Hi, all. This is my first time on the forum, so I'm gonna start off by introducing myself & my rig. My name's Quan, and I'm fairly new to overclocking. This is my first Gigabyte board and my first Sandybridge CPU. Below is my current config:
GA-Z68XP-UD3P (F7 BIOS)
2600K @ constant/no turbo 4.4 GHz with 1.35V, Load-line Level 5 (Vcore: 1.38 under max load); Noctua NH-D14, ~81-82ºC under 6 hrs. max load
8 GB G.Skill Sniper DDR3-1600 9-9-9-24
Crossfire XFX Radeon HD6870 (Double D)
Crucial m4 256GB
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7,200RPM
Corsair AX850
Lite-On DVD drive
Asus Xonar DG
I cannot get anything past 4.4 GHz stable. I tried 4.5 GHz with more than 1.404V but still no stability. I quit because I wasn't comfortable with pumping more volts. I've looked around several places, and it seems like 1.38V for 4.4 GHz under load is considered very high. At this point, I'm just gonna assume that I didn't really get a good chip because of the high voltages that I gotta pump through the chip for 4.4 GHz OC.
I've read somewhere that I could turn on PLL overvoltage to try and get over 4.5 GHz, but I also read that PLL OV isn't safe in terms of CPU lifespan?
Is 81ºC too high? I was running Intel Burn Test & PRIME95 during the late summertime, so is that relatively a reasonable temperature? I'm using a Silverstone Raven RV03, so direct airflow towards the CPU cooler isn't a problem at all.
