Search the Community

I am having some trouble with my first overclocking attempt, for starters here are the specs of my rig. i7 3770K Intel DZ77RE-75K Extreme Motherboard Galaxy GTX 680 32 GB G.Skill Z series RAM Corsair AX 850 Corsair H-70 Corsair Force GT 240 GB SSD I have tried to overclock the CPU using tips I have gained from around the internet but it doesn't seem to be working how I have seen everyone else's working. I have adjusted the multiplier but the bios on this board is very different from the other bios's that I have seen people overclocking on and I am getting a little lost. It seems that sometimes I am able to get the chip to overclock to where I want it but as soon as I stop the stress test it clocks itself back down. I'm not sure if that is normal or if I am doing something wrong. I am using CPU Z to check the clock speed and OCCT as my stress test. Anyone who has experience with this board or can give me any general guidance I would very much appreciate it. Slaqs

Hi folks, I'm having trouble to overclock my GTX660ti...and wonder if you guys can help me ;) Im a noob in GPU overclocking btw.. :D To overclock the card i use MSI Afterburner. For Stresstest im using Kombustor and theValley Benchmark.. So i've found some theards wich show how to overcklock the card.. And i tried the settings that Linus uses in his Benchmark videos.. The problem is everytime i try to overclock the card and run Kombustor the "OpenGL" Graphics card driver stos working... So this is one of the overcklocks i tried: Please Help me, i know im a noob, but i really want to overclock this card, because everyone says that this paticular card is a overcklocking beast?!

I've had my XFX 7770 for less than a year now and several issues are already plaguing the card: 1. At random times, the screen would turn black with thin white stripes which cover the top half of the screen. A reboot is required to fix this which is really annoying. 2. Any attempt at overclocking the core even by 50mhz above stock would cause random flickering in the screen. This had not been a problem on the day of purchase but became evident about a month ago. I have all the latest drivers from XFX and have tried previous versions of the drivers yet these problems persist. Any ideas on what might be causing these problems and ideas on fixes?

Hi Forum, for about 2 Months I'm owning a new gaming rig and since I didn't really have time to ocerclock the system properly, I just started with it now. After overclocking my processor (3770K) just slightly to 3,9 GHz I'm now approaching my graphics card (Gigabyte GTX 660ti with 3GB VRAM). While doing it I began to think about the maximum voltage you could propably apply to a graphics card. In my thought you encounter two general problems: 1. More power consumption and due to this more heat generation. 2. Electronical damage to the silicon parts, since semiconductors should burn out at a certain voltage. (depletetion range can collapse, if to much voltage is applied to the device) The first problem can be solved by just do better cooling (higher fan speed, better fans etc.) and shouldn't be a big problem in reasonable extends of overclocking. The second problem can in my opinion be a severe problem: My question to the forum is, if anyone knows kind of a "critical value" after which the semiconductors begin to be damaged. I would like to get the max out of my graphics Card (temperatures aren't a problem at the moment; just over 60°), but I don't want to set the voltage to high and thereby kill my card. System and Overclocking Specs: Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 Processor: Intel i7-3770K (OC to 3,9 GHz at 1,15V) RAM: 16 GB Corsair Vengeance (2x8GB not OC) VGA: Gigabyte Geforce GTX660ti 3GB (OC to 1150/1228 MHz (+118MHz) at 1,000V (+0,012V) Hoping for help and a good discussion, Hyrikan

Hello there guys! I have a bit of a cheap laptop that (someone) bought for me a while back for like ~250 USD. It is an HP 2000-something. But anyway, the point is it is really, really slow, i'm so used to my i5-3570k at home, but this e-450 from AMD makes me cry. Ive looked everywhere for overclocking methods for this particular chip. And I can't find anything, anywhere. The chip is clocked at 1.65 GHz and I would like to get it maybe up to like 2 GHz if its possible. The laptop surprisingly has good cooling, the maximum temp ive ever hit on Prime 95 with it is 60c. I do know the chip is locked, but there has to be some method of either getting around this or breaking through it.I do know the chip can be undervolted with a tool called Brazos Tweaker. It cannot be overclocked with this tool though. Guys please help me, as I do not have money for another laptop at the moment. And IM SICK AND TIRED OF THIS SLOW THING lol. thanks in advance, bcredeur97

Hi Guys, Is there anyway to overclock a 2500k on the Gigabyte GA-H61M-D2-B3 (rev. 1.0)? I have such a terrible motherboard because I built my PC on a massive budget.

