Need help overclocking i7 3770 (non-k)

[cowboydude99]

Hi all,

I recently install my new MB. ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 with my i7 3770 CPU. I'm cooling with Hyper 212.

I currently have my CPU @ 3.9GHz, by manually setting the multiplier at 39.

I am wondering how far I can push a non-k version. Is there anything I need to be aware of?

 

[fatboytyler]

Can you even overclock the non -k versions beyond that of the turbo boost? To the best of my knowledge you can not. The default turbo of the 3770 is 3.9, thus being the highest clock you can reach.

 

[fil1p]

With the non-K version you do not have an unlocked multiplier, so you are limited with overclocking with BCLK. Typically you can only squeeze out a few mhz from the stock 100mhz base clock. However by changing the baseclock you are affecting not only the CPU clock, but other parts of the processor. Your gains won't be very big, if you really want to overclock I would suggest you get a "K" version of your CPU, or just stick with Intel Turbo boost.


Hope this helps!

 

[rwpritchett]

Contrary to popular belief, you can overclock a non-k Ivy Bridge CPU. Non-k CPU's with turbo boost are partially unlocked up to 4 bins above the highest stock turbo. So, an i7-3770 can only go up to a max turbo multiplier of 43 for 4.3GHz.

 

[fatboytyler]

Contrary to popular belief, you can overclock a non-k Ivy Bridge CPU using multipliers instead of BLCK. Non-k CPU's with turbo boost are partially unlocked up to 4 bins above the highest stock turbo. So, an i7-3770 can only go up to a max multiplier of 43 for 4.3GHz.

But in order to do this you must know what you are doing, and know it quite well.

 

[rwpritchett]

It's no different than overclocking a "k" series CPU. You are just limited to increasing the turbo multiplier by 4.

 

[cowboydude99]

I figured I could hit 4.3GHz by changing the multiplier to 43 (instead of 39). ASRock OC Tweaker has a field to modify this.

What do you mean I need to know 'quite well' how to do this. Seems fairly straight forward.

 

[rwpritchett]

I think fatboy misread my post. I said you can OC without touching the BCLK.

 

[cowboydude99]

Gotcha.

I'm read some articles that if I use the multiplier at 43, then only the first 2 cores are 4.3GHz, while the other two are not. Is that correct?

 

[rwpritchett]

Yeah, unless you have a motherboard that supports "Enhanced Multicore" or whatever they want to call it. Basically, without it you only get full turbo when one core is stressed. So you only see 4.3GHz when stressing a single core. I know Asus and Gigabyte have multicore enhancement. I'm not sure about ASRock.

 

[saint19]

You can use the FSB to overclock that CPU. Keep in mind that FSB is the based clock for many components in the rig, so, changing that also change the RAM frequency as well as USB settings and CPU frequency.

I suggest you try changing the FSB in little steps, 5-10MHz as much and test for stability.

P.D. You should do this under your own risk, this can cause instability of the rig in some point.

 

[cowboydude99]

The MB settings I have are - ALL CORES or PER CORE. I don't see anything in the manual that specifically states all cores can be OC using the multiplier.

I don't want to have a crazy OC. Right now running all cores on 39 multiplier, which I think is pretty standard. I would like to up this to 4.3 if it is possible w/o making the system unstable.

I've seen some people raise the bclk to 105, and use a 43 multiplier. That might cause a lot more heat and instability.

I'm shooting for 4.1 - 4.3 stable.

 

[saint19]

105 on blck and 43 on multiplier gives you a 4.5GHz clock.

In your case, you need to rise the blck in little steps and test for stability, remember that blck affect all the system.

 

[cowboydude99]

Yeah, so by changing blck to 105, this affects RAM too. Do I need to do anything once the bclk is raised? Higher voltage for RAM, etc?

 

[saint19]

Yeah, so by changing blck to 105, this affects RAM too. Do I need to do anything once the bclk is raised? Higher voltage for RAM, etc?

Yeah, changing the blck also change you RAM frequency. In that order, you need downclock your based frequency for the RAM to keep it in the range specs for it. Set manually the voltage specs for your RAM in BIOS.

 

[fil1p]

Yeah, so by changing blck to 105, this affects RAM too. Do I need to do anything once the bclk is raised? Higher voltage for RAM, etc?

Increase BCLK in small increments (1mhz), Ivy Bridge CPU's generally don't have a lot of headroom BCLK wise.

 

[cowboydude99]

Yeah, so by changing blck to 105, this affects RAM too. Do I need to do anything once the bclk is raised? Higher voltage for RAM, etc?

Increase BCLK in small increments (1mhz), Ivy Bridge CPU's generally don't have a lot of headroom BCLK wise.

Just set 103 bclk and 43 multiplier. Running Prime95 now.
It was at 4.4ghz, but during testing dropped to 4.2, which seems normal. If all goes well ill up the bclk to 105 and try again.

My ram is 1333mhz and 1.5v, what voltage and speed would you set?

 

[cowboydude99]

Bios now shoe ram at 1379 not sure how to get it back to 1333. System crashes when gaming now

 

[fil1p]

If it is crashing due to memory instability then you could lower your memory multiplier and/or lower the BCLK. Whats your BCLK at now? Lower it by 1mhz and retest.

 

[cowboydude99]

Bclk = 103

I don't know where the memory multiplier is.

 

[cowboydude99]

Also, prime 95 ran just fine with the bclk set to 103.

I'll look for memory multiplier in the tomorrow.

 

[cowboydude99]

I don't see anything for memory base, or memory multiplier. Any help with this?

In BIOS- there is no XMP profile option either, not sure if that matters or not.

 

[fil1p]

It could be possible the non-K processors might also have a locked memory multi if it isn't in the BIOS, although it should be there. Try lowering your BCLK again and see if its stable, although the few mhz that you gain through BCLK overclocking aren't usually worth the potential instability. The best option would likely be to use the non-k overclock setting that Asrock provides.

 

[cowboydude99]

I'm beginning to think it's not really worth it. 4.5GHz would be awesome, but I'm gaming only when not watching tv/videos from it.

I'll be adding either a 290x or a 2nd 7970 in the next few weeks, so I don't know that I'll need to OC...

 

[fil1p]

I'm beginning to think it's not really worth it. 4.5GHz would be awesome, but I'm gaming only when not watching tv/videos from it.

I'll be adding either a 290x or a 2nd 7970 in the next few weeks, so I don't know that I'll need to OC...

Its still a really powerful chip and I agree its not really worth the instability. For gaming you should still have no problem running a 290x when it comes out. I still run a first gen i7 950 @3.2ghz and it runs all my games without any issues. I got into overclocking and pushed it to 4ghz, but I brought it back to 3.2 as I didn't really need the overclock. Your CPU won't be limiting your GPU, its likely that overclocking the GPU will get you bigger performance games.

I would set the BCLK back to stock, and then just use turbo boost to get it to hit 4ghz.