ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility - Need some assistance

[Stg-Flame]

It's been a long time since I overclocked a system and seeing as how I just built this rig last month, I wanted to test it fully before overclocking (plus my second GPU was DoA and it took three weeks to get a new one).

Given my specs below, can anyone give me a base guideline as to what I could be able to safely see from my hardware? My case is not liquid cooled, but it does have two 200mm fans and one 120mm. Like I said, it's been a very long time since I did any overclocking and I've never overclocked a CPU (only my GPUs in the past), so any advice is greatly appreciated.

My Heatsink

I have done some research and based off what I've read from various sites and what I am seeing on this utility, I am fairly lost. Can someone give me some advice or a beginners guide for overclocking a CPU when using this utility or can someone suggest a different (better?) alternative as well as a guide for that? Given how much money I've spent on this rig and how long it's taken to get everything together, I really don't want to screw this up and end up melting my CPU.

[Jaydip]

Can you get your hands on "Intel Extreme tuning" utility?It works like a charm

[Stg-Flame]

I'll google it and check it out. I figured I would use this utility since it came with my motherboard and it was held in high regard for overclocking by various people on different sites.

[Stg-Flame]

After looking at that one, it still doesn't make much sense to me.

Sorry, I really know nothing about voltages and clocks on a CPU. Give me any nVidia GPU and I can hit the highest clock speeds without melting it on any system, but I just don't understand the CPU clocks.

[PrincessFrosty]

It's my understanding that IvyBridge run hot, at least hotter than SandyBridge, and so clock speeds on air tend to top out around 4.5Ghz.

I don't have the 212 heatsink, but as I understand it they're more of a budget class cooler and the temps show, check out some benchmarks of the various top end coolers to get an idea of where the 212 HSF are.

For my main rig I bought a ThermalRight TRUE Spirit 140, it's only beaten by a few other HSF but it's about 1/2 the prices of all its competitors which makes it a great price to performance in the high end.

[Stg-Flame]

Originally Posted by PrincessFrosty

It's my understanding that IvyBridge run hot, at least hotter than SandyBridge, and so clock speeds on air tend to top out around 4.5Ghz.

I don't have the 212 heatsink, but as I understand it they're more of a budget class cooler and the temps show, check out some benchmarks of the various top end coolers to get an idea of where the 212 HSF are.

For my main rig I bought a ThermalRight TRUE Spirit 140, it's only beaten by a few other HSF but it's about 1/2 the prices of all its competitors which makes it a great price to performance in the high end.

If I knew how to hit 4.5GHz, I would be happy, but I don't know what to modify in order to hit that number. As of right now, my system is running cooler at idle than what most benchmarks show for my CPU, but I would love to know how to hit 4.5.

[Jaydip]

If you need any help with "Intel Extreme tuning" let me know

[PrincessFrosty]

Originally Posted by Stg-Flame

If I knew how to hit 4.5GHz, I would be happy, but I don't know what to modify in order to hit that number. As of right now, my system is running cooler at idle than what most benchmarks show for my CPU, but I would love to know how to hit 4.5.

Overclocking the unlocked Intel chips is extremely simple, keep upping the CPU multiplier and benchmarking until you start BSODing, to get faster speeds you'll need to increase your vCore to bring back stability.

Basically higher overclocks require more voltage to the chip, you need to increase vCore in smalls steps until stability returns. Ideally you want the least vCore that a given clock speed will run at, this is because higher vCore brings higher temps.

Keep an eye on voltage and temps, you don't really want to start exceeding about 80 degrees under full load, and about 1.4v vCore.

[Deaks2]

Best guide to oc'ing on an Asrock board: http://www.overclock.net/t/1198504/c...-edition/0_100

[felang]

Originally Posted by Deaks2

Best guide to oc'ing on an Asrock board: http://www.overclock.net/t/1198504/c...-edition/0_100

+1

[Yuriman]

Here's my guide to overclocking with Intel's utility:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2275027

[Stg-Flame]

Thanks for the guides.