Im trying to overclock my CPU to 4.6GHz im having some issues, i can if i put my ram at 9-9-9-24 1600MHz, can anyone help?

I encountered a strange issue today whilst trying to push my 3570K a bit further. The multiplier on my Asus P8Z77-M Pro can be set above 46, but when it is it only shows as 46 in Windows, and thus only gives me 4.6GHZ (I know, "only" is not the word to use really, but bare with me). I've seen in reviews the multiplier has been set to 48 but it just won't go above 46. I have got on OC of 4.78GHz using 104 base clock and 46 multiplier and I'm pretty happy with that, but I know it can go further as the temps are around 60-70C in prime, so the chip still has some legroom.

This is a general guide for water-cooling the 4770k, 4670k, 4770 and 4670 CPUs but can be applied to most other CPUs as well. I will try to cover as many questions in this guide as I can and try to give you a basic understanding in choice of radiators as well as effects of overclocking on water cooling. Apologies for any grammar/typo/spelling mistakes but I have yet to proof read this guide. It is also incomplete. I plant to add a few extra sections to it and also of course do an extra "section" concerning the 4670k. Waterblocks/AIO Compatibility The socket for the 4770k (LGA 1150) has the same mounts as the older socket used for Sandy bridge and Ivy bridge chips (LGA 1155). This of course means anything that fit the old sockets will fit the new socket. This includes AIO coolers such as the H100i, H80i, H220 and any air coolers and of course all water-blocks. What you could expect is different jet plates that could be more optimized for the new chip but this will make negligible differences in terms of heat. Power Consumption The TDP (Thermal Power Design) of the 4770k is 84W which is slightly less than the TDP of the 3770k which was 77W. What this means is of course; you need to dissipate more power (heat) coming from the CPU. This may not be very significant but if we take it as a percentage the 4770k draws 110% of the power of the 3770k which means 10% less cooling needed. Of course you can't add 10% of a radiator off but it does mean you will need to have higher fan speed at similar temps. In terms of the new improved "low-power state", from my understanding this will not benefit the power-consumption much because it only activates when the computer is in sleep mode, at best it will mean your radiator fans can be almost switched off when the computer is in sleep mode but do not quote me on that. Please refer to my paragraph on overclocking for more info on the "low-power states" you get when the CPU is using less voltage. Overclocking I have not yet seen power consumption at overclocks so this section is TBC. That is all that's important during overclocking in terms of cooling. From school you may remember the formula Power=Current*Voltage . During overclocking you increase voltage to gain stability. and because P∝V when you increase the voltage power is increased. This is power you later need to dissipate while cooling the CPU. Radiators The amount of radiators you need is proportional to the TDP of the item you are cooling, in this case a 4770k. A problem with this is that radiators are not marketed by TDP. This is because power dissipation depends on the heat of the coolant and the air, the speed of the pump and RPM of the fans. And these variables affect the power dissipation of a radiotor a lot. I am going to grab a quick example of a radiator power dissipation graph; All credit for the graph go to martinsliquidlabs.com Now this is a graph for a Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 360 Radiator. From the start you can see that if you are running the CPU at stock this radiator is (I hate to use the word but;) "overkill" for this situation. It could comfortably cool the 4770k with fan speeds of 500RPM. I have to warn you not to take this as a "I need my fans to run at 500RPM to cool this CPU with this radiator". This test was taken with a ΔT of 10C between the water temp and the air and with a Laing D5 (MCP35X2) running at 40% of its speed and using Titan Kukri PWM fans. Use this as a comparison only. Unfortunately I am unable to source graphs for more relevant (120 and 240) radiators but there we go. An important thing to note is that running you fans any faster than this is simply creating noise. At this point the radiator has cooled the liquid down back to room temperature. If you were to have a program monitoring your fan speeds ideally you would want to to match the air and coolant temp at the point of the coolant entering the CPU block with minimum fan speeds. But I have yet to see fan control software this advanced. I've gone off on a tangent here but hopefully you have a better understanding in what is important when choosing radiators instead of just listing numbers as I have done before.

