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Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 3:37 pm
by DPete27
I have to get this straightened out for good in my head. I've read in various places that one can overclock non-K Intel processors by 400MHz (4 bins) by upping the multiplier as long as you are using a B75 or Z77 motherboard. Has anybody tried this and/or confirm that this is indeed true? Is that only limited to i5 and i7 processors with turbo-core or is it true for i3s and Pentiums as well?

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 4:22 pm
by Airmantharp
Not straightforward, but I believe that certain motherboards (including some from Asus) will allow you to run a non-K Turbo-enabled CPU at its highest multiplier all the time.

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 4:25 pm
by vargis14
I believe you can only max the turbo on all 4 cores on asrock boards and possible asus...maybe others but i really am not positive. Also you can increase the block to 103-104 on sandys and up to 107 on ivys. But messing with the block more then a few MHZ can lead to stability issues since it overclocks the PCI busses and everything. Thats all i know since i have yet to try to OC a non K CPU.

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 5:25 pm
by chuckula
The bclk overclocking is possible within a very limited range on Sandy & Ivy. I'm not sure about the multipliers, but if the board supports it then you could get the top-binned turbo-boost multiplier (whatever that happens to be for your chip) locked in as the permanent clock like Airmantharp suggested.

Haswell will have some additional flexibility with bclk overclocking because the Haswell Z87 parts support 100 MHz (default), 125 MHz and 167 MHz bclk frequencies with the correct ratios for the PCIe buses and other peripherals. This buys you a few more options for overclocking non-K series parts, but you are still limited to a pretty narrow bclk frequency range around each of the 100/125/167 MHz bclk defaults in order to preserve system stability.

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 5:30 pm
by Bensam123
Yeah you can do very limited OCing with the bclk, otherwise they're pretty much locked.

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 5:47 pm
by Krogoth
Non-K Ivy Bridge and Sandy-Bridge chips are locked and messing with "based clock speed" is not recommended. It is because overclocking the Bclk speed also effects the PCI and PCIe speeds since the clock generator is on the chip. Devices riding on the PCI bus and PCIe lanes do not like to operate beyond the spec. The most notable devices are disk controllers in the form of BSODs and data corruption. ;)

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 6:42 pm
by MadManOriginal
DPete27 wrote:
I have to get this straightened out for good in my head. I've read in various places that one can overclock non-K Intel processors by 400MHz (4 bins) by upping the multiplier as long as you are using a B75 or Z77 motherboard. Has anybody tried this and/or confirm that this is indeed true? Is that only limited to i5 and i7 processors with turbo-core or is it true for i3s and Pentiums as well?


Non-K processors can be set to use +4 bins versus their normal Turbo speed at a given load: http://techreport.com/review/20188/inte ... ocessors/3 It's different from what others have mentioned where certain motherboards just run a CPU at it's highest Turbo speed regardless of load...all that means is that max 4-core load is the same frequency as a single core load; the +4 bin speed overclock is actually better. It requires Turboboost though so only i5 and i7 can be overclocked this way.

It is also motherboard-dependent, it seems that some manufacturers only enable this on certain motherboards. There's some confusion because they tend to align it with the chipset, with H77 not having it and Z75/Z77 having it, but technically H77 is capable of +4 bin overclocking too: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ... t-h77.html "Intel H77 Express Chipset also enables overclocking features of unlocked 3rd generation Intel® Core™ processors." hmm..Maybe that means only for K CPUs, but either way I can guarantee that not all H77 motherboards can overclock.

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:51 pm
by DPete27
Thanks for the link MadManOriginal, that pretty much confirms my understanding with hard facts. AFAIK, H77 can only overclock the IGP (even though that Intel page seems to suggest otherwise).

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 9:55 pm
by zzz
The +400MHz does work on all mobos, Asus and Gigabtye mobos will enable the full turboboost to work on all cores, can't speak about other vendors, which also doesn't apply to i3's.

The reason for lack of documentation is that no one cares about benchmarking these cpus, simply because those that overclock (gamers, since professionals are afraid of errors), don't buy i3's or lower. The concept exists but no one cares.

That said, I'd love to see some benchmarks with an 'overclocked' i3 and a stock and overclocked i5.

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 10:24 pm
by MadManOriginal
Umm, no. In order to do anything more than BClk overclocking, which is pretty minor, the CPU needs Turboboost. Without Turboboost there isn't a way to do +4 bin overclocking, so that's why you don't hear about overclocked i3's. I am 100% certain that if i3s or Pentiums or Celerons could overclock meaningfully, the info would be widespread.

