Best Stable Overclock Settings for i7 9700k?

[Lapjun]

I have never overclocked a CPU before, so I would like to know the best stable overclock settings (Pre-tested?) for the i7 9700k so I don't blow up my CPU by accident.

I have seen some people just use i9 9900k overclocking guides for the i7 9700k, but some say that its possible to overclock to a higher Ghz for the i7 9700k due to lower temps compared to i9 9900k?

I use a Corsair A500 Air Cooler.

(Btw I have an Corsair RM850x if anyone needs to know for voltage range)

[Statik]

It’s different for everyone. Go on YouTube and watch some basic tutorials, then research the things that they’re changing in bios so you have a basic understanding of the things you’re changing and what you’re doing. 
 

on here I’ve seen several in the 4.8-5.0Ghz range around 1.3V. I could be a little off on that as I mainly concern myself with the AMD Masterrace

[Constantin]

No big deal, i have the same, what i did.

I set the multiplier to 50 all cores and leave everything else to auto.

EDIT: and turn on XMP of course

[PowerBaller]

If hyperthreading is disabled, 9900K(S) is even cooler than 9700K at same freq, as they are made from better quality silicon in general, lower voltage is required to stable at a frequency. 

HyperThreading squeeze more potential from a physical core; such capability only requires a moderate amount of transistor in addition, at least not as much as that die need to be noticeably larger. When disable HT, the idle transistor however adds to the thermal area effectively. 

 

The setting really varys depending on the silicn quality of a CPU, which can varies greatly among a single model.  Even in the 9700K vs  9900K case, a ultra rare good 9700K stable at all core 5.1 at 1.265V (pass small FTTS in Prime95 without thread lost), while a trash 9900K is not even able to achieve that. 9900KS are officially binned by Intel, their quality are generaly excellent. 

 

Asus's ROG (not ROG STRIX) motherboard is able to predict your setting in AI Suite 3 (the max non avx stable, the max cache stable, and the max avx stable) , and even the silicon quality (in percentage) 

[Lapjun]

17 hours ago, PowerBaller said:

If hyperthreading is disabled, 9900K(S) is even cooler than 9700K at same freq, as they are made from better quality silicon in general, lower voltage is required to stable at a frequency. 

HyperThreading squeeze more potential from a physical core; such capability only requires a moderate amount of transistor in addition, at least not as much as that die need to be noticeably larger. When disable HT, the idle transistor however adds to the thermal area effectively. 

 

The setting really varys depending on the silicn quality of a CPU, which can varies greatly among a single model.  Even in the 9700K vs  9900K case, a ultra rare good 9700K stable at all core 5.1 at 1.265V (pass small FTTS in Prime95 without thread lost), while a trash 9900K is not even able to achieve that. 9900KS are officially binned by Intel, their quality are generaly excellent. 

 

Asus's ROG (not ROG STRIX) motherboard is able to predict your setting in AI Suite 3 (the max non avx stable, the max cache stable, and the max avx stable) , and even the silicon quality (in percentage) 

So what if I have an average 9700k?  How high can I overclock, and what should I usually set my volts to?

[tsac]

MSI did some tests, https://www.msi.com/blog/intel-9th-cpu-overclocking-5ghz-with-z390-motherboards

[Lapjun]

Just now, tsac said:

MSI did some tests, https://www.msi.com/blog/intel-9th-cpu-overclocking-5ghz-with-z390-motherboards

Thanks, but I have a Gigabyte motherboard, which has some different settings.  Gigabyte did a guide on overclocking the i9 9900k on their motherboard, but is is not the 9700k.

[PowerBaller]

4 hours ago, Lapjun said:

So what if I have an average 9700k?  How high can I overclock, and what should I usually set my volts to?

According to https://siliconlottery.com/pages/statistics. I assum an average 9700K is able to achieve stability at 5.1Ghz non avx, 4.9 Ghz avx, using the normal distribution.

 

The 9700K can turbo to all core 4.6Ghz at stock setting, first find the minimum voltage to boot it at all core 4.7Ghz, with 0 avx offset. ( Remove the limits, sync all mulitpiler to 47, manually override your core voltage), dont tune your RAM yet. Usually i start with 1.22 V for a 9700K, lower for 9900K and even lower for 9900KS. If windows is sucessfully booted, decrease the voltage by 0.01  until it cant boot. If it cant boot from the beginning, increase it by 0.02 and fire another attempt . Remark the minimum "boot" voltage for 4.7Ghz.

 

Now, estimate the min voltage of your goal by the following:  estimated voltage = ( min boot voltage /  4.7 Ghz) * Your Goal in Ghz, always round it up. 

i.g, my min boot voltage (4.7Ghz) is 1.20volt, i will start finding the min boot volt (5.0Ghz) at (1.20 / 4.7) *5.0 = 1.28 volt.

 

Once you remark the min boot voltage for your goal frequency, increase it by 0.03V, run the Intel Processor Diagonostic Tool first, then run some moderate stress test in Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, FPU in Aida64 for at least 15 min to detect if it result to Blue screen of Death. This usually detects severe instability. Increase the voltage by 0.01 if fail. 

You can also try finding the min voltage that does not result in instant failure. 

 

In order to emulate the most brutal condition your CPU will face, you need to test whether it can handle the AVX in Prime 95. Increase this voltage by a further 0.3, and run the small FTTS in Prime 95 for at least 20 min. If less than 2 of the workers ( thread ) fail, your CPU is stable in most situation at this setting. If non of them fail at all, your CPU is very close to flawless.

 

Stop at 1.42V unless liquid nitrogen is involved.

 

For long daily use, i wont't let the CPU operate at the voltage more than 1.35V; or at the setting that will boil the chip beyond 90 degree during non prime 95 stress test.

