What's a safe overclock for an air cooled I5-3570k?

[Colekern]

Hi guys. I've been wanting to overclock my air cooled I5-3570k for a while now. It has the stock heatsink, and I have four fans on my case. What is the maximum safe overclock I could achieve?

And please, do not try to recommend that I buy a watercooling kit. I really don't feel like buying any custom parts right now.

 

[Mt Power]

Hi guys. I've been wanting to overclock my air cooled I5-3570k for a while now. It has the stock heatsink, and I have four fans on my case. What is the maximum safe overclock I could achieve?

And please, do not try to recommend that I buy a watercooling kit. I really don't feel like buying any custom parts right now.

with the stock cooler, prolly 4 ghz, maybe 4.2ghz.

 

[jthill909]

You really don't need to be doing any overclocking on the stock heatsink. Buy a 212 Evo and then you can think about overclocking.

 

[Colekern]

with the stock cooler, prolly 4 ghz, maybe 4.2ghz.

Ok, thanks.

 

[neograndizer]

On a stock cooler, I'd watch those temps more carefully. It will also be dependent on the chip. Even with low voltage and a better cooler (than stock), I easily hit the 70's stress testing stability at 4.1GHz with mine. It's much more hotter than when I had my 2500k at a slightly higher clock and voltage.

 

[Colekern]

On a stock cooler, I'd watch those temps more carefully. It will also be dependent on the chip. Even with low voltage and a better cooler (than stock), I easily hit the 70's stress testing stability at 4.1GHz with mine. It's much more hotter than when I had my 2500k at a slightly higher clock and voltage.

Oh, don't worry. I'm taking it real slow. Also, what stress test program do you use?

 

[woodflute]

Also it's going to depend on your case and your other components. A graphics card that moves all of its hot air out of your case may buy you a bit more room on the upper end than would one which dumps part of its hot air back into the case.

Some cases are pretty easy to modify in terms of adding a case fan blowing cool air right down on the CPU fan and heatsink. I don't know if this is what you might also consider "custom parts," but it might go a long way towards a bit of a safety margin for your CPU.

Even better, two case fans, one blowing down on the CPU fan and heatsink assembly, and another blowing across it as well. The more cool air you can make available, and the more warm air you can move away, the better off you'll be.

For a stress program for CPU, I use AIDA64's "system stability test." I have AIDA64 anyway for its monitoring features, and its stress test seems to work well.

Best of luck on tuning your system and getting it the way you want it.

 

[neograndizer]

Also, what stress test program do you use?

I use:

P95 blend test for 8-9 hours.
Aida64 for 3-4 hours.
IBT for 10 runs maximum.

Stable enough, but not rock solid stable. I would probably do higher numbers if I planned on running it 24/7.

Woodflute is correct, there's other factors to consider too when OC'ng and affecting temps.

I use Aida64 also to monitor. But also have CPU-Z and RealTemp. I grab the highest temps displayed from either to be on the safe side when monitoring.

 

[Colekern]

with the stock cooler, prolly 4 ghz, maybe 4.2ghz.

One more thing. I overclocked to 115%, but it had problems with booting correctly. I think I need to adjust my voltage. For 4 GHZ, what should my voltage be set at?

 

[neograndizer]

4GHz should still be able to go with stock voltage. For my chip it's in between 1 < 1.1v using offset voltage. Are you manually setting vcore or using offset? You will need to figure it out as each chip is different.

 

[Colekern]

4GHz should still be able to go with stock voltage. For my chip it's in between 1 < 1.1v using offset voltage. Are you manually setting vcore or using offset? You will need to figure it out as each chip is different.

I've been using offset. I'll try adding in .1 extra volts in offset mode and see how that goes. Thanks!