3570K guaranteed minimum overclock?

[Elliot B.]

I don't know much about overclocking and I've not attempted it before.

I have a 3570K but on the wrong motherboard chipset.

I'm considering getting a Z77 board and a ?20 fan so I can overclock the CPU.

To see if it's worth it, can anyone roughly suggest a guaranteed minimum overclock for this CPU with a ?20 fan?

[Xahid]

Since you already make up your mind for overclocking, I suggest to spend your ??? in Liquid cooling system, they are cheap to get Now a days, as for as CPU Z77 is good choice & if you go for Asus that will make overclocking more easier.

before you start you need to learn a lot about overclocking, here is quick start guide

http://www.thinkcomputers.org/intel-ivy-bridge-overclocking-guide/

& Good Luck

[snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member]

There's no such thing as a guaranteed minimum overclock. Manufacturing of processors on wafers is highly variable and largely depends on how close to the center of the wafer you are (the closer the less likely to have defects and the more likely to be able to clock higher). No processor is physically the same. Intel bins the processors based on testing and guarantees only that they will operate in the specified ranges. 

 

It is likely that you'll be able to achieve an overclock, but there is always the possibility that you'll simply get a processor that refuses to run beyond the specified specs because of its unique physical defects. Moreover, it is possible that you get a processor that runs outside of specs initially, but that later will not. Finally, It's also possible that your processor can fail outside of spec in predictable but unknown ways, but that you won't know because you don't have the exhaustive binning process testing to help you test every possible feature. The latter is the reason I won't OC my own components.

 

I would say that Intel probably helps the OC folk by only binning certain processors in the -K series. My guess would be that the ones with better results end up binned there.

 

EDIT: I forgot to mention, one often thing that people tend to believe is that if you operate within a nice temperature range that your processor will be operate normally and be stable without problems outside of spec. This is not necessarily true. Cool temperatures do not guarantee that a processor won't fail outside of spec.

[Elliot B.]

So you're telling me I paid extra for the K model and I'm not even guaranteed a 1% overclock?

[snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member]

So you're telling me I paid extra for the K model and I'm not even guaranteed a 1% overclock?

Well, you can't do an overclock of just 1% since you'd have to do some multiple, but it's highly unlikely to get one that won't actually overclock to some degree. Most processors do overclock at least somewhat from what I've seen. We had a thread on this forum the other day of a processor that did initially overclock and then started to fail later in its life unless it was at stock speeds (or near) --> that's the more likely scenario than no overclock ability.

 

In my OP, I probably didn't stress enough how unlikely it is that you would end up with one that really refuses to overclock though. My point is really that you can't set percentages on it because any anecdotal evidence isn't necessarily going to be near what you get simply because of the physical differences.

 

EDIT: Are the -K models necessarily even more, I think when I got mine it was around the same price (but it was in a bundle)?

[The Gamer]

Well, you can't do an overclock of just 1% since you'd have to do some multiple, but it's highly unlikely to get one that won't actually overclock to some degree. Most processors do overclock at least somewhat from what I've seen. We had a thread on this forum the other day of a processor that did initially overclock and then started to fail later in its life unless it was at stock speeds (or near) --> that's the more likely scenario than no overclock ability.

 

In my OP, I probably didn't stress enough how unlikely it is that you would end up with one that really refuses to overclock though. My point is really that you can't set percentages on it because any anecdotal evidence isn't necessarily going to be near what you get simply because of the physical differences.

 

EDIT: Are the -K models necessarily even more, I think when I got mine it was around the same price (but it was in a bundle)?

No, they don't cost any more. At least, not when I purchased mine 8 months ago.

[Odom Member]

I just upgraded my machine to a -K model last weekend. The difference from a non -K model to a -K model was about 10?.

And the difference between buying the processor in a box with and without a cooler (the stock Intel one) was 5?. I always go for the option of the box with the cooler, as I get a backup, in case mine fails.

 

As to your overclock, I don't know much about it, but from what I read here in the forums and what I was told is that once you overclock the CPU's start getting hot. I doubt that a cheap 20$ cooler is going to allow you for much overclocking and keep the much higher CPU temperatures in check. I might be wrong though, would be nice if someone with more experience in this could get back to you.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

I would def. recommend an Asus mobo w/ the AI Suite and auto-overclocking in the BIOS. I simply set the BIOS to "Performance" and it sets the overclock dynamically in realtime. Based on load, my CPU will go up to 4.3GHz. That's without doing anything else. It's fantastic.

 

Also, i have the Corsair H80i. it's awesome. def. buy one!

[Andre S. Veteran]

So you're telling me I paid extra for the K model and I'm not even guaranteed a 1% overclock?

It should downclock just fine. :p (j/k)

 

De jure, you're not guaranteed anything. Is it written on the box anywhere that "Intel guarantees that this chip will overclock to x%"? No. De facto, you're very likely to get a decent overclock based on everyone's experience with these chips.