Overclocking Retail Intel Core i7-5960X CPUs

[RedJaron]

because when u compare a 5GHz SB vs a 4.4GHZ HW, there is not a lot of performance gain, possibly none. This is almost 5yrs. IPC mean nothing if the OCability is decrease at the same rate as IPC gain.

Again, your comparison fails in a few places.

First, according to this review, HW is anywhere from 1% - 37% faster than SB depending on load ( the vast majority of tests fall in the 9% - 14% range ). Averaged out, it's about 13% (median) or 14% (average). HW and DC are more or less even, DC just stabilizes it for better clocks. This means a 5 GHz SB would be about even with a 4.4 GHz HW/DC. That's stock settings on DC and very doable on HW.

Second, your hypothetical clock rates don't represent equal chip qualities. A 4.4 GHz ceiling is about average for HW, but decidedly less than mediocre for DC, and reaching 5 GHz on SB is unquestioningly top-tier. Make it even and compare average to average or best against best. If your SB example gets to be a golden sample, so should your HW and DC. So use corresponding clocks for them. The 4790K on my test bench is not a great OCing chip, but even it can reach 4.55 GHz. That's equivalent to a 5.1 GHz SB. Hell, even if the improvement is only 10% IPC, that's still matching a 5 GHz SB.

Third, you're ignoring the platform improvements in moving up from LGA1155: lower power use, newer instruction sets, newer connectivity like M.2, etc.

In conclusion, the IPC / overclockability ratio is not a dead heat. You may not get huge improvements, but they are improvements nonetheless. Even if it was dead even, you'd still get the newer platform benefits. Does everyone need to upgrade? Of course not. SB still offers a lot of use and it's more than capable in today's computing. I plan to use my 2600K for a while yet. But stop lying to yourself and acting like SB is still top dog.

 

[Eric Swenson]

I would love to see a much more detailed overclocking guide with these chips with big cooling, using a handful of the more popular X99 MB's and DDR4 kits out there today. I'm tired of reading reviews from last August/September as I get ready to build an X99 rig a year later.. all the old reviews mention the limited boards, immature BIOS, problems overclocking due to DDR4 incompatibilities, etc. Surely the situation is far different now.

 

[Patrick Keane]

I have OC'ed my 5690x to 4.7 for my gaming pc and I has worked very well. I really am not in support for over clocks any more than 5ghz, simply because there is really no need for it. It renders fine and runs games more than well, especially with my triple GTX980ti rig that I often game on because it is my best one vram wise and also achieving surprisingly low temps with it, especially for an 8-core cpu. I highly recommend this processor for gaming but I still believe its ever so slightly overkill. You Should Really Buy This

 

[tsnor]

@Patrick Keane
5690x @ 4.7 and triple GTX980ti. WOW. What monitor(s) do you run? Did you ever measure the power draw (UPS screen or kill-a-watt)?