Question Overclocking Intel i5 3570k

[beeko]

Hello

I want to OC my PC and I've only done that with MSI Afterburner. If I do it from BIOS, are the results the same?
And if I do it from BIOS, am I only overclocking the CPU and not GPU?
Also what if I OC from BIOS, can I use Afterburner to OC my GPU aswell? Or is it bad idea to use both...

There are more options like CPU Clock Ratio (which is at 3.4GHz) what I don't see in Afterburner so it's maybe more efficient to do this from BIOS?
I'm playing Microsoft Flight Simulator and it's a very demanding game, with my current build i'm having terrible lag sometimes so any extra power is needed.
Any help to get started is appreciated

Specs:
Mobo: Gigabyte ga-z77m-d3h
Memory: Adata 8gb + Kingston 8gb 1333mhz
PSU: Corsair tx 550m
GPU: Nvidia geforce 1060 gaming x 6gb
CPU: Intel i5 3570k
SSD: Samsung 760 evo + HDD Seagate barracuda 2tb

 

[Flamebrander]

Well, MSI afterburner is a GPU overclocking utility, which means that it only affects the graphics card. In BIOS, it's CPU and memory overclocking, which is different.
It won't hurt your system to do both, it is actually intended for that. I would suggest you to first OC your Ram and CPU in BIOS, make sure it's stable (run some stress tests, if it doesn't crash, it works) and then open MSI afterburner and try overclocking your GPU.

 

[beeko]

Thanks for the reply

I tried to OC my Turbo values to 4.5GHz and the system didn''t boot.. Then I reduced the OC to 4.2 and it was working, highest temp was around 71 C during stress test.
I read on the internet that people are able to get 4.5 or 4.6GHz without problems, but mine for some reason wont boot at those values, what i'm doing wrong?
I'm using this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxCPyF-1tTc&ab_channel=CustomPCReview

So what I do is I increase Turbo Ratio on each core (4 total) to 4.5GHz and also Turbo Power limit (watts) to 250 (default is 77) and Core Current limit (amps) to 250 (default is 112).
In the video he is adjusting Vcore values which I don't see in my bios. My mobo is a bit different than in this video but very similar. I should get up to 4.5GHz with my setup or not? And what about Internal PLL overvoltage? It's set on auto... Should I enable or disable it in order to higher OC to work?

 

[Flamebrander]

Well you have a 3570k, which is only advertised for 3.8Ghz. I'm not sure who told you it could go that high, but 3rd generation Intel is definitely not capable of running such high clock speeds without breaking something. It's actually pretty surprising you even got it up to 4.2Ghz.

Anyways, if you truly would like to push it past that, you could do it. The only voltages that go into your CPU should be the SOC voltage, which is usually the main one. Just bump it up to say 1.4 volts, (this is generally the highest voltage you want to push a CPU to) and then adjust your core ratio. Do it in small increments, of say 50 or 100 megahertz each time, stress testing it to see what is stable.

-Side Note- After looking at a picture of your motherboard, it has no MOSFET cooling. MOSFETs are what supplies power to your CPU and take it from your power supply. They convert a 12v power from the PSU to 1.4 or whatever else it needs, but the rest becomes heat, which is why you would need cooling. I would tread very carefully, or even not do it whatsoever after looking at it.

 

[beeko]

I just checked all my bios features and couldn't find anything SOC voltage related. Here are all the features that I can modify:

CPU/PCIe Base clock (100.00MHz)
Processors graphics clock (1150)
CPU Clock ratio 34
Turbo ratio: 1,2,3,4 Core active (all set to 36-38 by default)
System memory multiplier 13.33
Internal CPU PLL overvoltage (auto, disabled, enabled) which is at auto
Intel turbo boost technology (auto, disabled, enabled) which is at auto
Turbo power limit (watts) which is at 77
core current limit (amps) which is at 122 IIRC
CPU core enabled (4)
CPU enhanced halt (C1E)
C3/c6 state support
CPU thermal monitor
CPU EIST function

System memory multiplier 13.33
DRAM timing selectable

DRAM Voltage

Could it be that my CPU baseclock is too low for it to run past 4.2GHz?
I read that the record for this CPU is 7.12 GHz with liquid nitrogen cooling system, which is ofc something im not aiming to but it would be nice to get around 4.5ghz

 

[USAFRet]

You don't just plug in a number and hope for the best.
It is an iterative process.

