i7-4770k stable @ 4.8 GHz

i7hero

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Jun 22, 2014
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I've got an i7-4770k stable @ 4.8 GHz @ 38 degrees idle and up to 60 degrees at the very maximum while gaming. I've only stress tested with prime95 and AIDA64 for a couple of hours and I hadn't experienced a crash. The vcore is set to 1.4

Do I have an average chip? Could I possibly push this more with professional water cooling?
 

Deus Gladiorum

Distinguished
It doesn't seem like it's that much above average. 1.4 V on Haswell is quite high, and I believe that's past the point of Haswell where you're not thinking of the long term and you're degrading the CPU's life span. Now, if you were getting 4.8 GHz with only 1.3 or 1.25 Volts, that'd be well above average and you'd have a nice, top 10th percentile or so of chips. However, right now I can't say it'd be good for more without really pushing voltage. Also, you're not necessarily stable. I've had Prime95 tests fail after 14 hours before. Ideally you want to run Prime95 for 24 hours, or for some people only 12 hours, but a couple hours is nowhere near enough to truly say your CPU is stable.
 

CompuTronix

Intel Master
Moderator
Deus Gladiorum is correct.

Excessive Vcore will result in accelerated "Electromigration" - https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Electromigration - which prematurely erodes the traces and junctions within the processor's layers and nano-circuits. This will in turn eventually result in Blue-Screen crashes, which will become increasingly frequent over time.

Short-term solution (not recommended): Increase Vcore to regain stability, which will further accelerate Electromigration and shorten the time interval to the reoccurrence of Blue-Screen crashes.

Interim solution: Decrease overclock to temporarily regain stability.

Long-term solution (recommended): Limit your overclock, Vcore and temperatures to stay within reasonable guidelines.

You might want to read the following Sticky: Intel Temperature Guide - http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-1800828/intel-temperature-guide.html

1.4 Vcore is not recommended. Unless you're into competitive overclocking on extreme cooling, most overclocking guides as well as many experts will insist that 1.3 Vcore is as high as a 22 nanometer processor should be pushed.

Vcore settings should not exceed the following:

45 Nanometer 1st Generation ..... 1.40 Vcore
32 Nanometer 2nd Generation .... 1.35 Vcore
22 Nanometer 3rd Generation ..... 1.30 Vcore
22 Nanometer 4th Generation ..... 1.30 Vcore

At 1.3 Vcore, whatever stable overclock a particular processor sample is capable of giving you is what you should consider to be it's limit. I know that's not the answer you want to hear, but that's the most appropriate answer I can give you.

Only the very best of samples will give you 4.8 Ghz without exceeding 1.3 Vcore. I spent a huge amount of time testing 5 of these i7 4770K's before I found the one I'm running. The only way she'll give me 4.8 is if I turn off Hyperthreading, but I'm very pleased with it at 4.7.

CT :sol:
 

i7hero

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Jun 22, 2014
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Thank you for all the information, I will read through all of it thoroughly. As I understand, isn't the biggest "killer" of CPU's heat? I understand that increasing the Vcore will thus, increase the heat of my CPU, but like I said, 60 degrees celsius at maximum while doing semi intense gaming, that doesn't sound that bad, considering when I run @ stock with EIST on stock as well, I run about 40-45 degrees. Is there an in depth guide how to 'safely' overclock my CPU? I'd like to be stable around 4.8. What I've been reading around a lot of forums is that 4.6 GHz on the i7-4770k is looking like the "safe overclock". Also, if I turn off hyperthreading could I reduce my Vcore at all?
 

i7hero

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Jun 22, 2014
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I took a bit of time and was lowering my Vcore down by .25 at a time and was able to find a lower spot @ 1.336 V. It's still high but it's much better than 1.4. I also disabled hyperthreading, is there anything else I could do that could potentially help me lower my Volts to a safer level?