Buying a PC with overclocked i7-6700k question/confusion

[Joeypunkrock]

Hi there. I'm looking for some help as I am an overclocking newbie.

I am considering buying The Vortex 1500 OC with the Overclocked Intel Core i7-6700k (4.00GHz @ upto MAX 4.60GHz).

However, I do not know much about overclocking and what It means for my system. I could just get a system with an Intel Core i7-6700k (4.0GHz) 8MB Cache for £42 cheaper.

My question is, how much worth it is it for me to get the overclocked i7? They both say 4.00GHz, so what is the actual difference in performance for my system.

Does the overclocked i7 just mean that it is 'allowed' to be overclocked to 4.60GHz so I can do it myself. I'm not really interested in doing any overclocking myself.

I will be using my PC for gaming. Also, I don't mind spending extra money if it means a great performance increase for my system, but I am not really interested in doing any manual adjustments to overclocking.

Thanks for your help. It is MUCH appreciated!

 

[Rakk]

Does the overclocked i7 just mean that it is 'allowed' to be overclocked to 4.60GHz so I can do it myself. I'm not really interested in doing any overclocking myself.

If you get the overclocked one then it will be overclocked for you - when they say upto 4.6, they will get as close to that as they can whilst keeping the system stable - not all chips can be overclocked by the same amount and still keep the system stable - its unfortunately just one of those things.
Do note that when overclocked, the CPU only goes upto that value when required, so when you're idling it will still show as low, but when needed it will go above what it would normally do upto the overclock value.

Whether its worth it to you really depends on the games you play, some games it won't really make a difference as they are GPU bound, but any games that are CPU bound instead will benefit from an overclocked CPU.

 

[Joeypunkrock]

If you get the overclocked one then it will be overclocked for you - when they say upto 4.6, they will get as close to that as they can whilst keeping the system stable - not all chips can be overclocked by the same amount and still keep the system stable - its unfortunately just one of those things.
Do note that when overclocked, the CPU only goes upto that value when required, so when you're idling it will still show as low, but when needed it will go above what it would normally do upto the overclock value.

Whether its worth it to you really depends on the games you play, some games it won't really make a difference as they are GPU bound, but any games that are CPU bound instead will benefit from an overclocked CPU.

Ahh, thanks for that. That's definitely cleared things up for me.

not all chips can be overclocked by the same amount and still keep the system stable - its unfortunately just one of those things.

When you say this, do you mean depending on the system the chip may not benefit greatly from overclocking? Is there any way to determine how well it would overclock from the full system specs?

 

[jerpers]

Unfortunately, not all silicon is created equal. Some chips will overclock better than others, it is a lottery I'm afraid. PCS overclock to whatever they can reach stably on your PC before sending it out. My PC was overclocked to 4.4Ghz by PCS but I did something which lost it completely (I do like to play around in the BIOS.) I found some simple guides online and had a go myself (I used to overclock a lot 10 years ago so had some idea what I was doing.) It turned out I was lucky with my chip and have a very stable overclock at under stock voltage.

 

[Rakk]

When you say this, do you mean depending on the system the chip may not benefit greatly from overclocking? Is there any way to determine how well it would overclock from the full system specs?

I mean that if you pick one random i7-6700k and another random i7-6700k, they may not be overclockable by the same amount just because when they are manufactured they are not all identical, all i7-6700ks will be stable at 4.00GHz and that was determined by the manufacturer and that is why they're sold at that spec, but not all will be overclockable by the same amount and no there's no way to tell if the one you get will be fine at 4.6, 4.8, 5 etc.
If they were all completely stable at 4.6Ghz they would be marketed as 4.6Ghz (and probably be more expensive whilst you're at it)

 

[Wozza63]

Each individual chip has a certain tolerance to overclocking. It's a part of the manufacturing process in that no 2 chips are ever really identical. For that reason some are better for overclocking than others. This is why you might see some chips that are identical but with different clock speeds. The lower ones have usually been binned into a slightly lower quality category. Doesn't mean they're faulty, just that they can't sustain such a high clock speed so they're sold at a lower clock speed and price.

