Overclocking 4670k with MSI Z87 G45

[Roblivion]

Hello all, as the title says I plan on over clocking. My cooler seems to be doing the job at its stock clocks with around 31-33C idle, and around 42C while gaming. I think I understand how to over clock, but I am still a bit confused. In my BIOS I can change the frequency as well as the voltage, which I believe is all you need to do to OC. But my question is how should I go about doing this? I also know Haswell is hit or miss, so I really want to do no more than 4.2GHz, I appreciate the feedback!

Cheers!

[jmt]

Are you using the stock Intel cooler?

If so, I would upgrade before moving on. The cooler has been shown to be effective, but with Haswell's increased temps/wattage, I would step up before moving on to anything substantial.

Other than that, there are a few things you'll want to consider.

Do you want the CPU to run at the OC speed ALL the time? If so, you need to disable the Turbo Boost and Speedstep in the BIOS. You'll also want to set your power settings in Windows to High Performance.

Otherwise, you may consider just OCing the Turbo Boost multiplier.

Basically, you just increase the multiplier on either the chip or the turbo in the BIOS. Each +1 step of the multiplier will give you 100MHz. To get to 4.2GHz, you would set the multiplier to 42.

4.2GHz shouldn't require an increase in voltage. With Haswell, that typically starts to happen around the 4.5GHz mark. If it does, you'll want to step it up by 0.05v until it's stable. A higher voltage does not mean more performance. Do not go higher than 1.25v. If you can't get stable at 1.25v, back your multiplier down.

Each chip is different and the transition form SB - Haswell has increased the deviation between them.

Again, upgrade your cooler if you're using the stock Intel heat sink. The Cooler Master Hyper 212+ (~$20) has long been the baseline for CPU heat sinks for overclocking. I'd start there unless you have the money to spend on something better. The Corsair H80 and H100i are both awesome AIO water coolers.

Edit: Saw your sig. Bump the chip multiplier to 42 and disable Turbo Boost or bump the Turbo Boost multiplier to 42 and leave the rest of it alone. Change your Power Options in the Windows Control Panel to High Performance.

[Roblivion]

Thanks man, got it at 4.2 and it's stable. Didn't have to change the voltage, so I am just going to keep it here... Maybe will go higher in the future. Next is OCing my GPU... Have EVGA Precision X but also don't really know what to do

[chazus]

Thanks man, got it at 4.2 and it's stable.

Stable as in playing games, or stable as in ran a stress test overnight?

[Roblivion]

Stable as in playing games, or stable as in ran a stress test overnight?

Both. Ran Prime95 over night no problems. and played hours of games... gaming it reaches no higher than 50C

[Deleted]

Both. Ran Prime95 over night no problems. and played hours of games... gaming it reaches no higher than 50C

It's almost like someone has secretly been helping you ;D I'm just kidding, though I did give some pointers through PM's I just thought it was better getting more people to look at task. 4.2GHz is not a bad overclock running 24/7, you can probably go further and if you barely touched the voltage that's a good sign.

[Roblivion]

Yeah I actually didn't change the voltage one bit and it successfully has 4.2 without crashes or anything, sorry i'm totally new to OCing haha... I may want to eventually make it higher but I am still scared of modding just about anything lol. i do want to OC the gpu though... just not a clue how

[Deleted]

The GPU is much simpler, you can more or less just watch what setting others with same card have used and then aim for something similar, adjusting based on how testing goes.

You can also check out the:

MMO-Champion GPU (video card) Overclocking Leaderboards

NEW MMO-Champion CPU Overclocking Leaderboards