CPU overclocking guide and tutorial for beginners

Covering the basics If you found your way here it's likely you are looking for help with basic overclocking. Either that or you're a long time overclocker interested in seeing whether I had any eye opening insights that you may have been lacking. Rest assured, I don't. This is only intended as...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[beeko]

Yeah I just randomly inserted some values into each section and press start

No but this guy in the video from 2012 is saying that 4.5GHz should be OK, he even got it at 4.8GHz but it got running too hot... So why am I not able to get even to 4.5GHz?
I don't know what values I have to change... He is only adjusting Turbo ratios, Turbo power limit and Core current limit... But when I do that x45, it wont boot

 

[USAFRet]

Yeah I just randomly inserted some values into each section and press start

No but this guy in the video from 2012 is saying that 4.5GHz should be OK, he even got it at 4.8GHz but it got running too hot... So why am I not able to get even to 4.5GHz?
I don't know what values I have to change... He is only adjusting Turbo ratios, Turbo power limit and Core current limit... But when I do that x45, it wont boot

You'd be surprised at how many people come here after doing exactly that.


Read that above link.
Then read it again.
Go through the process methodically.

And not every CPU/motherboard combination is capable of the same performance.

 

[Flamebrander]

I just checked all my bios features and couldn't find anything SOC voltage related. Here are all the features that I can modify:

CPU/PCIe Base clock (100.00MHz)
Processors graphics clock (1150)
CPU Clock ratio 34
Turbo ratio: 1,2,3,4 Core active (all set to 36-38 by default)
System memory multiplier 13.33
Internal CPU PLL overvoltage (auto, disabled, enabled) which is at auto
Intel turbo boost technology (auto, disabled, enabled) which is at auto
Turbo power limit (watts) which is at 77
core current limit (amps) which is at 122 IIRC
CPU core enabled (4)
CPU enhanced halt (C1E)
C3/c6 state support
CPU thermal monitor
CPU EIST function

System memory multiplier 13.33
DRAM timing selectable

DRAM Voltage

Could it be that my CPU baseclock is too low for it to run past 4.2GHz?
I read that the record for this CPU is 7.12 GHz with liquid nitrogen cooling system, which is ofc something im not aiming to but it would be nice to get around 4.5ghz

No, the thing is that you have a third generation intel chip. It can't just go as high as you want it to. It's limit is 3.8 ghz which is what Intel specified it for. You won't be able to get 4.5 ghz stable, no matter what unless you have liquid nitrogen. If you can get 4.2, I'd just stick with it and be happy about it. If you did really want to push it, you can push the base clock a LITTLE bit, maybe by 2 or 3 but nothing more. Otherwise, just upgrade the chip and youll be much better off.

 

[Karadjgne]

Careful about what assumptions you make from internet bragging. My i5-3570k would only reach 4.3GHz after much adjustments, would not maintain stability at 4.4GHz even with a vcore of 1.55v. I tried lol. 4.3GHz and 1.114v was peachy.

My i7-3770K, which is intrinsically the same cpu as the 3570k with HT enabled and I could hit 5.0GHz at 1.42v or 4.9GHz at 1.32v. At 4.3GHz it was at 1.08v.

It's called the Silicon Lottery, and All cpus are subject to it, some just end up better than others.

No, the thing is that you have a third generation intel chip. It can't just go as high as you want it to. It's limit is 3.8 ghz which is what Intel specified it for. You won't be able to get 4.5 ghz stable, no matter what unless you have liquid nitrogen. If you can get 4.2, I'd just stick with it and be happy about it. If you did really want to push it, you can push the base clock a LITTLE bit, maybe by 2 or 3 but nothing more. Otherwise, just upgrade the chip and youll be much better off.

