Intel Kaby Lake i7-7700K CPU Overclocking Follow-up @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

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Intel Kaby Lake i7-7700K CPU Overclocking Follow-up - Last week we shared our overclocking results with our retail purchased Core i7-7700K Kaby Lake processor. We then took the Integrated Heat Spreader off, replaced the Thermal Interface Material and tried again for 5GHz with 3600MHz memory and failed. This time, less RAM MHz and more core voltage!
 
nice.
Will be interesting to see articles where gaming experience/benches are shown with kaby lake and different ram speeds. I run a skylake 6700k@4.6ghz and 32gb Gskill 2400Mhz ram clocked at about 2533mhz and was considering Kaby lake to hit the 5ghz mark, but may just hold out for Rizen to see if it's a POS or not. I do have a kit of 3000mhz ram in another system but it's only 16GB. Was hoping to reuse one of those kits in w/e system I stick with. If I'm suffering too much with the 2533mhz mem speed on kaby lake, vs a high mhz/$ kit, I may just sit still.
 
Kyle, before you de-lid the 7700K could you please also include some sort of low profile (or even a "stock") cooler in your temperature tests, so that us SFF enthusiasts can get a good temperature comparison?
 
OmenemO said:
Kyle, before you de-lid the 7700K could you please also include some sort of low profile (or even a "stock") cooler in your temperature tests, so that us SFF enthusiasts can get a good temperature comparison?
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I don't even have an air cooler here to use for that currently. It is running at 76C package temp with high per core temps being 84/80/80/79 on a 3.5 hour full load run. But lets keep this discussion for the next article on the 7600K. :)
 
This followup got me thinking, when you see the binned chips on silicone lottery it says tested at 2400MHz... thats pretty low too.

I was going to pick up a ddr4 4000 module but now it looks like most chips wont run 5Ghz with memory that fast :/
 
460cidpower said:
Does the loss of higher memory frequencies even effect the real world performance?
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You benefit from higher memory speeds on graphics intense operations. (Reading and writing textures for 3D with the IGP) There are also a few benchmarks which are memory intensive. But nothing pratical.

In terms of gaming with a dedicated GPU, no not really that noticeable. Maybe a couple percentage points at most last I checked. (*I may be wrong about this as I'm working off memory, so take it with a grain of salt*)
 
Guess I'll find out this weekend when I build my 7700K system :D
Going for a quiet system (at least during email and web activity) as I'm tired of all the fan noise on my current system.

I'm using DDR4 3200 cas 14 ram, so I'll run the memory at that speed, and see how high I can take the CPU using a Noctua NH-D15S cooler.

Would love to see 5Ghz, but I'd be ok with 4.8Ghz.
 
Wait, how many DIMM slots are occupied? If you have all of them full, did you guys bump VCCIO?
 
Appreciate the follow up.

I've been running a new Kaby Lake build and I'm really enjoying it. Currently 5.0ghz at 1.38v with memory at 3000mhz.
 
Kinda wanna pop my 4770k. My h110i gt broke the other month and I've been slacking on sending it back, I've been running my backup Shadow Rock Slim in the mean time and have obviously had to wind down the clocks. But really if a similar drop could be seen with a re-lid then maybe i'll just leave the be quiet kit on there since well... you know... it's quiet.
 
I don't really get these prts:
... this may not be the most economical or efficient route to a 5GHz build.
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For an economical build a Core i3-7350K should do.

... Pulling back greatly on our RAM speed ... Only once we got down to 2666MHz did we see full load become stable...
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Don't you mean go up to 2666MHz (an 11% overclock above the standard 2400MHz, same level of OC as the CPU)?
 
I'm so pissed that Asetek stopped issuing CPU socket upgrades for the Vapochill LS back in the 775 days.
Kept mine around forever and finally chucked it 6 months ago after realizing that it was never going to be a viable turnkey solution ever again.
Oh what could have been...
 
Sounds like we need a comparison of what happens when you turn off hyperthreading in a highly threaded game like Doom, BF4, BF1, etc.
 
