Overclocking Non-K Haswell

[Ibreakthings]

Im going to be getting a I3 4370 @3.8ghz. Is it possible to overclock it to 4Ghz whilst keeping my RAM at 2400Mhz 10-11-11-26? If so how would one go about overclocking the i3 to 4Ghz? Im coming from a core2extreme QX9650 so all this BCLK and stuff is new to me.

 

[Ibreakthings]

I see there is someone on HWBOT who has managed a 4.1Ghz overclock with 2600Mhz RAM. Would it be possible for me to get to this clock speed with my RAM at that speed? I have 4x8GB 2400Mhz G.SKill ARES so i dont know if they can be overclocked.

 

[damric]

Don't bother getting an i3 Haswell if you want to overclock. That CPU design has a tied PCI Bus, so when you raise base clock it also raises PCI and there's nothing you can do about that. You might be stable enough for a CPU-Z validation, otherwise it's going to wreak havok on your whole system.

If you want to overclock an i3, get the Skylake i3-6100 and one of the ASRock boards that has a SKY OC BIOS. Skylake base clock is not tied to PCI so it's just like old school overclocking FSB.

 

[Ibreakthings]

How easy would it be to overclock it to 4Ghz+ and keep my RAM at least 2400Mhz?

 

[damric]

How easy would it be to overclock it to 4Ghz+ and keep my RAM at least 2400Mhz?

Just do the math.

CPU has base clock of 100MHz.

Stock CPU clock for i3 is 3700MHz.

So for 4GHz, you would need to raise base clock to 108.1MHz.

Using the 2133MT/s RAM divider with 108.1MHz base clock would yield 2306MT/s RAM.

Using the 2400MT/s RAM divider with 108.1MHz base clock would yield 2594MT/s RAM (might be unstable that fast if RAM is weak overclocker).

 

[scuzzycard]

It's not the memory that's the problem - it's that when you raise the BCLK, you raise the PCI-E bus too, which is why you won't get far. You might get 100MHz, maybe even 150MHz - but nothing that will make a tangible difference.

 

[Ibreakthings]

Would G.Skill Ares be able to run at 2600Mhz 11-11-11-28 1.65V?

 

[Ibreakthings]

Is 108.1Mhz safe?

 

[scuzzycard]

Not particularly. Above 103, things start to get dicey, and I would not run higher than 105. As for the memory, you'll have to play with it and see. A little extra DRAM voltage, a little extra timing, and a little extra system agent voltage would you give you the best shot at getting the memory to run at the same multiplier it is currently.

 

[Ibreakthings]

The motherboard is a Gigabyte Gaming 7 and how does it get dicy above 103?

 

[scuzzycard]

The motherboard is a Gigabyte Gaming 7 and how does it get dicy above 103?

What I said applies to any Haswell motherboard. By "dicey" I mean "markedly increased likelihood of instability."