Overclocking an i5-12600K

[1sascha]

Been years and eight CPU-generations since I last did this with my old system, so I could use some pointers here:

 

Got an MSI Z690 Tomahawk Wifi DDR4 with an i5-12600K and 2x8GB of Corsair Vengeance Pro CL18 3600 DDR4. Here's what it looked like stock with just XMP enabled (sorry about the missing voltages..):

 

 

Pic was taken after multiple runs of 3DMark Demo and Passmark's full benchmark. Powers aren't visible, but according to HWMonitor, the CPU never reached its TDP of 125W (max was ~114 IIRC).

 

So I thought there's some headroom available and jumped into the BIOS.

 

Didn't change a whole lot, since I don't even know what half of the settings mean. I set the OC to "indivdual cores" and raised the desired frequency to 5000 MHz on all performance cores (1-6) - left the E-cores alone, didn't mess with voltages or voltage limits or anything like that.

The result was a pretty decent uplift in Passmark's CPU benchmark (over 10% higher overall CPU score). It also raised my temps by quite a bit. In the BIOS, I did set up my case-fans and the ones on my 240 AiO-rad beforehand to make sure I'd get maximum airflow/cooling. 

Temps and Voltages after the quick and dirty OC were:

Core 0: 88°C / 1.321

Core 1: 93 / 1.326

Core 2: 92 / 1.318

Core 3: 96 / 1.326

Core 4: 91 / 1.325

Core 5: 92 / 1.324

Package: 96°

 

Power consumption during benchmarking shot way up and peaked at 181W - well above the recommended turbo max of 150 (<- IIRC).

 

And here's what it looks like idling at the desktop/browsing the web:

 

 

I'm guessing I should probably play around with the individual frequencies a bit (like raise core0, lower core3), but what else is there to do? Should I use enhanced turbo mode or even just a general turbo offset instead of the individual overclock? Do I mess with voltages or voltage offset or do I leave that on automatic? Should I worry about the high wattage? Wouldn't want to torture my CPU too much, especially since I still have a very obvious bottleneck in my system in the form of my 1060 3GB GPU.

 

Thanks for your input!

 

Sascha

[Somerandomtechyboi]

11 minutes ago, 1sascha said:

Temps and Voltages after the quick and dirty OC were:

Core 0: 88°C / 1.321

Core 1: 93 / 1.326

Core 2: 92 / 1.318

Core 3: 96 / 1.326

Core 4: 91 / 1.325

Core 5: 92 / 1.324

Package: 96°

that kind of temp ruins your oc, 105c is fine for stock but if you are trying to oc then above 85c usually ruins your oc capability

 

15 minutes ago, 1sascha said:

Power consumption during benchmarking shot way up and peaked at 181W

And i thought x58 was bad even on low volts

 

 

Dont bother raising volts above 1.3v cause ~1.3v is just diminishing returns, better off with 1.25v or 1.2v though for a max volt just assume its ~1.5v if you can somehow cool the thing at that volt

 

You may see better clocks for a given voltage with bclk 130 or higher so you may wanna screw around with bclk oc (pcie freq is the real bclk so dont f around with that cause instability), adjust the ram accordingy

 

20 minutes ago, 1sascha said:

Corsair Vengeance Pro CL18 3600 DDR4

You can get b die with corsair but its usually trash b die so dont expect any decent ocability

[1sascha]

Hmm.. guess I'll have to get deeper into this... or simply revert back to stock settings...

 

Adjusted cores 1 and 3 to 4900MHz, all other P-cores left at 5000.

 

Cores 1 and 3 still running hotter... what to do here? Undervolt? Lowering the frequency would put me right back to stock frequency, because I can only adjust in steps of 100 MHz.

 

23 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Dont bother raising volts above 1.3v cause ~1.3v is just diminishing returns, better off with 1.25v or 1.2v though for a max volt just assume its ~1.5v if you can somehow cool the thing at that volt

Like I said: None of this was me... I left all the voltage settings on Auto.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

23 minutes ago, 1sascha said:

I left all the voltage settings on Auto

 

24 minutes ago, 1sascha said:

Cores 1 and 3 still running hotter... what to do here? Undervolt? Lowering the frequency would put me right back to stock frequency, because I can only adjust in steps of 100 MHz.

Just your typical garbage cores, also stock freq at lower volt is still fine, if you are actually serious about overclocking then id expect some sort of cooling system that can keep the cpu at 60c or less at all times and also playing around with bclk strap, even with those youd prob only expect 5.3-5.5 depending on how far you wanna push the volt (even 1.5v would prob be useless)

 

Its not like the old days were 50% gains from ocing was pretty common assuming you arent a sissy with voltages and had adequate board and cooling (+ rams if on a bclk/fsb oc platform), you can only expect 10% nowadays which is not bad but if you ruin your power efficiency then its not really worth it, with ludicrous cooling and no fear of volt maybe you could expect closer to 20% but still not worth it cause cost and efficiency gets thrown out the window

[1sascha]

Oh well... until I acquire a bit more in-depth knowledge....

 

I chickened out, reset everything to stock and then used the auto OC function of my BIOS, which as far as I can make out, activates MSI's so called gamebooster and activates turbo offset.

 

Default is +1 on both the P-cores and E-cores. I adjusted it to +2 on both, then to +3 on the P-cores and +2 on the E-cores.

 

Results:

P+2, E+2:

and here's P+3, E+2:

+2 on both already gave me very similar benchmark results as setting all cores to 5000 MHz, but with much lower voltages and way less power consumption.

+3P / +2E gave me a bit higher results than with 5000 MHz on all cores and still didn't yield crazy Wattage (156 vs 181W).

 

So I guess lazy EZ-mode will do for now...