2500k OC Advice

[DBentt]

Hello, I'm relatively new to Overclocking, this is only the second CPU I've tried it with. I've got it up to 4.5GHz @ 1.325v, max temps I've seen out of it after a few hours of P95 have been around 60~65C with an ambient temp of around 19.5~22.5C (only using an H60 cooler).

First, system specs:

ASUS P8Z77-V Motherboard

i5 2500k @4.5GHz 1.325v

16GB OCZ PC3 10666 Gold Series @ 9-9-9-20 1.65v

EVGA GTX480 (OC'd, but I have a GTX670 coming in this afternoon to replace it)

1250W ULTRA X4 Power Supply

Couple of questions.

1) Do you think I could try to push it closer to 5GHz? I used ASUS's OC software before I went into the Bios and did it all myself, and it got me up to 5GHz stable, the only problem was that I wasn't comfortable leaving the voltage at 1.4, as I'm unsure as to whether this is a safe 24/7 voltage to be working with.

2) My RAM. It doesn't seem to mesh very well with this motherboard/processor... does anyone know if it's just the way I have it set up, or if this RAM really doesn't go very well with this type of chip? For a more detailed summary of why I ask: when I run P95, I don't bluescreen or anything like that, P95 crashes. It takes much much much longer to crash if I set it to small test, the one that tests only a little bit of RAM. Otherwise I've had no stability issues.

Thanks much for your time.

 

[Ru5ty_t00l]

1.4 V is too high voltage for 24/7 . 1.35V is safe. no point of getting it higher than 4.5 , u'll see no difference in performance

 

[seumasbeathan]

May I ask why you have 1250w Power supply? Massively overkill tbh

 

[Daxehh]

I have a 2500K too and also have an H60, but there is no way that u get good temps (24/7) with 1.4v or higher, also as elder_scrol said, u won't see any great performance increase beyond 4.5Ghz and 1.4v is indeed too high for 24/7.. Nobody has a 4.8 ghz + overclock as 24/7, people just go for the highest clocks to get a screenshot and feel special as far as i know

And 1.325 seems quite high for 4.5 ghz.. Did u just get a bad chip or did u not play around with it yet?

 

[DBentt]

Thanks for the tips all. Nah, I haven't played with it too much yet, going to play with the voltage and see how low I can get it. Possible it's not the best chip ever tho.

May I ask why you have 1250w Power supply? Massively overkill tbh

Originally had planned on having multiple GPUs, and I didn't really know it was too much when I bought it. :c

 

[KING_OF_SAND]

If you look at my sig I have pushed 5ghz on my 2500k.

Because you have an ASUS board I recommend installing AI suite II if you have not already and run turbo V and see what AIsII can clock it at. This will give you base on which you can get started.

 

[airdeano]

Hello, I'm relatively new to Overclocking, this is only the second CPU I've tried it with. I've got it up to 4.5GHz @ 1.325v, max temps I've seen out of it after a few hours of P95 have been around 60~65C with an ambient temp of around 19.5~22.5C (only using an H60 cooler).

Couple of questions.

1) Do you think I could try to push it closer to 5GHz? I used ASUS's OC software before I went into the Bios and did it all myself, and it got me up to 5GHz stable, the only problem was that I wasn't comfortable leaving the voltage at 1.4, as I'm unsure as to whether this is a safe 24/7 voltage to be working with.

2) My RAM. It doesn't seem to mesh very well with this motherboard/processor... does anyone know if it's just the way I have it set up, or if this RAM really doesn't go very well with this type of chip? For a more detailed summary of why I ask: when I run P95, I don't bluescreen or anything like that, P95 crashes. It takes much much much longer to crash if I set it to small test, the one that tests only a little bit of RAM. Otherwise I've had no stability issues.

welcome to the forum,

congrats on your system and performance enhancement. a couple of things to try for maximum OC. since your

AI had you at 5.0, what were the temperatures like? use the new baseline of 5.0 and undervolt to findout what

it can endure. 1.4vcore voltage is warm, but some ships need it to function some do not. testing and retesting

will verify this information. i wouldnt be concerned to OC was or voltage is and what temp it ran rather how all

three areas perform together. if i could run 1.4vcore for 5.0 and it was 68° under load on air cooling i'd run that

24/7. but it is a comfortability thing.

for your RAM. are you using 1.5v or 1.65v for the OC?

airdeano

1.4v is indeed too high for 24/7.. Nobody has a 4.8 ghz + overclock as 24/7,.....And 1.325 seems quite high for 4.5 ghz..

i guess i am nobody? 4.8 for 24/7 is achivable with vcore voltage under 1.4v. there are systems running

higher clocks and less vcore, it just means the lottery was good to them. average would be 4.7-4.6 @

1.350vcore. you wont know until you try out the overclock. temperatures are key along with vcore voltage.

airdeano

 

[DBentt]

Hi Airdeano,

I'll try out what you suggested and see if I can work something out. I'm not terribly concerned about going over 4.5GHz, but higher would certainly be pretty neat to see if I can get it nice and stable for a bit. My RAM is at 1.65v, it's what it says on the sticker, I figured following that would be kind of important.