This is the wrong forum - removed my post sorry all

I am attempting my first try at overclocking with my FX8150. I have gotten into windows and I was using prime 95 to try to stability test after setting voltages and multipliers. After about thirty seconds an error shows up on one of the threads. Should I raise the voltages to try to get stability.

Hi guys, im currently running a rig with a AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE cpu and Asus M5A97 Pro motherboard. My cpu overclock is 20*200=4Ghz. Core voltage is 1,44V. Cooler is Noctua NH-D14, and at full load temps never exceed 53C. Ram i use is Gskill RipjawsX 8GB(2X4GB) 1600Mhz, 1.5v, 9-9-9-24-2T All OC features of the mobo are turned on, like full phase power, Cpu load line to the max as well as cpu/nb loadline and current capability of both. VRM is at fixed frequency mode at 200kHz. Any ideas to change some of those or other settings to get higher clock speed?

Hey, I have a question regarding overclocking and the system memory. Now, I have an i5-750 running at 3.2GHz on a P7-P55 DE-PRO board. Currently, I have 8GB of RAM, using 2 4GB sticks. I've been doing more video editing using after effects and I want to step up to 16GB or 32GB of RAM. However, to do that, I would most likely need to purchase a 4 dimm kit, and thus fully populate the slots on my board. Will the adversely affect my ability to overclock my CPU? I don't really care about OC'ing my RAM (I'll probably buy and use a 1600MHz kit setting), but I still want to be able to overclock my CPU effectively, even past the settings I'm currently running on. So, is it ok to populate all of the slots? Thank you very much! -- Christophercolumbusdog

