I don't want to invest a lot of time into this. Life is busy and good. But I do want to get what I paid for out of my hardware. I've never overclocked before, so be nice to me.
I installed some new RAM today, rated at 1600 MHz. But Speccy told me it was only running at 666 MHz. I found something in the BIOS that bumped it up to what I thought said 1600 MHz, and now Speccy says it is running at 800 MHz. Is there a 2x multiplier going on here?
My PC is my audio workstation and my gaming machine (1080p on high, not ultra, likely at 40 FPS using an AMD 5870). Intel 3570k, ASRock Z77 Extreme4, Evo 212. I have zero interest in bragging rights, or I would have overclocked long ago. But if a mild overclock can let me run a few more virtual instruments simultaneously in Pro Tools, hooray.
In general, what is considered a safe overclock for the 3570k? 4.2 GHz? 4.3? 4.4?
It looks like my mobo had some snazzy settings for auto-balancing everything if I set the desired outcome. I set it to 4.2 GHz, and I'm idling at 28-30 C. Should I use the auto-OCing? Or do things manually? (Again, I don't want to read a book on the subject. I'm glad this is fun for some of you, but it isn't for me at this point. )
Also, Speccy says each core is running in what appears to be a range of 4199-4201 MHz, with a multiplier of 42x, which looks good. But then it drops to 1600 MHz at a multiplier of 16x. It does this every couple of seconds. Why?
Thanks so much for all of you kind, generous people willing to answer. TR has the best community.