How to Slightly O/C the i5-2500k and the ASRock Z68 Pro3?

[drdavidge]

Hey guys, I just bought the following parts to build a new system:

ASRock Z68 PRO3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 $119.99
i5-2500K $219.99
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 $36.99
CX600 v2 $56.24
Crucial 64MB M4 SSD $109.95
Cooler Master Centurion 5 Case $49.99

Also used some left over 1TB WD hard drives, dvd burner, and misc other parts. Just installed Windows 7 64-bit.

I do a lot of multitasking (but no gaming) and want the quick and easy way to overclock the cpu a little bit. I also want to keep stock cooling. I dont want to get in to anything extreme, and would prefer the quick and easy way to get some more power out of this setup without going crazy. Don't have much spare time to play around and learn what every single setting does. What should I do?

 

[EarthDog]

Raise vcore, raise multplier, stress test. Keep it under 80C stress testing.

 

[drdavidge]

What about just using the "Load Optimized CPU OC Setting" option in the bios?

 

[Theocnoob]

You can try it. I believe ASRock uses ASUS (they are a daughter company) digi+ VRM. If so, it should have a very similar auto OC to the current gen ASUS Z68 boards, which should give you about 4.4Ghz on a 2600K. The ASUS auto OC is quite solid. Can't hurt to try. Run prime 95 blend for a while to make sure it is stable. ALso watch the temperature using coretemp. these are all free.

Sometimes the load optimized OC thing will increase your BCLK a bit. I'd turn it back down to 100. The OC will still be stable if it is anything like the ASUS Z68 boards, which it should be.

If that doesn't work, which is unlikely, we can guide you through a manual OC.

Make sure you set your RAM to XMP in your bios. Usually you can just set OC mode to XMP and it'll do this. That sets the RAM to the sticker rating timings and voltage.
Otherwise it will read from the SPD rating which is usually the ram's JEDEC 3 specification which has looser timings. You'll also likely get the wrong voltage.

 

[EarthDog]

I do not reccomend XMP...sometimes XMP profiles do not play nice. Manually set them to the XMP profile settings.

 

[Theocnoob]

I do not reccomend XMP...sometimes XMP profiles do not play nice. Manually set them to the XMP profile settings.

What about the sub timings?
How do you definite not play nice out of curiousity?

 

[EarthDog]

Leave them on Auto. I have never touched subtimings outside of benchmarking...which is the only time you will notice any increases gained from adjusting subtimings.

Not play nice as in stability issues.

 

[Theocnoob]

Interesting. I've never seen any stab issues.
So you think it's setting the subtimings via XMP that causes stab issues?

 

[EarthDog]

Im not sure what a 'stab' issue is...so I have no idea on that front. But it likely has something to do with sub timings considering we set the main 4 manually.

 

[Theocnoob]

Im not sure what a 'stability' issue is...so I have no idea on that front. But it likely has something to do with sub timings considering we set the main 4 manually.

So you would recommend, for example, setting 7 9 7 24 1.6v and not touching anything else.

Never heard of this but will try in future.

 

[EarthDog]

If you are not having any issues, I would leave it. If you are having issues, then of course try it.