overclocking Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4 GHz with air cooling

[kensingtonwick]

Can someone give me a step by step on overclocking the Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4 GHz, I have an Asus p67 sabertooth motherboard. What would be most stable if i'm only cooling with air? Here are my specs.

Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4 GHz
Asus P67 Sabertooth
Windows 7 home premium 64 bit
16 GB DDR3 Corsair at 800 MHz
AMD Radeon HD 6990
Corsair AX1200 Watt power supply

I hope i'm not missing anything. Also wanted to know how much this will affect my gaming experience, will it speed things up? I know most of the load goes on the GPU but overclocking my CPU should help out a little bit right?

 

[wdmfiber]

The 2600K has probably been overclocked by the tens of thousands.
Do a search, there will be 100's of posts, pages of info and articles.

 

[Tradesman1]

An easy try is simply to change your multiplier to 40 and see how that goes, it will prob work fine with no other adjustments needed - then google your mobo and CPU model 3s along with "OC GUIDE", and you'll prob find a few

 

[kensingtonwick]

An easy try is simply to change your multiplier to 40 and see how that goes, it will prob work fine with no other adjustments needed - then google your mobo and CPU model 3s along with "OC GUIDE", and you'll prob find a few

What about voltages? I have read that it is very overclock friendly but since i'm not well versed, I don't want to risk frying my CPU.

 

[Tradesman1]

Extremely OC friendly, 4.8 is not uncommon, but just for an idea kick it up to 4.0 (multiplier 40) and then from there you'll need to look at easing up the vCore - (CPU voltage) and may well need to adjust other voltages - that's where the OC guides can come in handy

 

[kensingtonwick]

Extremely OC friendly, 4.8 is not uncommon, but just for an idea kick it up to 4.0 (multiplier 40) and then from there you'll need to look at easing up the vCore - (CPU voltage) and may well need to adjust other voltages - that's where the OC guides can come in handy

Can I overclock on air to 4.8 or do you have to be liquid cooled?

 

[Tradesman1]

Have done it yes, my 2500K is at 4.8 w/ a Hyper 212 EVO and 32GB of DRAM....the 2600K runs a bit warmer due to the Hyper Threading, so could go to a Phantek or even a CM GTS V8, which is a great newer cooler, I've got that on my Haswell 4770K

 

[kensingtonwick]

Have done it yes, my 2500K is at 4.8 w/ a Hyper 212 EVO and 32GB of DRAM....the 2600K runs a bit warmer due to the Hyper Threading, so could go to a Phantek or even a CM GTS V8, which is a great newer cooler, I've got that on my Haswell 4770K

Well i'm not looking to spend anymore money, I just want to overclock it to something that will be stable with just air cooling. Is 4.5 possible with air? Or will it overheat? And what about RAM? Should I be overclocking that as well? Will this all make a difference with playing Battlefield 4? I can run ultra settings right now but my frame rate is constantly dipping to 25 fps. Will all this contribute to better performance in game, it's not strictly the GPU right? It CPU, RAM and GPU right?

 

[Tradesman1]

As I said, I run the 2500K at 4.8 on air - if your talking about the stock CPU cooler, No. Run DRAM at it's stock settings and get your CPU OC in place...then can play with OCing the GPU, DRAM would be the last, and document everything as go OCing anything, keep trak of your multiplier what voltages you use etc, so you always have fallback for when an OC fails and the bIOS resets to defaults