What causes a cpu to hit a brick wall when overclocking

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TechyInAZ

TechyInAZ

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Jun 23, 2014
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So, on my 4690K I can get 4.6Ghz on all cores very easily. However when I try to bump it up to 4.7ghz, it freezes my computer (a split second after I start prime95). And when I disabled all power savings my pc would run but not display anything on the monitor or power the Keyboard and mouse (After clearing the CMOS everything was fine).

I can get 4.6Ghz at 1.25vcore, but I can't get 4.7ghz at 1.325v even. (I also disable xmp for a little while and that didn't help.)

So i'm just curious as to what is causing my cpu to hit this brick wall?
 
Solution
mlcaouette
I would say you are at a vcore/clocking wall, the relationship between frequency and voltage is not a linear one more like exponential (At lower clocks it will seam rather linear). Take this for instance back when I had my phenom II 955 at 4.2Ghz I was good at 1.50vcore, 4.3Ghz took 1.55, then 4.4Ghz took all the way to 1.67vcore. Anything beyond that I didn't have enough cooling power to handle the substantial bump in vcore.

If you had the cooling I'm almost positive you could clock that chip beyond 4.6Ghz. Simple as this, with any chip you will eventually reach a point where your cooling simply cannot support the voltage needed to raise the frequency anymore.
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mr1hm

mr1hm

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Jan 1, 2012
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the "cause," for a CPU hitting a wall at a certain overclocked frequency is generally the CPU itself. what i mean by this is that, the silicon wafer that is used to actually create the CPU itself is not up to the task.

it certainly could be a number of other things such as an incorrect setting here and there but, since the CPU won't stay stable even with a big jump to 1.325v, it may just be the chip itself. i'd probably just re-check everything and make sure BIOS settings look ok.
 
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sparkybum

sparkybum

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Dec 26, 2014
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Thermal throttling might be your problem. what thermal throttling is is when a cpu (or gpu) gets to hot and instantly down clocks it self (or hitting a wall) Making it run at lower temps
 
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mlcaouette

mlcaouette

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Apr 25, 2011
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I would say you are at a vcore/clocking wall, the relationship between frequency and voltage is not a linear one more like exponential (At lower clocks it will seam rather linear). Take this for instance back when I had my phenom II 955 at 4.2Ghz I was good at 1.50vcore, 4.3Ghz took 1.55, then 4.4Ghz took all the way to 1.67vcore. Anything beyond that I didn't have enough cooling power to handle the substantial bump in vcore.

If you had the cooling I'm almost positive you could clock that chip beyond 4.6Ghz. Simple as this, with any chip you will eventually reach a point where your cooling simply cannot support the voltage needed to raise the frequency anymore.
 
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