- How To Overclock Gpu With Evga Precision
- How To Overclock Gpu With Evga Precision
- How Do I Overclock My Cpu
Time is cruel to your hardware, especially expensive graphics cards. All glory is fleeting: after a while, even mighty leaders like Nvidia's once unstoppable GTX Titan move from first place to shabby and outdated, making way for the best graphics cards of the next generation. The upgrade cycle is relentless, but there are alternatives to busting your budget on a new GPU every single generation. You can make your current graphics card faster, and potentially get dramatically better performance out of it, by overclocking.
While overclocking CPUs is common in the gaming community, GPUs get far less attention than they deserve. Pushing a CPU to 5GHz yields mostly benchmark bragging rights when it comes to gaming, but a good graphics card overclock delivers more frames per second and does so with less hardware hassle. While these techniques can be used with most current graphics cards, Nvidia's GTX 1080 Ti FE was used here to see if a hotrod boost can put yesterday's best back at the front of the pack. Here's our step-by-step guide to overclocking your graphics card.
Clean before you overclock
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If you're looking to overclock a card you've already installed, then it's probably time to crack the case and clean up in there. Make sure cables are routed clear of fans and don't obstruct case airflow. If the card itself has gotten dusty, carefully blow it clean with a can of compressed air. If you opt to remove the card for a full clean-up and overhaul, don't forget to release the locking tab at the forward edge of the slot that secures the card to the motherboard.
While the case is open, it's also wise to check and make sure the current power supply is up to the task ahead. Overclocked hardware pulls power beyond normal design specifications and if you're just squeaking by with 100 watts to spare, you'll need to upgrade to handle the additional load or risk hard-to-pinpoint stability problems.
But recent hardware generations have largely grown more power efficient, so anything but the bare minimum PSU is likely to give you plenty of headroom for an overclock. In the unlikely event you do need a new, higher-rated PSU, take comfort in the fact that you'd be doing this for almost any serious upgrade or CPU overclock.
After clean-up is done, update the graphics drivers to make sure all the latest bug fixes and stability enhancements are in place. Occasionally, motherboard firmware updates that further improve stability or performance are also available. Consider installing these as well, to give your system a fresh foundation for your overclocking adventures.
The software you'll need
Good news: overclocking your graphics card is actually really easy, and you don't even need to leave Windows to do it! While the motherboard BIOS is where most CPU overclocking takes place, graphics cards are tweaked via desktop software. Manufacturer-specific overclocking software exists, but most veteran PC enthusiasts stick to a few trusted packages that have been around for a while and work on most graphics cards no matter who makes them.
MSI's venerable Afterburner is the best place to start when it comes to overclocking your graphics card. In addition to a long history of stable releases, Afterburner is simple to use and provides a few extras including a built-in temperature graph along with voltage and real time clock speed monitoring tools.EVGA's Precision is another excellent graphics card overclocking suite, if MSI's Afterburner leaves you cold.
Here's what we recommend you download for this process:
- MSI Afterburner for overclocking (Free)
- Unigine Heaven for benchmarking (Free)
- 3DMark if you want a very thorough benchmark ($30)
- Games with built-in benchmarks (Price varies)
Benchmark for a reference point
Now it's time to test the hardware and see how well your card currently performs. Find a few reliable, easy to use gaming benchmarks to run before, during, and after overclocking, both for stability testing and performance measurement purposes. One synthetic and one or two real-world benchmarks should be plenty. Try to pick real-world benchmarks that use engines relevant to the games you like to play. Our performance analysis articles on recent games can provide additional insight into what performance you should expect.
We used the indispensable Unigine Heaven along with 3DMark's well known Fire Strike and Time Spy benchmarks to cover synthetic testing along with a host of real-world gaming counterparts. Games with built-in benchmarks are the easiest for this purpose, such as Assassin's Creed Origins and Odyssey, Dirt Rally, GTA5, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, and Hitman. Don't forget to record the results with screenshots, or write them down the old fashioned way.