Bunch of crap. Seriously. You don't need LN2 for 4.5GHz, even the ancient NH-D14 was more than enough for those 74/77w TDP cpus at that speed. Generally almost All 3570/k or 3770/k could hit 4.2/4.3GHz since Ivy Bridge was special in the fact it could be Turbo adjusted upto an extra 400MHz whether it was a K cpu or not.

The i7-3770K is intrinsically a i5-3570k with HT enabled and Stock turbo value is set as 3.9GHz, base speeds at 3.5GHz, 100MHz higher than the i5-3570k.

 

[beeko]

Thanks for the replies

Im kinda stuck oc:ing this cpu since I cant install gigabytes easytune5 or 6, it just gives me some errors when i run the installer. Maybe a fresh install of windows would work but i try to get it working some other way before reinstalling windows... Out of interest would be nice to delid this cpu and see how far i can oc it. I didn't even know you can do this "delidding" to cpu's but just now when I read about overclocking.. I bought this cpu maybe 2012 so the thermal paste can't be in that good condition anymore am I correct?

Anyway i'm probably buying a new cpu and mobo soon so it doesn't matter if something goes wrong

 

[Flamebrander]

Careful about what assumptions you make from internet bragging. My i5-3570k would only reach 4.3GHz after much adjustments, would not maintain stability at 4.4GHz even with a vcore of 1.55v. I tried lol. 4.3GHz and 1.114v was peachy.

My i7-3770K, which is intrinsically the same cpu as the 3570k with HT enabled and I could hit 5.0GHz at 1.42v or 4.9GHz at 1.32v. At 4.3GHz it was at 1.08v.

It's called the Silicon Lottery, and All cpus are subject to it, some just end up better than others.



Bunch of crap. Seriously. You don't need LN2 for 4.5GHz, even the ancient NH-D14 was more than enough for those 74/77w TDP cpus at that speed. Generally almost All 3570/k or 3770/k could hit 4.2/4.3GHz since Ivy Bridge was special in the fact it could be Turbo adjusted upto an extra 400MHz whether it was a K cpu or not.

The i7-3770K is intrinsically a i5-3570k with HT enabled and Stock turbo value is set as 3.9GHz, base speeds at 3.5GHz, 100MHz higher than the i5-3570k.

Yeah that was probably a bit over exaggerated, but the point is that the CPU isn't designed for those kind of speeds, so it won't be able to hit those kind of speeds was my point

 

[Flamebrander]

Thanks for the replies

Im kinda stuck oc:ing this cpu since I cant install gigabytes easytune5 or 6, it just gives me some errors when i run the installer. Maybe a fresh install of windows would work but i try to get it working some other way before reinstalling windows... Out of interest would be nice to delid this cpu and see how far i can oc it. I didn't even know you can do this "delidding" to cpu's but just now when I read about overclocking.. I bought this cpu maybe 2012 so the thermal paste can't be in that good condition anymore am I correct?

Anyway i'm probably buying a new cpu and mobo soon so it doesn't matter if something goes wrong

Well if you're getting a new CPU and mobo, then you might as well just hail mary it with this current setup. You could delid it, although that is a whole other thing that I can't teach you how to because I personally have no experience doing it. It will make it cooler, which is a plus. Honestly, just crank your voltages. I would usually never tell you to do this, but again, your getting new parts either way. Set CPU voltage to 1.45 volts, and SOC to 1.3 volts. See how that goes.

 

[Turtle Rig]

Well, MSI afterburner is a GPU overclocking utility, which means that it only affects the graphics card. In BIOS, it's CPU and memory overclocking, which is different.
It won't hurt your system to do both, it is actually intended for that. I would suggest you to first OC your Ram and CPU in BIOS, make sure it's stable (run some stress tests, if it doesn't crash, it works) and then open MSI afterburner and try overclocking your GPU.

