How fast should I be able to OC my I5 2500k?

[Chaosblade02]

Board: ASrock Z68 Extreme 4
Processor: I5 2500k
After market cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 plus Silver%.
Case: Lian Li PC-A70F Full tower.

Should I at least be able to get 4.5GHZ and stable? Or possibly 5GHZ?

 

[guskline]

4.5 most likely. 5? You can see my rig 1 below. Heck I booted into windows at 4.8 but opted for 4.4 for a super stable system. There are tons of tweaks for the 2500k. My advice? Start slow. Add an extra fan to the hyper plus 212. CoolerMaster makes a 120 mm bladerunner that is very similar to the oem fan on the Hyper 212+. Try to sychro the fans ( make sure the pull on the rear is running as fast or slightly faster than the push. I have the same MB and it is a BEAST. Tons of options. What PSU and video are you using?

 

[Fardringle]

There is no guarantee on any overclock. Some CPUs do very well, some don't.

 

[guskline]

I agree with Fardringle. However, the Intel 2500k,2600k are marketed with the idea that they have unlocked multipliers so they most likely will be overclocked. I opted for a 4.4 overclock to keep the chip cool and at reasonable voltage (1.325 Max). The sytem is INCREDIBLY powerful and great for gaming.

 

[BTA]

I did 4.3 with a very slight voltage bump. Didn't feel like bothering to try higher.

 

[Kenmitch]

Only one way to find out and that is to try. 5ghz is possible if you won the chip lottery but highly unlikely. 4.5 ghz or so should be doable depending on voltage required.

 

[pantsaregood]

I'd say most SBs are capable of 5 GHz or so. No one really knows what kind of voltage is "safe" at the moment, so most people settle for slight voltage bumps to get to 4.5 GHz or so.

I mean, I could probably manage 5 GHz on 1.425v or so, but I don't want my CPU to die in a year or less.

 

[tweakboy]

There is no guarantee on any overclock. Some CPUs do very well, some don't.

Agreed

 

[LagunaX]

You'll get 4.5-4.7ghz most likely under 1.4v (linX/Prime95 stable).
If you're lucky, 4.8-4.9ghz.
5.0ghz not recommended on air with the volts that you will need.

 

[tweakboy]

You'll get 4.5-4.7ghz most likely under 1.4v (linX/Prime95 stable).
If you're lucky, 4.8-4.9ghz.
5.0ghz not recommended on air with the volts that you will need.

Ill go all way up to 1.48v

that will get you over the hump and get 4.8 stable possibly gl

 

[gevorg]

High voltages might affect long-term life like 5-10 years, but if you're planning to upgrade in 1-2 years, 1.4-1.5v is no big deal.

 

[Zap]

How fast should I be able to OC my I5 2500k?

If you are familiar with the UEFI/BIOS, probably 10 seconds. Less if your system POSTs quick.

 

[paperwastage]

as most people say, you can most likely get 4.5 and 5.0 if you can deal with the temps/voltages
4.5 - 1.3v <65C (with a good cooler)
5.0 - 1.4-1.5v < 80C

 

[tweakboy]

Don't go too extreme, nexdt thing you know your CPU is blown up and caught in a fire.

If you had H20 then I would say 5.5 if you juice the voltage and do other OC stuff in BIOS. thx gl

what your voltage and your full load temps ..idle I don't care about.

 

[IndianScout]

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1897028

 

[LagunaX]

On air I'd probably stay 4.8ghz or less.
4.9-5.0ghz tends to require volts that break 80c on air:

 

[Jhatfie]

Based on my limited experience with my 2500k, I'd say 4.5Ghz should be a pretty safe bet, shoot my Asus OC utility set my OC automatically at 4.525. With a little tweaking mine does 4.8Ghz at 1.41v 100% stable. With my Silver Arrow cooler temps are perfectly acceptable maxxing at 67C using CoreTemp to monitor and testing with Prime95 small FFT's. I do not want to go beyond my 1.41v for 24/7 use, so I am leaving it here.

 

[john3850]

Press advanced turbo 50 in bios and you should get 4800mhz at 1.43 vcore.
Temps were hitting 81c running linX at 4900mhz with 1.46+ using a old c2d wb.
Do to the singe pci-e slot I use the 930 for games and 2500 for the web.

