P8H67-M Pro with 2600K CPU...I know....

Hello all.
first some backstory....
So, about 40 days ago I bought a new system. I have been saving for it for about 6 months, and I (for the first time) assembled it all myself. I am not experienced in this like you guys, so I'm pretty proud. Even did the thermal paste part pretty well, I think.

P8H67-M pro MB
16Gigs DDR3 Ram
EVGA GTX590 Classified
i7 2600k CPU

I thought I had researched a fair bit, but since then I have realized a few things. The H67 does not overclock, and the 2600k is great for overclocking. Damn.
The H67 has an onboard GPU but I have a friggin GTX590.
Double Damn.
The H67 does not support Nvidia SLI.
Triple Damn.

Now, I would LOVE to swap this motherboard which has been active in my system for over a month, for a P67....but i don't see how that can happen without trying to sell a slightly used H67 and buy a new P67.

I can live with all this....except one part. The H67 is slightly overclockable...if I use Auto Tuning, which I have to cause I'm an idiot when it comes to overclocking, it actually gives me a result I can live with. It does a stress test, reboots, and then tells me
"autotuning successful
3914Mhz 103.0x38 ^15%"

however, which i run testmycpu, it only get about 3500Mhz out of it.

So I am confused as hell. Is the autotune overclocking it or not? Is the 2600K actually a fast chip without overclocking, or did I actually just waste a bunch of money like a fool? Is it possible to overclock with the P8H67-M PRO, or not....cause I have actually been reading some threads that indicate that something can be done.

I apologize for the gigantic post...any help, suggestions, or criticism is welcome and appreciated.

-matt

You really need to get P67 as you are missing out on a lot. I doubt that auto tune will get it to 3.9ghz. They only way H67 can overclock is via the base clock which only overclocks to 105mhz max. You overclock by bumping the multiplier, but you don't have P67 so you can't do that. You need to look on CPU-Z and it will tell you all your information. Really though, you spent over $700 and the graphics and $320 for the CPU, you really need to get P67 or Z68 board to compliment your massive setup.

For overclocking the core speed on the Intel® Core™ i7-2600K you are going to need to have a P67 or Z68 chipset based board. The big value of the 2nd generation Intel Core “K” processors is that we have unlocked the multiplier on the processor allow you a great range of overclocking on these processors. Since the H67 will only allow you to overclock the graphics speed on the IGP (Intergraded Graphics Processor); it won’t allow you to change the multiplier on core clock speed. The P67 and Z68 will both allow you to overclock by changing the multiplier on the processor allow you to overclock the core speed on the Intel Core “K” processors. Also the Z68 will allow you to overclock the speed on the Intel HD 3000 graphics.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team