I must agree with the gurus advice. But one minor opinion of mine is don't touch the RAM. Honestly RAM OC's basically do nothing for real world performance but CPU overclocks do a whole lot. So firstly try to OC the CPU only. To do this you have many options in BIOS but the two you should be concernered with is the multiplier and the vcore or voltage of CPU. Me personally I would not touch that thing then get headaches of crashes etc. That is a very dated CPU and even OCing it wont really change anything. So in this case I retract my statement and say the best thing you can do for more frame rates is to overclock the video card with MSI AB and set a fan curve so it spins fast as CPU temp rises. Just my two cents on this note. Good Luck 🤷‍♀️☮✝👶

 

[Karadjgne]

Gpu OC rarely does much, if anything at all. Fps is frames per second and is the sole responsibility of the cpu. It pre-renders all frames, places objects, works floating point calculations, assigns movements and foreground/background objects and more. All that goes to the gpu to get color added and details set according to resolution. The amount of times a cpu can pre-render a frame and send it is the fps output. The gpu cannot increase nor decrease the cpu output, only the amount of times it can reproduce the finished render onscreen.

If the cpu sends 100fps to the gpu, and the gpu is capable of anything over 60fps reproduction on a 60Hz monitor, it wouldn't matter at all whether the gpu is capable of 90fps or 110fps. You get 60.

Its only when the gpu is underpowered for the monitor and detail levels that OC of the gpu stands any hope of increasing its output.

Many ppl have a cpu far more capable than gpu, since they run high resolutions, high refresh. But for those running 1080p especially at 144Hz area, it's mostly cpus that suffer, not being able to pre-render enough frames, the gpu at ultra is still relatively not pushed to its limits.

The i5-3570k is a quad core cpu running at 3.7GHz. That puts it as severely underpowered for anything more modern in gaming titles. To increase fps onscreen, it'll need to be OC'd, far more so than the gpu on a 1080p monitor.

 

[NoTraX]

Well you have a 3570k, which is only advertised for 3.8Ghz. I'm not sure who told you it could go that high, but 3rd generation Intel is definitely not capable of running such high clock speeds without breaking something. It's actually pretty surprising you even got it up to 4.2Ghz.

Anyways, if you truly would like to push it past that, you could do it. The only voltages that go into your CPU should be the SOC voltage, which is usually the main one. Just bump it up to say 1.4 volts, (this is generally the highest voltage you want to push a CPU to) and then adjust your core ratio. Do it in small increments, of say 50 or 100 megahertz each time, stress testing it to see what is stable.

-Side Note- After looking at a picture of your motherboard, it has no MOSFET cooling. MOSFETs are what supplies power to your CPU and take it from your power supply. They convert a 12v power from the PSU to 1.4 or whatever else it needs, but the rest becomes heat, which is why you would need cooling. I would tread very carefully, or even not do it whatsoever after looking at it.

Surprising for 4.2? The i5 3570k is hella overclockable. I'm currently running mine at 4.8ghz at 1.3v average 55-65c heavy gaming and max 80c stress testing. (even 4.9ghz stable but the temp was a little uncomfortable)

 

[Karadjgne]

Silicon lottery. My old 3570k would not get stable at 4.4GHz, even with 1.55v and every tweak and tinker I could apply, yet would do 4.3GHz all day long at 1.114v. I've had my i7-3770K to 5.0GHz at 1.42v, but was happier with 4.9GHz at 1.32v.

So it's all a matter of whether you get a good cpu or not, totally pot-luck.

 

[lga1156_ftw]

I must agree with the gurus advice. But one minor opinion of mine is don't touch the RAM. Honestly RAM OC's basically do nothing for real world performance but CPU overclocks do a whole lot. So firstly try to OC the CPU only. To do this you have many options in BIOS but the two you should be concernered with is the multiplier and the vcore or voltage of CPU. Me personally I would not touch that thing then get headaches of crashes etc. That is a very dated CPU and even OCing it wont really change anything. So in this case I retract my statement and say the best thing you can do for more frame rates is to overclock the video card with MSI AB and set a fan curve so it spins fast as CPU temp rises. Just my two cents on this note. Good Luck 🤷‍♀️☮✝👶

I dont agree ram frequency and timings to be a "minor" thing, this might be true for higher speed ddr4 from 3000mhz+ but going from 1333mhz to 2400mhz there is significant gains depending on the game, expecially on 1080p. First he has mixed ram set which is harder to stabilize. That motherboard supports up to 2800mhz oc ram, this is not easy to reach since you will be limited by the "Integrated memory controller" in cpu, its kinda like silicon lottery what kinda dram speed you can handle.

