

I don't even know how to tell if any of my thermal sensors might be stuck. I read about one of RealTemp's creator's sensors being stuck, but how did he know that? How would I know if one of mine were stuck. And if it were stuck, then how would I know my cpu is overclocked a safe amount?

CPU-Z seems interesting. According to it, my 3.4 GHz clock is apparently running a multiplier between 8-38. That is, sometimes the multiplier goes up to 38, but as far as I can tell, it usually sits around 36 (which effectively provides me with 3600-3800 MHz, rather than the advertised 3400 MHz). The voltage also seems to fluctuate between 1.110 V and 1.178 V. That makes me wonder if I will need to increase the voltage when I overclock?

Right now, I'm afraid to make any changes until I know what is safe and what is unsafe. I'd like to test my temperatures under heavy load, but will I need to use prime95 instead of IntelBurnTest to do that?

Also, when I finally am ready to enter the BIOS to change my multiplier, can you explain how that works? Or should I do it another way?

 

[Intel God]

Thanks for the info! I downloaded IntelBurnTest, RealTemp, and CPU-Z. It seems that RealTemp wants me to use Prime95 instead of IntelBurnTest. Also, RealTemp hasn't been updated for 4xxx Haswell chips (last thing mentioned was January 2012, for Sandy Bridge).

Before I change any multipliers, I wanted to test my system as it currently is. RealTemp seems confusing to me, because it is talking about TJMax and testing my sensors. Like I said, I've never overclocked anything before, so the idea of running an IntelBurnTest to give my overclocked CPU really scares me. What happens if my CPU is too overclocked? Will it then fry my CPU and motherboard?

I don't even know how to tell if any of my thermal sensors might be stuck. I read about one of RealTemp's creator's sensors being stuck, but how did he know that? How would I know if one of mine were stuck. And if it were stuck, then how would I know my cpu is overclocked a safe amount?

CPU-Z seems interesting. According to it, my 3.4 GHz clock is apparently running a multiplier between 8-38. That is, sometimes the multiplier goes up to 38, but as far as I can tell, it usually sits around 36 (which effectively provides me with 3600-3800 MHz, rather than the advertised 3400 MHz). The voltage also seems to fluctuate between 1.110 V and 1.178 V. That makes me wonder if I will need to increase the voltage when I overclock?

Right now, I'm afraid to make any changes until I know what is safe and what is unsafe. I'd like to test my temperatures under heavy load, but will I need to use prime95 instead of IntelBurnTest to do that?

Also, when I finally am ready to enter the BIOS to change my multiplier, can you explain how that works? Or should I do it another way?

Processor will throttle itself when it hits its TJMAX of 100C so you dont have anything to worry about. All you really have to do is go into the bios and manually set the CPU Multiplier to 40 across all cores.

 

[Zoltron_Laser]

So basically, if I manually change all cores to 40 in the BIOS, and then I open up RealTemp to monitor my temperatures, and start up my IntelBurnTest...I should be able to see if I get too close to TJMax? And what would be "getting too close to TJMax?"

 

[Intel God]

So basically, if I manually change all cores to 40 in the BIOS, and then I open up RealTemp to monitor my temperatures, and start up my IntelBurnTest...I should be able to see if I get too close to TJMax? And what would be "getting too close to TJMax?"

Keep it under 92-93C in IBT but at 4Ghz i'll be surprised if you even hit 70C

 

[Zoltron_Laser]

So I did my first IntelBurnTest with High Stress Level (2048 MB), and I hit 73c on my highest core, 70c on my lowest. This is before changing any multipliers.

Is my cooling not set up right? Or were you expecting me to run the test on Standard instead of High. Should I not test on Very High or Maximum levels? I'm actually afraid to run it on Maximum now (as high as I just got with no overclock with High stress). I suppose though, that under certain "normal" conditions my computer might actually use 99.9% of the CPU, which would cause my CPU to probably use more than 2 GB of RAM.

 

[Zoltron_Laser]

So I overclocked to 4 GHZ, and then I did the burn test. It hit 99c by the time it finished the first cycle. So I stopped the test. Thermal status on 3 of my cores was Ok, but for the one that hit 99, it said "LOG" in red letters. I suppose that is bad. Fortunately, my computer didn't shut off. However, I'm concerned that it can't handle the overclock. Either that, or the sensors in Real Temp are way off.

 

[Intel God]

With auto voltage its probably setting it too high. Manually set CPU vcore at 1.15v

 

[Zoltron_Laser]

Thanks for the tip, I will give that a shot. Looks like we have the same/similar motherboard, is there any other stuff I should set manually? I will probably start with the basic, easy 4.0 GHz setting in the Overclocking section. From there, I will manually set the CPU vcore to 1.15v.

I'll test that, and if it goes well I may start asking about how much voltage I would need to achieve 4.2 or 4.4 GHz. All of those appear white or safe to me in the options, while it shows that 4.6 and 4.8 GHz are red, so I'm guessing they are not safe?

 

[Zoltron_Laser]

Okay, there were more voltage settings than I had hoped to see. It looks like this:

Voltage Configuration
Power Saving Mode: Disabled / Enabled
CPU Input Voltage: Auto / Offset Mode / Fixed Mode
CPU Load-Line Calibration: Auto / Level 1 / Level 2 / Level 3 / Level 4 / Level 5
VCore External Offset: Auto / +0mV / +400mV
DRAM Voltage: Auto / Slider that lets me set anything from 1.165V - 1.800V
PCH 1.05 Voltage: Auto / Slider that lets me set anything from 0.977V - 1.322V
PCH 1.5 Voltage: Auto / Slider that lets me set anything from 1.369V - 1.699V

So do I just choose "Fixed Mode" for CPU Input Voltage, and then put in 1.15V? And then after that, do I set my VCore External Offset to +0mv? Should I touch any other settings here?

I also noticed it seems to be defaulting my RAM to 1333 MHz while under Auto (not 100% sure about this - is there a way I can tell?). But it lets me set it to 1600 MHz if I want, which is what I think it is supposed to run at. I can also set the DRAM voltage to 1.5, manually (which is apparently what the RAM runs at?). But I don't know if I should be touching RAM stuff at all. Don't want to kill my RAM.