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so there's been plenty of Buzz about Intel's new Skylake processors and now

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they're finally here which means it's time for an overclocking guide so today

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we'll not only be running through the benefits and risks of overclocking as

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usual we'll also be showing you some new features of the Skylake platform that

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could make fine-tuning your shiny new rig a little bit easier than ever before

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so first off we need to answer that question that new pc Builders and even

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some experienced ones have been asking themselves since time in Memorial what

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the heck is overclocking and why do we want to do it well the idea behind

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overclocking is pretty simple it's just the process of tuning your Hardware to

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make it run faster than its original specification many parts of a system can

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be overclocked including the CPU video card RAM and even your monitor but the

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most common Target for people who want to Tinker is the CPU and that's we'll be

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focusing on today but keep in mind guys that overclocking isn't just a matter of

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cranking up a virtual dial and expecting everything to automatically run smoothly

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there are some possible drawbacks more power consumption and heat output system

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instability a shortening of the lifespan of your processor even but while there

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are't every any guarantees with overclocking the benefits are that it

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can substantially improve your computer's performance particularly in

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CPU bound programs which can include everything from image and video editing

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software to demanding video games some of what are actually relatively CPU

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bound and can see real performance gains from a faster CPU with all that said

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then let's get down to it today we're going to be looking at Intel's allnew

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core i7 6700k Skylake processor running at a 4

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GHz stock speed with a turbo boost clock of up to 4.2 GHz and like other LGA 1150

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whatever core i7s the 6700k has four

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physical cores and eight threads with hyperthreading you also get standard

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complement of PCI Express Lane so you got 16 either 16 individually or 8X 8X

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for your graphics cards and then four more that go through the new version of

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Intel's Direct Media interface DMI 3.0

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that links the CPU to the chipset at around 4 GB per second twice the speed

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of the last few chipset Generations but there are a few really special things

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about Skylake that should be very enticing to both novice and advanced

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overclockers first of all early tests suggest that Skylink provides a much

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more consistent overclocking experience than Haswell which had a reputation for

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varying greatly from Chip to chip so while obviously not every Skylake chip

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will be exactly the same it looks like you may not need to worry as much about

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losing the Silicon Lottery as you did in

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the past second skyli offers much more

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flexibility with a key setting that can let you hit very specific frequencies

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I'm talking of of course about the processor base clock in the past the

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base clock affected the speed not only of the CPU but of other system buses

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like SATA and PCI Express which could lead to data loss from your storage

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devices when overclocked by more than even a couple of megahertz not a

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worthwhile trade-off for a slightly faster super P time well not so with

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Skylake if you're feeling particularly daring you'll have much more flexibility

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to play around with the base clock to squeeze every last drop of performance

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out of your system more on that later third power efficiency has been much

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improved to the point that higher overclocks should now be possible

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without investing in a super expensive motherboard in the past enthusiasts

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would you know lust after boards with 8

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12 or even 16 power phases but due to

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Sky Lake's low power consumption a good motherboard with as few as four phases

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can give you a great overclock meaning that you won't have to Shell out tons of

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money for the beefiest motherboard you can buy instead focusing on buying one

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that has the right features for you things like onboard Wi-Fi for example so

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with that out of the way let's jump into it and have a look at the rest of our

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test setup remember that skyl primarily supports ddr4 RAM so we're using 16 gigs

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of AD dat xpg ddr4 memory running at 2400 MHz with a mere 1.2 volts our CPU

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and RAM are sitting on the ASUS z170 Deluxe and although it might lack some

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of the eye popping bells and whistles of the Rog series boards the deluxe packs

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plenty of features some even designed specifically for overclocking like a

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dedicated water pump header for total control over your CPU cooling and the

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ability to completely customize the speeds of both your DC and pwm fans with

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fan export in the BIOS including a new

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setting that prevents rapid fan speed changes which can be

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distracting and for those of you who like a little more flash you can also

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use the adjustable r GB Lighting on the chipset cooler that can even change in

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real time according to CPU temperatures or whatever music is playing in your PC

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they've also got key Express which allows you to assign macro functionality