Overclocking Nvidia graphics cards
Nvidia's aggressive optimizations with the Pascal architecture onward resulted in a new form of auto-overclock turbo boost tech that uses a lot the of headroom previously exploited by casual overclocking right out of the box. The bad news is that they also placed a hard cap on voltages, clock speeds, and other specifications key to performance enthusiasts, so the potential for quick, easy manual overclocks is more limited than it used to be.
Practically speaking, this means you can expect around a 10-15 percent boost from an overclock. The good news is all these safeguards make the process painless and reasonably safe. Although your mileage may vary, it's unlikely you'll brick your graphics card under these circumstances. Nevertheless, overclocking always includes risks, so keep that in mind before deciding to go forward.
With your card cleaned up and ready for overclocking, you can typically max out the voltage and power limits on most graphics cards. That might mean 25 percent more power on some GPUs, or only 5-10 percent more power on others. Nvidia GPUs normally do best if you max out the voltage as well (typically 100 to 120 in MSI Afterburner), but keep an eye on temperatures and clockspeeds when testing.
We recommend modifying your fan speed as well. By default most graphics cards are tuned to run reasonably quiet, but that can lead to uncomfortably high temperatures when overclocking. Depending on your card, you may be okay with maxing out fan speed, or you might want to aim for 40-50 percent fan speed on some blower cards (AMD's Vega 64 reference design can get very loud, for example, even at 50 percent). For the initial overclocking, you can also set a static fan speed with a noise level you find acceptable, like 80 percent. That should keep your GPU as frosty as practically possible, and you can tune the fan speeds later.
Overclocking GPU memory
Unlike CPUs where the core speed is king, many modern GPUs are starved for memory bandwidth. (Note that this isn't necessarily the case with Nvidia's latest GeForce RTX cards, particularly the 2070, but even with an RTX card this method still works well.) Starting by overclocking your graphics card's memory is usually pretty straightforward.
Run a looping benchmark in the background—Unigine's Heaven in windowed mode is perfect for this—and boost memory speeds gradually using Afterburner's DDR controls until small artifacts such as stray pixels or other glitches begin appearing. We recommend going up in 25MHz increments, as memory tends to fail gracefully and you'll usually get plenty of warning signs before crashes or lock-ups happen. Don't forget to hit 'Apply' after each speed change.
After finding the peak memory speed, adjust the memory clock down slightly (usually 25-50MHz) until no anomalies occur, then reboot and let the benchmark loop for around 5-10 minutes using these settings. Due to the variable nature of clocks on the newer Nvidia architectures, it can take a while or a mixed workload for instabilities to appear. If no further problems pop up, record the setting, and then ease back from the edge slightly (another 25-50MHz) to provide a margin of stability. Keep in mind that your stable point may go down further when combined with the core overclock we're going to do next.
If you want to be extra thorough, now is a good time to benchmark the card. Check performance in the same tests you used before and record the new results.
Overclocking GPU core speed
Now it's time to overclock the GPU core. Using stock memory clock settings (we'll reapply the changes you made in the last step at the end), start gradually increasing the core clock in small, 5-10MHz increments, with a looping benchmark in the background to monitor progress. Keep a lookout for stuttering, screen flashing, or other problems, as core instability is far less forgiving than glitchy memory. If you do experience a crash, your maximum safe overclock will be at a lower setting.
Don't worry if your system locks up, a driver error occurs, or some other issue rears its head. Just reboot, use a slower clock speed, and soldier on until you find the card's maximum stable core frequency. Test with a 10-minute benchmark cycle and record this overclock value. As with memory, dial it back just slightly and leave a 10-25MHz safety margin.
As an alternative, EVGA's latest Precision X1 utility supports a 'scanner' mode that will attempt to find a stable overclock, using a non-graphics workload so that it can gracefully crash and recover. It tends to err on the side of caution, which isn't a bad idea. It takes about 20 minutes to run and eliminates a lot of the guesswork, though we still typically get better results with manually overclocking.
This is another good time to consider a few quick benchmarks. This will tell you how much performance improves with higher GPU core clocks.
