i5-760 overclocking help

[russell16688]

Hi everyone,
I recently killed my mobo which was AMD and decided to make the full switch over to intel but funds as they are i had to go midrange with the i5-760 but i have read brilliant things about overclocking these cpu's.
I have read a couple of guides on overclocking them but as iv always had brilliant advice and help here id really like your input on how to get a good stable overclock on these cpu's that wont cause any damage.
I will be using a gigabyte p55-usb3 board and for cooling i have a corsair h70 (warm room) and corsair xms3 ddr3 1600mhz ram (should all be in my sig).
If anyone could give any tips or point me to an applicable guide for other cpu's id be very grateful.
Thanks

[smduff]

Give this thread a good read plenty of info here.

Core i7 4Ghz Club & Overclocking Guide

[russell16688]

Thanks, I wasnt sure if that was relevant to my cpu, but thats brilliant!

[Skyguy]

Get that chip to over 4GHz and then drinks are on you!

[russell16688]

Just before i overclock this chip i seem to be getting funny load temps.......
They go high which i accept can happen but they jump from 36c idle to 90c under load and within a minute of stopping back down to 45c.
Is this normal for an intel chip or is it as weird as it seems?
Also this is using prime95, coretemp and real temp.
Iv tightened the corsair heatsink a little more and it does seem a little more stable but still spikes to around 80c

[Skyguy]

That behaviour is normal. However, they already hit 90C? That's the limit, you don't want to go higher than that. What speed/voltage are you running right now?

[russell16688]

that was at stock speed 2.8ghz but the voltage seemed to be going up to 1.29v. i thought this was a bit high so i dropped it down to 1.2v which even seems to be a high vcore for these chips.
I reseated the heatsink this morning and re-applied thermal paste and still have the same massive jump in temps within seconds
Forgot to say when i took the heatsink off originally thermal paste was only on a small part of the bottom of the heatsink, iv completely reseated it so is it worth checking its seated correctly again? i have tightened it down as much as i can but the bolts dont seem to line up well so not sure if its pulling unevenly

[russell16688]

I may have accidentally solved this.......i changed 1 of the plastic pieces on the corsair fitting kit to another and my load temps have gone from 90c to.............45c/46c! quite a difference i think.lol
This now gives me a lot of overhead fo OC'ing this one

[Skyguy]

There ya go! Now you're back to normal operating temperatures and ready to overclock

[russell16688]

I spent ages building it aswell cables are super neat and well routed and 1 little thing cocks it up1 oh well!
got it at 3.1ghz at the mo, appears stable

[russell16688]

Right i am now running at 3.4ghz stable but its refusing to post at 3.5ghz (bclck at 167 x 21) is the only way to up this to add a little more voltage? im currently giving it 1.278v so might 1.3v make it work?

update:dropped memory multiplier down to 6 and could get it to post at 3.5ghz (167x21) with 1.3v on cpu but if i put the memory multiplier up to 8 again it wont post. (on a side note 163, which is stable, with multiplier of 8 gives me my exact memory frequency).
I gave the ram 1.58v and still seemed a little wobbly trying to post to OS. is it now my ram that is holding me back from oCing further?

[Skyguy]

Yep, you definitely need to start increasing the voltages.....Vcore and Vdimm for sure. RAM needs to be anywhere from 1.6 to 1.65. Vcore is gonna need to go at least 1.3V depending how high you want to overclock.

You've squeezed all you can out of those voltages. To go higher on the OC you need to increase voltages. You've plenty of room still to go, not to worry.

[russell16688]

Thanks sky guy - i gave it a go with cpu t 1.30v and ram at 1.646 v but still no joy booting it. is there a setting i might be missing to get this up at 3.5ghz? i dont want to push voltages too high as id like it to be a daily overclock.

[russell16688]

Update - i lowered my mem multiplier to 6 and upped my bclock to 180 x20 and it boots everytime. my vcore is now at 1.3v and vtt at 1.2v and mem at 1.66v
Will it just be that my ram will not go over its stock clock without serious voltage as to why i cant have the multiplier higher?

[russell16688]

Very happy day - running 3.9ghz stable with 6+a bit hours of prime. Used 195 x 20 to get it with mem multiplier dropped to 6 otherwise it would fail constantly to post. Only running 1.3v vcore and 1.66 for ram, though im certain i could drop that as ram is running under stock.
Is there anything else i should look at? possibly dropping multiplier to get bus speed up a little more?

[grumpydaddy]

you could look at a small increase in vtt....which has an effect on the primary uncore devices which are the L3 cache and the memory controller. and is also the primary adjustment required to increase bclock frequency

If you are lucky this may get you back to mem multi of 8