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to normal keys on a standard keyboard which is kind of neat and yeah I don't

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know I guess that's pretty much it solid board uh rounding out our test setup we

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used a Cooler Master nepton 280l closed loop cooler with dual 140 mm fans to

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keep our shiny new CPU from overheating when we're pumping the juice through it

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and then finally a Cooler Master V 650 power supply rated at 80 plus gold

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efficiency and featuring a semi modular power supply so let's get started power

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on your rig and start spamming either delete or F2 to get into Theus ufi BIOS

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the settings that you'll be working with are in advanced mode which you can get

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to easily by hitting F7 immediately once you're there select AI tweaker at the

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top of the screen to bring up a buttload of settings related to overclocking go

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ahead and dial in XMP so that your RAM will run at its rated speed and voltage

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then have a look at the CPU core ratio this setting controls the CPU multiplier

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which is the most straightforward way to overclock although it only works on

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unlocked that is K or extreme Edition processors on the Intel side and it's

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usually the safest your CPU speed is actually the result of multiplying its

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base clock which is typically 100 by default by a multiplier so for example

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our CPU runs at 4 GHz at stock with a 100 MHz base clock and a default

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multiplier of 40 for the Skylake i7 I

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recommend starting at 4.5 GHz and working your way up so for now select

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sync all cores to make sure that all of your processing cores are running at the

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same speed you can also assign different numbers per core later but it's harder

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to stress test um and only really improves performance in programs that

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use one or two cores it's kind of like customized uh turbo boost all right so

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once you've keyed in the multiplier that you want scroll down to CPU core voltage

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and switch it over to manual mode for stress testing and overclock manual mode

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allows your CPU to run at near constant voltage but once you've validated your

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overclock a popular choice is to set it to Adaptive mode for everyday use so

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that you're not running the full Voltage through the CPU when it's just idling

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which can reduce its lifespan although most processors are capable of slight

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overclocks on stock voltage any serious overclocking will require you to give

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the CPU a little bit more juice or voltage R i7 shipped with a stock

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voltage of around 1.2 volts but your mileage may vary on that one so have a

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look at what it runs at stock but then regardless of that overclocking voltages

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should be somewhere in the 1.2 to 1.4

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range I would keep it below 1.4 for everyday use and certainly wouldn't go

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much higher than about 1.42 volts so key in the voltage you

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want to start with and press enter when you're all done save your settings and

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boot into Windows from there you can bring up the stress testing applications

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of your choice so here at the office we use ASUS's Rog reel bench and Ida 64 for

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CPU validation Ida 64 also allows real-time monitoring of CPU voltages and

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temperatures which is why you want to keep those voltages as low as you can

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while retaining stability because the higher the voltage the higher the temperature and while realbench is free

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Ida 64 is not after the trial so

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programs like HW Monitor and CPU Z are good no cost alternatives to keep an eye

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on numbers during your testing after you've got your software up and running

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run a stress test for about 15 minutes and watch for any system instability

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this will come in the form of blue screens of death random shutdowns

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freezes or sometimes your testing program actually just telling you hey

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your system's unstable and if none of those things happen congratulations go

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back into the BIOS and try pushing the multiplier up a little bit further if

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your system did crash though try giving your CPU A Little More Voltage being

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sure not to push it outside of a safe range once you get the multiplier as

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high as it can go while maintaining a reasonable core voltage of course go

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ahead and run a longer stress test to ensure stability over the long term I

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mean you don't want to decide everything is okay after a few minutes only to have

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your PC crash during a crucial moment two weeks later it's also a good idea to

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use more than one program for validation

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we've had overclocks past stress tests in Ida 64 but then CR within a minute or

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two in real bench which can be it can stress different parts of the CPU

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differently a good approach is to stress test on real bench for at least four

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hours then I'd say do at least a 24hour

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validation on Ida 64 or another program

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if you'd like so don't plan on using your PC for a while quick note though a

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lot of people still use prime 95 for stress testing we don't recommend the

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newer versions of it they're actually power viruses which are programs that

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can push so hard that you can actually damage your Hardware so keep an eye on

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that now other things to keep an eye on temperatures I have alluded to this but

