i5 6600K - What is wrong?
i5 6600K - What is wrong?
I purchased an i5 6600K about three weeks ago and have been experimenting with overclocking.
I’m not new to this process, so I understand what steps to take.
My PC frequently experienced BSODs, which made me wonder if my CPU wasn’t the best option available.
At one point I had a clock speed of 4.3GHz with a voltage of 1.310V, but it would BSOD at lower voltages.
Now I’m running at 4.2GHz with 1.3V, but it’s still causing BSODs. What’s going on? Is my chip damaged or is this just a rare issue?
I’ve read several forums where people shared similar experiences—some reported their 6600Ks running at 4.2GHz with 1.2V, while mine fails at 1.3V.
Could this be a common problem? Have you faced anything like this before?
What should I do to fix this? It would be frustrating if I had to push my CPU to 4.2GHz with 1.3V, but it won’t work. Please advise.
In reality, the motherboard appears to have seven power phases according to research, with three possibly unrelated to the CPU. This leaves you with around four power phases. Given how Skylake handles power usage, adding more phases is becoming significant. You can observe this trend among various board manufacturers expanding their power phase offerings. Even my ITX board has eight power phases, which was unusual in earlier generations. This might explain why your performance isn’t up to par.
Well, considering the BSOD message and the numbers, it seems the issue is related to the CPU. I checked by adjusting values and everything worked fine. You might think this CPU is strong even with the base turbo boost (3.9GHz). However, I spent a lot on a "K" CPU and a Z170 MOBO.
What is your RAM configured for? You must discover a good mix of a fast clock XMP setting and a high CPU clock. You need to locate a stable position.
Turn off XMP, and I'm sure your overclocking will succeed. After that, turn it back on and lower the RAM speed gradually, increasing it until you encounter BSOD issues.
This process will help you determine your maximum limit.
My RAM is currently at stock speed of 2133MHz without XMP. I wonder if lowering its frequency would help resolve the issue. You mentioned you could easily reach 4.4GHz at lower voltages, but only by adjusting voltage and frequency. I wouldn’t change RAM unless I thought about overclocking it to higher speeds, but that’s not the case here.
Because the motherboard can only provide so much "juice". Finding a combination of juice that provides your CPU stability, as well as RAM and other components is the real key here... sort of.
Take a look at the guys running those high overclocks and see what motherboards they have.
They are likely upwards of $200 and carry a heavy premium. Part of this premium are power phases, higher quality VRM - Chokes, and MOSFETS, etc. All of these things combine to give you a *slightly* higher max clock.
I was only able to get an i5 6400 to 3.9 before losing stability using BCLK on an unlocked bios.
This isn't like the olden days where you could get dramatically higher clocks. You're talking about going from 3.9 to 4.2, the fact is that these chips are already clocked damn near their max. You knew going into your K unlocked processor that the gains you'd be getting would be extremely small, even negligible. Even going from 3.9 to 4.4 with a 1.3v, i mean jesus that is a lot of voltage and work for what amounts to .5GHz of barely noticeable performance gain. Skylake just doesn't have headroom for overclocking, plain and simple.
Skylake requires higher voltage than earlier CPUs. Many 6700K models reached 1.3 times stock. Most I see are 4.9 @ 1.45v, which is the highest anyone would typically go to. That's below 1.25x at full voltage with additional components. Consider this—top overclockers in the best setups rarely exceed 25% above stock voltage. This suggests Skylake is already close to its maximum potential.