Overclocking - The Core i7-4960X

Overclocking - The Core i7-4960X on X79

With so much ridiculous horsepower in the system, (engineering samples we must add) we could not resist trying out overclocking. We're keeping it simple, but anything over Gulftown on LCS (roughly 4.2 GHz) always is a win in my book for a six-headed beast. Pretty much we need to take a couple of steps if we want to overclock. 

Manual Overclocking

The true Guru3D audience overclocks from the BIOS and try to find the maximum stable limit. The generic overclock procedure for multiplier based overclocking is as follows:

• Leave baseclock for what it is right now
• If optional in the BIOS, increase your TDP limits of the processor to 250 Watts (by that you are allowing a higher power draw)
• Leave your base multiplier at default e.g. 34
• Set the per core Turbo multiplier at a maximum of your liking, we applied an MP of 48 on all six cores
• Increase CPU voltage, though setting AUTO might work fine, we applied 1.5V on the processor cores
• Make sure your processor is properly cooled (we used the Corsair H90 LCS cooler)
• Save and Exit BIOS / EFI
   

You should allow a baseline clock of roughly 3600 MHz that can actually still throttle down to 1200 MHz in idle, which helps us in power consumption. However, once the processor gets a kick in the proverbial nuts, it can turbo any or all cores towards that multiplier of 46 times that 100 MHz baseclock frequency, that's a 4600 MHz configuration.
 

Let's have a quick look at a Prime95 stress test with all four cores active and stressed at ~4800 MHz. As you can see, you'll need a rather reasonable cooler as temperatures are reasonably acceptable. Then again, six-cores all at 4.8 GHz with a high-voltage, we didn't expect any less.

We used a Corsair H90 liquid coole. Adding on frequency and voltage does have an adverse side effect, power consumption. Our overclock makes the CPU use an additional ~100 Watts.