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 11:14 pm
by f0d
as far as i know cpu's without turboboost (celerons/pentiums and maybe i3's) cannot have the +4 extra multipliers and the only way is with bclk
i5's and i7's get extra multipliers

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 11:01 pm
by Bensam123
Yeah, if you could OC a i3 it would be ridiculously desirable and pretty widespread. Reminds me of the extra 800mhz I got out of my Athlon 2 640. Completely blows the value proposition out of proportion

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Fri Apr 26, 2013 4:32 pm
by DPete27
Ok, new addition to the discussion: We've established that it is possible to increase the turbo multiplier on "locked" i5 and i7s by 4 on Z77/Z75/B75 mobos making for a 400MHz increase there (assuming you stick with the default 100MHz Bclk).
Now, there are Z77 boards that run all 4 cores at the max single-threaded turbo clock by default to pump their benchmark numbers. (Multicore Enhancement is the term) This could also apply to our overclocking efforts of non-K CPUs.
I believe it is also possible to lock your CPU on the max multiplier. The thing probably would never idle, but its possible to do. Now, put those two together... you've technically boosted the "base clock speed" by more than 400MHz? Have I made any inaccurate statements?

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Fri Apr 26, 2013 4:42 pm
by auxy
DPete27 wrote:
Ok, new addition to the discussion: We've established that it is possible to increase the turbo multiplier on "locked" i5 and i7s by 4 on Z77/Z75/B75 mobos making for a 400MHz increase there (assuming you stick with the default 100MHz Bclk).
Now, there are Z77 boards that run all 4 cores at the max single-threaded turbo clock by default to pump their benchmark numbers. (Multicore Enhancement is the term) This could also apply to our overclocking efforts of non-K CPUs.
I believe it is also possible to lock your CPU on the max multiplier. The thing probably would never idle, but its possible to do. Now, put those two together... you've technically boosted the "base clock speed" by more than 400MHz? Have I made any inaccurate statements?

Congratulations on 1000 posts!

Your proposal seems accurate to me. Just remember it has to be a processor with Turbo.

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Fri Apr 26, 2013 4:43 pm
by Cataclysm_ZA
You're correct, except for two things:

1) B75 boards likewise cannot raise the default multiplier to max Turbo.
2) You can lock the turbo setting to max so that Intel Speedstep ramps straight up to the highest clock speed without any intermediate clocks to assess TDPs before going higher. You can disable the power savings for extended sessions, although I'd leave them on so you can still idle when you're doing basically nothing, like surfing the net or watching a video.

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 2:10 pm
by DPete27
Can anybody verify if you can +4 bin Haswell non-K processors on a Z87 mobo like you could with SB and IVB?

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 3:17 pm
by Rand
DPete27 wrote:
Can anybody verify if you can +4 bin Haswell non-K processors on a Z87 mobo like you could with SB and IVB?


You can't, the ability was removed with Haswell. The best you can do is set all cores to the max single core Turbo speed.

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 9:16 pm
by DPete27
Oh yes, that's right. Proof Here. Thanks for sparking my memory Rand

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 9:32 pm
by jihadjoe
Haswell totally killed non-K overclocking. No more +4 bins, and no bclk oc either.

For non-K oc I say the i7-3820 is king. bclk oc, and +5 or 6 bins (multi goes up to 43 or 44, depending on your chip/mb).
It'll do just about any speed you can get a 2600k or 3770k to with a combination of multi and bclk, and you get the platform benefits of X79 and a huge 10MB cache.

I got an easy 4.5 GHz just by upping the multi to 43 and the bclk to 105.

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 10:24 pm
by Airmantharp
jihadjoe wrote:
Haswell totally killed non-K overclocking. No more +4 bins, and no bclk oc either.

For non-K oc I say the i7-3820 is king. bclk oc, and +5 or 6 bins (multi goes up to 43 or 44, depending on your chip/mb).
It'll do just about any speed you can get a 2600k or 3770k to with a combination of multi and bclk, and you get the platform benefits of X79 and a huge 10MB cache.

I got an easy 4.5 GHz just by upping the multi to 43 and the bclk to 105.


Yet you get the platform failings of X79 too, not the least including the higher price for the board :). Intel really did drop the ball on that one IMO. Least they could have done is slap the Z87 hub onto the boards.

Re: Overclocking non-K Intel CPUs?

Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2013 12:17 am
by jihadjoe
Airmantharp wrote:
Yet you get the platform failings of X79 too, not the least including the higher price for the board :). Intel really did drop the ball on that one IMO. Least they could have done is slap the Z87 hub onto the boards.


I agree Intel did sort of drop the ball on X79. It should have been so much better if they had properly enabled everything that was supposed to have come on it.

It's still pretty good though, and the prices aren't really that much higher. The Gigabyte X79 UP4 is $210 on newegg, to match its feature set with Z87 would need something like the UD5H ($190). Also the 4820k ($325) is actually cheaper than a 4770k ($350), just as the 3820 ($290) was cheaper than the 2600k ($330) so there's hardly any difference if we add up CPU+MB. Total price might even be in favor of X79.

I got my board and cpu (X79 UD7, i7-3820) as new old-stock from a brick and mortar store. Since both models were discontinued and they were getting rid of inventory my total cost came to just about $400. :D