Putting it all together
Now that we're armed with both the maximum values for the memory and core speeds, we can combine them and see how far we get. Since Nvidia's design is essentially power limited in its current state, don't be surprised if you see instability with all the clocks turned up to the maximum values found earlier. If there isn't enough power to go around, you'll need to balance the memory and core clocks for the best performance mix.
This is where the two sets of performance results gathered at the end of each of the above sections become useful. Some GPUs are limited primarily by memory bandwidth, others just want more core clockspeed. If you saw bigger gains from the GPU core than memory overclocking, prioritize the core speed first and step back on your memory overclock. If you saw the reverse, step back the core overclock while keeping the memory speed as high as possible.
Spontaneous reboots or hard locks usually mean both clocks need a trim. Try experimenting with different power limits, sometime less can stabilize an iffy overclock. Once the mix is reasonably stable, run more benchmarks (or just play some games) for a while with the settings and resolution turned up as a stress test. Steer clear of 'power virus' style benchmarks (eg, Furmark, OCCT) that present unreasonably harsh workloads. While these certainly stress a GPU, their workloads do not reliably reveal instability and cause undue thermal strain in return.
What to expect from your overclock
While every card will yield different results, the broad consensus of 10-15 percent performance increases generally held true for the GTX 1080 Ti FE tested here. However, like most averaged results, that's not the entire picture. Depending on your favorite games and preferred resolutions, the difference can be dramatic, with games like Doom, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Gears of War, and Hitman all seeing 10-20 percent increases at 4K resolution.
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Overclocking your graphics card can be a good way to improve performance, especially if you're running a card that didn't come with a factory overclock. Take the current old vs. new Nvidia GPU comparison. Before overclocking, the GTX 1080 Ti is typically 5-10 percent slower than the shiny new RTX 2080, but when the1080 Ti's clocks are boosted, the shoe is on the other foot, with the old timer either pulling even or even taking the lead. Of course, you can always overclock the RTX 2080 as well.
One final caution is that just because an overclock appears to be stable during your initial testing and overclocking does not mean it will never cause problems. Hell, we've even seen factory overclocked cards have problems at their default settings, requiring a boost in fan speeds or even a drop of GPU clocks. It's a good idea to monitor your graphics card temperatures over the coming months.
MSI Afterburner has a nice feature where it will show the maximum clockspeed, temperature, etc. in its real-time graph. If you see temperatures routinely breaking 80C, it's probably a good idea to back off a bit, or increase the fan speed, with 75C max being a safer long-term target.
HomeGamingHow to Overclock GPU For Better Gaming Performance
If you’re a gamer, then the most important component in your computer is pretty much the graphics card. The GPU provides all the graphical horsepower that you’ll need to play the latest and greatest games on your computer. The performance you get on each of these games depends on how powerful your graphics card is. That being said, some people are not happy with the stock performance and want to squeeze out every last bit of performance that’s possible from their cards. If you’re one of them and you’re looking forward to know how to do that, then you’ve come to the right place. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at how to overclock GPU for better gaming performance:
Download And Install MSI Afterburner
Afterburner is a third party software developed by MSI (Micro-Star International) which is primarily aimed at tweaking the graphics cards and get better performance out of it. You can simply download MSI Afterburner for free directly from the company’s website.
How To Overclock Gpu With Evga Precision
Once downloaded, simply extract the RAR file and run the EXE file to install the software. By default, MSI Afterburner comes with RivaTuner Statistics Server, which lets you monitor the temperatures and usage of various components in your system. If you don’t want it, simply uncheck the box during installation.
Tweaking The GPU With MSI Afterburner
Tweaking your GPU is not even close to hard and it’s much easier than overclocking a CPU or RAM. The entire process barely takes a few minutes. So, please make sure to follow the steps in order to avoid any unnecessary confusion:
Note: I personally tested this utility on my Alienware 15 R3 laptop. That being said, overclocking your GPU might reduce its longevity, due to high temperatures and I will not be held responsible for any damage that you may cause to your system in this process. So, proceed at your own risk.
