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Can the Intel Core i7 2600k @ 5.1ghz slay its 980x Goliath?

Rating: 9.5.

The world's fastest desktop processor is the 6 core, 12 thread, Intel Core i7 980 Extreme Edition which comes purring out of its box at 3.33GHz. Costing more than £800 from UK stores, it's a monster in terms of raw processing power. Upon opening the latest shipment of second generation Intel Core processors, KitGuru was fascinated to know just how far the £250 model would clock and, once clocked, how would it fair against the world's fastest chip? Sirens were sounded, blast-proof lab doors shut and another 75p dropped in the electric meter.

In the world of technology, carefully prepared plans don't always travel the path we want. The Intel launch today is one such plan that ended up throwing a spanner in the works for us. We had set aside extra time for careful, in-depth overclocking analysis of Intels new ‘K' processors and, just after Christmas, we were told the launch had been pulled forward by a couple of days. When you see the speed at which KitGuru labs builds, tunes, tests and disassembles rigs while overclocking – you'd understand that , in our terms, a couple of days makes a huge difference.

If you haven't already read our review of the 2500k and 2600k, then we advise you to check it out first. It is stuck to the front page.

The overclocking in this particular article was achieved with the Intel DP57BG ‘Burrage' motherboard and the latest bios BGP6710J.86A.1780. Due to severe time constraints we are focusing solely on the i7-2600k today. We used the Noctua NH D14 for this extreme air overclocking. We would like to thank Noctua for supplying all our coolers for these reviews, we have so many NH D14's in our labs right now we can outfit all our systems.

Its not a hard choice, really.

Achieving 4.8ghz was easy enough as the processor only required 1.47 volts, but pushing past this required quite a lot of tweaking. Our final clock of 5.1ghz was stable with the settings below.

System validation is available over here.

Here are the settings we used to get to the relevant clock speeds during our limited testing. Depending on the motherboard and processor revision you may need to be make some changes for complete system stability. We did manage to get the system posting at 5.2ghz, but it wasn't 100% stable.

Processor Overrides 4.6ghz 4.8ghz 5.1ghz
Host Clock Frequency 100 100 100
Processor Voltage override (v) Auto 1.47v 1.6v
CPU PLL Auto 1.85 v 2.00v
Processor System agent Auto Auto 1.25v
Processor I/O Auto Auto 1.25v
Processor V Droop control Auto Low Low
TDC Current Limit override auto auto 200
Internal PLL voltage override Disable Enable Enable
Maximum non turbo ratio 34 34 34
Processor Idle state High performance High performance High performance
Turbo Boost Technology Enabled Enabled Enabled
Burst Mode Enabled Enabled Enabled
Burst mode power limit 98 998 998
Sustained mode time 1 1 1
Voltage offset 0 40 100
Ratio limit core 1-4 34 48 51

Pushing past 4.8ghz requires a lot of voltage. Is 1.6v safe long term? probably not, so 4.8ghz might be the best bet, for long term use anyway.

So how much of a difference did this make to performance results? Let's find out…

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22 comments

  1. 5.1ghz is a pretty crazy overclock. that voltage as you say might kill the CPU long term, but its very cool to see

  2. thats crazy man !

  3. 4.8ghz seems much safer long term, but thanks for going the extra mile to show us what is possible.

  4. 5.1ghz on air? dear lord, I need to get one of these processors and motherboards.

  5. Not much to say to this, apart from ‘lol’. seems you got them further than others ive read today. still 4.8ghz looks safer to me. especially after buying it.

  6. heh, this is class. Those processors seem to love the juice, I know a few people on the XS forums run their older core cpus just under 1.6v so id say you would still get pretty long life out of it if you wanted to play hard.

  7. well done, very good for an intel board and extremely impressive for new architecture

  8. That noctua NH D14 really never fails to get me hard. its better than some watercooling kits.

  9. Well I had almost bought a 1100T from AMd, and now I really don’t know what to do these are so damn good and the price points are excellent. the 1100T costs around the same as the 2600K and it wont really go past 4.3ghz.

  10. Well done. great work.

  11. Heck, even im impressed and im so bored of tech now I fall asleep with most new releases. This setup is wicked Zardon and im really happy you have helped us try and get the same oc’s, although im not sure im brave enough to risk 5.1ghz. For the purposes of this article though, damn nice to see.

    Noctua NH D14 has just been ordered and ill be looking at one of the asrock boards and perhaps the 2600K in a few weeks.

  12. Awesome. When the guys with LN2 get these, I can only imagine the OC.

  13. Fantastic work on these,. has really helped to push the platform to me.

  14. what a mega overclock, love it.

  15. Now, this is what im talking about 5ghz+ on air. who doesnt want that. if they dont’ they need to move sites.

  16. are you sure the price is right? AMD would be well overpriced if this was accurate. 170 for the 2500 and 250 ish for the 2600 ?

  17. Well I dont know about anyone else, but this is fucking impressive. I know you guys had a lot of good ocing with the 875k but most people didnt; this however seems to be killer.

  18. reading the sites online , it seems 4.8ghz is the speed they are getting them too. Trust Zardon to crank it more 😉

  19. 5.1ghz ? fuck me.

  20. I love my Noctua NH D14,. always love the fact KG seem to use them for these all the time. nothign else to go for.

  21. Oops.I jizzed in my pants

  22. Hey I have a similar set up with the Asus P8P67 deluxe. I bought the MB CPU and RAM as a bundle pre-OCed to 4.6ghz. I found it was very unstable though and BSOD on prime95 only took 20min. I checked the BIOS and they had the CPU volts at 1.33v with seemed a bit low, so I increased the volts till prime ran stable for 5hours. It’s now at 1.38v but maxed 80c core temp, which seems kinda high.

    I’m really annoyed as I bought the bundle to prevent having to do the OC myself, I have requested an rma from the company in question so hope that I will get this sorted. Was just wondering if there is anything more I could try first. Gonna try removing the Heatsink and remounting it. Also shall see how my other settings compare to you guys.

    My first OC so I’m a novice.