 

Dont even think about modifying the BCLK frequency if you are a beginner. It will directly effect the frequency of ram and pci devices. It is a pro touch. 

 

You will need the luck of getting a top 9% and top 1% silicon quality 9700K to acheive AVX stability at 5.0Ghz and 5.1Ghz. 

[Lapjun]

On 1/23/2020 at 10:31 PM, PowerBaller said:

According to https://siliconlottery.com/pages/statistics. I assum an average 9700K is able to achieve stability at 5.1Ghz non avx, 4.9 Ghz avx, using the normal distribution.

 

The 9700K can turbo to all core 4.6Ghz at stock setting, first find the minimum voltage to boot it at all core 4.7Ghz, with 0 avx offset. ( Remove the limits, sync all mulitpiler to 47, manually override your core voltage), dont tune your RAM yet. Usually i start with 1.22 V for a 9700K, lower for 9900K and even lower for 9900KS. If windows is sucessfully booted, decrease the voltage by 0.01  until it cant boot. If it cant boot from the beginning, increase it by 0.02 and fire another attempt . Remark the minimum "boot" voltage for 4.7Ghz.

 

Now, estimate the min voltage of your goal by the following:  estimated voltage = ( min boot voltage /  4.7 Ghz) * Your Goal in Ghz, always round it up. 

i.g, my min boot voltage (4.7Ghz) is 1.20volt, i will start finding the min boot volt (5.0Ghz) at (1.20 / 4.7) *5.0 = 1.28 volt.

 

Once you remark the min boot voltage for your goal frequency, increase it by 0.03V, run the Intel Processor Diagonostic Tool first, then run some moderate stress test in Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, FPU in Aida64 for at least 15 min to detect if it result to Blue screen of Death. This usually detects severe instability. Increase the voltage by 0.01 if fail. 

You can also try finding the min voltage that does not result in instant failure. 

 

In order to emulate the most brutal condition your CPU will face, you need to test whether it can handle the AVX in Prime 95. Increase this voltage by a further 0.3, and run the small FTTS in Prime 95 for at least 20 min. If less than 2 of the workers ( thread ) fail, your CPU is stable in most situation at this setting. If non of them fail at all, your CPU is very close to flawless.

 

Stop at 1.42V unless liquid nitrogen is involved.

 

For long daily use, i wont't let the CPU operate at the voltage more than 1.35V; or at the setting that will boil the chip beyond 90 degree during non prime 95 stress test.

 

Dont even think about modifying the BCLK frequency if you are a beginner. It will directly effect the frequency of ram and pci devices. It is a pro touch. 

 

You will need the luck of getting a top 9% and top 1% silicon quality 9700K to acheive AVX stability at 5.0Ghz and 5.1Ghz. 

Hi, I have decided I will instead get an 9900k.  Should I still run the same tests and increase the voltage by the same amount of volts?  Or is it lower? 

Thank you so much for spending your time to write this!

(I am now using a Noctua NH-D15)

[PowerBaller]

5 hours ago, Lapjun said:

Hi, I have decided I will instead get an 9900k.  Should I still run the same tests and increase the voltage by the same amount of volts?  Or is it lower? 

Thank you so much for spending your time to write this!

(I am now using a Noctua NH-D15)

The overall silicon quality of 9900K is better than that of 9700K. Even though you are still getting an average quality 9900K, the voltage require to stablized it are lower by 0.02~0.05V.

But just FYI, an air cooler is not able to suppress an OC 9900K, unless your ventilation and thermal interface are really well engineered, or you have disable Hyper Threading. 

Besides cooling, stable a 9900K requires at least above average power delivery you motherboard can offer.  And if you wish to overclock your b die ram too, avoid gigabyte motherboards. 

 

 

 

 

[Lapjun]

Accident

[Lapjun]

18 hours ago, PowerBaller said:

The overall silicon quality of 9900K is better than that of 9700K. Even though you are still getting an average quality 9900K, the voltage require to stablized it are lower by 0.02~0.05V.

But just FYI, an air cooler is not able to suppress an OC 9900K, unless your ventilation and thermal interface are really well engineered, or you have disable Hyper Threading. 

Besides cooling, stable a 9900K requires at least above average power delivery you motherboard can offer.  And if you wish to overclock your b die ram too, avoid gigabyte motherboards. 

Based on your chart, it seems fine that I have the Gigabyte Pro Wifi, as I am only overclocking CPU anyway.  Btw, is an 850w psu enough power and how many GHz is fine for air-cooling before overheating?  Also, since the 9900k can have lower voltages, as you said, should I just only add 1-2 volts instead of 3 for the adding volts to min boot voltage part and the prime 95 avx part?

[PowerBaller]

6 hours ago, Lapjun said:

Based on your chart, it seems fine that I have the Gigabyte Pro Wifi, as I am only overclocking CPU anyway.  Btw, is an 850w psu enough power and how many GHz is fine for air-cooling before overheating?  Also, since the 9900k can have lower voltages, as you said, should I just only add 1-2 volts instead of 3 for the adding volts to min boot voltage part and the prime 95 avx part?

The silicon quality reference: usually, a 9900K requires less voltage to stabilize at a speed, than a 9700K. 
But specific cases are too discrete to be analytical, i am not surprise if a good 9700k can be driven to 5.1Ghz with 1.28 volt, while a terrible 9900K requires 1.33 volt to stay calm at 5.0Ghz.

There is no way i can tell you about the exact voltage setting; you have to find it empirically.  
But this is for certain: the steady state voltage is at least 0.03 volt above your min boot voltage.

As for what goal you should be choosing, if your ventilation is good enough, your cooler is capable of keeping you cpu below safe temp threshold, when your clock speed did not exceed 5.1Ghz. Start from 4.8 all core