Skylake non K overclock, yes or no?

[WindowsXP16]

I wont be upgrading my I5 6500 anytime soon but I found out that you can overclock skylake non k cpus. I do need a mobo upgrade, I'm looking into 2 way crossfire so shall I get the older Z170 motherboard and oc the i5 6500 or shall I get the newer kabbylake boards. I'm just wondering if its even worth overclocking a non k cpu? thanks.

[BethFoster5841]

no virtually no difference between kabylake and sky lake

[samcool55]

Overclocking cpu's, worth it. Z170 or Z270 chipset? Who cares, if it has the connectivity you want you are good to go.

[Droidbot]

You need Z170 with an external clock gen to actually OC non-K CPUs

[BubblyCharizard]

K series CPUs only have the multiplier unlocked, you can also overclock using the FSB or bus speed however it isn't as easy

[zMeul]

I'd say don't bother

 

to OC non K CPU it has to be done via BCLK and altered BCLK can lead to some issues, on top of the fact that messing with BCLK disables some stuff in the CPU:

• No IGPU
• No dynamic change of CPU frequency
• No C-states
• No Turbo Mode
• CPU temperature reading is incorrect
• AVX instructions have very low performance

 

to OC non K CPUs you need either

• a board with external BCLK clock generator - some AsRock hyper boards: http://www.asrock.com/microsite/hyper/
• a BIOS modded Z170 board - there's a list with them: http://overclocking.guide/intel-skylake-non-k-overclocking-bios-list/

[BubblyCharizard]

1 minute ago, zMeul said:

to OC non K CPU it has to be done via BCLK and altered BCLK can lead to some issues, on top of the fact that messing with BCLK disables some stuff in the CPU

also, BLCK overclocks can be less stable if done incorrectly

 

IIRC, it also disables the iGPU once you change the BCLK, for me, I needed to change a bunch of other settings.

[zMeul]

Just now, BubblyCharizard said:

IIRC, it also disables the iGPU once you change the BCLK

I edited and listed all that stuff in the previous post

[Lord Nicoll]

27 minutes ago, WindowsXP16 said:

I wont be upgrading my I5 6500 anytime soon but I found out that you can overclock skylake non k cpus. I do need a mobo upgrade, I'm looking into 2 way crossfire so shall I get the older Z170 motherboard and oc the i5 6500 or shall I get the newer kabbylake boards. I'm just wondering if its even worth overclocking a non k cpu? thanks.

Yeah, i wouldn't 100% say it's worth it, I got an i5 6400 to 4.6GHz and it wasn't easy, every voltage had to be cranked to a pretty ridiculous level and I didn't think it'd last that long. It reached about 4-4.2GHz no issues though, so an i5 6500 should go a little further before hitting the wall of rapidly raising Vcore. Finding a compatible BIOS that's hacked and will install on your board is however the hardest I'd say. 

[porina]

If you have the kit ready to try it, no harm to give it a go. Personally I wouldn't spend extra money to enable it. If you go that far, look at a proper upgrade solution instead. I did have a quick go with an i3 in the past. I find myself agreeing with zMeul's earlier post, in that you gain some, you lose some. I found it fun to do to see what I could do, but wouldn't want to run a system like that long term.

[Czeekaj]

I think the K version are more stable for OC that's why they actually unlock them I do not think All Proccessors come out identical. So if you do go for it be very delicate with it as you crank things too far you might have a problem. I'd say if you lose the turbo clock it's not worth it. Turbo might not matter so much, but if you don't have the flexible uper range I think things can get dicey depending on the Mobo and the regidity of the Cpu.

[WindowsXP16]

15 hours ago, zMeul said:

I'd say don't bother

 

to OC non K CPU it has to be done via BCLK and altered BCLK can lead to some issues, on top of the fact that messing with BCLK disables some stuff in the CPU:

• No IGPU
• No dynamic change of CPU frequency
• No C-states
• No Turbo Mode
• CPU temperature reading is incorrect
• AVX instructions have very low performance

 

to OC non K CPUs you need either

• a board with external BCLK clock generator - some AsRock hyper boards: http://www.asrock.com/microsite/hyper/
• a BIOS modded Z170 board - there's a list with them: http://overclocking.guide/intel-skylake-non-k-overclocking-bios-list/

I guess I will just upgrade my mobo for now to one of the kabblyake boards to do 2 way crossfire and upgrade my cpu later on. Thanks for the detailed explanation.

[MattH]

On 29.4.2017 at 11:31 AM, zMeul said:

I'd say don't bother

 

to OC non K CPU it has to be done via BCLK and altered BCLK can lead to some issues, on top of the fact that messing with BCLK disables some stuff in the CPU:

• No IGPU
• No dynamic change of CPU frequency
• No C-states
• No Turbo Mode
• CPU temperature reading is incorrect
• AVX instructions have very low performance

 

 

Aside from your ominous BCLK "issues", and whatever AVX instructions are (maybe make that your first and main point), none of these qualify as relevant to an overclocker, aside from CPU temperature, which I think is not "incorrect", but "doesn't work anymore" and simply requires other tools than most standard ones.

[Morgoth97]

Why overclock a non K model? It just doesn't make sense. The K models have been binned to have much better overclocking capabilities hence being "unlocked" whilst non K models have been screened to receive little to no improvements from overclocking. 

[WindowsXP16]

20 hours ago, Morgoth97 said:

Why overclock a non K model? It just doesn't make sense. The K models have been binned to have much better overclocking capabilities hence being "unlocked" whilst non K models have been screened to receive little to no improvements from overclocking. 

It was just a consideration, as I heard that intel didn't lock the Skylake series of CPU's.

It's too late to do that apparently anyway as most newer stock Z170 (if they are still sold) have apparently an updated bios which does lock the non-k CPU's.