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Advice for overclocking a 8700k

Hi,

I just built a new pc based around a 8700k and I would like to overclock it a little to get some more out of it. I have never overclocked before so was hoping for some suggestions on where to start and what to aim for in terms of clock rates. I've seen some say around 4.3-4.5ghz but is that feasible with an air cooler?

 

I'm running the 8700k on a ASRock Z370 Extreme4 with 16GB of G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 3000mhz ram. I'm cooling it with a Noctua NH-U12S and have a Corsair CX750M 750W 80 PLUS Bronze psu. 

Thanks!

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If you aren't overclocking past 4.7 there is no point in overclocking. The 8700k boosts to 4.7 ghz so you would need it oc higher than that to get performance improvements.

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Just use any i7 7700k oc Guide our therre, there shouldn’t be much difference.

5GHz would be a really nice oc already, but the problems will be due to thermals like they were on the 7700k.

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Personally, I use hwinfo64 to look at temperatures of each core while overclocking. I also find it easier to use Intel XTU to overclock in Windows than the more traditional bios approach. I find it easier to fix all cores at the same clock. Increase multiplier for speed, increase voltage for stability, stop when your temperatures under load are too much. I don't know what a 24/7 safe voltage is but I wouldn't stay above 1.40v.

 

The U12S may be the limiting factor here. I'm using a D15 on 8350k and that's great. At +275mV offset (all my mobo allows) that gives around a reported 1.4v, and it seems stable in everything except Prime95, where from memory I have to use AVX offset to drop it to 4.7 GHz. Based on few reports out there, a bad sample of Coffee Lake might only reach 4.8, typical around 5.0, a really good one (without extreme cooling) 5.2.

 

Also note there is a big difference between turbo to 4.7 (single core), and overclocking all cores to 4.7.

Main system: i9-7980XE, Asus X299 TUF mark 2, Noctua D15, Corsair Vengeance Pro 3200 3x 16GB 2R, RTX 3070, NZXT E850, GameMax Abyss, Samsung 980 Pro 2TB, Acer Predator XB241YU 24" 1440p 144Hz G-Sync + HP LP2475w 24" 1200p 60Hz wide gamut
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Thanks for all the advice, I have the XTU tool because I thought that might be the easiest route for a first time. So if I aim for about 4.8-5 on all cores what should I aim for on the turbo? Would a load temp of around 80 be reasonable or is that too high?

I'll have a read of some 7700k guides.

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The way overclocking works is that it is a kinda permanent turbo. Personally I work on getting all cores to the same higher clock and leave it. It may be possible to push fewer cores to even higher clocks, but that's more work. Temps are a bit more tricky. Personally I aim to keep it not much beyond 70C. I've had systems that were stable at 70C, and unstable at 80C without changing any settings, simply from the seasons changing.

Main system: i9-7980XE, Asus X299 TUF mark 2, Noctua D15, Corsair Vengeance Pro 3200 3x 16GB 2R, RTX 3070, NZXT E850, GameMax Abyss, Samsung 980 Pro 2TB, Acer Predator XB241YU 24" 1440p 144Hz G-Sync + HP LP2475w 24" 1200p 60Hz wide gamut
Gaming laptop: Lenovo Legion 5, 5800H, RTX 3070, Kingston DDR4 3200C22 2x16GB 2Rx8, Kingston Fury Renegade 1TB + Crucial P1 1TB SSD, 165 Hz IPS 1080p G-Sync Compatible

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So do you essentially disable turbo mode? In XTU am I looking at setting multipliers across the active cores or at the processor cache ratio level to get it to ~5ghz? And am I setting the "Core Voltage" rather than the "Core Voltage Offset"? Should I go for 4.8 first with no voltage and see what happens or set a speed and voltage at a certain level then dial back?

Base XTU Settings.PNG

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Use whatever approach you want to take, some people like to just push their cpu as far as possible with stock voltage, others tend to squeeze every little drop of performance out of it :P

if you set your goal at 5GHz just set the voltage to your personal maximum (would be 1.35v for me). And see if it’s stable. If so that’s great and you can dial back the voltage slowly until you find the lowest stable voltage.

If you aren’t stable at max voltage you can reduce frequency slightly and retry, or try to push the voltage even higher to a certain degree (1.4v is the absolute maximum imo). 

Always keep an eye for your thermals though. They increase with increasing frequency and even more with voltage.

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When overclocking Coffe Lake I think you should stay under 1,35V on CPU core.

Then just test how far can you get your CPU ... test stability with aida64 or prime95. If your CPU goes over 90°C with those tests, dial back your OC to prevent any CPU damage. 

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