i5 6600K Overclocking @4.5GHz

Shandas · Mar 15, 2017

Hello everyone,

New member here.

I've built my first ever custom PC and couldn't be happier. I picked 6600K with an intention to overclock.

I've managed to overclock it at 4.4ghz at 1.2v. Ran bunch of stress tests, AIDA64, RealBench, Prime95 etc. I even gamed for an hour and seemed fine. After testing it for 4-5 hours, I've decided to get a little greedy and aimed for 4.5ghz at 1.2v and noticed that my PC won't boot up with those numbers. So I increased my voltage by 0.025 and same thing happened and tipped it one more time at 1.25v. PC booted up fine and running AIDA64 fine for about an hour. Going to run the other two stress tests and play some games.

Temperatures are always below 60 celsius. I think I can go to 4.8 etc without frying my CPU but since I'm satisfied with the numbers, I feel like just staying here at 4.5ghz. I also like the temperature.

Here is my PC specs:

i5 6600K
ASUS Z170-A Motherboard
16GB DDR4 3200mhz G.Skill Trident Z
EVGA GTX1070 FTW Hybrid
1TB HDD
240GB SSD Hyper X Savage
Corsair H100i V2
Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX
EVGA 750W G2 Gold Plus Certified PSU

Let me know your thoughts. I think I've got a pretty good chip. Very happy that I got this excellent chip on my very first build.

Ramberjet · Mar 15, 2017

Hey! Very sweet rig. I built a similar one not too long ago (including that DDR4 kit with the 14-14-14-34 timings). I keep my 6600k at 4.4ghz on the stock adaptive voltage (typically 1.720v as I recall) because it runs my games fine and will come down on the power draw when I'm browsing the web and doing word processing. With Prime95 FFT, it peaks at 75C, and I'm using Corsair's H110i GT (I wonder whether this could be lower though, since you've got sub-60 on everything). In games, though, it rarely gets to 60C.

Keep us posted on how it goes! Most guides and examples I've seen tend to shoot for a 1.3v to 1.35v manual vcore, so you likely have some more headroom.

Shandas · Mar 17, 2017

Ramberjet :

Hi Ramberjet,

Yeah I believe your temperatures are a bit high. The highest I've seen using Prime95 at 4.5Ghz was a little over 60 celsius. 4.5ghz at 1.25V turned out to be unstable in my opinion. I ran RealBench and AIDA64 fine but when I ran Prime95, one of the cores failed during the test. So I down clocked it back to 4.4ghz at 1.2V and one of the cores failed again during the test. It doesn't necessarily crash but I guess it wasn't completely stable. I know that one of the cores are always weaker then the rest. Researched on this and found out that I have to increase the voltage to prevent this from happening. So I've decided to down clocked it again to 4.2Ghz at 1.168V(stock voltage). The reason why I decided to overclock was because of this computer's CS:GO performance. At Stock, my fps hovers a little over 300fps and drops to 240 etc in big maps. Now at 4.2ghz, I'm well over 300 most of the time and when I go inside dark places, it goes to 450-480 and sometimes hovers 500fps. I guess I'm very happy with the 4.2ghz OC at stock voltage and I game for hours straight and my computer doesn't crash. Runs AIDA64, Prime95, RealBench all fine. I think I can get 4.5Ghz stable at 1.3v but I don't see the need to be honest at the moment.

4.2ghz at stock voltage temperatures are the same as 3.5ghz temperature. So I'm happy that I'm not risking my chip and getting extra performance.

Your cooler is better than mine, I think? My radiator is only 240mm with 2x 120mm fans. I thought it was 280mm until I actually got the unit.

Ramberjet · Mar 17, 2017

Hey, thanks for the info. I had a similar experience with OCCT, which posted an error for one of my cores until I set the vcore manually to 1.2. Whereas other stress tests work fine (though I never did the real 16 to 24 hour long Prime95 test). As you're saying with regard to CS:GO, it's a matter of individual usage. My cpu rarely goes above 60% usage in games like Overwatch and The Witcher 3 at highest to near highest settings at 1440p. It's a matter of GPU there of course. Not that you need it for CS:GO, but have you overclocked your 1070? Mine is running at 2088mhz (something like 4320mhz memory clock), sub 55C temps.

Speaking of frames, what is your monitor's refresh rate? I'm curious to hear whether you went for a 1080p 240hz panel or whatever to see so many hundreds of frames! I have a 144hz monitor. Although I can see/feel a marked improvement over 60fps, the difference between 100 and 144 is lost on my eyes.

Yeah, the H110i GT has two 140mm fans on a 280mm radiator. I'd have to go back and look at some performance comparison articles to see how much of a difference there tends to be between the 100i and 110i. By the way, I replaced those two stock fans with Noctuas (NF-P14s redux-1500 PWM, also available in 120mm size), which I recommend if you want to decrease noise. They do also move a lot more air, but you don't seem to need more airflow : )

Shandas · Mar 17, 2017

Ramberjet :

Hello Ramberjet,

First of all, thank you very much for your valuable advices.