 

[Scoob]

Hi,

While it's fun to push things, I found my 2500k sweet spot of 4.5 ghz quite early on. My theory, based on my experience thus far, is that the first "easy" OC you achieve is often the sweet spot. What I mean is that my CPU could get to 4.5ghz just by increasing the multiplier to 45 from 33. It was only harder stress tests which showed this to be not quite fully stable - gaming was fine. With this in mind I did the usual to get my 4.5 perfectly stable & saved the profile.

The next logical step was to try 4.6 of course, however for my particular CPU this took quite a jump in vCore and required me to tweak numerous other settings to be fully stable - it was also quite a lot hotter. I moved on to 4.7 then 4.8 and finally 4.9 and 5.0 ghz. The latter two were not quite stable mainly because the temps were getting too high for me & I did not want to add more vCore. Still it was fun playing.

So, I drop back down to my cool, quite and low-voltage sweet spot of 4.5ghz. I only notice the performance drop in benchmarks, and even then it's not that significant. All games play just the same yet my PC is very quite and pulls far far less vCore - gotta be good for longevity right?

I am actually about to order the parts to go full water on CPU and GPUs, so doubless I will tinker with overclocking once again. Remaining cool and quiet at 4.8 would be nice and there's no reason why 5ghz wouldn't be fine too with good cooling. Still, it's all just playing when I go above that 4.5ghz sweet spot

OP: be happy with your OC, it sounds very good to me with a low vCore for 4.5.

One thing to be aware of, which some people miss. If you've SET say 1.35v in the BIOS it's very likely you will actually be pulling more than that during use. Typical gaming will likely not be much more, benching will be more and proper stress testing can pull significantly more. This does vary from Motherboard to Motherboard of course, as well as by what particular settings etc. you use.

Have fun.

Scoob.

 

[Daxehh]

i guess i am nobody? 4.8 for 24/7 is achivable with vcore voltage under 1.4v. there are systems running

higher clocks and less vcore, it just means the lottery was good to them. average would be 4.7-4.6 @

1.350vcore. you wont know until you try out the overclock. temperatures are key along with vcore voltage.

airdeano

When i said 'nobody' i should have put Almost in front of that, i was trying to tell him that 4.5ghz for 24/7 is a good/fast/cool&quiet clock and there is not much reason to go over that unless u really want to

 

[DBentt]

I think I'll just stick with 4.5, since it does seem that I've not gotten the best chip~

Bluescreens when I drop the voltage below 1.325, still not really able to run Prime95/OCCT without the programs crashing either... not entirely sure what's causing that.

 

[Scoob]

Hmm, if you're getting Blue Screens then do make a note of the error code you're given.

Here's a summary of what they mean:

BSOD codes for overclocking

0x101 = increase vcore

0x124 = increase/decrease QPI/VTT first, if not increase/decrease vcore...have to test to see which one it is

on i7 45nm, usually means too little VVT/QPI for the speed of Uncore

on i7 32nm SB, usually means too little vCore

0x0A = unstable RAM/IMC, increase QPI first, if that doesn't work increase vcore

0x1E = increase vcore

0x3B = increase vcore

0x3D = increase vcore

0xD1 = QPI/VTT, increase/decrease as necessary, can also be unstable Ram, raise Ram voltage

0x9C = QPI/VTT most likely, but increasing vcore has helped in some instances

0x50 = RAM timings/Frequency or uncore multi unstable, increase RAM voltage or adjust QPI/VTT, or lower uncore if you're higher than 2x

0x109 = Not enough or too Much memory voltage

0x116 = Low IOH (NB) voltage, GPU issue (most common when running multi-GPU/overclocking GPU)

0x7E = Corrupted OS file, possibly from overclocking. Run sfc /scannow and chkdsk /r

0x24 – suggests a HDD error but could be IO vCore when overclocking.

Note: worth while testing with only TWO cores 100% loaded in something like Prime 95. My 2500k was stable @ 4.6 with all FOUR cores loaded, however it blue screened with just two cores loaded. Many games will just load up one or two cores more than the others. A little more vCore can help, as can increasing LLC potentially.

Scoob.

 

[DBentt]

Thanks again for the post.

I think I've got it to about as good as it's going to get. I might be missing something that I can tweak to get the voltage down a little better, but I don't think what I'm as right now is too horrible.

Went from +1.00 offset down to +0.30 offset with some slightly altered frequencies as I started getting instability (0x124 bios errors). The most stable 4.5GHz combo for me seems to be:

105 x 43 (4515MHz)

+0.45 offset (1.320v)

Max Temp (45m of P95): 52C

Ambient Temp: 20.4C

Delta Temp: 31.6C

RAM seems to be stable now too.

1333MHz

9-9-9-24

1.65v

Going to run P95 for 12~13 hours to see if it holds up.

 

[airdeano]

... but higher would certainly be pretty neat to see if I can get it nice and stable for a bit. My RAM is at 1.65v, it's what it says on the sticker, I figured following that would be kind of important.

it is certainly a learning tool to do with overclocking. just know the limits and press them and then back

off a scosch. if you have rated 1600MHz RAM @ 1.65v, you can step is down (for stability) to 1333MHz

on a 1.5v for less heat.

airdeano