The non K i7s are usually the binned ones for not so good overclocking and are also locked to really prevent high overclocking. The K versions are of higher quality so generally more tolerable.

 

[Joeypunkrock]

Right, I understand. I guess I will decide whether I'd want to 'gamble' with it then. It's a bit of a strange one not knowing fully what you can expect out of it, but i understand why.

Thanks for your help everyone, you've helped me out a lot! I really appreciate it.

Overclocked or not, I can't wait to get my new PC.

 

[Wozza63]

I believe 4.6GHz is a fairly modest target for PCS to set. I can't imagine most chips would have problems reaching it or just below with a decent cooler attached.

 

[Joeypunkrock]

I believe 4.6GHz is a fairly modest target for PCS to set. I can't imagine most chips would have problems reaching it or just below with a decent cooler attached.

would you say a noctua nh-d15s is a decent enough cooler, or would you recommend a water cooler for the overclocked i7?

 

[Wozza63]

It seems to compete with a lot of the water coolers so I'd assume so. Water cooling would probably be better. I don't think either of them would really hold you back. But again it's not just down to the cooler.

 

[keynes]

would you say a noctua nh-d15s is a decent enough cooler, or would you recommend a water cooler for the overclocked i7?

If you really want to overclock the CPU significantly then you can have a look at the liquid cooling range. If it is mainly for gaming you could just go with the non-k. With overclocked CPUs there is always the possibility of instability issues and even for games that are CPU bound I don't think the difference is significant compare to the same CPU without an overclock

 

[Joeypunkrock]

With overclocked CPUs there is always the possibility of instability issues and even for games that are CPU bound I don't think the difference is significant compare to the same CPU without an overclock

Now that's a biggy for me. I am not really clued up on overclocking and am not really interested in dealing with instability issues due to any overclocked hardware. I just want to enjoy playing and using my computer without monitoring my overclocked chip and manually dealing with any issues related to instability from overclocking (If I can avoid it).

I think for me, who doesn't really know how to deal with overclocked systems, should probably stay away from it and just get the non-overclocked one, especially if instability issues can occur and I won't really know how to deal with it.

Thanks for your help. That was very informative.

 

[Wozza63]

In theory you shouldn't have any issues. A modern CPU will automatically lower its clock speed if it reaches temperatures that are too high regardless of the overclock set as the overclock is only on the boost clock if I am not mistaken. It should also do it gradually rather than right down to 1GHz to prevent major spikes while gaming or during any other task.

 

[Rakk]

I think for me, who doesn't really know how to deal with overclocked systems, should probably stay away from it and just get the non-overclocked one, especially if instability issues can occur and I won't really know how to deal with it.

That's fair
As a bonus though the Intel chips do have their own turbo boost (AMD ones may havesomething similar - but I just don't know), which is very much like it overclocking itself with no need for you to do anything - how much it boosts it depends how many cores you are using and the temperature of your CPU.

For example: my i7-4770 (non-k) has a clock rate of 3.4GHz, but when I'm playing my CPU bound game(that only uses one core) I will often see it boost upto 3.84Ghz, and it does it all itself

 

[Wozza63]

That's fair
As a bonus though the Intel chips do have their own turbo boost (AMD ones may havesomething similar - but I just don't know), which is very much like it overclocking itself with no need for you to do anything - how much it boosts it depends how many cores you are using and the temperature of your CPU.

For example: my i7-4770 (non-k) has a clock rate of 3.4GHz, but when I'm playing my CPU bound game(that only uses one core) I will often see it boost upto 3.84Ghz, and it does it all itself

You're right. My FX-8150 clocks up to 4.2GHz as a boost clock. And I have it set at default clock atm (despite what my spec says).

 

[Spuff]

would you say a noctua nh-d15s is a decent enough cooler, or would you recommend a water cooler for the overclocked i7?

It does well enough on my i7 4790k clocked to 4.7 GHz.