My 2500k Overclocking Adventure

[igot6strings]

My Mobo has Auto, Standard, Level 1 and Level 2 for LLC. Currently at Standard
My v.core is only 1.29v at load at 4.5ghz. Thats fine is it not? Temps are high 60s currently. Been fooling around with settings since I posted that image.

[Perineum]

Yeah, 1.29 at 4.5ghz is perfectly fine.

Now beat it up a bit, do Intel Burn Test on it (IBT) and Multithreaded 64bit Prime95

Some people disagree, but my final stability check is 24 hours long.... and I've had quite a few failures in and around the 8 hour mark.

Typically though, if it gets past the 10 hour mark it seems to pass every time.

I check for so long because once my OC is done I don't ever want it to be a question on my mind that it might be causing an instability in a game, etc. etc.

[igot6strings]

^ I agree.
8 hrs so far on prime95 before error. Added a little bump to the offset from -0.08 to -0.06. Will run it overnight to see if the error repeats.
I like oc'ing with the 2500k on this z68 board. Its much simpler than my old x58 with my 960.

[Perineum]

I haven't OC'd one yet that didn't require a positive offset, but I guess we'll see.

In fact with offset that low once you got it stable I would move up one notch on the voltage just because.

[igot6strings]

When I don't know what I'm doing I always start on the safe side of things. It just happens to be that it seems to be working out better than expected with an negative offset rather than positive. Maybe I got lucky and found a good chip. I'm using a EVGA Superclock air cooler so I can take it up a few notches until I reach my safe zone of 1.45v and 85'C at load in prime95. I'll try it at +0.02 with 4.8ghz and see how that goes.


Edit: 10mins in with prime95. Running at 1.37v, offset +0.02 and its 76'C max @ 4.8ghz. If it stays stable like this overnight I'll try 5ghz in the morning.

[Perineum]

If it's stable like that at 4.8ghz I'd record those settings for sure, but judging on what you have now I'm guessing that the voltage increase to get 5.0ghz is going to be prohibitive, especially since you're already at 76C

IBT also seems to test harder, produces a lot more heat.

[igot6strings]

Needs more juice. 4th core stopped working 5hrs in but system remained stable. Ill up it to 0.04 tonight. I think that will do it.

Also it passed 10 passes of IBT on standard and high. Ill run max for 10 passes before running prime95 overnight tonight.

Edit: Can't run max, I don't have enough ram. I only have a temporary 4gb set of Amd Performance ram. Prime95 and IBT high maxed out at 84'C , 1.4v @ 4.8ghz. Still within my limits. Must test over night to be sure of stability.

[Perineum]

You can run Max it's just a weird thing that happens.

The RAM amount that Max was allocated to use got used up, so it complains. Turn Max off then on again and it should pick a new amount of RAM to allocate.

My v.core is only 1.29v at load at 4.5ghz. Temps are high 60s currently.

<time passes>

Prime95 and IBT high maxed out at 84'C , 1.4v @ 4.8ghz

See what I mean?

Only 300mhz and it's a whack more voltage and heat with stability issues.... and you're still looking for stable.

That's why I said that 4.5 is the sweet spot. 1.29v and around a 60ish C temp load is nice....

[igot6strings]

I agree. Thats probably what I'll revert back to after I fool around for a bit to see how much gets me where. 4.8ghz seems like the max I'm willing to try for at those temps with my evga superclock cooler. I'm not running flat out at 4.8ghz. It idles at 1600mhz and 20'c. Gaming maxes out in the mid 50s. As I'll never reach load in my day to day use 4.8 is usable but I doubt there is any noticeable difference over 4.5 for gaming.

[Silvgearx]

I don't like intel burn test. It won't pick up any error on my sandy for hours. And Prime Blend find it under 10 minutes. I always run at least 10 hour blend and 10 hours small tft.

How do you guys overclock your Sandy? By the turbo boost or the cpu ratio? My turbo is set to 40 for all 4 cores.