Which Intel Chip? i5-i7? Sandy Bridge/Bloomfield/Clarkdale?

[Joseph F]

I disagree.
1) Leave Turbo enabled.
2) Set Turbo core multipliers to 40x.
3) Leave Vcore on Auto.
And yes, stock cooler is fine for 4GHz.

I haven't had much luck with turbo overclocking and why would you leave vcore on auto? The motherboard will almost certainly pump an obscene amount of voltage through the chip on auto.
And no, the stock cooler is not always fine for 4GHz. With any overclocking, YMMV. When I tried for 4GHz on my 2500k, the stock cooler couldn't keep the temps under 83C.

 

[jimpatrick]

My i5 (on the stock cooler) will pass one run of Linpack (on Linux, 64-bit, AVX, runlevel 3 so no GUI, wouldn't try more runs) when overclocked slightly (can't remember, but around 3.7 – 4.0), but hit 90 C (slightly over 100 GFLOPS, if I remember). It gets low/mid-70's to upper-80's at stock, depending on how much dust is in it, and also ambient temperatures.

wow 4ghz on stock hsf 90c,for how long did you use your cpu like that?

 

[khon]

My i5 (on the stock cooler) will pass one run of Linpack (on Linux, 64-bit, AVX, runlevel 3 so no GUI, wouldn't try more runs) when overclocked slightly (can't remember, but around 3.7 – 4.0), but hit 90 C (slightly over 100 GFLOPS, if I remember). It gets low/mid-70's to upper-80's at stock, depending on how much dust is in it, and also ambient temperatures.

Three possibilites for the situation you describe here:

#1. You have a case with no air flow at all

#2. You mounted the cooler improperly

#3. You live in Death Valley.

Seriously though, there is no way a stock i5 should get above 80C.

 

[Zap]

I haven't had much luck with turbo overclocking and why would you leave vcore on auto? The motherboard will almost certainly pump an obscene amount of voltage through the chip on auto.
And no, the stock cooler is not always fine for 4GHz. With any overclocking, YMMV. When I tried for 4GHz on my 2500k, the stock cooler couldn't keep the temps under 83C.

With my Asus P8P67 Pro, the voltage only starts to spike up around 4.4GHz. Below that and voltages stay pretty reasonable. Also, this was the "two minute overclock" version. Anyone who wants to spend an obscene amount of time finding the lowest stable voltage down to the hundredth of a volt should feel free to waste their own time.

Sure, stock cooler when torturing the CPU with 100% usage gets pretty warm. However, how many people build a computer just to run at 100% the entire time? Also, don't Intel CPUs have a Tjunction of around 92ºC? I've found that when NOT running torture tests on the CPU, temperatures were nothing to be concerned about.

Seriously though, there is no way a stock i5 should get above 80C.

He said he was using stock cooler.

 

[itakey]

Good tips everyone, looks like overclocking this chip has a few different tactics, but i'm sure i'll find one that works.

For a cooler, maybe i'll start with the stock cooler, but then again the aftermarket ones are only $20-$30 so I might just pull the trigger and not have to worry about installing one later.

I'm sold on the i5-2500K.

 

[khon]

He said he was using stock cooler.

Yeah I know, still should not happen.

 

[jimpatrick]

Yeah I know, still should not happen.

happened to me on stock as well but w/ linx though.

 

[PreferLinux]

Three possibilites for the situation you describe here:

#1. You have a case with no air flow at all

#2. You mounted the cooler improperly

#3. You live in Death Valley.

Seriously though, there is no way a stock i5 should get above 80C.

Dust. The cooler is mounted fine. The case has less airflow than some, but does have a duct on the side. I've seen low 70's when it is clean. I'm using the Intel Linpack binaries for Linux, which support AVX, and as I run it at runlevel 3 (no GUI) there is very little else going on to "distract" the CPU.

wow 4ghz on stock hsf 90c,for how long did you use your cpu like that?

Not long. Just enough for one run of Linpack to complete. (It wasn't using all my RAM either.)

happened to me on stock as well but w/ linx though.

That's just a Linpack implementation, so effectively the same.

 

[spacejamz]

If you have a microcenter nearby, they have facebook coupon to get the 2600k for $229 (reg price is $279). Offer expires on 01/30/12.

 

[Joseph F]

If you have a microcenter nearby, they have facebook coupon to get the 2600k for $229 (reg price is $279). Offer expires on 01/30/12.

DAMN! I wish they had that coupon out when I got my 2500k.

 

[Cyrus9008]

You know I don't mean to criticize aftermarket coolers because they do work and they work great but my stock cooler for my 2500k w/o OC keeps my chip around 27-29 degrees Celsius on idle. The one thing I did do is remove the thermal paste it came with and used arctic silver 5. With full load running games my CPU runs around 55 celsius max running @ 3.7GHz.

 

[PreferLinux]

You know, I read a test that compared the stock Intel TIM and others, and the Intel stuff beat all the others – http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Intel-Stock-Thermal-Compound-Review/1273

 

[piasabird]

I am going with a 2405S and use the integrated 3000 intel Video off of the CPU. Nothing wrong with the 2500K. It just costs a few more dollars and is overclockable. I never understood why Intel only puts the 3000 graphics on a few quad processors. So do they overclock the 2000 graphics with turbo boost?