[Southtown57]

Hello all, I recently purchased a new desktop with the intel i7 3770 (non-K). I skipped over the K option because I have never overclocked a computer before and I'm not a computer gamer. After reading into it and becoming more interested in overclocking I have somewhat started to regret my decission for not paying extra for the K model. Through my searching, though not much information was found on the subject, I have read that the i7 3770 is partially unlocked. As in the multipliers can be raised a tiny bit. Can anyone confirm if this is true, and if true, what clock speed you can get out of the 3770. I would like to be able to accomplish a tiny overclock without overclocking my base computer clock though, due to the fact that I have heard it can cause corruption. Thanks for the input.

Cliff notes: Partial overclock possible on i7 3770?

[Knufire]

You'd have to do it through Intel Turbo Mode. Find any "turbo multiplier" option in the BIOS, and turn them up as high as they will go. Then, in Windows 7, go to power managment --> power plans, advanced options, there should be a setting for minimum and maximum CPU state, set both to 100%.

[Southtown57]

Thank you for your response. Here's the thread I gathered some of the info from.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?...post1038722636

Post number 9 is the first person I saw that said that the 3770 was partially unlocked. Saying that, "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." So that is what you mean by increasing the turbo mode?

[Knufire]

Turbo mode basically increases the CPU multiplier depending on how much load is on the CPU. At stock settings, the CPU will run at 3.4GHz, but if you only load 1 core at 100%, it will downclock the other three cores and boost the core being loaded up to 3.9GHz.

What you can do is set that max multiplier (which is by default at 39) up to 43 (according to the [H]) post. Disable any power saving features, but leave Turbo Mode on. Then in Windows, you set the CPU to always run at 100%, so Windows will force the CPU to run all cores at the max turbo, so supposedly it will run at 4300MHz constant. You just have to find the right combination of disabling power saving features and forcing the CPU at 100% to get it to stick.

Like the person in that [H] thread did, you can try increasing the base clock as well. I've seen all the way up to 110, but 103-106 is more common. What happens is that this frequency is tied to the PCIe bus frequency which really doesn't like being changed that much.

Note that to have it fully stable at these clocks, you might have to increase vCore and other voltages, you might want an aftermarket heatsink.

[Southtown57]

Alright thanks for the explanation. This is all new to me but I do find it interesting. I might have to swap to a K series in the future.