Overclocking Ready Checklist
Good Cooler
√
Good Powersupply
√
Good Motherboard
√
Overclockable CPU
√ (but you knew that already
)
Assuming none of your hardware is faulty, you should not run into problems overclocking to sane levels. As mentioned above, 4.5GHz is a good target to shoot for, most 4670Ks can handle 4.5 @ 1.3V with the right cooling, and it looks like your cooler will have the chops to do it.
Okay, so before we get started, time to lay down some ground rules.
1) Don't make huge adjustments at once. The path to a stable overclock is a marathon, not a sprint. Luckily, it's not nearly as exhausting.
2) Don't use auto-overclocking profiles, adaptive voltage, or CPU power saving states. Your board is mooted to have some wonky auto-overclocking performance. That, in addition to the fact that you shouldn't be auto-overclocking anyway (for best results), is why you should stick to manual adjustments only. Turning off adaptive voltage will make the process much safer, as your voltage won't spike through the roof during stress-tests or heavy use, and turning off power states (C states) just makes for a more stable end result.
3) Do enable core syncing/multi-core enhancement.
4) Download and install HWMonitor and CPU-Z. This software will help us keep track of your settings to see if everything is working like it's supposed to.
5) Finally, what kind of work are you going to be doing with this processor? If you're working on critical files, where dataloss would be devastating, I suggest you avoid OCing altogether. If you're doing video encoding or content creation, where dataloss would be annoying but not the end of the world, use stress tests (Prime95, IBT, Aida64). If you're gaming, stress test with games! BF4/BF3 are great tests of gaming stability.
Okay, so with that small checklist out of the way, time to get ready for overclocking.
Preliminary Testing
First, let's figure out how good of a CPU you have.
Step one, go to CPU core ratio and change it to 46.
Now, go to vcore voltage, set from auto to fixed or manual, and set vcore voltage at 1.2.
If your system posts and boots successfully, you may have a good-great overclocker. If not, don't worry! Just lower the core ratio by 1 until you successfully boot into your system. Let us know at what point your computer successfully boots. Also, once your computer boots, let us know temperatures and stuff.
Trial and Error
The above exercise is mainly used to figure out how well your cpu handles an overclock. From here, I recommend trying different cpu ratios at 1.25, 1.275, and 1.3V. I don't recommend going over 1.3 as there's little point in risking your CPU for a paltry gain in performance. In fact, Intel unofficially claims that safe voltage is 10% higher than stock in most cases.That usually means around 1.265V for the 4670K.
At each cpu ratio and voltage level, test with the method of your choice, depending on your needs, and available software. I personally am a fan of Prime95 for testing content creation stability and BF4 for gaming stability. (just reiterating)
After you're satisfied with your clock speed using these macro adjustments, you can move onto minute voltage changes, seeing how low you can really go before reaching instability.
Temperature
Don't let core temperatures exceed 80C for long. Although the cores can usually handle 90+ they will start to throttle and ruin your performance. Additionally, an OC that constantly shoots into the 80s and 90s is not an OC that will serve you well. I'm happiest when I never hit over 75C when encoding and 70C while gaming. You can push higher, but 70s are where I would call it. That said, I do often hit the 80s while stress testing (I also own a 4670K)
Minutia
Just adjusting core ratio an vcore voltage isn't the only way to overclock. In fact there are many, many settings: Vrin, BCLK, cache frequency... and the list goes on. While messing with them may net you a better overclock, they often make such little difference that the time invested isn't worth the end result. Veteran overclockers may disagree with me, but from my perspective, the automatic settings are just as good. I would leave them alone.
And that's about it. Don't exceed 1.3V, try different CPU ratios, and stress test. Keep temperatures under 90C for stress tests and under 80C for daily use.
Final Thoughts
When determining the right OC for you, use your definition of stable. For me, I run 4.5GHz @ 1.268 when I game and 4.5 @ 1.273 when I encode. Both are the optimal balance
for my CPU between stress and # of BSODs. For me, that is stable: not crashing when I use it. For others, stable may be passing many many stress tests, for hours on end. While that will almost guarantee stability in everything you do, I don't think it's necessary. Just find what you're comfortable with. Overclocking is a very subjective process. No two CPU snowflakes are the same!
Sorry for the rambling format, I had some time to kill, so I thought I would share some of what I found while OCing the 4670K. I got interrupted a few times, so if parts don't make sense, that's why.
Oh, and I should have asked this question a while ago: What's your graphics setup? (What GPU do you have?)
Happy Overclocking!
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