can you OC a 6700 non-K?

[onemanarmy720]

one of my friends is trying to tell me he overclocked his 6700. i think its BS

[RileyTheFox]

1 minute ago, onemanarmy720 said:

one of my friends is trying to tell me he overclocked his 6700. i think its BS

Using base clock yes. Also wasn't there that BIOS issue that let you overclock locked chips? Or was that a different platform.

[minibois]

He could BCLK overclock it, those are different way of overclocking, instead of the regular unlocked multiplier way. The overclocks are not as big and Intel tried to shut it down through some updates..

[manikyath]

well.. you can raise the bclk, but potential is limited and some stuff likes to go really weird.

[Jurrunio]

You can but dont take it for granted. Only Z170 mobo with older BIOS can do so but not guaranteed. Also there will be faults like CPU cache slows down and temperature sensors dont work properly

[pzspah]

7 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

You can but dont take it for granted. Only Z170 mobo with older BIOS can do so but not guaranteed. Also there will be faults like CPU cache slows down and temperature sensors dont work properly

 My z270 strix bclk overclocks just fine, newest bios and cpu temps are showing properly.

[TrigrH]

7 minutes ago, manikyath said:

well.. you can raise the bclk, but potential is limited and some stuff likes to go really weird.

The base clock is 3.40 GHz you can reach up to 4.55ghz (from what i've seen) via BCLK. Nothing is tied to the BCLK outside memory speeds on skylake, kabylake, coffee lake (KBL, CFL are micocode protected). So as long as you keep your DDR4 under 2666 you should be stable. (You will need to use a lower setting as the BCLK will increase memory speed at the same ratio.)

2 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

You can but dont take it for granted. Only Z170 mobo with older BIOS can do so but not guaranteed. Also there will be faults like CPU cache slows down and temperature sensors dont work properly

Asrock has B, H and C232 boards that also can do it. Correct the temp sensors don't work, but you can read the one in the motherboard.

 

I don't think the CPU cache slows down? What do you mean by this?

[manikyath]

2 minutes ago, TrigrH said:

The base clock is 3.40 GHz you can reach up to 4.55ghz (from what i've seen) via BCLK. Nothing is tied to the BCLK outside memory speeds on skylake, kabylake, coffee lake (KBL, CFL are micocode protected). So as long as you keep your DDR4 under 2666 you should be stable. (You will need to use a lower setting as the BCLK will increase memory speed at the same ratio.)

i'm not gonna bother digging it up, but i recall some youtubers reporting rather odd behavior from bclk overclocked skylake systems.

[Jurrunio]

4 minutes ago, pzspah said:

 My z270 strix bclk overclocks just fine, newest bios and cpu temps are showing properly.

With non-K CPU?

 

5 minutes ago, TrigrH said:

 

I don't think the CPU cache slows down? What do you mean by this?

From @MageTank

 

[Jurrunio]

12 minutes ago, TrigrH said:

Asrock has B, H and C232 boards that also can do it.

Not sure if I'm gonna recommend doing so with those weaker power delivery

[pzspah]

3 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

With non-K CPU?

 

 

 Yes, I have a i5 7500

[Jurrunio]

4 minutes ago, pzspah said:

 Yes, I have a i5 7500

CPU-Z screenshot proof please

[TrigrH]

12 minutes ago, manikyath said:

i'm not gonna bother digging it up, but i recall some youtubers reporting rather odd behavior from bclk overclocked skylake systems.

Well i've been running mine for a while now, smooth as butter in gaming. Only issue I have noticed is my PC might stutter in gaming if i'm writing large amounts of data to my drives, though im not sure if thats directly related.

7 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

With non-K CPU?

 

From @MageTank

 

Just looked it up, its intentional as you increase BCLK the cache goes up also so they lower it for you for more OC headroom you don't actually lose cache performance unless you increase the BCLK by an super tiny amount:

http://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=1662&PN=3&title=core-i5-6600t-cache-speed-reduced-when-using-skyoc

Read the last post on that thread.

5 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Not sure if I'm gonna recommend doing so with those weaker power delivery

http://asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty E3V5 Performance GamingOC/

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty H170 PerformanceHyper/

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty B150 Gaming K4Hyper/

 

Doesn't look weak to me.

[Jurrunio]

8 minutes ago, TrigrH said:

Doesn't look weak to me.

Asrock use doublers which means when counting phases, you have to divide the amount of chokes you see by two.

[TrigrH]

2 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Asrock use doublers which means when counting phases, you have to divide the amount of chokes you see by two.

Still doesn't mean the power delivery is weak.

[Jurrunio]

1 minute ago, TrigrH said:

Still doesn't mean the power delivery is weak.

yeah, but I dont consider it to be strong.

[TrigrH]

1 minute ago, Jurrunio said:

yeah, but I dont consider it to be strong.

Strong enough for a quad core.

[Jurrunio]

2 minutes ago, TrigrH said:

Strong enough for a quad core.

ok

[MageTank]

21 hours ago, TrigrH said:

Well i've been running mine for a while now, smooth as butter in gaming. Only issue I have noticed is my PC might stutter in gaming if i'm writing large amounts of data to my drives, though im not sure if thats directly related.

Just looked it up, its intentional as you increase BCLK the cache goes up also so they lower it for you for more OC headroom you don't actually lose cache performance unless you increase the BCLK by an super tiny amount:

http://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=1662&PN=3&title=core-i5-6600t-cache-speed-reduced-when-using-skyoc

Read the last post on that thread.

http://asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty E3V5 Performance GamingOC/

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty H170 PerformanceHyper/

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty B150 Gaming K4Hyper/

 

Doesn't look weak to me.

