Cryorig h7 cooler on i5 6600k

August 6, 2016

How far can i overclock the i5 6600k with the cryorig h7?

Starelementpoke · August 6, 2016

1 minute ago, Endrivia said:

How far can i overclock the i5 6600k with the cryorig h7?

Couldn't tell you. Silicon lottery dictates a large part of that. Only way to know for sure is to trial and error.

XTankSlayerX · August 6, 2016

We don't know

It depends on a few things.

all we can really say is, you're going to have to try and see what numbers you get.

aisle9 · August 6, 2016

5 minutes ago, Endrivia said:

How far can i overclock the i5 6600k with the cryorig h7?

Welcome to LTT! This is the part where you learn about the "silicon lottery". Basically, all chips are not created equal. The same die is produced, and those that perform spectacularly become the highest-end unlocked i7's. Those that perform miserably become Celerons. The i5 chips are those that don't perform well with hyperthreading enabled on four cores, but their performance on four cores alone is great.

Within that subset, still not all CPUs are equal. Intel doesn't test individual CPUs to see how high they can go without breaking because, well, breaking their $250 i5's on the production line is bad for business. One 6600K might be capable of hitting 4.4GHz on low-range air cooling before thermal throttling becomes a problem, but another may only make it to 4.1GHz before it needs so much voltage to keep going that temperatures become unreasonably high. The most pronounced example of this that I've seen was the G3258. Some lucky souls were able to push 4.8GHz on 212 EVOs or H7s, others only made it to 4.0-4.2 before the amount of voltage needed to move forward was beyond the safe range for the CPU.

Basically, if you hit on all six numbers in the silicon lottery, you can push that 6600K really far on an H7, but hitting six of six is comparatively rare. More than likely, you'll end up hitting on three numbers. I'd consider something like 4.4GHz to be a good overclock on an H7, but again, I've seen 4.6GHz reported and I've seen 4.2GHz cried over. Good luck!