(It turned out to be a very long post so I apologize in advance and if you don’t want to read the whole thing I’ve bolded my questions and for those that do Thank You!) I’ve decided to build a new water cooled PC. I live on the west coast of the US and my budget is around $2000. This build is for Gaming and overclocking and I want it to be very quiet. I’ve done extensive research for the past 3-4 months and I am ready to finally build. I am writing this post so that I can get criticism on my choices as I don’t want to waste money and time on subpar hardware. If you believe I should or shouldn’t buy something please let me know why. I also have several questions I will bring up later. My planned build Case-Obsidian 900d- I’m pretty firm on this choice and it’s highly unlikely I will change my mind. It has many great features and I feel it will last me for years to come. It’s also great for water cooling. Motherboard-ASUS Maximus VI Extreme- I chose this because of its many features for overclocking and its brand I trust. In the end it also had the most features I cared about. -Runner ups: ASUS Z87-Deluxe, ASUS Z87-Expert, Gigabyte G1.Sniper 5, Gigabyte Z87X-OC Question 1: Do newly released motherboards tend to have issues that cannot be fixed with a bios update? Also, is it better to wait a month in case it has issues or are they usually well tested upon release? CPU- Intel 4770K Question 2- How can I tell if the CPU I’m buying is the one with the USB 3.0 issue or a fixed version?(apart from bringing it home and testing it) I’ve asked the sales associate and they don’t know. I really don’t want to go through the hassle of unpacking it and repacking. I don’t want to buy a product that defective if for the same price I can get one that works correctly. Power Supply-Corsair AX1200i I chose this power supply because it gives me plenty of room to upgrade my hardware. I don’t ever have to worry about reaching the power limit of my power supply. It doesn’t turn on its fan unless it’s being used (I believe it was 50% or greater) and it’s currently on sale at my local electronics store (fry's electronics) for only $279. RAM- I like the Corsair Dominator Platinum 16GB 1866 MHz 8Gbx2 ($180). However, I am undecided. I know I don’t want to go below 1866 MHz, but I’m not really sure what a good ram is and what the difference is between many of them (there aren’t many reviews of ram). -Others I’ve looked at: Viper 32GB at 1866MHz(I sometimes run a mincraft FTB server so I do prefer having extra ram onboard) at $250, Corsair Vengeance DDR3 32GB 1866MHz at $260 Question 3: What ram would you guys recommend and why?(The ones I’ve listed are just ones I looked at, I’m not dead set on buying them.) SSD/HDD- I’m using my current SSD 120gb Corsair force 3 series as my boot drive and I have plenty of HDD for storage so I’m not going to upgrade here. OS- Windows 7, also from my old build. GPU- I am going to use my current GTX 580 until around October when AMD is rumored to release Volcano Island. I will then either get their 8970 or whatever they call it or the GTX 780. Cd/dvd/blueray Drive- I don’t have a clue. Currently I have a cd/dvd/blueray/HD-DVD drive however it doesn’t write blueray and I don’t want to use it too much as I suspect a few years down the line it may be worth something as the HDDVD devices are not too common. I want something that can read and write cd/DVD/ and blue ray. I’ve heard ASUS has some good ones. Question 4: Any recommendations on a drive that fits my criteria?(read and write cd/DVD/ and blue ray) Fan Controller- NZXT Sentry LX High Performance Fan Controller- I am no longer sure about this because the motherboard has 12 fan connectors. Fans(for case and radiators)- Noctua NF-F12 PWM- I’m hesitant because these fans do not fit my color scheme(ill go over this later) -I’ve looked at corsair af120 performance fans as these have a similar performance to the noctua and they look good but they are louder. Question 4: Does anyone have both sets of fans or know firsthand what the noise difference is, is it a big difference, could you hear the difference? (I know there are charts that tell me how many decibels but that’s just a number I can’t really compare it to anything) Question 5: Would the Noctua fans be visible in a push configuration at the top of a 900D? I’m talking about top of the case but under the top panel. It curves down on both sides (where the side panels attach) so I was wondering if that covers them up a bit. Thermal Compound- ARCTIC MX-4 Carbon-Based Thermal Compound- It has some great reviews and it’s also fairly cheap at $7 on Amazon. Now For the water cooling portion (if you are still here, Thank you and it’s almost over) I’m looking to make my build either a red or UV blue theme. I’m not sure because the mother board has lots of red but I love the way UV lighting looks. The reason I don’t know on a lot of the water cooling hardware is because I’m going to buy these parts over the next few months while I wait for the AMD GPU. Pump- the PMP-450 Pump- It’s the koolance MCP655 Tubing- Not sure yet. However I’m going to go with a 3/8in size colored tubing. Reservoir- inverse t virus reservoir- I love the way it looks and I’m not changing my mind about it. Water Blocks- I haven’t decided on a water block for the CPU. I know the mounts are the same for CPU water block from the 1155 socket and they will fit, but I haven’t decided on one yet. I’m also waiting for the GPU to be released and the water blocks with that and water blocks for the motherboard. I might also get a ram block but mainly for visual appearance especially if the ram doesn’t look nice. Compression fittings-Haven’t looked into them much either. Liquid-I’ve thought about using many kinds including dyes and other mixtures but I don’t want to deal with build up and clogs caused by those. I’m going to go with distilled water with maybe a silver coil and/or some sort of additive to prevent algae growth. Radiator- the xspc rx360 seems to be great for low noise low rpm fans. I’m probably also going to install a 240mm but I’m not sure which brand. Question 6: What tubing, water blocks, liquid additive, and radiators would you guys recommend? Finally the end. If you see anything you think I don’t have or should have, feel free to leave a comment. Thank you for reading and please let me know what you think.