Hardware for overclocking a 4790k

[frooshiantee]

Budget (including currency): $300

Country: US

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Games: literally everything. Forknife, RDR2, Forza Horizon 3, GTA5, SC2

 

I want to know if my current hardware is acceptable for any overclocking of my 4790k. If not, what hardware do you recommend? I'm assuming I need to at the very least get a new cooler. The 212 EVO is so friggin loud, I can't imagine how loud it will be with hotter temps. I don't know anything about overclocking, so take it easy on me.

Could I overclock to 5ghz, and would you expect to see >10 FPS increase out of that?

Is the CPU overclocked at all times, or is it like unlocking the max potential, and sometimes it can be low temp during idle times?

 

Z97-A - Is this good enough for overclocking, do I need a new board?

Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - I know it's super popular, i hate it and think it's too loud.

Intel Core i7-4790K

EVGA W1 Series 600W 80 Plus - Is this good enough? Super cheap psu, so I think I need better.

Kingston HyperX FURY 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 CL10 - no idea if this is even relevant

GTX 1060 6GB

 

Thanks very much for taking the time to read & reply.

[ApolloX75]

I have overclocked a 4790k on the Z97-A's older brother, the Z87-A and had no issues. Those boards are more than adequate. I hit 5GHz with my 4790k on a Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H, and I think my Asus Z87-A was able to get similar results. It will all come down to the silicon lottery, how good your chip performs and handles the heat.

 

You can, after you get the system 100% stable, put the power saving states back into play so the chip clocks down if you want, but typically there's no real point.

 

You won't be able to get very far with that subpar cooler though. You'll need at the very least a good 240 or 360 AIO and ideally you'd want a really good custom loop. I was using a EK Supremacy water block and a 360 rad to handle the heat on mine.

 

Here was my final result: CPUID Validation

 

And as you can see, even with my hefty setup I was still hitting 87C under full load. So yeah, your Hyper 212 won't go far.

 

*EDIT*

Forgot to mention, I delidded too with a Rockit. Used liquid metal in between the die and IHS.

[Tech87]

37 minutes ago, frooshiantee said:

Budget (including currency): $300

Country: US

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Games: literally everything. Forknife, RDR2, Forza Horizon 3, GTA5, SC2

 

I want to know if my current hardware is acceptable for any overclocking of my 4790k. If not, what hardware do you recommend? I'm assuming I need to at the very least get a new cooler. The 212 EVO is so friggin loud, I can't imagine how loud it will be with hotter temps. I don't know anything about overclocking, so take it easy on me.

Could I overclock to 5ghz, and would you expect to see >10 FPS increase out of that?

Is the CPU overclocked at all times, or is it like unlocking the max potential, and sometimes it can be low temp during idle times?

 

Z97-A - Is this good enough for overclocking, do I need a new board?

Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - I know it's super popular, i hate it and think it's too loud.

Intel Core i7-4790K

EVGA W1 Series 600W 80 Plus - Is this good enough? Super cheap psu, so I think I need better.

Kingston HyperX FURY 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 CL10 - no idea if this is even relevant

GTX 1060 6GB

 

Thanks very much for taking the time to read & reply.

You will get much better fps gains by OCing your gpu.

 

You can use a program such as MSI afterburner.

You can find a tutorial, here.

[frooshiantee]

Thanks everyone! Very helpful!

[Somerandomtechyboi]

14 hours ago, frooshiantee said:

Z97-A - Is this good enough for overclocking, do I need a new board?

Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - I know it's super popular, i hate it and think it's too loud.

Intel Core i7-4790K

EVGA W1 Series 600W 80 Plus - Is this good enough? Super cheap psu, so I think I need better.

Kingston HyperX FURY 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 CL10 - no idea if this is even relevant

GTX 1060 6GB

Board wise flash bios to maximus vii formula for better overclocking ability via cheap bios programmer like ch341a. You can expect better ram oc and more capabilities on oc overall just for ~4$, socketed bios chip is above the 2nd pcie x16 slot, If something goes wrong you can reflash to original bios or a lower end bios like the z97 deluxe and never have to worry about bios corruption with that board

 

Cooler is meh so id upgrade it to a cheap dual tower like the fuma 2 or a brick of a single tower like the mugen 5 or macho

 

Psu should be fine and shouldnt be a problem but an upgrade is prefferable

 

Rams wise single stick or 2 sticks? Upgrade to 16gb anyways to make sure your games dont get bottlenecked by ram capacity. Have a look at this ddr3 ic thread to know the good ics you want to look after so you can get cheap generic rams with good ics so they clock high

 

 

Overclocking wise cpu is fine upto 1.55v (intel 22nm spec), they die ~1.95v so if you accidentaly run 1.8 or something like that this should save you from a panic attack, you may find a benifit from 125bclk strap cpu freq wise so higher clocks for a given voltage, x79/x99 bclk oc threads have some more info on bclk oc if you are interested in that extra 100-200mhz. I do reccomend overclocking the balls off the gpu so all limit sliders to the right and start ocing, gpus arent that adjustable so no worries but if yours happens to be really adjustable then ocp and thermal throttling will save you