- Before we head straight to the overclocking process, we need to ensure a couple of things that should help you out during the process. Once the MSI Afterburner software has been opened, you’ll be able to see sliders beside “Power Limit” and “Temperature Limit” options in the middle of the utility. Please note that these sliders are locked on some systems and unlocked on some systems. It completely depends on the GPU you’re having. Considering mine is a laptop GPU, it’s pretty much locked unfortunately, so I’ll not be able to move it. However, if you’re able to slide it, move the Power limit slider to the extreme right and move the Temperature limit slider based on your preference. Do note that this slider will determine the maximum temperature of your GPU.
- Now, it’s the important part which you’ve all been waiting for. Yes, we’re squeezing out every bit of performance from your GPU in this step. Can you see the sliders for “Core Clock” and “Memory Clock” right below the Temperature Limit option? Yes, we’re going to play with the sliders here. If this is your first time overclocking, make sure to increase the sliders for your Core Clock in steps of 50 MHz and Memory Clock in steps of 100 MHz.
- Once done, go ahead and play some graphically intensive games on it, while monitoring your GPU temperature on MSI Afterburner at the same time. As long as the temperature is below 85 degree Celsius, you should be fine. Also make sure that the games don’t crash or you don’t notice artifacts on your screen to ensure that your overclock is stable.
- Well, if you feel like the temperatures are too hot for you, the fan speed can be cranked up, as per your preference. Similar to Power and Temperature limit sliders, this slider might be locked depending on your hardware. If you’re using a laptop like me, it would most likely be locked. Once you’ve completed configuring, you can save your configuration profile by clicking on the box indicated by a tick. You can also enable this configuration once your Windows boots up by simply clicking on the Windows icon right below Startup, at the bottom-left of the Afterburner utility.
Well, that’s pretty much how you squeeze every last bit of performance out of your computer’s GPU to enhance the smoothness of your gameplay.
Enable High Performance Power Plan On Windows
Even if overclocking does improve your GPU’s performance, there are couple more steps that you need to check, in order to ensure that the GPU is performing at the full potential and not affected by the Power plan of your operating system. By default, all of the computers running Windows utilize the Balanced Power plan. So, you will have to change it to “High Performance” power plan.
In order to do so on Windows 10, simply head to Control Panel->Hardware and Sound-?Power Options and click onHigh performance. Well, that barely took a few seconds, didn’t it?
Prefer Maximum Performance In NVIDIA Control Panel
Users having an NVIDIA graphics card on your system will have to go through an additional setting to make sure that their cards are not being throttled due to NVIDIA Control Panel’s Power management mode. By default, it’s set to Optimal Power. You can simply change it by opening NVIDIA Control Panel and then, going to “Manage 3D Settings” and in the “Power management mode” option, select “Prefer maximum performance”. By changing this, your GPU usage will mostly be above 90% while you’re playing some graphically intense games on your PC, thereby unleashing the full potential of your GPU.
SEE ALSO: 10 Best Graphics Cards for Gaming You Can Buy
Overclock GPU to Boost Gaming Performance
As you might have noticed from the steps above, the process was far from hard and complicated. Even a person with barely any technical knowledge can overclock the GPU if the steps that we’ve mentioned are followed correctly. The performance improvement in games are quite noticeable if you monitor it. So, are you ready to try MSI Afterburner out for yourself and experience better gaming performance out of your system? Do let us know in the comments section below as we’d like to know your thoughts on this whole process.
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How Do I Overclock My Cpu
Upping Those Clocks
As for the aforementioned overclocking tools, there are several good ones--even official varieties from AMD and NVIDIA. If you want to browse around, visit Guru3D for a more or less complete list of downloadable software (most of which are freeware). For the sake of this demonstration we will use eVGA's Precision software, which is very easy to use. It's branded and created by eVGA for use with the manufacturer's own graphics cards, but works equally well with other cards and even laptop GPUs.
The simplicity of this tool is admirable; you can adjust the core clock, shader clock and memory clock separately, with an option to link the shader and core clocks (recommended). In most laptops, the fan speed is controlled by the BIOS (the computer's firmware), so this option will be grayed out.
Now you are free to start adjusting those clock speeds, but be careful! Raising the bar to high will cause your system to hang and/or overheat. It's highly recommended that you raise the clocks in small increments and test the system for stability in between the clock increases. You can probably safely raise the clocks by a larger amount, say 50MHz, the first time around, and then up them by 10MHz at a time, testing for system stability between each increase.
