Average OC for 2500K?

pantsaregood

Senior member
Feb 13, 2011
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Sandy Bridge generally seems to overclock pretty well, so I'm curious of how far people here have managed to push this particular CPU on average. I'm looking into buying one in the coming weeks.
 

Plimogz

Senior member
Oct 3, 2009
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4.4 - 4.6 GHz is where many 2500K were landing with slight voltage bumps.
 

paperwastage

Golden Member
May 25, 2010
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4.5ghz should be easy at 1.3v (stock = 1.2v)

if you want temps below 60C, then you should get a cooler. 212+ seems to be the cooler of choice among SB builders

you can get 5.0ghz, but that usually requires you raising vcore to 1.4-1.5v
 

pantsaregood

Senior member
Feb 13, 2011
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Already have a 212+. I don't want to do any ridiculous overvolting, but 1.4v doesn't seem too terribly high.
 

Kenmitch

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
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Already have a 212+. I don't want to do any ridiculous overvolting, but 1.4v doesn't seem too terribly high.

I've had mine up to 5ghz with stability! But am currently sitting at 4.7ghz with all energy saving bios settings enabled along with functioning S3 sleep. My goal is highest I can get with S3 sleep functional. I'm still trying to tweak 4.8ghz which is stable but loose S3 sleep.
 

john3850

Golden Member
Oct 19, 2002
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Already have a 212+. I don't want to do any ridiculous overvolting, but 1.4v doesn't seem too terribly high.

I wouldnt use a bottom of the line hsf with 1.4 volts to max out a 2500k.
Had use 2 fans on 212+ just cool e8400@1.4volts to stay at 40c idle.
The hsf base is small rough you need extra tim to fill in the gaps between the pipes.
If you put on 120cfm fan then its a fair cooler at best at 1.4volts.
 

StinkyPinky

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2002
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I've got 4.4 at 1.29V. I can probably get 4.5 at 1.3V but it makes no real world difference so I didn't bother
 

Zap

Elite Member
Oct 13, 1999
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I think it really depends on how much voltage you put through it, but 4.2-4.5GHz seems common without much of a voltage bump.
 

StrangerGuy

Diamond Member
May 9, 2004
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I wouldnt use a bottom of the line hsf with 1.4 volts to max out a 2500k.
Had use 2 fans on 212+ just cool e8400@1.4volts to stay at 40c idle.
The hsf base is small rough you need extra tim to fill in the gaps between the pipes.
If you put on 120cfm fan then its a fair cooler at best at 1.4volts.

212+ is a "bottom of the line" HSF.

/facepalm
 

khon

Golden Member
Jun 8, 2010
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I could only get 4.2 on mine.

I tried increasing the voltage all the way to 1.4v, but it didn't seem to matter, above 4.2 I got blue screen of death frequently.

It stays nice and cool though, never goes above 55C.
 

StrangerGuy

Diamond Member
May 9, 2004
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I could only get 4.2 on mine.

I tried increasing the voltage all the way to 1.4v, but it didn't seem to matter, above 4.2 I got blue screen of death frequently.

It stays nice and cool though, never goes above 55C.

It may be due to your PSU. With my 5 year old CM 430W hitting 4.3GHz with no voltage offsets would Prime forever but BSODs during idle duty. A new Antec Neo Eco solved the problem.
 

Edrick

Golden Member
Feb 18, 2010
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I am very happy with mine running at 4.2 with 1.23v. Temps stay under 54C at load and hover around 26-29C idle.
 

tnt3k

Member
May 2, 2011
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I just tried it yesterday and successfully hit 5ghz at 1.48v but voltage too high to justify the 500mhz boost
 

Axon

Platinum Member
Sep 25, 2003
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4.4-4.6 is easily achievable.

I can't say I've ever enjoyed the incredible temps some people experience at load, but I believe that's because my house is just so goddamned warm all the time. My i7 2600k runs at around 73-77c on load under a megahalems 2x 1850 RPM gentle typhoon push/pull setup. But then, every single chip I've ever had runs "hot" compared to everyone else's reports. So either I've had the worst string of luck in the history of the computer game, or my house and the constant, constant heat they send up to appease the old people in the apartment building is a factor. :p
 

khon

Golden Member
Jun 8, 2010
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It may be due to your PSU. With my 5 year old CM 430W hitting 4.3GHz with no voltage offsets would Prime forever but BSODs during idle duty. A new Antec Neo Eco solved the problem.

I don't think it's my PSU, since I bought a completely new system along with the i5-2500k, including a 750W 80+ silver PSU from a reputable brand.
 

Axon

Platinum Member
Sep 25, 2003
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I don't think it's my PSU, since I bought a completely new system along with the i5-2500k, including a 750W 80+ silver PSU from a reputable brand.

Hm, what motherboard? What RAM?
 

penske2298977

Member
Sep 5, 2005
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I got a 2600k and am stable at only 4.3 @ 1.35 volts (a bit disappointing)...could probably OC higher but don't want to go any higher on the voltage for a 24/7 oc.
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
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I can't say I've ever enjoyed the incredible temps some people experience at load, but I believe that's because my house is just so goddamned warm all the time.

What case do you have? A lot of builders underestimate how much case airflow can impact component temperatures. I swapped Thermaltake Soprano for an Azza Solano and my Core i7 @ 3.9ghz temps fell about 8-10*C.
 

Syzygies

Senior member
Mar 7, 2008
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What case do you have? A lot of builders underestimate how much case airflow can impact component temperatures.
Bingo. Back in Q6600 days I used to use Antec P182 cases. I build a wind tunnel (5" tube with push-pull fans) to feed outside air from the front of the case directly to my TRUE cpu cooler, and saw load core temps drop 5 C. I was astonished.

Now I build with various MountainMods cases, with 8 or 9 case fans each. Sandy Bridge is so much cooler to begin with, so I can enjoy overclocks that even Silent PC Review would tolerate.
 

tnt3k

Member
May 2, 2011
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I got a 2600k and am stable at only 4.3 @ 1.35 volts (a bit disappointing)...could probably OC higher but don't want to go any higher on the voltage for a 24/7 oc.

don't let this disappoint you. For some reason my 2500k wouldn't clock stable at 4.4 and i pushed vcore up to 1.4 and still wasn't stable. I changed to 4.5 and vcore at 1.310 was stable. Dunno why it just wouldn't take 4.4
 

Kenmitch

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
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I'm currently running mine at 4.6ghz @ 1.338 vcore. 100% stable without any issues. I've beem running it for a couple of days now and so far so good. I'll give it a couple more days and then move on.

Was running at 4.7ghz @ 1.368 vcore which was 99% stable as it would pass all stress testing but would have a random BSOD once in awhile doing something stupid like surfing the web.