i5 6500 Quick Overclocking Questions

[SneakyStuff]

Hi Guys,

Built a new budget system a few months back with an i5 6500, ASRock Z170m Extreme 4 mobo, and 2x8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 2666. It's been a long time since I've had to do any sort of tinkering other than setting the multiplier on my unlocked AMD FX so I wanted to run a few things by the community here to make sure I'm on the right path. First and foremost, I think a picture says more than words so here's where I stand right now, just experimenting with a very light OC past the stock 3.6Ghz turbo-boost.

I had to roll back to ASRock's 1.35 beta bios in order to achieve the overclock so I am hoping that's what causes the misreads you see in the photo. Namely, the outrageous individual core temps being reported and the incorrect core frequency you see in the bottom right hand corner under system information. I tested the CPU using Passmark and reached a score of 8483, which leads me to believe that I am indeed running at 3.8 Ghz all the time seeing as how the average stock score for an i5 6500 is reported is 7042. If you have any experience with this or an idea to achieve the correct readings I would most certainly appreciate it. I have disabled all power saving features, speedstep, and turboboost in my BIOS.

My goal is to reach 4Ghz stable and I have a fine understanding of what's expected in terms of BCLK settings (125x32 will be my magic number) and voltage. I am basing my core voltage off of other user's commonly reported 4.4-4.5Ghz overclocks at 1.325V by setting mine to a fraction of that based on my relative core frequency to theirs. So right now for example, I am running at 1.115V with a LLC setting of 2 (my mobo has 4 settings, 4 being off and 1 being highest).

The one thing I am very interested in learning more about though are the memory timings/frequency. Everyone keeps saying that you will need to keep it under 2600 and I have mine set to 2538 right now but I admit, that was done completely arbitrarily and by the motherboard itself. An explanation of this would be greatly appreciated because every resource I've read just tells you to do this, but not WHY.

Thanks for reading this long-winded post, I appreciate any feedback! I can upload photos of my BIOS settings if you need them.

-Rob

 

[tweakboy]

OCing wont bring your CPU to life. Play the game,, not a benchie .. gl

 

[Madpacket]

Namely, the outrageous individual core temps being reported and the incorrect core frequency you see in the bottom right hand corner under system information. I tested the CPU using Passmark and reached a score of 8483, which leads me to believe that I am indeed running at 3.8 Ghz all the time seeing as how the average stock score for an i5 6500 is reported is 7042. If you have any experience with this or an idea to achieve the correct readings I would most certainly appreciate it. I have disabled all power saving features, speedstep, and turboboost in my BIOS.

AFAIK this is normal behaviour when bclock overclocking locked Skylake processors. The temperature readings are obviously wrong in Windows but the BIOS temp readings should be correct. I just ordered a i3-6100 and have a Z170 AsRock Pro4s to test out overclocking so I'll report back if I see similar issues. I'm not sure where the 2600 max memory thing came from but it's not really true, each chip has their own memory controller and some are just better than others. I guess its possible CPU's that require higher block may have a reduced chance of hitting higher memory speeds.

The memory type makes a big difference as well as being on the supported vendor list for your board for XMP / timing issues. I'll be tossing in a pair of G.Skill 3000Mhz sticks that are supported in dual channel and will be aiming to get the XMP speeds out of them. The Core i3 (and i5's) benefit tremendously in some games from higher memory speeds (even higher than 2666).

 

[Deders]

Does this mean that by overclocking the BLCK, you are also overclocking the temperature sensors?