I never did the real 16-24 hour long Prime95 test. Don't think it's that necessary to do so. As for CS:GO, my processor barely sweats when I play CS:GO yet I saw a performance boost in FPS when I overclocked. Don't get why. Maybe that's how the CS:GO is optimized.

I haven't overclocked my 1070. Since it's a FTW it's overclocked from the factory and didn't see the need to overclock it yet. When I ran unigine, I saw similar numbers as yours. A little over 2000mhz with temperature not exceeding 50C I think.

My monitor refresh rate is 144hz. I upgraded from gaming on my Macbook Pro Mid 2014 with dedicated graphic card. This whole rig is a night and day difference when it comes to gaming. So smooth and feels very responsive (thanks to 144hz?). I actually saw 240hz monitor after I got my monitor. That would have been pretty sweet but I have plans to upgrade my stuff in the future. Maybe that monitor will be one of the top priority. I'm happy with 144hz though.

I also have to upgrade my GPU radiator fan as well. It felt quite shitty when I first looked at it and I don't mind upgrading it into something that flows air better and quieter. It's 100mm fan though. Must be static pressure as well but might be able to fit 120mm to this radiator.

I heard very good things about Noctua fans. They are known for being very quiet and performs well. Will definitely look into it. However, do you know any other fan that is quiet and performs well with RGB lighting? I feel like my rig needs more lights XD.

Ramberjet · Mar 17, 2017

Shandas :

Haha, very cool. I'm not up to date on the latest in RGB LEDs ^^ That would look sweet with your case's tempered glass side panel!

Why do you want to upgrade the fan on your GPU? As I understand it, your load temperature is great for air cooling. But I'd understand if you want different lighting effects or less noise. Before the 1070, I had an MSI gtx 980 with the reference style fan (single fan that blows air out the back of the case). It was inefficient and loud, so I was looking into modding it with an AIO water cooler using the NZXT Kraken GPU bracket, a Corsair H55, and some copper heatsinks for the VRAM. It's something to look into if you want to get a little crazy without a full water loop. I sold it and upgraded instead.

And gosh, I remember trying to play Diablo 3 on my Macbook Pro when it first came out. It was so weird after having grown up with a homebuilt PC. It has been nearly a decade since my previous build, so this new rig is a blast. I know what you're feeling : )

Lastly, I should have asked, are you overclocking your CPU's cache ratio or just the clock ratio? Mine is at x39. Pushing it further without adding more voltage led mine to instability. As for your comment about Prime95, I have read a bit of what serious overclockers have to say about the various benchmarks and stress tests, and it varies. For some, it's enough to get through a benchmark and have the screenshot of that high number. For others, it's a matter establishing rock solid stability. In any case, it sounds like your components are working well!

Shandas · Mar 17, 2017

Ramberjet :

Shandas :

Haha, very cool. I'm not up to date on the latest in RGB LEDs ^^ That would look sweet with your case's tempered glass side panel!

Why do you want to upgrade the fan on your GPU? As I understand it, your load temperature is great for air cooling. But I'd understand if you want different lighting effects or less noise. Before the 1070, I had an MSI gtx 980 with the reference style fan (single fan that blows air out the back of the case). It was inefficient and loud, so I was looking into modding it with an AIO water cooler using the NZXT Kraken GPU bracket, a Corsair H55, and some copper heatsinks for the VRAM. It's something to look into if you want to get a little crazy without a full water loop. I sold it and upgraded instead.

And gosh, I remember trying to play Diablo 3 on my Macbook Pro when it first came out. It was so weird after having grown up with a homebuilt PC. It has been nearly a decade since my previous build, so this new rig is a blast. I know what you're feeling : )

Lastly, I should have asked, are you overclocking your CPU's cache ratio or just the clock ratio? Mine is at x39. Pushing it further without adding more voltage led mine to instability. As for your comment about Prime95, I have read a bit of what serious overclockers have to say about the various benchmarks and stress tests, and it varies. For some, it's enough to get through a benchmark and have the screenshot of that high number. For others, it's a matter establishing rock solid stability. In any case, it sounds like your components are working well!

I did only the clock ratio. Mine is at x42. BCLK or whatever is 100.
I left the voltage at 1.168.

I have 2 RGB LED Strip from phanteks but adding RGB fans would make it look very colorful haha.

Search

i5 6600K Overclocking @4.5GHz

Shandas

Prominent

Ramberjet

Prominent

Shandas

Prominent

Ramberjet

Prominent

Shandas

Prominent

Ramberjet

Prominent

Shandas

Prominent

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page