Extended overclock sessions versus temperatures

Extended overclock sessions versus temperatures

Since we have such high-end cooling in the house we definitely should have better tweakability on the processor.

As such I was wondering where I'd end up with a quick overclock session. So we popped in a Core i5 750 processor for a good reason, we had a peek at a selection of stages in overclocking and it's respective temperatures, have a look at the following results please.

Overclock results - temperatures in Degrees Celsius

We'll remain focused on this solution with one fan, that's what most of you guys will use. It's a bit hard to read in the chart, but these are the four tested stages:

1. Core i5 750 @ default | fan regulated by motherboard (dynamic PWM)
2. Core i5 750 @ 3.3 GHz with 1.3 volts on the CPU | unit set at performance mode
3. Core i5 750 @ 3.8 GHz with 1.4 volts on the CPU | unit set at performance mode
4. Core i5 750 @ 4.2 GHz with 1.5 volts on the CPU | unit set at performance mode

So when we take this Core i5 processor from default towards 3800 MHz / 1.4v @ CPU we see that the temperatures are not at all an issue -- whatsoever. With the processors stressed we max out at almost 60 Degrees C. That is just really very acceptable.

We also take the processor to 4200 MHz with 1.5v on the CPU, when 100% stressed the CPU would reach roughly 70 Degrees. That is a little too hot really, but still a manageable operating temperature if you do not stress the processor 100% continuously.

Quite honestly, we did expect the unit to perform better at our 4200 MHz CPU overclock, but somehow the cooling setup seems to run out of capacity.

Please bare in mind that the 1.5 volts we used is high for a 4200 MHz CPU clock. Typically 1.4v would be fine as well. We use a slightly higher voltage to show you the cooler can cope with the additional heat coming from the CPU.

What we can conclude here is that the thermal dissipation, or even better stated the cooling capacity under high stress remains decent, but could have been slightly better.