OmenemO said:
Kyle, before you de-lid the 7700K could you please also include some sort of low profile (or even a "stock") cooler in your temperature tests, so that us SFF enthusiasts can get a good temperature comparison?
Click to expand...

Though I'm not a SFF/HTPC enthusiast I'm also interested in those kind of results. Maybe Kyle can use his 7600K for that.
 
pfc_m_drake said:
I'm so pissed that Asetek stopped issuing CPU socket upgrades for the Vapochill LS back in the 775 days.
Kept mine around forever and finally chucked it 6 months ago after realizing that it was never going to be a viable turnkey solution ever again.
Oh what could have been...
Click to expand...

What ??? you chucked a Vapochill LS ???? I could have modded that to fit well allmost any CPU :facepalm: sorry I just feel bad when hardware that nice is chucked
 
MrAhlefeld said:
What ??? you chucked a Vapochill LS ???? I could have modded that to fit well allmost any CPU :facepalm: sorry I just feel bad when hardware that nice is chucked
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I know it could have been modded.
To be honest, it had sat unused for six (6) years - and had been moved via tractor-trailer transporter from NY to FL. Unknown if it still worked - or how well. I basically got tired of looking at it. Could have sold it for $200, but shipping would have been a pain and costly. Ultimately I decided it was just more trouble than it was worth.

If it makes you feel better, I didn't 'chuck' it - I recycled it at a local facility :)
 
pfc_m_drake said:
I know it could have been modded.
To be honest, it had sat unused for six (6) years - and had been moved via tractor-trailer transporter from NY to FL. Unknown if it still worked - or how well. I basically got tired of looking at it. Could have sold it for $200, but shipping would have been a pain and costly. Ultimately I decided it was just more trouble than it was worth.

If it makes you feel better, I didn't 'chuck' it - I recycled it at a local facility :)
Click to expand...

No worries I understand why you parted with it, just thought it would have been fun to mod it.
I mod everthing when needed, and when not needed.
Current project is lapping and delidding my i7 2700K, just delidded a i5 2500 as a trail run.
 
JDanser said:
Wait, how many DIMM slots are occupied? If you have all of them full, did you guys bump VCCIO?
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My experience is that bumping that has made no real difference in overclocking on KB.
 
My Sandy Bridge 2500K started out stable at 1.42V and 4.6Ghz. Ended up at 4.2GHz. Pushing Krabby Lake to 1.4somethingV to reach an arbitrary frequency is like waxing your race car to hit a slightly higher speed. Except in this case you're talking about 155 vs 152 FPS in Handbrake...so why trash a good CPU that in the end won't make a hill of beans difference in the "real world"...except to lighten your wallet when you have to replace your CPU?

Sure, my new 6700K can get pushed to 4.8GHz at 1.42V and under 75C, or I can run at 4.6Ghz with a VCC of 1.32v and top out at 62C max...and have that same speed next year.

Do a cost benefit analysis BEFORE you chase the unicorn.
 
Bet you could have gotten 5GHz/3600 if you had switched to cheese.

When you lowered your memory clocks did the latency timings improve? I haven't noticed a huge benefit from adding extra bandwidth except synthetic scores but reducing latency can make things feel a bit more snappy as far as every day tasks go. If the 7600K also needs the memory clocks lowered, could you provide at least one benchmark across the different speeds to show if it impacts performance?
 
What a bummer. Let's say the average OC ends up being 4.8-4.9ghz, up from 4.5ghz base, that ends up only being a 7% overclock. Maybe Cannonlake will be better...
 
The primary reason I OC'd my 6700K was this in the Intel specs:
Processor Base Frequency 4.00 GHz
Max Turbo Frequency 4.20 GHz <<-- SINGLE CORE

My 6700K is stable at 4.6GHz across all 4 cores, with HT and RAM at 3000Mhz.