As for the aforementioned overclocking tools, there are several good ones--even official varieties from AMD and NVIDIA. If you want to browse around, visit Guru3D for a more or less complete list of downloadable software (most of which are freeware). For the sake of this demonstration we will use eVGA's Precision software, which is very easy to use. It's branded and created by eVGA for use with the manufacturer's own graphics cards, but works equally well with other cards and even laptop GPUs.
The simplicity of this tool is admirable; you can adjust the core clock, shader clock and memory clock separately, with an option to link the shader and core clocks (recommended). In most laptops, the fan speed is controlled by the BIOS (the computer's firmware), so this option will be grayed out.
Now you are free to start adjusting those clock speeds, but be careful! Raising the bar to high will cause your system to hang and/or overheat. It's highly recommended that you raise the clocks in small increments and test the system for stability in between the clock increases. You can probably safely raise the clocks by a larger amount, say 50MHz, the first time around, and then up them by 10MHz at a time, testing for system stability between each increase.
Looking to overclock your CPU? We can show you how to increase your processing power and speed up your machine using an Intel Core processor.
- October 17, 2018 9:00AM EST
- October 17, 2018
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Your computer's central processing unit, or CPU, is designed to run at a certain speed. However, some CPUs can be pushed a little farther, giving you more performance for your dollar. This is called overclocking.
Overclocking is much easier than it was 10 years ago, but it still requires a bit of finesse, and comes with some risk: if you push your CPU too far, you could degrade its lifespan or even irreparably damage it. That said, your computer has a number of built-in protections, and as long as you follow our instructions closely, you shouldn't have too much trouble.
If you're looking for a processor for gaming, there are a few good choices out there, including the Intel Core i7-8700K and Intel Core i7-7700K. Once you've taken inventory of what you have, and what you still need, you can overclock your Intel (or other) modern CPU.
What You Need to Overclock: Hardware
- A CPU that supports overclocking: Generally, that means one of Intel's unlocked 'K'-series processors like the i7-8086K we're using in today's guide. There are ways to overclock some non-K CPUs, but Intel's K CPUs are designed with overclocking in mind, so we'll be sticking with those. (For our trials here, we used the i7-8086K in a pre-built PC from Velocity Micro that we recently reviewed, the Raptor Z55.)
- A motherboard that supports overclocking: For recent generations of Intel processors, that means a motherboard with a 'Z' chipset, like our Asus Z370-A Prime. Some motherboards also have extra features that make overclocking easier or let you push your CPU farther—see step five below—while others may only let you push your CPU a little bit.
- A beefy CPU cooler: Overclocking, by its very nature, makes your CPU run quite hot. If you're using the Intel cooler that came with your processor, you probably shouldn't overclock—at the very least, you'll want a bigger, third-party tower heatsink. I recommend a large dual-tower heatsink—like the Cryorig R1 Ultimate CR-R1A—or even a liquid cooling loop for best results.
What You Need to Overclock: Testing and Monitoring
- OCCT: This is a stress testing and monitoring program that we'll be using to test the stability of our overclocks. There are many other testing and monitoring programs out there, but OCCT is versatile and features built-in monitoring features.
- A notepad: Overclocking is a long process with lots of variables, so I recommend having a notepad to jot things down as you go (digital or physical, up to you).
