Overclocking My Old Computer

[TheFixxer]

So I've been doing some digging and I've found a few answers here and there, but does anyone have any guides they could point me to that would help me in overclocking my old computer. It's an Intel Core i5-4670K processor; Asus Sabertooth z97 Mark 2/USB3.1 motherboard; Asus GTX1060 6GB graphics card; 16GB Balistix DDR3-1600.

 

As is, my computer runs fine and plays most of the games I want to play at max or near max settings. But since it's an aging (much like it's user) computer I'd like to give it a bit of a boost. I know the CPU and motherboard can be overclocked but I just don't have a ton of practical experience doing it. So this is what I'm hoping someone can help me with:

1) What should I be looking at for max speed?

2) Will I need to adjust voltages?

3) Other than the computer not starting, what are signs of instability I should be looking for?

 

I'm sure I'll have other questions, but thanks for any help you all can give!

[Endeavor01]

2 minutes ago, TheFixxer said:

So I've been doing some digging and I've found a few answers here and there, but does anyone have any guides they could point me to that would help me in overclocking my old computer. It's an Intel Core i5-4670K processor; Asus Sabertooth z97 Mark 2/USB3.1 motherboard; Asus GTX1060 6GB graphics card; 16GB Balistix DDR3-1600.

 

As is, my computer runs fine and plays most of the games I want to play at max or near max settings. But since it's an aging (much like it's user) computer I'd like to give it a bit of a boost. I know the CPU and motherboard can be overclocked but I just don't have a ton of practical experience doing it. So this is what I'm hoping someone can help me with:

1) What should I be looking at for max speed?

2) Will I need to adjust voltages?

3) Other than the computer not starting, what are signs of instability I should be looking for?

 

I'm sure I'll have other questions, but thanks for any help you all can give!

Start without touching voltage, increase core clock and run some kind of stress test (prime95 works well for me). Rinse and repeat until you start crashing. Watch your temps and if you find your temps are too high then lower your voltage slowly.

[zombienerd]

First step should be a refurb of all thermal aspects.  Put new paste on the cooler, GPU cooler.  Clean/service your case fans.  If you're running a stock cooler, consider picking up a $20-30 tower cooler to replace it.

 

Leave your voltages alone.  Then, bump your multiplier up by 300mhz or so, and see if it will boot.  If so, hit it with a stress test, if everything looks great, try going up another 100mhz at a time until you start seeing issues, then back down to the last stable clock.  If it had issues at +300, back down to 200, then 100, etc.  At this point, you can try giving it a bit more voltage if you want a little more frequency.

I'm not sure of the voltages on the 4th gen i5's, but a quick google should tell you the maximum safe voltage.  Ideally, you want the lowest voltage that gives you a clock you're happy with.

 

Once you get to that point, you can try to play with base clock as well, sometimes underclocking base clock and pushing more multiplier can give you a little more, or raising your base clock and dropping the multiplier.

[Jurrunio]

The first thing is prepare the cooling for it, as replies before me has already mentioned.

 

The second thing is to prepare monitoring software, benchmark and stress test software. Namely Hwinfo, Riva Tuner Statistics Server, Cinebench R15 and Prime95. You use monitoring software (the first two) to get temperature and voltage readings when the system is running (RTSS allows displaying data in games in the from of an overlay, MSI afterburner and Hwinfo supports it). Cinebench R15 proves that stability isn't terrible (could still crash in stress test) and you actually get performance gains. Prime95 smallFFT mode simulates the most harsh environment a CPU can face, if you dont crash or have errors here then 99.9% of other tasks cant crash your system either.

 

The third thing is to run and record numbers at stock. This includes CPU core voltage (Vcore), CPU input voltage (Vccin) and core temperatures. These will all change at idle, Cinebench and Prime95 so ideally you'd want 3 sets of data for comparison later.

 

The fourth thing is to know the boundaries. Vcore can go up to 1.4V just fine, no reason to push Vccin past 2V, core temperatures shouldnt go past 75C if you're pushing 1.4V and 80C at 1.35V. Check with Hwinfo, as what you entered in the BIOS dont always end up being what you get.

 

Continue later

[r2724r16]

1 hour ago, TheFixxer said:

I'm sure I'll have other questions, but thanks for any help you all can give!

In case you want to overclock your GPU, here's a short guide:

- Download MSI Afterburner and Unigine Valley Benchmark.

- Increase the core clock by a bit at a time (maybe 25MHz at a time) and same goes for memory.

- Then stress test your GPU (run Unigine Valley Benchmark) for some time.

- If the application doesn't crash, then your overclock is stable but if Unigine Valley Benchmark crashes, then your overclock isn't stable. 

- If your overclock is stable, keep increasing the core/memory clock.

- If your app crashes, you have two options: either add more voltage or decrease the core/memory clock.

 

- You can also modify your fan curve in MSI Afterburner (Settings > Fan > Enable user defined software automatic fan control) to your preference. You can make it as silent or loud as you want.

- Keep your temps in check, try to stay under ~85°C when running the benchmark.

 

As for CPU overclocking, just follow @zombienerd's instructions.

[TheFixxer]

Well... thanks for the help I guess... I think I'm going to skip this since I don't understand most of what you guys are talking about. It just doesn't seem worth it anymore. Especially since I don't have time to learn not one, but apparently 5 different software suites to do this.

I was really hoping this would be easier by now and not just as complex as it was 10 to 15 years ago.