Similarly for 7700K in the Intel specs:
Processor Base Frequency 4.20 GHz
Max Turbo Frequency 4.50 GHz <<-- SINGLE CORE

Assuming a similar 10% OC on Kaby would have a 4.9GHz turbo freq across all 4 cores, not 4.5 on ONE. So it's not trivial. Chasing the addition .1 kinda is.


My original 2500K system was purchased to overclock, and because I was principally interested in gaming an i5 w/o HT was just peachy. If you're just into games, wtf do you need the 7700K for? As the article points out, a guaranteed stable OC at 5Ghz (or better) is a tradeoff that basically means you're running a 7600K at 7700K prices.

Like Asus points out- it's mostly the Vcore and cooling...and the higher the Vcore, the sooner you'll see CPU degradation at the silicon level, regardless of cooling.


Let's see what Ryzen will do.
 
Incontentia Buttocks said:
My Sandy Bridge 2500K started out stable at 1.42V and 4.6Ghz. Ended up at 4.2GHz. Pushing Krabby Lake to 1.4somethingV to reach an arbitrary frequency is like waxing your race car to hit a slightly higher speed. Except in this case you're talking about 155 vs 152 FPS in Handbrake...so why trash a good CPU that in the end won't make a hill of beans difference in the "real world"...except to lighten your wallet when you have to replace your CPU?

Sure, my new 6700K can get pushed to 4.8GHz at 1.42V and under 75C, or I can run at 4.6Ghz with a VCC of 1.32v and top out at 62C max...and have that same speed next year.

Do a cost benefit analysis BEFORE you chase the unicorn.
Click to expand...

Or, you build the system and immediately list it for sale like I've always done. Takes me 1 afternoon to build a system. And that's with several breaks lol. In my mind everyone should be doing this, make a quick $300 - $500 profit.

You can always drop in another CPU after a few years if you are that in love with the system. You do know some people are not broke right?

I can see this argument being made against a $1000 dollar Intel CPU or a $650 GTX 1080 but for a $300ish cpu that you can find used in 6 or 8 months for $250 or less or even less in 2018 to me is not that big of a deal.

There is not one person here that doesn't want that elusive 5.0Ghz clock speed. We've been chasing it for awhile now. You do understand that right? 1 or 2 frames per second is absolutely beside the point but I suspect you knew this already.

I clocked my old 5820K from 4.4ghz to 4.7ghz and I gained 11 or 12 fps. That's no lie. I'm sure 5.0ghz gives a nice boost to FPS over 4.5ghz. Anyone?

To me, this is kinda living scared. If I did that, I wouldn't do have the crap I do in life including something as silly as overclocking my CPU.

Full disclosure, and I can't believe I am admitting this because it goes against my own argument but I did kill one CPU in recent years. Ironically it was a 2600k that died on me after several days of finding the chips breaking point overclocking. lol .. But that didn't stop me. Maybe the 2600k wasn't the best chip to push? Who knows.
 
Well I just strapped in the 7700k and set her right to 5.0GHz at 1.35v, XMP 3200 enabled. Two straight hours of BF1 under the belt, no crashes. No de-lid, 82 degrees max on Core#3. Cautiously optimistic I have a good chip here!

edit: Just passed ROG RealBench half hour stress test! Core#1 did hit 91°C though, too toasty?
 
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SixFootDuo said:
Or, you build the system and immediately list it for sale like I've always done. Takes me 1 afternoon to build a system. And that's with several breaks lol. In my mind everyone should be doing this, make a quick $300 - $500 profit.

You can always drop in another CPU after a few years if you are that in love with the system. You do know some people are not broke right?

I can see this argument being made against a $1000 dollar Intel CPU or a $650 GTX 1080 but for a $300ish cpu that you can find used in 6 or 8 months for $250 or less or even less in 2018 to me is not that big of a deal.

There is not one person here that doesn't want that elusive 5.0Ghz clock speed. We've been chasing it for awhile now. You do understand that right? 1 or 2 frames per second is absolutely beside the point but I suspect you knew this already.

