Question about boosting my i7-12700k performance
Question about boosting my i7-12700k performance
so i have an i7 12700k and an asus rog z690-a wifi gaming d4. my cpu core frequency can reach up to 4900mhz, with 1.25 core voltage and a temperature range of 34°-42°c under normal workload. when i enable asus ai overclocking feature, it goes up to 5200mhz with 1.46 voltage and a temperature of 40-47°c (normal workload).
my concerns:
is it safe to use a voltage of 1.46? is it not too risky? i'm a bit worried, so i turned off overclocking for now.
do i really need to increase the i7 12700k from 4900 to 5200mhz? how beneficial would it be?
spec:
case: lian li lancool ii mesh atx mid tower
case fans: cooler master masfterfan mf 120 halo 3-pack
motherboard: asus rog strix z690-a gaming wifi d4 atx lga1700
cpu: intel core i7-12700k
cooler: rog strix lc ii 240 argb
memory: corsair vengeance rgb pro 32gb (2 x 16gb) 3600mhz cl18
gpu: asus rog rtx 3070ti oc gaming 8gb
power supply: corsair 1000hx 80+ platinum 1000w
A bit too much voltage. Highest i'd go, is 1.45V.
Many MoBo manufacturers offer that lazy man's OC feature, with one click/flip. And to get the OC stable, those OC profiles are often configured with more than enough + then some voltage to CPU.
Since each CPU is different (silicone lottery), that overprovisioning with voltage works with most CPUs and hence why voltage is that high.
CPU OC is comparable to passenger car's engine RPM.
And answer to your question is same as answer to this question: Do you need to keep car engine RPM at 4000 RPM at all times when driving around?
All-in-all, keeping CPU frequency at max level (or beyond that), will reduce CPU lifespan considerably.
CPU lifespan vs CPU OC, more or less goes like so:
Not touching the CPU frequency and let it jump around as needed, while CPU idles at ~800 Mhz = CPU can last easy 10+ years. Perhaps even 20 years.
With CPU OC, keeping all cores minimum of base clock (P core 3.6 Ghz, E core 2.7 Ghz) without letting CPU to "rest" = ~5 year lifespan or so.
With CPU OC, keeping all cores at max frequency at all times (P core 5 Ghz, E core 3.8 Ghz) = ~2 year lifespan or so.
With CPU OC, keeping all cores at the max what they possibly can do (P core 5+ Ghz, E core 4+ Ghz) = ~1 year lifespan.
The higher the CPU OC - the faster CPU will be worked out and the sooner it will die.
I don't believe any research has examined the degradation between a non-OC'd CPU and an OC'd one. To be fair, my 8700k was purchased in February 2018, covered, and has been overclocked to 5.1Ghz continuously for about a month after assembly. It still performs just as well as when it was built, possibly due to a better silicon chip. I recently upgraded to my first i7 950, which outperformed the previous model by a significant margin. It ran at 4.6Ghz for years at home for gaming, and after replacement in 2020 with an AMD 3600x, it has been operating at 4.6Ghz in a server rack as a storage server.
Although I didn't locate a white paper on this topic, numerous articles discuss it online. With CPU overclocking, the primary concern is heat management. Many people even remove their CPUs (as you did) to achieve better thermal performance. Over time, heat buildup becomes a significant factor, especially if the CPU operates near or above its thermal limits. Besides heat, increased power consumption from overclocking also plays a role. Today, electricity prices are much higher than before (thanks to some unscrupulous operators), and running the CPU at standard power levels (125-190W for i7-12700K, depending on workload) or higher can have a noticeable impact.
CPU overclocking offers limited advantages. While CPU operations might speed up by a few milliseconds (which is usually imperceptible), for gaming—where most games rely heavily on the GPU—the benefits are minimal, at best providing a single-digit FPS boost.
Personally, I think CPU overclocking is mainly about showing off.
Also worth noting: enabling CPU overclocking voids the warranty offered by manufacturers like Intel or AMD. They won't cover issues that arise during the overclocking process, and similarly, RAM XMP settings can also trigger automatic overclocking of the CPU.