Question I7 5960x and DDR4 @ 3200 MHZ Question
Question I7 5960x and DDR4 @ 3200 MHZ Question
Hello, I just got an i7 5960x that had never been opened before, and a board on eBay (EVGA x99 Micro R.2) in excellent condition. My previous setup was an i7 2700k with an rx580 GPU and 16GB DDR3 RAM, making this an upgrade for me. I was a bit puzzled because of all the information I'd read about overclocking memory on Haswell chips older than 2666 MHz—some suggested raising the clock speed to 125. I purchased a Corsair Vengeance LPX 4x4GB (quad channel) at 3000MHz, and when I adjusted the XMP profile it set the RAM speed to 2666 and the CPU clock to 125. After trying different BLK values due to past issues, I changed back to 100 and adjusted BIOS settings, setting the CPU multiplier to 42 at 1.225v. Now I'm running a 4.2GHz CPU, 3.2GHz RAM, all with a 100MHz BLK, and after several tests including Intel BurnTest, Prime95, MemTest86, and other benchmarks over a couple of days, everything is stable at 100%.
I'm wondering why everyone insists I need to increase the BLK when trying to overclock RAM past 2666 MHz while also overclocking the CPU. My system performs perfectly with a 100MHz multiplier.
I'm not sure which sites you've been checking, but you don't have to change your CPU to improve your RAM. Both OC'ings can provide the best results. You can work with stock CPU speeds while using OC'd RAM or vice versa. However, it's common to perform CPU and RAM OC together for better system stability, particularly when pushing the boundaries of either component.
It really depends on the silicon lottery. Not every CPU is the same, and some require significant tweaking while others don't.
Just double-checked it would be fine, but it didn’t look stable when it wasn’t. I’m aware it’s an older chip—it came in a box as a new unit that never made it into any build. Overclocking it was simpler than any CPU I’ve owned before (it generates a lot of heat, so a bigger AIO is necessary). Even the RAM worked well at first boot. Maybe because I didn’t saturate the IMC with 64GB and only used 16? Also, I had a new question about cache overclocking. I’m currently at 4.2GHz on 8 cores with 4x4GB 3000MHz DDR4, but I can’t push the cache beyond 3.4GHz no matter what voltage I set. Do I have an x99 “OC socket” for my motherboard? Could that be the reason?
You do have an Extreme Edition CPU, which is the highest performance option for overclocking. This accounts for why overclocking is straightforward here.
Sorry, my understanding of overclocking isn't very detailed. But MoBo can influence CPU overclocking, particularly with consumer-level MoBo rather than enthusiast or power user models.
So if your system runs smoothly with stress tests and doesn't crash, you should be okay keeping it at your current settings. I checked further and noticed most users only needed to adjust their base RAM to 125 to enable overclocking beyond 2666, but they were mostly using 64GB DDR4 with maximum IMC. Since you're using 16GB (4x4GB) and planning a future upgrade to 32GB (4x8GB), as long as you don't overload the IMC, you should be fine.
Performs similarly to the non-K i7-8700; memory of the usual 5960X's typical cooling room variations is unclear.