OCing a 4690K

Omgyourmom · September 11, 2014

Hey everyone. I assembled my new machine today and got the following results so far:

CPU CORE ratio: 40

CPU Voltage 1.025

CPU RING Ratio: 39

CPU RING VOLTAGE: 1.050

I'm using a MSI G55 SLI and a Corsair H60. Ambient temp of 26.66C. Intel Burn Test gives me approx ~72C max temp.

So, how should i proceed in continuing my overclock? Also, I saw the burn test drop to ~65C or even lower sometimes, is this due to bad placement of thermal paste? Or should I allow the thermal paste itself to 'burn in' aswell? Help is appreciated. Thanks!

Chronos5618 · September 11, 2014

I did much the same research when I came to overclocking my 4690K. General rule of thumb I found is a max voltage of 1.3V, if you don't want to run the risk of reducing the life of the chip. However, we are talking the difference between it failing after 10 years or 9 years and 5 months. Anything beyond 1.4v for any length of time, and you are looking at damaging the chip permanently. Also note, when running your stress-tests, always set your voltage to manual as otherwise you can expect so very nasty voltage spikes that can fry the chip if not managed.

I use Aida64, because it is specifically set-up for Haswell (unlike many others, which are not). If you only want to dial in the overclock once and aren't going to be doing it all the time, download the trial and use that. I also use Intel Burn Test (10 passes, max setting) to confirm the stability of an overclock as it usually finds the fault very quickly. However, I wouldn't use that all the time- far too intensive on the CPU and doesn't emulate real life situations at all. I use it more for peace of mind on stability.

Lastly, temperatures is a balance of heat and noise. You can overclock higher, with decent temperatures but it may well get your fans going at a rate that is too loud for you. While you aren't going to burn out your chip (they cut off at 100 degrees), I personally wouldn't want anything above 80 for max usage all the time, with 70 being what I would normally expect doing intensive work.

So, to sum up- absolute max voltage= 1.4V (don't recommend going that high), set voltage to manual while testing (then to adaptive once finished), use Aida64 if possible to confirm stability and possibly Intel Burn Test if you really are a stickler for stability (though running Aida for 12 hours+ should give the same peace of mind and I would usually stick to this) and stay below 90 degrees but find a balance between noise and temperature that you feel is sensible and comfortable...usually around the 70 degree mark.

LogicalDrm · September 11, 2014

So, how should i proceed in continuing my overclock? Also, I saw the burn test drop to ~65C or even lower sometimes, is this due to bad placement of thermal paste? Or should I allow the thermal paste itself to 'burn in' aswell? Help is appreciated. Thanks!

You have really much headroom there. I would stop when max temps reach 87C. Temps dropping occasionally isn't because of bad thermal paste. You'd see temps rising rapidly if that would be the case. Its more because the software is distributing load to all cores and if you are watchinbg package temp, its average of all cores. Thermal paste doesn't need to be burnt in. You are fine with it.

I would use another stress software to verify your results, temps and stability. OCCT, Aida64 and XTU are good ones. I found out that having stable overclock with IBT wasn't that stable when I tried it with OCCT.