NZFF

I finally plucked up the courage to overclock my own i5/2500K on the weekend with good results so far. Ended up at a x45 multiplier and 1.33V core voltage with various other BIOS tweaks gleaned from HOWTO's. Seems very stable.

Temps are never over the mid-fifties while in FSX flying in heavy scenery with most sliders maxed out, including 100% AI traffic as busy airports. Ran the IntelBurnTest on "High" stress level with 10-runs at a time and was seeing temps in the high-60's to low-70's then, but in-game seems to be much less load on the components. As Timmo says when things warm up in summer I'll need to verify temps are still OK but seems promising so far.

Anyone care to share any gotchas or other considerations? Am a little nervous about running the machine 24/7 until I know its completely stable, but its a rig I only ever run for gaming, and while I'm sitting at the machine. Seems like the BIOS on the m/b will shut-down at extreme temps.

BTW - could a mod of this forum please change this thread title to "Overclocked i5/2500k" or something similar?

Hi Dean,

Can you let me know what cooler you are using? I've got an i5 in one of my systems (not sure if its a 2500K) but looking to overclock it.
What links for info/settings did you use?

deeknow wrote:

QUOTE (deeknow @ Jul 23 2012,10:49 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I finally plucked up the courage to overclock my own i5/2500K on the weekend with good results so far. Ended up at a x45 multiplier and 1.33V core voltage with various other BIOS tweaks gleaned from HOWTO's. Seems very stable.

Temps are never over the mid-fifties while in FSX flying in heavy scenery with most sliders maxed out, including 100% AI traffic as busy airports. Ran the IntelBurnTest on "High" stress level with 10-runs at a time and was seeing temps in the high-60's to low-70's then, but in-game seems to be much less load on the components. As Timmo says when things warm up in summer I'll need to verify temps are still OK but seems promising so far.

Anyone care to share any gotchas or other considerations? Am a little nervous about running the machine 24/7 until I know its completely stable, but its a rig I only ever run for gaming, and while I'm sitting at the machine. Seems like the BIOS on the m/b will shut-down at extreme temps.

BTW - could a mod of this forum please change this thread title to "Overclocked i5/2500k" or something similar?

Howdy!! What5s ya motherboard and cooling set up? I got a i72600K, overkill but Im doing other stuff too....your i52500K is an awesome chip....you will be very happy with the potential for more tweaking, however just aslong as you got the other bits right

Hi guys, i have the same chip i2500K at 4.5Ghz and still on auto voltage. Very Stable. These chips are amazing. I threw on a corsair H60 water cooler from the beginning and when I exit FSX at the moment in this colder winter weather (room temp down stairs approx 15deg) the temp readings are around the mid to high 30's which is freakin awsome. The H60 is not a hard core water cooler and is equal only to some of the best air coolers but leaves a heap more room in your case for circulation and as they are factory sealed you dont have to connect anything water related. i highly recommend them and are only a bit more expensive than a good heatsink.

Dean wrote:

QUOTE (Dean @ Jul 23 2012,1:29 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Can you let me know what cooler you are using? I've got an i5 in one of my systems (not sure if its a 2500K) but looking to overclock it.

Hey Dean. I'm using the "Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus" which seemed to be getting pretty good bang-for-your-buck reviews at the time, not as effective as a hard-core water-cooling outfit but HEAPS better than the stock Intel cooler.

Dean/WairoaBoy: See my full parts list following...
http://pricespy.co.nz/list.php?l=41545&view=m

It's made a huge difference to FPS, I've decided to stick with a frame-rate limiter thought but at least now it never (almost) dips below the limited level whereas at 3.3GHz it was up and down all the time.

Dean wrote:

QUOTE (Dean @ Jul 23 2012,1:29 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What links for info/settings did you use?

At the moment most of the config is based on the following video, plus a few minor tweaks here and there from various posts at http://www.overclock.net/

deeknow wrote:

QUOTE (deeknow @ Jul 23 2012,10:49 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I finally plucked up the courage to overclock my own i5/2500K on the weekend with good results so far. Ended up at a x45 multiplier and 1.33V core voltage with various other BIOS tweaks gleaned from HOWTO's. Seems very stable.

Temps are never over the mid-fifties while in FSX flying in heavy scenery with most sliders maxed out, including 100% AI traffic as busy airports. Ran the IntelBurnTest on "High" stress level with 10-runs at a time and was seeing temps in the high-60's to low-70's then, but in-game seems to be much less load on the components. As Timmo says when things warm up in summer I'll need to verify temps are still OK but seems promising so far.

Anyone care to share any gotchas or other considerations? Am a little nervous about running the machine 24/7 until I know its completely stable, but its a rig I only ever run for gaming, and while I'm sitting at the machine. Seems like the BIOS on the m/b will shut-down at extreme temps.

