Trouble Overclocking i5-6600k past 4.2GHz

[Chrysaetos_]

Hey guys, I'm a bit new to overclocking and could use some help here. As the title says, I can't get past 4.2GHz, which is only .3GHz over turbo. But first, my system setup -

 

Mobo - ASRock Z170M Pro4s 

CPU - i5-6600k

Ram - 2x8 G.Skill Ripjaw V 2133 (Note that this ram can't be overclocked by my motherboard)

Cooler - Hyper 212 Evo

 

BCLK is set to 100MHz. I've been adjusting the All Core CPU Ratio, and setting a fixed VCore Voltage. Have not touched ram at all.

 

I started small and made incremental changes. System is stable at -

4.0GHz @ 1.2V

4.1GHz @ 1.21V

4.2GHz @ 1.23V

 

However, when trying to step up to 4.3GHz, I got all the way up to 1.28V before I stopped testing. At that point it will run for about 15 minutes in Prime95 before crashing. Interestingly, my hardware monitor said my VCore was only at 1.264V, even though it was set at 1.28V in bios. It's been doing similar things at every level, and I have no idea what that's about. Temperatures haven't been crazy, at about 73°C when at 1.23V, and ended at about 82°C with 1.28V.

 

Not sure what I'm doing wrong here. Is it the ram? Did I just lose the silicon lottery? Should I keep going? It seems like quite a few people are hitting 4.5GHz @ 1.3V, while I'm about to hit that at 4.3GHz and my temps are getting pretty high.

 

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

 

 

[Crunchy Dragon]

You might just have to up the voltage; 1.4v is when you don't want to run it constantly, 1.5v is recommended to avoid running at all costs.

 

Sounds like you're not doing too well on the silicon lottery though.

[Jurrunio]

that voltage drop off is normal. VRMs are never 100% accurate in voltage they output, so rather than risk having them send too much in the attempt of matching voltage output to that entered in the BIOS, we would rather have the output lower than that in BIOS

 

It's getting kinda hot as well, so cooling is another problem.

[Lazarus23]

Hi Chrysaetos, I have a bad chip like you. 1.28v is quite a low voltage. First of all I advise you don't run Prime95 it will really torture your cpu and it's not realistic, I don't know if it's the current version or what, but it rocketed my cpu to 90c in 10 seconds before I stopped, run something like aida64 for 30mins and that will be enough. Also download the CoreTemp software for accurate temps: https://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/ 

So run aida64 for 30mins and tell me the temps at 1.28v I think you can go a little higher with your OC.