Can you overclock the BCLK on a non K CPU?

[JoostinOnline]

I always see K series CPU's marketed as having an unlocked multiplier.  What about the base clock?  Is it locked on regular CPU's?

[Spork829]

Yes it's locked, unless you get a few specific motherboards and use a few specific old BIOS's, then it can work and you can OC some non-k chips. Not worth it IMO.

[iRileyx]

Yes you can overclock with the BCLK on locked cpu's but it's not really recommended. 

[corrado33]

4 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

I always see K series CPU's marketed as having an unlocked multiplier.  What about the base clock?  Is it locked on regular CPU's?

Yes you can, but it's... difficult. Changing the base clock does more than overclocks the CPU, it also simultaneously overclocks the memory and PCIe lanes. You often need to then UNDER clock both the memory and PCIe lanes to get the computer to be stable. Most PCI/PCIe cards don't like to run at anything other than 100 MHz.

[vorticalbox]

2 minutes ago, RKRiley said:

Yes you can overclock with the BCLK on locked cpu's but it's not really recommended. 

that's only because it's a massive balancing act as the bclk overclocked everything, ram and data so you have an increased risk of data corruption.

 

I wouldn't say its not recommended the bclk can be used ti push a cpu up higher than multiplier alone.

[JoostinOnline]

1 minute ago, corrado33 said:

Yes you can, but it's... difficult. Changing the base clock does more than overclocks the CPU, it also simultaneously overclocks the memory and PCIe lanes. You often need to then UNDER clock both the memory and PCIe lanes to get the computer to be stable. Most PCI/PCIe cards don't like to run at anything other than 100 MHz.

I'm aware of the instability that can be caused by increasing the base clock, I was just curious.

[Froody129]

3 minutes ago, RKRiley said:

Yes you can overclock with the BCLK on locked cpu's but it's not really recommended. 

I have an i5 6600 on Z170. If I understand correctly you flash the other BIOS and then you can BCLK OC right? Currently my BCLK is unlocked but over 3% and it immediate crash

[iRileyx]

1 minute ago, vorticalbox said:

that's only because it's a massive balancing act as the bclk overclocked everything, ram and data so you have an increased risk of data corruption.

 

I wouldn't say its not recommended the bclk can be used ti push a cpu up higher than multiplier alone.

True but if you're a newb which I'm gonna guess this guy is with having to ask if it's even doable, I'm not gonna recommend it to him. 

[iRileyx]

2 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

Yes you can, but it's... difficult. Changing the base clock does more than overclocks the CPU, it also simultaneously overclocks the memory and PCIe lanes. You often need to then UNDER clock both the memory and PCIe lanes to get the computer to be stable. Most PCI/PCIe cards don't like to run at anything other than 100 MHz.

I think skylake and kaby lake use a separate bclk for the pci lanes, or so I've heard. 

[JoostinOnline]

1 minute ago, RKRiley said:

True but if you're a newb which I'm gonna guess this guy is with having to ask if it's even doable, I'm not gonna recommend it to him. 

I think newbie is a little harsh lol.  I did a google search awhile back and found mixed answers.

[iRileyx]

1 minute ago, JoostinOnline said:

I think newbie is a little harsh lol.  I did a google search awhile back and found mixed answers.

If you've never done bclk overclocking before then you're a newbie to it, didn't mean it as an offence

 

Remember we've all gotta start somewhere though. 

[corrado33]

2 minutes ago, RKRiley said:

I think skylake and kaby lake use a separate bclk for the pci lanes, or so I've heard. 

I think you are correct. I've only overclocked BCLK with old Core 2 Duo processors. 

 

(And in all honesty, it was a pain in the ass. See, you can't just SET the memory frequency. It's a multiplier, like the CPU. And there are only certain multipliers available. So it's often very difficult to have the right multiplier to be able to have stable memory. It takes a crap ton of trial and error, and a crap ton of resetting the CMOS.)

[JoostinOnline]

1 minute ago, RKRiley said:

If you've never done bclk overclocking before then you're a newbie to it, didn't mean it as an offence

I thought you meant in general lol, but none taken.  I've just never tried to overclock what is considered a non-overclockable CPU.

[typographie]

1 minute ago, JoostinOnline said:

I'm aware of the instability that can be caused by increasing the base clock, I was just curious.

That issue is specific to architectures other than Skylake (and maybe Kaby Lake). Skylake decoupled the BCLK from many other clocks on the board, so using the BCLK is a perfectly viable tool when overclocking K-series Skylake(/Kaby Lake?) processors. You don't have to stick to small single-digit increases, either.

 

To the best of my knowledge, only Skylake locked CPUs were ever able to overclock in the way mentioned above. It was unofficial and Intel/the motherboard manufacturers quickly patched it out. It's still possible but you need certain motherboards running certain old BIOS versions, and I think it disables certain CPU features to do so, such as the iGPU and some instruction sets.

[vorticalbox]

2 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

I thought you meant in general lol, but none taken.  I've just never tried to overclock what is considered a non-overclockable CPU.

I got my i3 from 3.1 to 3.2 using the BLCK, remember to watch memory speed as it will increase so you have to adjust the memory multiplier to keep it same.

 

5 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

I think you are correct. I've only overclocked BCLK with old Core 2 Duo processors.

I did this with a PC I got for free from college. I actually did it in the class as I finished all my work. Temps were fine but damn the psu got hot. It was a throw away from another college that we got to rebuild for the unit.

[JoostinOnline]

5 minutes ago, typographie said:

That issue is specific to architectures other than Skylake (and maybe Kaby Lake). Skylake decoupled the BCLK from many other clocks on the board, so using the BCLK is a perfectly viable tool when overclocking K-series Skylake(/Kaby Lake?) processors. You don't have to stick to small single-digit increases, either.

Well I have a 4790K, which is Haswell.  It runs hot out of the box, so I'm not ready to touch the base clock.

[corrado33]

6 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

Well I have a 4790K, which is Haswell.  It runs hot out of the box, so I'm not ready to touch the base clock.

Why would you even want to touch the base clock on an unlocked processor?

[JoostinOnline]

1 minute ago, corrado33 said:

Why would you even want to touch the base clock on an unlocked processor?

Well sometimes it can get a little extra out of it, but I don't really plan to touch the base clock because it's too much work.  This was just a question on the possibility.

[typographie]

1 minute ago, corrado33 said:

Why would you even want to touch the base clock on an unlocked processor?

As I understand it, this actually used to be the normal way to overclock a processor. You could decide between a higher multiplier/lower base clock, or lower multiplier/higher base clock and depending on your silicon one may give you a better result for the same overclock. This is possible with Skylake, where you can do 4.6 GHz as 100 MHz * 46 or 200 MHz * 23, though most just use the multiplier.

[lolvatveo]

only skylake have a overclokable microcode, but not by intergrated cpu clock generator