With many first gen intel i can get to about 2133mhz dram frequency stable, but need xeon to reach 2400mhz+. Another limiting factor is first gen processors have (lynnfield not westmeere) do not have Northbridge frequency control in bios, so higher BLCK = higher nb frequency.

Since you have 3rd gen intel, im just guessing here but going for 2400mhz might be easy? atleast with 2 dimms?

I found great deals for 2x8gb ddr3 ram when bought used, few kits only where 20 euro/ dollar at 1866mhz. Look motherboard manufactor site for ram compatibility first : https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z77M-D3H-rev-10/support#support-doc

Always go for dual channel (2 or 4 sticks), if you get 2400mhz XMP and cant boot it that speed you can always drop to 2133 or 2200mhz and tighten timings manually. If you cant find anything below 20-30 euro/$ total then its not really worth.

And
Flamebrander

There is no SOC voltage thats for AMD motherboards. There is VTT/IMC voltage which can help to stabilize higher BLCK ( also increased cache speed with 1st gen) or higher DRAM frequency. It wont help if you only overclock cpu via multiplier and keep cache frequency same. VTT voltage also increase cpu temperatures slighty, i had no problem keeping below 1.2v vtt with below 2133mhz dram frequency. You most likely need to increase it to hit 2400mhz.

 

[Karadjgne]

Best ram for the 3rd gen is 1866MHz. I've yet to see that speed require anything other than plug and play settings/xmp. 1866MHz will also include the jedec tables for 1333MHz and 1600MHz, so if the cpu/bios will not accept the 1866MHz, it'll be just as happy at the lower settings and tighter timings.

With as expensive as the 2400 sticks are, it's almost certainly a waste of money on any non-K and/or non-Z board as those combos may or may not allow the higher settings, regardless of sales documentation on websites.

 

[lga1156_ftw]

Best ram for the 3rd gen is 1866MHz. I've yet to see that speed require anything other than plug and play settings/xmp. 1866MHz will also include the jedec tables for 1333MHz and 1600MHz, so if the cpu/bios will not accept the 1866MHz, it'll be just as happy at the lower settings and tighter timings.

With as expensive as the 2400 sticks are, it's almost certainly a waste of money on any non-K and/or non-Z board as those combos may or may not allow the higher settings, regardless of sales documentation on websites.

Yeah i forgot to mention im using high end motherboards and it took me alot of time too get even 2133mhz running on my i7-870 and i7-875k, xeon however is happy to run even at 2400mhz dram frequency. Ive had few i5-760 processors and i could barely run 1866mhz on them, its the IMC silicon lottery, atleast on first generation.

Karadjgne : Would you suggest something like 1866mhz xmp 2x8gb kit CL9 for him? Theres few kits on the manufactor memory support list too for that frequency. And he can always try to get it running 2133mhz with loosen timings if he wants to.

 

[Karadjgne]

I'm using Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 2x8Gb 1866MHz . It's default 1333MHz/1600MHz as with every other stick on those Intels, XMP is 1866MHz 10-11-10-30 2T @ 1.5v. I've pushed it to 2133MHz at the same timings (stable) and upto 2400MHz at 11-12-11-34 1T @ 1.55v (stable). I've also dropped it to 1866MHz 9-10-9-27 @ 1.5v..

Those 3rd gen cpus are very forgiving compared to ddr4 systems.

A note on the QVL. It's a joke. There's only a handful of actual ram OEMs and they make all the ram for all the vendors. My ic's happen to be Samsung, same as many other kits, whether on the QVL or not. Same goes for most of the Corsair lpx, which uses SkHynix..

