same here i have 2 pcs ,both q6600 oc to 3 GHz for about 3 years and still running strong . its all in the cooling and set up. my idle temps are from 28 to 32 and under-load about 55 . under 24 hour strest hottest temp any core got to in the stress test was 61 but average was 55. once i went to windows 64 bit home and put 8 gigs in each i brought new life into them . so it all depends on cooling and setup. and the new chips r really good for oc but u have to make sure u get the right chip.

i could go higher about 3.6 and decent temps but 3.0 has been good enough for now

Last edited by cain on Sat Jun 16, 2012 6:54 am; edited 1 time in total

The people in this thread, who said not to overclock the 2500K, *literally* do not know what they are talking about. Simple as that. Happy weekend everybody!

Why are you acting so arrogantly?

I have a 2500 for my own reasons.. mainly I didn't require the improved onchip video and wanted the Vt-d, VPro, and Trusted Execution support, which your processor does not have.

Oh, and I realized that overclocking will reduce the lifespan of the processor, which I'm planning on keeping for many years. The 2500 can be overclocked.. up to 4.1Ghz if I choose.. which I won't. Besides, its plenty fast at stock clock and I keep my PC on 24/7. Less energy consumed (higher utility bill) and less heat produced.

So, yes, I know the differences. Perhaps if you stepped off of your box and came down to the rest of us (your equals), you'd realize you aren't the all-knowing oracle as you seem to consider yourself.

Intel designed the 2500K with overclocking in mind, and it would be silly to buy one and *not* overclock it because you could get simply the standard 2500 and have the same thing performance-wise. The K processors are meant to be paired with P/Z68/Z77 chipsets to enable overclocking, that is literally the reason why they are on the market.

Of course. However, Ramping ANY processor beyond it's default specification (aka 'overclocking') is going to reduce the lifespan of the processor. Otherwise they would just sell the CPU at max possible clock and rake in the dough. They give us, the educated end-user, the ability to operate beyond the normal defined speed with the knowledge that it may not be stable as well as it will degrade the chip's stability over time; Don't believe that means you can ramp your processor higher, watch it either fry or degrade over time, then expect intel to replace it under the warranty that came with it.

This is why they sell an additional warranty for the 'K' series processors (http://click.intel.com/tuningplan/) strictly for those who do go beyond the default clock.

So, yes, they are designed with the foreknowledge that people will overclock them. However, Don't think that means your overclocked processor is going to take that abuse for years without any degradation in stability or intel will automatically replace it after it has been overclocked.

My CPU is faster than yours.

CPU makers sell CPUS clocked so they work in a very hot country with the cheapest cooler worst case air flow. intel also know that PC builders like to fiddle about with stuff so they sell it vastly down cloked to give lots of overclocking room too and its sold with a cooler to suite that down clock.
CPUS loosing lifespan because of overclcoking is a myth I've always overclocked and the computer was re built when the CPU could no longer support current software or games.

Stock temps for i7 are around 65c but the CPU only downclocks itself for saftey at 100c

Temps dont go any higher than stock for some builders as the best CPU coolers that were out wheen the first i7 came out are now no where near as large as the ones that are out now.


Some new to overclocking might mess it up running it at its voltage limits thats where the lifespan and warenty gets tricky.

Even if my CPU dies, I will just buy a faster one.

Did it died?

Of course not. It's perfect. In fact, all my plugins sound better, because I can use 96khz now without worries. I don't even need to worry about oversampling plugins and this and that.

See the advantage of an Intel K processor, guys?

absolutely agree with overclocking a K series processor here..

if the 2600K in my imac allowed it i'd be chuffed!

In fact, *surprisingly* the 2600 k has NOT gone above 40 degrees yet even with a heavy project, in the imac..

so a single multiplier bump couldn't hurt! i hope someone writes a software tool one day to do it!

thats because macs are cooler

Why can't you?

Not entirely true unless you really push the CPU to the limit. The biggest danger to your CPU is temperature, which will make the CPU degrade faster. Now the coolers that Intel bundle with their CPUs are simply not very good (to put it mildly). The work just fine as long as you don't overclock, but even then, the temperature will be quite high (though well within the limits specified by Intel).
Chances are that with an aftermarket cooler and good thermal grease, even a moderately overclocked CPU will run cooler than a non-overclocked CPU with the stock cooler. Overclockers typically also have large, well ventilated cases, which makes other components like hard drives, video cards and RAM run cooler, extending their service life and minimizing the risk of data loss. To be honest, I would trust an overclocked system built by a skilled enthusiast more than something from Dell or whatever.

The reason Intel limits the clock speed is to keep the "TDP" at a low level (95W but ideally <65W) so the CPUs can go into very small, quiet systems. They don't want to go back to the days of the Pentium 4, where each new CPU model used more power than the old one and OEM's had to invest in expensive cooling, ducted fans etc. Rather than spending the money to certify high-wattage "enthusiast" CPUs for a small niche market, they simply let overclockers and enthusiasts experiment themselves to get the most performance out of their CPUs