not a believer or more importantly
remain unconvinced. Do examine the
552.2MHz base clock by DrWeez. Not
since the old P35/ X48 days have we
seen such high frequencies. In
addition to this, the Z170 chipset and
Skylake-S CPUs not only have an
improved memory controller, but a
100/133MHz DRAM reference clock as
opposed to the 200/266MHz we have
previously seen. All these changes
mean we are not only seeing
incredibly high memory frequencies
for validations, but it is well and truly
possible to run 3,600MHz memory for
daily use. Not with high voltages
either, but with regular 1.35V DIMMs.
During testing, G.Skill happened
to release a 3,600MHz kit, making
the vendor the first to have such
high speed memory on offer at
retail level. Inevitably others will
follow and it will not be unsual in
six to eight months for all vendors
to have some 3800MHz or perhaps
even higher frequency kit. The race
has begun.
These are likely the two most
important aspects to the 6700K CPU
concerning the tuning element. All
too often we are fixated on the highest
CPU frequency and not the
performance per clock. The 6700K via
better IPC has thus far claimed a
number of Global top scores
displacing the 4770K/4790K in the
benchmark rankings. For instance in
CineBench R11.5 where DER8AUER,
scored an impressive 15.83 points.
This was at a clock frequency of
6,377MHz. Compare that with the
previous top score by 8 Pack of 14.34
points at 6,452MHz. You can clearly
see that IPC has gone up respectably
where a lower clock results in a
higher score. CineBench R15,
GeekBench3, wPrime 32M, 1024M,
XTU and oddly enough 3DMark2001SE
saw new WR scoring over 5,000 points
higher than the previous score. Best
of all this is just the beginning. It is
these kinds of achievments which
certainly excite the competitive crowd.
These achievements mean that
overclockers will be making their way
to the new platform with haste.
In light of all this, there is a caveat
which is simply that to really get the
high clock speeds, one is obligated to
remove the IHS from the CPU and
apply either better thermal compound
or simply overclock without any IHS
completely. A risky proposition given
just how much thinner in profile this
CPU is compared to the previous
Haswell chips. The profile is about a
third in size and if you take a razor to
it, you absolutely must exercise
caution.
The reason for this apparently stems
from the thermal interface material
which INTEL has chosen to use for
these CPUs. It is at best similar to what
we had from Devil’s Canyon but most
likely inferior especially when
operating the CPU at sub-zero degree
temperatures. For air cooling it means
that the limit is actually around 4.6
to 4.8GHz. Some select CPUs are
reaching the magical 5GHz mark but
these are far and few between. Such
overclocking behaviour is contrary
to what may have been “leaked” on the
internet where a certain 5.2GHz
Issue 35 | 2015 The OverClocker 23