Delid My CPU

Yay, free performance - nice! It looks like the Ai Tweek just did what I was proposing automatically, in change the multiplier from stock 35 to 43.

If your temperatures are all ok (say, always under 80C under 100% load, less in a sim) at a multiplier of 43 (the base clock is 100) then that 4.3GHz is good stuff and I’d be tempted to just leave it. The K chip variants having the unlocked multiplier being changeable take nearly all the old complexity of overclocking out of it. You really now only have to bother with manual values, voltages and the like if you want to push on to 4.5GHz etc, but it’s just now diminishing returns.

If you did want to go beyond AI Tweek, the next bits would be:

  • Turn off all the powersaving features, as a stable manual overclock tends to fight with these. That would be Turbo Boost off, C1 Disable, C3 Disable, C6/C7 Disable, and CPU put to EIST (these are just stages of automatic power adjustments that Intel uses to undervolt the CPU when it’s not doing anything).

  • Set your Manual CPU Ring voltage (for the i5 4690K) to a manual value of 1.050V

  • Multiplier to 44. Measure temps, and then do the logic loop of:

A. If not stable under load (or even posting to the BIOS, it’ll reset if that’s the case), then voltage up a 0.050 value or at a time.
B. If too hot, voltage down.
C. JMP A (never use a Goto :wink: )

So essentially just finding the sweet spot of voltage for stability at a certain end clock speed, which is altered by the multiplier. It’s a trade off of heat, speed, volts. A typical result with a cool cooler and a 7/10 in the CPU chip lottery would be about multiplier 45, Vcore 1.25V. Some people push those i5’s up to about 1.3V to be super stable, but they will run hot at idle, so tends to be a little scary.

Associated side tip. If you are using the H100 block pump to something like the CPU Fan header, then in your BIOS settings make sure that it is always running ‘Full Speed’, i.e. 100% on the water cooler pump at all times. The fans can speed up and down around the radiators, but the pump always does better if going full tilt regardless.

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