Why is my regular I7 3770 overclocking to 4.5 GHz?

kebas239

n00b
Joined
May 11, 2012
Messages
3
Hi all. I'm new to this forum and relatively new to overclocking. I just had a few questions. I just built a new system with an I7 3770 (The regular one). I read that these had locked multipliers, and thus could not be overclocked. I understood this as being a tradeoff for extra instruction sets such as hardware virtualization present on the "non-K" chip.

I was tinkering around in my BIOS settings, and found I was able to change the multiplier on my CPU (up to 43) as well as the CPU clock rate (up to 106). I reset the system thinking that since the CPU was locked the overclock would not take effect. Upon boot-up I was greeted with a clock speed of 4.5 GHz. Additionally, I checked under CPU-Z and it confirmed this. I double checked, and do have a branded (non-K) 3770 chip, Attached is what I am referencing in CPU-Z.

I guess my question is "Is this normal?" or am i misunderstanding what I'm reading or what having an "unlocked" I7 really means. Another question I had is why, when running a stress test on the CPU, turbo-boost never kicks in (I tried this at default clock speed, and tried stressing a single core and all cores/threads)

Thank you!!!


Pic-1.png
 
Turbo boost?

Are you suggesting turbo boost caused the overclock? I don't understand, as turbo boost is said to only go up to 3.9 GHz on this processor and (to my understanding) only that high when a single core is under high load. Also, that picture was taken with the CPU idling and my BIOS screen told me the same thing.
 
Perhaps your motherboard has a self overclocking feature and it's enabled? Maybe your bios is glitched and needs updated?
 
That's odd, max turbo boost is 39, so your max multiplier should only be 39.

Maybe run a few benchmarks and compare it to 3770k at 4.5 ghz.
 
For some reason your bclock was saved in bios (bus speed in CPU-z) as 106. Now, if you look in your bios and it says 100 .. that would indeed be strange.
 
there are mobos that can force a disabled core to start working

a mobo that overrides the multi and fsb of a 'locked' cpu isn't far fetched
 
If I'm not mistaken the 2600, 2400 SB, and 3820 SB-E chips are like this too. Their multi can go higher but not "fully unlocked" like the K series chips.
 
SB IB CPUs can be overclocked up to additional 4 bins(multiplier increased by 4) over its max turbo freq. That would be 4.3GHz but since you have changed your BCLK to 106, you have 4.5 GHz While it is surprising, it can be done on all non K i5 and i7, they are also cathegorized as partially locked, i3 and less is however locked completely and doesn't even have turbo boost.
The K processors - fully unlocked, have multiplier limited to 57 and 63 on IB respectively.
 
SB IB CPUs can be overclocked up to additional 4 bins(multiplier increased by 4) over its max turbo freq. That would be 4.3GHz but since you have changed your BCLK to 106, you have 4.5 GHz While it is surprising, it can be done on all non K i5 and i7, they are also cathegorized as partially locked, i3 and less is however locked completely and doesn't even have turbo boost.
The K processors - fully unlocked, have multiplier limited to 57 and 63 on IB respectively.

Ahhhh Thanks guys! I was wondering. I thought that it was COMPLETELY locked and you could do nothing to overclock it or change the multiplier/bus - period. Well, considering most people OC their 3770k's to around the 4.3 - 4.5 GHz range anyways, I think I can deal.

EDIT - I noticed that after running benchmarking software (PerformanceTest), despite the readout of 4.5 GHz base clock speed in my BIOS and on CPU-Z, it says my measured speed is 3.6 GHz, but the TurboBoost is set at 4.5 GHz. My CPU at these settings also test similar to a 3770k @ 3.6 GHz so it seems more accurate. That's cool with me too if thats what I can get out of my CPU. I was wondering though, after stressing all the cores together, and individually, I cannot get TurboBoost to kick in. Why would this be?!
 
Ahhhh Thanks guys! I was wondering. I thought that it was COMPLETELY locked and you could do nothing to overclock it or change the multiplier/bus - period. Well, considering most people OC their 3770k's to around the 4.3 - 4.5 GHz range anyways, I think I can deal.

EDIT - I noticed that after running benchmarking software (PerformanceTest), despite the readout of 4.5 GHz base clock speed in my BIOS and on CPU-Z, it says my measured speed is 3.6 GHz, but the TurboBoost is set at 4.5 GHz. My CPU at these settings also test similar to a 3770k @ 3.6 GHz so it seems more accurate. That's cool with me too if thats what I can get out of my CPU. I was wondering though, after stressing all the cores together, and individually, I cannot get TurboBoost to kick in. Why would this be?!
Turbo boost only works up to 3.9GHz, if you have your CPU overclocked manually on 3.9 or higher, the turbo boost is disabled as CPU is operating on higher frequency. If you overclock to 4.5GHz, you wont move turbo to go high as 4.9, that's not possible. The 3.6 GHz measurement you received is due to enabled speed step(technology where the P-state transitions in processors are changing depending on load), basically your CPU if not used fully, underclock itself to save power. And I assume that during the testing, it was set on 3.6 and in that moment it was saved in log file and shown in report.
 
Back
Top