You do lose cache performance, a significant amount of it. In that very post:

Quote

And the difference between core and cache frequencies grows even further the higher you set your BCLK. This means that your cache will hold back your OC headroom long before you reach the maximum OC your core can handle. With Sky-OC enabled however the cache multiplier is lowered to a point where it will not hold back your overclocking potential. The problem is that it does lower your cache performance quite significantly until reach or surpass the stock Cache frequency by raising your BCLK.

Sky-OC has been discontinued by ASRock and is no longer supported so use at your own risk if your board still has the feature.

That moderator is also wrong. I used BCLK's as high as 160 and still had my cache run exactly 75% slower than stock. From 101 to 160, the result was exactly 75%. If you go back and look at that thread, you will also see that I am the one that made that original thread on that forum. I still have my 6600T, I still have that bios on a Pro4 board, and I can validate this information if you'd like me to do so. Regardless of the test, regardless of the BCLK you choose, the end result is the same, a deficit of 75%~. This also harms memory controller performance, which doesn't mesh well with somebody like me.

[Jumper118]

yes

[TrigrH]

4 hours ago, MageTank said:

You do lose cache performance, a significant amount of it. In that very post:

That moderator is also wrong. I used BCLK's as high as 160 and still had my cache run exactly 75% slower than stock. From 101 to 160, the result was exactly 75%. If you go back and look at that thread, you will also see that I am the one that made that original thread on that forum. I still have my 6600T, I still have that bios on a Pro4 board, and I can validate this information if you'd like me to do so. Regardless of the test, regardless of the BCLK you choose, the end result is the same, a deficit of 75%~. This also harms memory controller performance, which doesn't mesh well with somebody like me.

Whats the best way for me to test this?

[TrigrH]

My results, seems pretty mixed to me. I'm getting faster SSD benches with the OC.

OC.docx

NO OC.docx

Stock:

Overclocked:

Overclocked:

Stock:

[MageTank]

38 minutes ago, TrigrH said:

My results, seems pretty mixed to me. I'm getting faster SSD benches with the OC.

OC.docx

NO OC.docx

Stock:

 

Overclocked:

 

Overclocked:

 

Stock:

 

The SSD benches have nothing to do with cache. Your cache benches from Aida64 is showing exactly what I am talking about. 73% slower read, copy and write  L1 cache, while L2 and L3 remain unchanged. This is exactly what I saw in my tests.

 

Stock:

Overclocked:

 

Also, the mod on the ASrock forums is incorrect. The cache multiplier does not change when SkyOC is enabled, you can see this both in HWinfo64 and in XTU. I provided proof of that in the very first post of that thread:

If the multiplier lowered when SkyOC was enabled, my cache clock would not be matching the core clock, nor would my L2 and L3 cache bandwidth improve. I cannot possibly explain why it happens, I only know that it is happening. My nearly 2 year old theory was that whatever magic in the microcode that allows us to manipulate the unstrapped uncore has a side effect of lower L1 cache performance. That number is very consistent too, being nearly 73% in every single result I've seen thus far (mine, yours, and even a random core i5 6500 result I saw on the MSI forums).

 

The ASRock mod's theory that it's related to boost is an interesting one, because the issue does indeed seem to only impact processors with turbo boost (my G4400 was not having the issue at all), it's not a concrete theory either. It could be that the pentium's are not impacted simply because they have far less cache than their Core series counterparts, and cache hierarchy is different. We likely will never know the exact cause, but it doesn't really matter. 

 

The benefits of overclocking locked Skylake CPU's just don't outweigh the headaches of being stuck with an older bios, not having access to your iGPU/thermal sensor, slower cache (and as a result, slower memory controller) and loss of C states. If you are stuck with a locked Skylake CPU, and absolutely need the faster core clocks, I'd say go for it, but I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to obtain a Skylake CPU and a board with an antiquated bios to do so. 

[TrigrH]

2 minutes ago, MageTank said:

The benefits of overclocking locked Skylake CPU's just don't outweigh the headaches of being stuck with an older bios, not having access to your iGPU/thermal sensor, slower cache (and as a result, slower memory controller) and loss of C states. If you are stuck with a locked Skylake CPU, and absolutely need the faster core clocks, I'd say go for it, but I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to obtain a Skylake CPU and a board with an antiquated bios to do so. 

I don't have an IGPU, the bios on this board isn't that old, no c states doesn't concern me at all. Where will I actually be affected by the reduced cache speeds? When I overclock I only see improved performance in games.

[MageTank]

1 minute ago, TrigrH said:

I don't have an IGPU, the bios on this board isn't that old, no c states doesn't concern me at all. Where will I actually be affected by the reduced cache speeds? When I overclock I only see improved performance in games.

Mostly higher end workloads, such as anything involving AVX. You can test this with Linpack if you'd like, and see what the difference in flops looks like before and after the core overclocking. With my 6600T, I'd net far higher flops at stock with cache giving it's full performance (all core boost of 3.5) over the 4.3ghz OC I used with SkyOC. This is for two reasons. #1: AVX scales well with bandwidth, period. #2: Your uncore is tied to your cache speed, so the faster your cache, the faster everything tied to it is, including your memory subsystem and PCIe subdomain. Now, from a strictly gaming standpoint, I found the higher core clocks to be superior as well, but you will certainly see better performance without the SkyOC on applications like Linpack, F@H Gromacs, and even Handbrake. Basically, if your workflow can be improved by AVX, SkyOC will be detrimental to that. 

 

Also, how can the BIOS on your board not be that old? It's a beta bios from 1.5 years ago, lol. That's quite a bit old in the tech world. Especially if you OC ram as much as I do, and need a better bios to handle different IC tweaks.