Should I OC?

[ohphotog]

This is going to be my first build/hackintosh. I want something powerful and stable for photo, video and audio production. Since I'm also buying other gear, I'd like this to have a shelf life of about three years. (I plan on doing slight upgrades over time when needed.) I know the sandy bridges are great for over clocking, but I'm not sure if it's anything I should mess with, or if I even need it. Any advice would be much appreciated.

I plan on having the build completed within a week or so but here's the list:
i7 2600k
GA Z68XP UD5
OCZ Agility 3 120 SSD
1.5 TB WD Caviar Black FAEX
16 GB G Skill Ripjaw DDR3 1600
Sapphire 6850
LG 12x Blu Ray WH12LS30 and LG CD/DVD GH22NS70
Targus ACB10US1 Blu Ray adapter
Cooler Master Silent Pro M600
Corsair Carbide 400R Case

 

[vienna01]

Most folks are able to OC the i7 2600K CPU successfully. A search will show you many good examples.
Here is a good place to start learning about OCing. Google "How to Overclock" and you find many more.
http://www.overclockersclub.com/pages/overclock_faq/
ANOTHER GOOD REFERENCE:
http://www.techreaction.net/2010/09/07/ ... -gulftown/

The key to OCing safely is keeping the CPU temperature as low as possible - never ever exceeding 100 C. [Allowing for errors in reading the temperature and differences between CPU core temperatures, most folks keep it below 80 C even when stressed by tools such as Prime95.
EDIT: I just have seen post that the 100C rule does NOT apply to your Sandy Bridge CPU. The post said max of 73 C. It did not have a reference. Suggest you research this.

If your cooler will do that for you; OCing without damaging your CPU seems likely. If your cooler won't do that-consider another air cooler. I have a closed circuit water cooler but everything I read says good air coolers equal my water cooler.

Don't forget to check [using BIOS information] that you do also NOT exceed the speed of your RAM. It seems that very little performance will be lost if you have to underclock RAM because the BIOS Memory Multiplier can't be set to give you exactly the speed of your RAM. You may or may not need to change the CPU voltage.

I have a first generation i5 CPU, overclocked from 3.2GHz to 4.8Ghz without changing voltage. I am running my 1333 speed RAM at 1200 because I had to choose between using a x6 multiplier or a x8 one [1600]. I am very satisfied with my system's performance.

I took advice from the net, and did my initial overclocking under Windows 7 because there are many more stress programs & temperature tools than under OSX. If you can't do that there are temperature measurement programs under OSX. I use Temperature Monitor. For OSX stress, I use Prime95.

 

[Badaboum03]

Try to overclock a little bit first, if you feel the difference then try higher OC

 

[HoochShepherd]

Yes you should OC.. No doubt.. otherwise don't bother with the k.. And even then, go k and OC!
Safe temps for a 24/7 OC is 70s, I'd avoid 80s. TJmax is like 92, and thats the point where your processors thermal management will throttle down to keep it from hurting itself.

Just go with a good cooler.
I have an NH-D14 @4.7 I just tossed on a 3rd fan and am using indigo xtreme and my max temp is 64. Pre the fan and the new TIM (think my old tim was installed wrong, but not sure). I was hitting like 76 at load. and was ok (if not a little uncomfortable) with that.

 

[powerpcg5]

If you have a K processor, YES! overclock it. Otherwise, why bother getting a "K?"

It's as easy as changing the multiplier. Stock multiplier is 34X
i.e. 34 x 100Mhz = 3.4 GHz

You can bring it up to 39, or 40X at the "Auto" setting. That's an easy 3.9Ghz to 4.0Ghz performance just by changing 2 numbers in your BIOS. If you want to go higher, then you start playing with Vcore voltages.

If you're buying a "K" processor, you also better be buying a better cooler too and not using the stock cooler. If you can control your temps, you can overclock even higher.

