Looking to overclock, need some advice

[Stg-Flame]

Requesting a mod delete this thread due to my new, more concise, topic.

 

[Tsavo]

I think you'll need to list what CPU cooler you have so people here can give you an idea of what to expect.

If you are using the stock cooler, expect flames. Lots of flames.

 

[Stg-Flame]

i think you'll need to list what cpu cooler you have so people here can give you an idea of what to expect.

If you are using the stock cooler, expect flames. Lots of flames.

Heatsink

 

[dma0991]

4.5GHz is probably the highest you'll ever go with that heatsinka and that's on a best case scenario. 4.2GHz is more realistic of a figure but it highly depends on your local ambient temps.

 

[kleinkinstein]

With a 3570K, I'm at 4.7, 1.235v with the Evo, push/pull, in a mATX case.

 

[Stg-Flame]

I've heard talks about overclocking your RAM as well. Would this be beneficial to me or should I just stick with what I have on my RAM?

Also, I would appreciate some sort of guide for beginners on overclocking the CPU as I really don't want to screw this up. I've been looking for a bit and I don't necessarily trust some of the information I've read thus far on various websites.

I have the ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility if that makes any difference.

 

[Arkaign]

IB is a crapshoot really. I've installed maybe two dozen 3570k and 3770k chips now for various builds, and some happily hit the 4.7-4.8Ghz range (rare), some won't push past 4.2-4.3 without more volts than I like (also somewhat rare, but more common), most seem to float in the 4.3-4.5 range with good push/pull air cooling, 4.4 seems a sweet spot without volts too high. I'm pretty conservative with overclocking though. I had one 3770k that was unstable at stock (!!).

I wouldn't worry about changing ram settings, that just introduces more headaches for not much gain on your config. With Llano/Trinity you get huge gains from ram OC, for SB/IB the gains are minor in comparison.

Normally I tell people that overclocking much on IB isn't worth it, but with SLI 670s, you probably will see solid gains all the way up to 4.4 on very demanding titles such as Guild Wars and *cough* Civ5. So if you play any CPU-bottlenecked titles that are bottlenecking below 60fps (or 120fps if you run a 120hz LCD), then go for it!

I will still say that whatever wall you hit, back it off at least 100Mhz for safety, and in my book, near-stock volts is the way to go. 1.3v is my absolute ceiling on IB, but I'd rather see 1.26-1.28 as max. IB is still too young to know if we're going to see a rash of dead ones from overvolting maniacs.

Going back to the first point, it's really a true crap-shoot compared to SB, which was much more predictable overall.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Thanks for the input Arkaign, but like I said, I am new to overclocking CPUs and when I looked at the ASRock utility, it only shows me a list of voltages I can modify - none of which makes any sense to me and coupled with the information I found on various sites while researching, it makes even less sense.

I'll go ahead and make a new thread and request this one be deleted so I can tune my topic title to match the utility I have at my disposal so someone familiar with the ASRock utility can add their input, or someone can point me to a better way of overclocking my system.

Lastly, I do plan on overclocking my cards after I overclock my CPU.