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I haven't really given a solid guideline for me personally the comfort zone is

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anywhere from the 80 to 85 Degree Mark

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once you start getting there the long-term lifespan of your chip can be

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affected so that's why investing in a quality CPU heat sink is so important

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for overclocking now although we're using a 280 mm radiator allinone you can

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get just as good results a lot of the time with a large air cooler just make

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sure that you're not using like the Box heat sink or something like that I mean

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maybe that's why they stopped including them with kseries overclockable chips

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outright so results time using this

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procedure we were able to achieve a rock solid overclock of 4.7 GHz using 1325

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volts under load our maximum temperature stayed around 75° C and our test system

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drew around 3 30 Watts from the wall during real benches stress test but even

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if you get good you know clock speed numbers like we did it's a good idea to

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run some real world style benchmarks as well and not just stress test programs

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like cinebench uh PC Mark or even your favorite games can be very useful for

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determining a if the system really is stable like really really really and

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also how much performance you even gained with your overclock if everything

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looks good but you want to tweak your speeds a little bit more tuning your

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base clock might be the way to go as I mentioned earlier with Skylake you now

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have the freedom to tune your base clock to a much greater extent than you did

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before so we were actually able to crank our base clock all the way up to 200 MHz

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which with a CPU multiplier of 23 gave

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us a very solid overclock of 4.6 GHz using the same voltage as we did when we

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adjusted the multiplier only and with similar thermals and power draw do keep

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in mind though that playing with the base clock is a little bit more

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complicated because while PCIe has been detached from it it still does affect

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your RAM speeds so if you're experiencing freezes and crashes after

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overclocking your base clock go back into the BIOS and have a look at your

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memory settings certain memory dividers are often inherently more stable than

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others and it's also important to pay attention to ensure that your RAM isn't

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running at a Speed Way Beyond its specifications after you adjusted the

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base clock providing A Little More Voltage through advanced settings called

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system agent and vcci might be helpful

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in these cases and but for our test setup we found that keeping the RAM at

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its rated speed of 2400 MHz gave us a stable overclock without having to

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really change any voltages and I personally find memory overclocking to

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be the most difficult to do stably

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because RAM errors can take a really long time to manifest and show up at the

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worst possible time so in general I recommend just leaving them alone all

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right solinus you've thrown a ton of information here uh but what if I don't

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have the time to Tinker with voltage and just invalidate for two days and all

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that kind of stuff surely there has to be an easier way never fear most

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motherboard manufacturers offer a more you know oneclick overclock option of

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some sort and ASUS is no exception head into the BIOS and you'll find the easy

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tuning wizard where all you have to do is indicate uh what you'll be using your

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PC for and what kind of cooler you have and it will apply an overclocking

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setting automatically the drawback is that you typically won't get the same

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performance as you would with a manual overclock as the board will try to apply

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safer settings than maybe necessary our motherboard gave us an overclock of just

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above 4.6 GHz with 1.3 volts definitely

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not too shabby but not quite as good as our manual process alternatively you can

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use ASUS's AI Suite which is available on their website or on the disc that

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came with your motherboard and selecting extreme tuning and turning off frequency

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and voltage targets will cause the software to push the CPU as far as it

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can go though when we tried this it tried to take our Skylake processor past

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5 GHz and then completely refused to boot so we then set a target of 4.8

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which seemed to work but the CPU actually ran below 4.7 g anyway the

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point is we recommend the uh the uh the

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manual the manual process and that gave us the best results which pretty much

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wraps this up so if you followed along I hope you've gotten an overclock that

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will be the Envy of all your friends or at least the ones who know what

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overclocking is don't stop tinkering guys and thanks for checking out our

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Skylake OC guide if you enjoyed the

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video wait no I usually do this one first well if you hated it press dislike

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if you enjoyed it go ahead and press the like button get subscribe to lonus Tech

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shop at Amazon buying a cool shirt like this one or even with a direct monthly

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contribution through our community Forum you get like a cool badge and stuff now

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that you're done doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to watch next so check out that little button in

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the top right corner of the video where on Channel Super Fun we did part two of

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our office Nerf battle it's pretty awesome