I clocked my old 5820K from 4.4ghz to 4.7ghz and I gained 11 or 12 fps. That's no lie. I'm sure 5.0ghz gives a nice boost to FPS over 4.5ghz. Anyone?

To me, this is kinda living scared. If I did that, I wouldn't do have the crap I do in life including something as silly as overclocking my CPU.

Full disclosure, and I can't believe I am admitting this because it goes against my own argument but I did kill one CPU in recent years. Ironically it was a 2600k that died on me after several days of finding the chips breaking point overclocking. lol .. But that didn't stop me. Maybe the 2600k wasn't the best chip to push? Who knows.
Click to expand...


I still love playing Mechwarrior online
but it must be THE most unoptimized game that relys on IPC and high clock rates

sure I gained fps
especially minimum, something around 20 or so going from 4.5 Skylake to 5.2 kaby (both i5)


however
it's the magical number :cool:

it's kinda the same reason why I spent more money on black sleeved cables

or why I like a board with a shroud, why I went with a kraken X62 and why I most likely end up replacing the fan in my PSU :D

it's a hobby

hell overclocking is easy these days
the things people did (on a more regular basis) :rolleyes:

I've seen people using radiators out of old cars from the junk heap
ugh and making sure condensation doesn't reach you're cpu running water chillers, peltiers or those vapor things

chasing that magical number is a lot of fun these days
and maybe easier then ever

ehh
ok it'll degrade in a few years, maybe
haven't settled on a voltage yet
really itching to get 5.3 or 5.4 stable :rolleyes:

though I'd most likely settle for 5.2

hell maybe AMD has something beyond great with a Ryzen 2 by then
 
NukeDukem said:
Well I just strapped in the 7700k and set her right to 5.0GHz at 1.35v, XMP 3200 enabled. Two straight hours of BF1 under the belt, no crashes. No de-lid, 82 degrees max on Core#3. Cautiously optimistic I have a good chip here!

edit: Just passed ROG RealBench half hour stress test! Core#1 did hit 91°C though, too toasty?
Click to expand...
Not if it is still working. :)
 
Folterknecht said:
Though I'm not a SFF/HTPC enthusiast I'm also interested in those kind of results. Maybe Kyle can use his 7600K for that.
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Whoops, I meant the 7600K. Hopefully Kyle knows what I meant as it's obviously too late for the before delidding thermal tests to be carried out on the 7700K now.
 
Kyle...

The game I play the most is Factorio right now (with 0.15 coming out, probably a lot more). The game is single threaded and very sensitive to RAM speed. Based upon this I should be able to get a better performance (e.g. higher OC and higher RAM speeds) with the 7600k...correct?

I would much rather take the savings and dump it into other areas.
 
NukeDukem said:
Well I just strapped in the 7700k and set her right to 5.0GHz at 1.35v, XMP 3200 enabled. Two straight hours of BF1 under the belt, no crashes. No de-lid, 82 degrees max on Core#3. Cautiously optimistic I have a good chip here!

edit: Just passed ROG RealBench half hour stress test! Core#1 did hit 91°C though, too toasty?
Click to expand...

Nice! What cooler are you using if you don't mind my asking? I just ordered everything for a new 7700k build along with the new gskill trident z 3600 rgb memory, which now I am getting a little worried about. I went with a Liquid Freezer 120, so hoping that will be enough. If not, maybe I will need to de-lid..
 
Kelter said:
Nice! What cooler are you using if you don't mind my asking? I just ordered everything for a new 7700k build along with the new gskill trident z 3600 rgb memory, which now I am getting a little worried about. I went with a Liquid Freezer 120, so hoping that will be enough. If not, maybe I will need to de-lid..
Click to expand...

I am using a Corsair H100i (240mm radiator) & Gelid GC Extreme thermal paste. My H100i is the original version so the results would probably be better using the v2 or some other more recent AIO.
 
Thanks, Kyle.

I may not have the means to buy anything right now, I still want to know what's going on.

It seems like just yesterday that people were going crazy over the fact that CPUs had finally hit 1 GHz..
 
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