Core i5 750 Overclocking Guide

In my initial article focusing on a system build using the P55 chipset and the Core i5 750 CPU there was very little mention of overclocking. The motherboard used was the MSI P55 GD65, which makes it's return in this article. Because the results using the OC genie feature on the board created a reasonable enough overclock there didn't seem much point in spending a lot of time going into detail. It was always my intent to see how much more headroom the i5 750 had. I was pretty sure I could get a bit more out of it. At stock settings the i5 750 has a peak turbo boost speed of 3.2GHz on a single core. That is quite close to the overlocked value using the OC genie. The purpose of this article is to push the envelope a little bit to see what manually tweaking the BIOS can achieve, then go through a few detailed steps to make sure any results are stable for day to day use.

It's winter time in Canada, which for overclock nuts like me, is prime overclocking season. When it's -15C in the daytime, all you need to do to achieve some sub zero overclocking is open a window. I may see what ridiculous and unsafe levels I can reach in the cold later, but the temperatures for this article will be a comfortable +15C.

Preparation

As I mentioned before, the same motherboard and processor are returning for this article. Also returning is the original aftermarket cooler used in the previous article. The Coolermaster Hyper 212+ is still performing competitive to higher end coolers, but can be had for about 20 - 30 bucks. For the purposes of this article I've cleaned the dust out of my case and I has the cotton swabs put to all case fan blades. It may seem like I'm being a neat freak about the inside of my computer, but when you are applying more voltage to your CPU it is always a good idea to make sure your airflow and components are going to be able to keep up.

The system used is much the same, except in this overclock the 4GB dual channel kit is replace by dual 4GB kits, for a total of 8GB of memory. Because of the very small impact memory overlcocking has on results, I will be leaving memory alone in it's slightly lose timings. This article will focus on the CPU overclock alone.

My goal going into this article was to get the chip to the magic 4.0GHz. This is a very lofty goal, but it seems that others have been able to reach this mark on air. If I don't reach it here, you can be sure that on a night where the temperature outside is -30C I will be shivering away pulling out all the stops to see if I can breeze past that number. My pride as an overclocker depends on it.

With everything prepared, it's time to get into the BIOS and tinker around a bit.

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