What to Remember Before Overclocking
Your mileage may vary with this process. Every chip is different, and just because one person got a certain overclock doesn't mean you'll be able to reach the same levels—even if you had the exact same CPU (hence the rise of the term 'silicon lottery'). In addition, your motherboard may not have all the features necessary to get a really good overclock.This guide is a general outline of the process, but don't be afraid to do more research on your motherboard, your CPU, and what they can handle. Looking at other people's overclocking achievements can give you a decent ballpark to shoot for, but you'll still have to go through the process step by step to find your ideal settings and what your chip is capable of.Step 1: Start With 'Stock'
Before overclocking, it's a good idea to get a benchmark of where your computer stands without extra frequency. So restart your computer and enter your BIOS—usually this involves pressing 'Delete' or 'F2' as the computer boots.Take a moment to explore your BIOS and become familiar with the different categories of settings. (On some boards, like our Asus, you may have to enter 'Advanced Mode' to find most of the features we'll use today.) Each motherboard manufacturer has a different layout and may even call certain settings by different names. If you're ever unsure what our setting is called on your motherboard, Google it, and you should have no trouble finding its equivalent.Once you've got the lay of the land, look for an option called 'Load Optimized Defaults'—usually near the 'Save and Exit' feature. This will reset your BIOS to its bone-stock settings, which is a good place to start. However, you may want to do some extra research on your motherboard—some boards come with 'auto-overclocking' settings enabled by default, which you may want to turn off before continuing.Lastly, go to the Boot menu and ensure your PC is set to boot from the correct hard drive (if you have more than one)—it may have been reset when you returned to Optimized Defaults. Then, select the 'Save and Exit' option in your BIOS. Your computer will reboot into Windows.Step 2: Run a Stress Test
Next, run a stress test to make sure everything is hunky dory at stock settings—if it isn't, you may have a defective chip or some other issue, and you'll want to get that squared away before you even look at overclocking.Start OCCT, and you'll see two windows. The left window has your stress-testing options, and the right shows a few graphs of your CPU's usage, temperatures, and voltage. I recommend clicking the little 'graph' button in the toolbar until you get a table, like the one shown above—it's a bit easier to read, in my opinion.In the left window, click the 'CPU: LINPACK' tab, and make sure all three boxes are checked: '64 Bits,' 'AVX Capable Linpack,' and 'Use All Logical Cores.' This will ensure your CPU is properly stressed to its absolute max. You may never see workloads like this in daily usage, but that's the point—if it's stable at an almost unrealistic workload, you'll know that it's stable for day-to-day work.Click the Green 'On' button to start the stress test. Let it run for about 15 minutes or so, keeping an eye on your temperatures. You likely won't see high values on this first run, but again, we're just getting a baseline right now. Once 15 minutes is up, reboot your computer.Step 3: Increase Your CPU Multiplier
It's time to begin overclocking. Your CPU's clock speed is a product of two values: the 'Base Clock' (usually 100MHz) multiplied by, well, a 'Multiplier.' For example, our i7-8086K uses a stock multiplier of 40, for a clock speed of 100MHz x 40 = 4000MHz, or 4GHz. At stock, individual cores can 'turbo' higher than that during certain workloads, but overclocking will disable that—we're aiming for one high speed on all cores.We're going to overclock by slowly raising the multiplier to find the highest clock speed. (Some people also tweak the base clock, but we won't be going there in this guide.) Find your BIOS' multiplier option, usually called 'core ratio'—if there's an option to 'Sync All Cores,' then select that before continuing. Punch in a reasonable multiplier—this will vary from CPU to CPU, but a bit of research should give you an idea of where people are starting on your model—and press Enter. For my 8086K, I started with a multiplier of 45.Step 4: Set Your Voltage and Run Another Stress Test