 

[guskline]

OC the 2500k to get a validation and OC a 2500k to be "stable" are two different things. Lordy, I can change the basic OC settings in my BIOS and boot into Windows and CPU validate at 4.8Ghz without much trouble. Now run COD BO for a little while and I get a BSOD. On my machine, with my hardware, I found that stable with everything my 2500k runs great at 4.4Ghz. I'm sure with finer tweaks I can bump it up some and still be stable but WHY? I'm already 1.1Ghz over stock without turboboost on all 4 cores (3.3 vs 4.4). That's incredible AND that is stable in any game or diagnostic. I'm real happy. These SandyBridge k chips run like they are on nitro.

 

[tweakboy]

I'd say most SBs are capable of 5 GHz or so. No one really knows what kind of voltage is "safe" at the moment, so most people settle for slight voltage bumps to get to 4.5 GHz or so.

I mean, I could probably manage 5 GHz on 1.425v or so, but I don't want my CPU to die in a year or less.

Agreed nice post..

 

[tweakboy]

Also I know there is a difference in OC , from a 2500k to 2600k ..

2600k you can bang it at 5.7 , if u buy a asus or gigbyte with it. 16GB quad channel ram.. gl

Also its a voltage game. Higher you take it the more you can OC , but also gets HOT and doesnt function as it should...

 

[john3850]

The problem with these K chips is the vcore is all dynamically preset to the speed of the chip as op reported in the forms.
I have 2500k at 4700 with 1.408v after dropping the offset from +.025 to +.005 the vcove still hits 1.408v on linx.
Most of these chips will need 1.45-1.46 to hit 5000 which means good water cooling is needed for 24/7 use.

 

[MadScientist]

OP, I have a similar setup to yours and have found that the wall for my 2500K is 4.6 Ghz. It either doesn't post or I get BSODs trying to get it above 4.6 by adding more vcore. Flashing to the latest bios and trying all the tweaks that others have suggested didn't help.

Here's some statistics from an Asus tech on HardForum:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1578110

Results are representative of 100 D2 CPUs that were binned and tested for stability under load; these results will most likely represent retail CPUs.
1. Approximately 50&#37; of CPUs can go up to 4.4~4.5 GHz
2. Approximately 40% of CPUs can go up to 4.6~4.7 GHz
3. Approximately 10% of CPUs can go up to 4.8~5 GHz (50+ multipliers are about 2% of this group)

Even if your i5-2500k is capable of doing 4.8 - 5.0 Ghz I don't think your CM Hyper 212 Plus will be able to cool your CPU sufficiently during stress testing for the vcore needed to reach those speeds. Although some people think 80-90C under load is ok for these CPUs.

At 4.6 Ghz, 1.34V average CPUZ load, my temps (hottest core) are 66C Prime 95 large FFTs and 75C IBT V.2.51 (max ram). Core Temp's hottest core temp reads the same as Asrock's Extreme Tuning Utility CPU Temperature.

 

[apoppin]

i'm surprised that no one said anything about that cooler

Hyper n212 is a *budget* cooler and adding a second fan may only give you a tiny bit better cooling performance.

imo it's not recommended for a high overclock although it is good bang for buck overall.

The base is rough and you have to use a lot of thermal compound to fill it in
(you can really scratch up your CPU just installing it)

EDIT: OOPS .. i see that MadScientist covered it in the above post
:O

 

[MadScientist]

i'm surprised that no one said anything about that cooler

Hyper n212 is a *budget* cooler and adding a second fan may only give you a tiny bit better cooling performance.

imo it's not recommended for a high overclock although it is good bang for buck overall.

The base is rough and you have to use a lot of thermal compound to fill it in
(you can really scratch up your CPU just installing it)

The second fan helped a little, 2-3 degrees lower. The large spaces between the base and the heat pipes have to be filled in with TIM for max performance.
Best method of applying TIM to this cooler: http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=150&Itemid=62&limit=1&limitstart=5

This cooler does give you the most bang for your buck, but I don't like it's mounting system. Even when it's fully tightened down you can still twist it 10-15 degrees.