2500k Overclocking

[boozie]

So I was thinking about doing a light overclock on my 2500k.

- How far can/should I go with the stock cooler?
- Any guides/software I should use?

I've seen http://www.overclockers.com/forums/...Beginners-How-to-set-your-25-6-700K-to-4-5Ghz which has a TON of information but I'm not looking to go the distance.

 

[Yuriman]

With the stock cooler, 4GHz is probably around what's achievable and safe, give or take, but it's on a case-to-case basis. You'll want to stop when temperatures get too high.

You can use Intel's Extreme Tuning Utility, but there's a certain amount of setup that needs to be done in bios first. Overclocking from BIOS is usually best. How you do this will vary from board to board; what board do you have?

 

[Ketchup]

I never used the stock cooler (well, not until it went into my file server) but using the cooler in my sig 4 GHz was cake, and it will probably be the same with the stock cooler.

Compared to CPU's I have had in the past, this chip seems to hit a wall: starts off accelerating like there's no tomorrow, then at a certain speed needs extreme measures (voltage) to go much further. I know that the better coolers help here, but a decent chip (I remember seeing a few, but not many, report that they couldn't get much out of theirs) should overclock pretty well, even on the stock cooler.

 

[Yuriman]

I never used the stock cooler (well, not until it went into my file server) but using the cooler in my sig 4 GHz was cake, and it will probably be the same with the stock cooler.

Compared to CPU's I have had in the past, this chip seems to hit a wall: starts off accelerating like there's no tomorrow, then at a certain speed needs extreme measures (voltage) to go much further. I know that the better coolers help here, but a decent chip (I remember seeing a few, but not many, report that they couldn't get much out of theirs) should overclock pretty well, even on the stock cooler.

Using the stock cooler, I hit around 95c at 4GHz while it's closer to 65c with a Hyper 212 Evo. A 2500K will put out more heat, but Sandy Bridge is also known to run cooler (despite creating more heat) because of the IHS gap / lack of solder on later chips. I couldn't guess what temperatures OP would see on the stock cooler but on my Ivy Bridge, 4.0-4.2 was about the limit.

 

[Charlie98]

If you wind up manually OC'ing your chip, depending on your mobo, try undervolting with an overclock first... don't just automatically start pumping up the voltage. I had temps in the 80C's with a 212+ at stock voltage (using LinX as a tester, I think.) When I undervolted it, temps dropped while still maintaining a stable OC of 4.1GHz... where it's been for the past 3 years.

 

[Z15CAM]

What;s your MB, PSU and Ram?

 

[billbobaggins87]

4.0 on stock cooler. I have changed cooler since first purchase however for a half year i ran my setup at 4.0 with absolutely no issues on a stock cooler. no need to change voltage. just pop into bios and bump it to 4.. ezpz enjoy

 

[cantholdanymore]

4.0 on stock cooler. I have changed cooler since first purchase however for a half year i ran my setup at 4.0 with absolutely no issues on a stock cooler. no need to change voltage. just pop into bios and bump it to 4.. ezpz enjoy

So much this.

 

[boozie]

Here's my PC info:

ASRock P67 PRO3
Antec EarthWatts EA-500D Green 500W
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

I might need a push in the right direction if I need to tinker with my RAM if I should be matching anything up to my CPU speeds.

Again, I'm looking for a comfortable set it and forget it amount, realizing that there is a bit of trial and adjustment involved up front. Thanks everybody for the advice.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

A Hyper212 is worth the meager investment (~$20). You'll be able to run that 2500K @ 4.4 - 4.6GHz easy.

 

[LagunaX]

You can try the auto overclock Asrock utility in the bios.

4ghz by just changing the multipler to 40 as stated above should be fine.

You can try 4.2ghz at the highest using the auto overclock utility with the stock cooler but keep a close eye that your stress load temps don't exceed mid 70's - otherwise you need a better cooler.

Use Realtemp to monitor your temps and a decent but not too hot stress test is the Asus ROG RealBench program - just select stress test instead of the default benchmark, pick 8gb of ram, and choose 1 hour. Stop if it gets too hot.
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2089/real-temp-3-70/mirrors
http://rog.asus.com/file/?download=RealBench_v2.41.zip