Novice with i3770K Overclock Question

[1Wolf]

My machine is an Asus Z77 Mobo, i3770K, Corsair H100 with fans in push/pull for cooling. I built it nearly 3 years ago and its been running at stock speeds since then as I was able to play all games that I play with sliders maxxed, and do everything I needed, at stock just fine.

However, now I've picked up Witcher 3 and my i3770K seems to need a bit more horsepower so I figured I'd put a modest overclock on it. Nothing record breaking but just to squeeze a bit more out of it...thinking around 4.2 to 4.6...somewhere in there.

1) What are good, safe, 24x7, daily-use IDLE temps for the i3770K?

2) What are good, safe, under-load, gaming temps for the i3770K?

3) What are good, safe, 100% load, stress-test temps for the i3770K?

4) My ASUS board offers too "easy" overclock features under auto-tuning that I was really hoping to be able to take advantage of. The first is a simple "fast" overclock of just the CPU to around 4.2. The second performs several tests and reboots to overclock CPU and memory to attempt to get to a higher overclock while stable. I've overclocked a few machines "manually" before many years ago, but I still consider myself very much a "novice" at it. Its very time consuming and unfortunately I just don't have a ton of time so I was hoping that the "auto" features of my board might help me out or at least get me in the neighborhood and I could tweak from there. I'm sure you guys prefer completely manual overclocking, but for a novice, is the auto-overclock on the ASUS Z77 boards pretty decent? Can a novice generally trust the settings?

Thanks!

 

[Dayaks]

My machine is an Asus Z77 Mobo, i3770K, Corsair H100 with fans in push/pull for cooling. I built it nearly 3 years ago and its been running at stock speeds since then as I was able to play all games that I play with sliders maxxed, and do everything I needed, at stock just fine.

However, now I've picked up Witcher 3 and my i3770K seems to need a bit more horsepower so I figured I'd put a modest overclock on it. Nothing record breaking but just to squeeze a bit more out of it...thinking around 4.2 to 4.6...somewhere in there.

1) What are good, safe, 24x7, daily-use IDLE temps for the i3770K?

2) What are good, safe, under-load, gaming temps for the i3770K?

3) What are good, safe, 100% load, stress-test temps for the i3770K?

4) My ASUS board offers too "easy" overclock features under auto-tuning that I was really hoping to be able to take advantage of. The first is a simple "fast" overclock of just the CPU to around 4.2. The second performs several tests and reboots to overclock CPU and memory to attempt to get to a higher overclock while stable. I've overclocked a few machines "manually" before many years ago, but I still consider myself very much a "novice" at it. Its very time consuming and unfortunately I just don't have a ton of time so I was hoping that the "auto" features of my board might help me out or at least get me in the neighborhood and I could tweak from there. I'm sure you guys prefer completely manual overclocking, but for a novice, is the auto-overclock on the ASUS Z77 boards pretty decent? Can a novice generally trust the settings?

Thanks!

I had a 3770k. Ran it around 1.3V. I would just set the voltage to 1.3V, manually move up the multiplier until a stress test crashes then back off by 200Mhz. That's generally the procedure I follow. I'd say keep it under 80C stress testing and you'll be fine. A H100 should have no problem at 1.3V, if you go higher you'll have to watch temps.

Google "Ivy Bridge Overclocking Guide" there's a really in depth guide.

 

[1Wolf]

Thanks Dayaks.

With regards to your statement about watching temps, what can I use as some rule of thumb regarding those temps so that I know when things are looking high? What are good idle temps, temps while gaming? (i.e. Under load but not a stress test, call this 'common usage'), and temps while stress testing?

Also, I googled the phrase you mentioned and I believe I found the guide you referred to. Was it this one?

www.overclock.net/t/1291703/ivy-bridge-overclocking-guide-asus-motherboards

If I found the right one, as I read through it, it certainly appears to be a very in depth guide. Just out of curiousity, is there anything wrong with using the ASUS Auto-Tuning features on the board? Does it produce bad or unsafe results?

 

[Dayaks]

Thanks Dayaks.

With regards to your statement about watching temps, what can I use as some rule of thumb regarding those temps so that I know when things are looking high? What are good idle temps, temps while gaming? (i.e. Under load but not a stress test, call this 'common usage'), and temps while stress testing?

Also, I googled the phrase you mentioned and I believe I found the guide you referred to. Was it this one?

www.overclock.net/t/1291703/ivy-bridge-overclocking-guide-asus-motherboards

If I found the right one, as I read through it, it certainly appears to be a very in depth guide. Just out of curiousity, is there anything wrong with using the ASUS Auto-Tuning features on the board? Does it produce bad or unsafe results?

It shouldn't do anything horribly unsafe but generally people get better OCs doing it themselves. I've read about people complaining of it cranking unnecessary voltages but never personally looked into it.

A z77 is easy enough. Vcore then multiplier. Generally people use a stress test so you know it's completely loaded (like aida64 or prime95). It would suck to think your stable, switch to a more CPU dependent game and crash. I like to keep it under 80C. Gaming should be -20C ish from the stress test temp. I don't think you have to worry about idle...

Also yes that is the guide.

 

[1Wolf]

It shouldn't do anything horribly unsafe but generally people get better OCs doing it themselves. I've read about people complaining of it cranking unnecessary voltages but never personally looked into it.

A z77 is easy enough. Vcore then multiplier. Generally people use a stress test so you know it's completely loaded (like aida64 or prime95). It would suck to think your stable, switch to a more CPU dependent game and crash. I like to keep it under 80C. Gaming should be -20C ish from the stress test temp. I don't think you have to worry about idle...

Also yes that is the guide.

Thanks again Dayaks. I finished that guide and watched those 3 youtube videos. Great stuff! Thank you so much. People can always tell you to go "google something" but there are so many examples of the 'wrong' way to do something out on the net, its sure nice when someone points you to something really well done and helpful. Thank you.

Yes...I experimented with the ASUS built in overclocking and my experience was exactly what you describe. The "Fast" overclock function gave me a 4.2Ghz OC without increasing my voltage but it also decided to overclock my BCLK a bit. The "Extreme" push button overclock also overclocked my BCLK and the voltages were high compared to what I've been seeing in the guides.

So, as I type this now, I'm in the middle of overclocking via those guides you referred me to and its going really well so far. Those rule-of-thumb temps you gave me for both stress-test temps and gaming temps are extremely helpful. The guide doesn't say very much about temps except the absolute max to keep it under. So your guidelines are really helpful.

Thanks again Dayaks