Next, scroll down and find the 'Vcore' or 'Core Voltage' option (on some motherboards, this may be called the 'CPU Core/Cache Voltage'). Change this from Auto to Manual, and punch in a reasonable voltage, as recommended by your independent research. I started at 1.2v, which is a little under my CPU's stock voltage of 1.23v.Now, go back and run another stress test in OCCT, exactly as you did last time. If the test succeeds, you can go back into your BIOS and raise your multiplier one more notch.If the test produces an error, or you get a Blue Screen of Death, then your overclock is unstable, and you need to provide more voltage to your CPU. Head back into your BIOS and raise the Core Voltage by 0.01 volts or so, then try again. Change only one variable at a time, and write them down on your notepad—that way you'll have a running log of what's stable, what isn't, and the maximum temperatures during each stress test.Take special care not to raise your voltage too high. Research the maximum safe voltage for your CPU, and don't go over that number. Keep a close eye on those temperatures, too—the more you raise voltage, the hotter your CPU will get. I recommend trying to keep temperatures below 85°C/185°F or so, since you can decrease the lifespan of your CPU if you're running it too hot on a regular basis.Lastly, when you stress test, keep an eye on the clock speed of your processor in OCCT's left window—if it's lower than you set it, it may be throttling itself for some reason, and you'll need to go back to the BIOS and troubleshoot.Step 5: Push Even Further
Repeat the above cycle, raising your multiplier and voltage little by little, until you hit a wall. Maybe you reach a point where you just can't keep things stable, or maybe your temperatures get too high. Write down your best stable settings and give yourself a pat on the back. (For me, this was a multiplier of 48 with a core voltage of 1.23v.)You could stop there, but there are some other settings that could help you eke a bit more power out of your CPU, if your motherboard has them. Here are a few I recommend:Load-Line Calibration: This feature, often abbreviated to LLC, is a motherboard feature that prevents 'Vdroop,' or unexpected drops in voltage under load. Without LLC, your core voltage may not actually reach the levels you set. LLC helps push voltage closer to the correct level—though if LLC is set too high (as it often is by default), your core voltage may 'overshoot,' causing higher temperatures than necessary.Try setting LLC to its second-strongest setting—our Asus board used '7' as the strongest setting, but some boards use '1' as the highest—and re-run your stress test. You may find that gives you lower temperatures, and allows you to crank the multiplier up a little more.(Once you reach maximum temperatures again, you can set LLC another notch lower, but be careful—if you set it too low, you may not get enough voltage, and your overclock will become unstable. If that happens, bump it back up to whatever the lowest stable setting is.)AVX Offset: So far, we've been running stress tests that use the extremely demanding and heat-producing AVX instruction set. Not all programs use AVX, though—many games don't, for example, which means you can push your CPU a bit further in those cases.RULES #DESCRIPTION1.Requests shall be done in the monthly request thread.2.All links have to be direct MEGA + Zippyshare (optional) links.3.All posts must be TAGGED and TITLED accordingly.4.Titles MUST INCLUDE: TAG - Name - Quality - Audio - Subtitle(s) - Type (x264 or x265) - Size - Extra info IN THIS ORDER PREFERABLY - Adding the extension (i.e. Like but exclusively for Anime.The AVX Offset feature, if your motherboard has it, allows you to set different multipliers for AVX and non-AVX workloads. Try bumping up your multiplier by one, and setting the AVX Offset to 1. Then, run OCCT again—once for 15 minutes with the AVX box checked, and once for 15 minutes without (since it will affect the heat and stability of both tests).This will use your normal multiplier for non-AVX situations, and your multiplier minus one when AVX is in use. In my case, I was able to push my multiplier all the way to 50 for non-AVX workloads, with an AVX Offset of 3 for AVX workloads.Again, every time you change a BIOS option, re-run OCCT and ensure everything is stable. If you keep detailed notes and change one thing at a time, you shouldn't have too much trouble finding your ideal combination of settings.Step 6: Run a Final Stress Test
Once you've reached your ideal combination of settings, and it's stable for 15 minutes of OCCT (both with and without AVX, if you're using that AVX offset), it's time to do some more rigorous testing. Run OCCT the same way you have been, but let it run for 3 hours or so. Then, I recommend running a different stress test for a few hours, like the one from OCCT's 'CPU: OCCT' tab—sometimes, different tests can stress the CPU in different ways. I even like to run Prime95's Blend test for 12 to 24 hours to ensure a rock-solid overclock.That should pretty much guarantee stability for the foreseeable future, but if you encounter any crashing during regular use—like during games or other CPU-heavy loads—you may find you need to back off your overclock a little further. At the end of the day, I was able to overclock our i7-8086K to a stable 5GHz for normal workloads and 4.7GHz for AVX workloads (thanks to Load-Line Calibration and an AVX Offset of 3).This is not the end, either. From here, you can turn on power-saving features like adaptive voltage, overclock your RAM, or even tear your CPU apart to seriously lower its temperatures and crank the voltage even higher. Make good use of communities like /r/overclocking and overclockers.com—the more you learn, the further you'll be able to push your hardware.