Is 1.45v "too much" for an i7 2600k?

[JoeCoke]

Sooo I just recently switched to this "beast" of a CPU, right now I have it overclocked to 4.7ghz with 1.4v and it's completely stable. My motherboard is the Asus p8z77-v lk.

It's VRM cooling is a little shrimpy, so just to be extra safe I have a 80mm fan strapped over the VRM heatsink and everything is running great and cool right now.

 

 

So basically I'm wondering if it would be safe to push the voltage just a liiiittle further. I've been reading around and seeing lots of mixed opinions on that. Some say always stay under 1.4v, some even say they're running 1.5v (yikes, no fuckin' way I'd push that far, even if it was "safe"). A lot of those threads are pretty old though, I want some fresh opinions. My temps stay in the mid 60s while running prime95, and the VRMs are staying pretty cool considering they have decent active cooling. Temps aren't really my worry here.

 

The system almost wants to be stable at 4.8ghz, I can run cinebench over and over and it's fine, but prime95 starts failing after like 30 seconds. I kinda want to get to that 4.8ghz stable, maybe even shoot for 4.9ghz, but I'm sure I'll just call it good at 4.8 because this will be a 24/7 overclock.

 

So, to reiterate, I'm asking if 1.45v would be too much on a 2600k, honestly let me know if you think 1.4v is too much also, this guy has to last me till' Zen2 finally drops, honestly this thing is doing everything I wanna do great, I might even camp till Zen3. Thanks in advance.

 

(Full specs in sig)

[WereCat]

Its on a high side. If you can cool it well it should be fine mostly, unless you constantly run it at or near 100% load then I would not run it at 1.45V.

I was using my i7 4770k at 1.41V for about a year and its till working fine but I stepped down to 1.38V and -100MHz just to be safe as I am pushing it a lot lately and the CPU would definitely not like it at those voltages for too long.

Besides, 100MHz makes no difference in real world performance vs benchmarks so if you just need those volts to push +100MHz to get better score in a benchmark, sure... go for it. Otherwise, dont bother.

[JoeCoke]

1 minute ago, WereCat said:

Its on a high side. If you can cool it well it should be fine mostly, unless you constantly run it at or near 100% load then I would not run it at 1.45V.

I was using my i7 4770k at 1.41V for about a year and its till working fine but I stepped down to 1.38V and -100MHz just to be safe as I am pushing it a lot lately and the CPU would definitely not like it at those voltages for too long.

Besides, 100MHz makes no difference in real world performance vs benchmarks so if you just need those volts to push +100MHz to get better score in a benchmark, sure... go for it. Otherwise, dont bother.

Oh yeah, I'm certainly aware that 100mhz is meaningless. 4.8ghz is just a pretty number. Thanks for the input.

[JoeCoke]

I've decided that I'm just gonna stay at 1.4v and 4.7ghz just to be on the safe side, as tempting as it is. Just for fun I bumped it up to 1.45v just for a second to see what I'd get, 4.9ghz completed Cinebench and scored 960 points, and 5ghz kept ALMOST wanting to finish, but couldn't quite. No bluescreens, but the program would crash. So... 1.4v 4.7ghz seems fine.

Though, if anyone else has had experience running at higher voltages, I'd still really value your opinions!

[xg32]

you are probably still gonna degrade the chip mildly at 1.4, i ran mine at 1.42 and it lost 100mhz after a year, then after that the vrm went, and there are users that sits on 1.4 for 3 years with no problems. It's a dice roll. It's more of a stress on the vrm than the chip, and it's an old motherboard by now, i'd stick with 4.7

[FellTheSky]

not worth it for 24/7. Gains are marginal. If you really need more performance, you should upgrade.

 

But its always fun to see how much can you push it

[JoeCoke]

2 hours ago, FellTheSky said:

not worth it for 24/7. Gains are marginal. If you really need more performance, you should upgrade.

 

But its always fun to see how much can you push it

Yeah, like I said, I was just going for pretty numbers. My FX was already doing me fine before this, and this thing is a LOT faster than that, so I'll survive.

[Oalei]

CPU is more sturdier than mobo like 1.4v is still safe if you go over like 1.5v I would say don't it's killing the CPU if your mobo is not good enough.

[jones177]

I ended up taking the overclock off my i7 2600k because it was killing the motherboard and there were no good replacement options.

That was in 2016. It still lasted till 2018. Even at stock it performed well hooked up to a 3400 X 1440 monitor with GTX 1080 ti.