Just because you don't see the model number, doesn't mean the ram isn't on there, it's just under a different kit or color or speed or heatsink name.

 

[lga1156_ftw]

That looks like similar timings to my ram at 2400mhz , im running 11-12-11-31 2T at 1.65v. Been always using 1.65v (even 1.75v for 1 year) dram voltage for nearly a decade with many processors and ram sticks, never had any IMC degration or other problems. However lynnfield is 45nm and ivy bridge is 22nm which is a big difference.

How on earth you get command rate 1 at those speeds, i need to clear cmos after even trying 1N at 2133mhz let alone 2400mhz?

Did you have to raise VTT voltage alot after 2133mhz? Im fine at 1.2v vtt until that, then i need to increase it to 1.325v to hit 2400mhz. I know Northbridge frequency plays a role since i cant touch that in my bios, it increase every time i up the BLCK. Im fine at 21 x 200 BLCK at 1.425v vcore and 1.325v vtt for quite some time.

Ive seen degration on westmere 32nm chips when vtt voltage was increased past 1.350v, is there same issue with ivy bridge? Never seen degration from 1.65v dram voltage even on westmere and that generation my knowledge ends.

Also i agree on the QVL list being joke and never had any issues myself, its just everytime i dont talk about manufactor ram support list then someone points it out on this forum

 

[Karadjgne]

Sheep. They are everywhere, and they all bleet the same tune. You'll get a lot of ppl who really want to be helpful, and may know a little or a lot, but a QVL is black and white documented works. They just don't think past the page, that that ram worked on that particular motherboard, but is no guarantee that the same model will work on the same motherboard for a different owner.

The QVL is a tool, and it's good advice to try and use it, as long as it's used as a tool and not the Gospel.

I had VTT at default. I changed nothing but the timings and added the voltage. The cpu OC took care of any higher requirements.

About the only thing different about my OC was the PLL, which most will bump from 0.8v to 0.9v, but I found stability easier by dropping it to 0.7v instead. Not sure if that had any affect on the ram or not, but it enabled all OC from 4.7Ghz + as stable.

 

[lga1156_ftw]

Sheep. They are everywhere, and they all bleet the same tune. You'll get a lot of ppl who really want to be helpful, and may know a little or a lot, but a QVL is black and white documented works. They just don't think past the page, that that ram worked on that particular motherboard, but is no guarantee that the same model will work on the same motherboard for a different owner.

The QVL is a tool, and it's good advice to try and use it, as long as it's used as a tool and not the Gospel.

I had VTT at default. I changed nothing but the timings and added the voltage. The cpu OC took care of any higher requirements.

About the only thing different about my OC was the PLL, which most will bump from 0.8v to 0.9v, but I found stability easier by dropping it to 0.7v instead. Not sure if that had any affect on the ram or not, but it enabled all OC from 4.7Ghz + as stable.

Seems like the VTT only helps with higher BLCK and increased cache frequency on these dram frequencies. My PLL voltage is default at 1.80v on first generation, i went up to 2.10v once and could boot at 225BLCK, which is insane, im fine with 1.90v pll until 205 blck.

Ive got into heated discussion about QVL ram support list before and almost got banned once if i remember right, guess im a sheep now
Im running 3 systems with ram which is not supported in the QVL list as we speak, and everything is fine.

 

[Karadjgne]

But that's the thing. It most likely IS supported. Samsung D-die is a popular IC. It's in most of gskill lineup, from Aries to RipJaws to Snipers, Value line and Trident's. It's in Patriot, Adata, and half a dozen other Vendors too. If a QVL tests a blue RipJaws with its model number, it's tested at that model number, no mention that the exact same ram with a red heatsink has a different model number, or if the Trident-Z with a different heatsink and model number has the exact same IC's.

If you test 1 model, in reality you've tested half a hundred model numbers, that's why the QVL is a tool, not Gospel. QVL is Qualified VENDOR List, not Qualified RAM List. It says "we tested this Vendor, that has 'these' Ic's and they work at this speed", not "we tested 'this' model and it's the Only model that will work at this speed"