Re: RAM speed, just changing the RAM speed can easily increase your geekbench score by a few hundreds without any increase in Vcore voltage. I say very worth it! If you can run at 1600Mhz, do it.

Running at 42X, Vcore=1.315Volts, Geekbench = 15000+, 59.9fps cinebench
Here are my temps using a Noctua cooler... the big spike you see is me running some benchmarking software (full load 8 cores). The "gaps" is when the computer is asleep.
temps.png

 

[ohphotog]

Thank you for your through responses I’ve got my parts and am in the build process. I made a few mods with Black Friday/ Cyber Monday deals, got the UD4 instead of UD5 and got the GA 6850 instead of Sapphire. I also purchased the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus to OC. It had nothing but good reviews. I want to get everything running smooth before I start to OC. However I’ve heard it’s best to do so in Windows, but I don’t want to dual boot just yet. Can I OC in OSX with software like Cinebench or is it best to just use the bios?

 

[HoochShepherd]

Thank you for your through responses I’ve got my parts and am in the build process. I made a few mods with Black Friday/ Cyber Monday deals, got the UD4 instead of UD5 and got the GA 6850 instead of Sapphire. I also purchased the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus to OC. It had nothing but good reviews. I want to get everything running smooth before I start to OC. However I’ve heard it’s best to do so in Windows, but I don’t want to dual boot just yet. Can I OC in OSX with software like Cinebench or is it best to just use the bios?

I'm not sure who told you it's best to do it in windows... I've always done my OCing the bios. Although I do think with windows you are more likely to blue screen with a bad OC than a KP OSX. Either way, if you boot and you stress test fine you shouldn't have issues in windows either.

 

[powerpcg5]

Yup... why bother with Windows. With OSX, everything just freezes...

Do one little change in Bios, boot into OSX. Then run Prime95 Torture test and/or Geekbench stress test. If after a couple of minutes (or 5 minutes) you crash, then reboot, go back to BIOS, increase Vcore voltage by one notch. Rinse and Repeat....

When you get your system really stable, you could be simultaneously running Prime95, Geekbench Stress, Watching video, Ripping a DVD by Handbrake all at the same time.... without freezing. It's all about the Vcore voltage. (Increase to just where it runs your system stable but no more to prevent unnecessary heat for your chosen multiplier.)

** sometimes, your system passes the Geekbench stress test, but not the Prime95 torture test. So in the end, test with Prime95.... then if that passes, test with Prime95+Geekbench running at same time. Then you can be confident you're running 100% stable.

 

[HoochShepherd]

Yup... why bother with Windows. With OSX, everything just freezes...

Do one little change in Bios, boot into OSX. Then run Prime95 Torture test and/or Geekbench stress test. If after a couple of minutes (or 5 minutes) you crash, then reboot, go back to BIOS, increase Vcore voltage by one notch. Rinse and Repeat....

When you get your system really stable, you could be simultaneously running Prime95, Geekbench Stress, Watching video, Ripping a DVD by Handbrake all at the same time.... without freezing. It's all about the Vcore voltage. (Increase to just where it runs your system stable but no more to prevent unnecessary heat for your chosen multiplier.)

** sometimes, your system passes the Geekbench stress test, but not the Prime95 torture test. So in the end, test with Prime95.... then if that passes, test with Prime95+Geekbench running at same time. Then you can be confident you're running 100% stable.

I think kind of the gold standard is prime95 for 24 hours with out errors. Depending on what you do with your system, you *could* overlook a few errors.. As long as you aren't crashing. I'm a bit of a perfectionist so I'm all about 0 errors.
As far as prime and other programs, thats a bit of overkill.. The whole function of a prime 95 stress test is that it's putting you under load, so adding more load to 100% load just does nothing really.

 

[powerpcg5]

Yeah I know it's overkill for testing.

But in my case, there are certain Vcore settings that can run one or the other just fine, but not both simultaneously. Once I'm past this overkill testing, I'm confident it's not going to crash on me on *normal* everyday work tasks.