BTW - could a mod of this forum please change this thread title to "Overclocked i5/2500k" or something similar?

Or have a gander at this beauty http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW8vTg0OUdM...=em-subs_digest

AndrewJamez wrote:

QUOTE (AndrewJamez @ Jul 23 2012,2:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi guys, i have the same chip i2500K at 4.5Ghz and still on auto voltage. Very Stable. These chips are amazing. I threw on a corsair H60 water cooler from the beginning and when I exit FSX at the moment in this colder winter weather (room temp down stairs approx 15deg) the temp readings are around the mid to high 30's which is freakin awsome. The H60 is not a hard core water cooler and is equal only to some of the best air coolers but leaves a heap more room in your case for circulation and as they are factory sealed you dont have to connect anything water related. i highly recommend them and are only a bit more expensive than a good heatsink.

Lol...I think if my room at that temp of 15c Id be find a good heater

deeknow wrote:

QUOTE (deeknow @ Jul 23 2012,3:41 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hey Dean. I'm using the "Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus" which seemed to be getting pretty good bang-for-your-buck reviews at the time, not as effective as a hard-core water-cooling outfit but HEAPS better than the stock Intel cooler.

Dean/WairoaBoy: See my full parts list following...
http://pricespy.co.nz/list.php?l=41545&view=m

It's made a huge difference to FPS, I've decided to stick with a frame-rate limiter thought but at least now it never (almost) dips below the limited level whereas at 3.3GHz it was up and down all the time.


At the moment most of the config is based on the following video, plus a few minor tweaks here and there from various posts at http://www.overclock.net/

Have you got a nvidia card? Try using inspector, its got its own FPS limiter...its a real beaut

This time off the year be fine to run ... as mentioned when temp's move into summer .. care you don't blow cap's on the mobo , I never have Overclocked, as the season changes your machines really turn it on .

wairoaboy wrote:

QUOTE (wairoaboy @ Jul 23 2012,4:45 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Or have a gander at this beauty

Not as much detail or background on that vid Wairoa, I think the one I linked to is more useful. Also, not sure I'm gonna push it to 5GHz, seems like liquid cooling is essential at that level
And yeah have a GeForce card from EVGA, will have to check out the frame limiter, thanks

Ian Warren wrote:

QUOTE (Ian Warren @ Jul 23 2012,6:08 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This time off the year be fine to run ... as mentioned when temp's move into summer .. care you don't blow cap's on the mobo

Yeah thanks for the warning Ian, noted mate. Setting the voltage as low as poss made a HUGE difference to temperatures during the stress tests so its looking ok at the moment

AndrewJamez wrote:

QUOTE (AndrewJamez @ Jul 23 2012,2:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi guys, i have the same chip i2500K at 4.5Ghz and still on auto voltage. Very Stable. These chips are amazing. I threw on a corsair H60 water cooler from the beginning and when I exit FSX at the moment in this colder winter weather (room temp down stairs approx 15deg) the temp readings are around the mid to high 30's which is freakin awsome. The H60 is not a hard core water cooler and is equal only to some of the best air coolers but leaves a heap more room in your case for circulation and as they are factory sealed you dont have to connect anything water related. i highly recommend them and are only a bit more expensive than a good heatsink.

I would highly recommend NOT running auto voltage. Take a few days and go manual. Auto increases the voltage considerably.

I just wiped my settings after flashing the BIOS (EFI or whatever it's called now) trying to get rid of the ASUS double POST. Luckily I have a spreadsheet of my findings.

thanks for the tip, will look into it.

Yeah Andrew watch that auto-voltage setting, even at a x45 multiplier on my rig auto-voltage saw my core voltage spike up in the high 1.4s which saw temps jump up into the high 80's under a stress test.
At a x45 multiplier on manual voltage setting I've managed to get it down to the low 1.3s and be very stable.

Thanks for the info guys.
Somehow I dont think my i5 is of the 2500K variety... I seem to recall it being an i5-920 or something like that. Original clock speed is 2.8Ghz.
Will have to check the home PC again at some stage. I doubt these other versions are as readily overclockable as the 2500K though. Happy to be proven wrong

After another couple of nights of fiddling with BIOS settings and running endless Prime95 and IBT tests have settled on a nice stable config for the i5/2500K

I decided to wind it back to a x43 multiplier (4.3GHz) as the frame rates were more than enough and dont wanna comprimise the hardware (even tho it should theoretically o/clock much higher). I lowered manual PLL voltage (1.75V) and dropped core voltage to 1.30V which seems to be sufficient during the stress tests. This has lowered the temps considerably during tests (low 70's max now) and during FSX gameplay at detailed payware airports with 100% AI traffic I'm seeing 25-50fps and 35-40degs temps without a fps limiter so am pretty stoked about that.

Been a real interesting and educational exercise, and cant complain about a 33% increase in grunt :-)