guide for beginners: how to OC your i7-5960x

[FlanK3r]

I believe, there can be people, who never heard about overlocking or dont much understand how to do. Specialy with big and expensive chip as Haswell-E. So this firts part of guide can help you. In next week there will be more concret part for intermediate

 

1)from BIOS with Wizard autotuning

Take F11 key or click mouse to Ez Tuning Wizard

 

Next step is how lokks your CPU now

 

Daily computer (office 5960X PC:rofl:) or gaming PC?

 

Choice your cooling system (I have Noctua NHD14, but I tried liquid cooling)

 

Check your future

 

Some warning about if will be unstable, set it back to default (F5 in BIOS)

 

Result is near the 4 GHz, but with a little tweaked DRAMs (XMP profile+light BCLK boost). Voltage is very good and near the average retails CPUs 5960x at this clocks.

 

 

2)from OS with AI Suite software

Its easy, take choice your goal (4, 4.2, 4.4 GHz) and click to the next. System will be optimized not only by frequency. Screens tells more than me .

 

 

 

 

 

Final results is 4400 MHz with 1.315V at CPU and default cache and JEDEC memory frequency. The Cinebench score is very good. 

[FireFox]

Unless I am a little nieve I like to think that if anyone has the pocket for something like a Core i7-5960X then they'd have a basic understanding of how to OC it.

[RelentlessAF]

Why would beginners buy a $1000 CPU?

[RelentlessAF]

Unless I am a little nieve I like to think that if anyone has the pocket for something like a Core i7-5960X then they'd have a basic understanding of how to OC it.

God Damnit, ninja'd

[FireFox]

God Damnit, ninja'd

 

You are now my bitch

[FlanK3r]

the idea of basic OC (Pentium G3258 or i5-4670/90k or Athlon 760K/860K) is the same with this utility at Asus board. But now Im playing wwith 5960x so is nonesne for me switching to the another chipset+CPU for guide .

[FlanK3r]

Part with overOCng. For reminder, my cooling system is simply Noctua NHD14. I tested in AIDA stress test for 30min. I tried two combination. One with BCLK around 100 MHz and second with STRAP 125. I pushed memory clock to the higher clocks and cache clock also. Stabilize high cache, RAM and CPU is very stress for CPU overall, so with lower cache and decent RAMs you can get CPU frequency around +100 MHz higher.

Later for some guys I can post exactly BIOS settings for average 5960X chips.

 

Decent profile

I started at "decent" 4200 MHz. 1.22V was necessary for full stable of my retail piece, RAM 3200 MHz and cache 4 GHz. Load stress temps in AIDA stress test were between 75-80 C, not bad.

 

The best stable performance profile-named OC1 in graphs

It was very hard to get stable 4300 MHz, now I need 1.32V, power consumption jumping up (as you see later in graphs). Temps up to 93 C, small reserve is still here . I tried 4200 MHz cache, but it was not full stable...

 

Second stable performance profile with 125BCLK strap and a bit lower cache and memory clocks-OC2 in graphs

For 4376 MHz I tried temperatures limits, but not why. Right overclocker must pushing to the limits sometimes . Cache clocks was here 3876 MHz (is mistake in description note at printscreen) and RAM 3000 DDR4. I set cpu voltage to the 1.35V, for AIDA stress test hitted temps over 100C, yeah baby:D. This profile has similar average performance as OC1 with lower CPU clocks (but higher cache+memory). Sometimes is better, but lower cache and memory clocks are for some tests important...

 

old bench days-Cinebench R10, I started promote it for hwbot many years ago ...

 

So time for graphs

 

-the higher cache in OC1 profile and better RAMs means in memory tests clearly win.

 

 

-ufff, all modern chips are so quickly in wprime1024, but under 100s now with air?!

 

-Frtizchess test over 30k points? Wtf?! Where are the times when I was happy for 10k barrier :-)

 

-Cinebenchs are so awesome for this monsters

 

-ideal CPU for x264 (and sure for x265 4k) video encoding

 

 

-Far Cry II is very sensitive for CPU (in lower resolutions specially). I had not tested 4960/3930K in this benchamrk and I do not bulid again this CPUs for only few tests...So for Far Cry II graph I changed these CPU for i7-3770K and FX-8350. 

 

Power consumption for 5960X after OC is really big. Big chip, higher voltage= overheating, more current suply, need VRM active cooling. 390 Watts is without GPU load, so with GPU could be around 500W (270X-r9 now)

 

 

This is not all, later max benchmarks at air and we will se what happens with LN2 later . Im afraid from old SF3D LN2 pot...Petri or Ryba, can me change old one for new one for free?

[harrynowl]

Unless I am a little nieve I like to think that if anyone has the pocket for something like a Core i7-5960X then they'd have a basic understanding of how to OC it.

You'd be ever so surprised. The amount of people I see buying these new X99 chips that don't know the first thing about overclocking is kind of funny.

[FireFox]

You'd be ever so surprised. The amount of people I see buying these new X99 chips that don't know the first thing about overclocking is kind of funny.

 

More money than sense lol

[FlanK3r]

many buyers can be hardcore gamers, but the know much about overclocking. Its another group of people than me . Im know a lot about OC, but not much about games and gaming community (I lost it after Quake3 and CS time)