Core i7-3770K vs. AMD FX-8150 and Core i7-2600K CPU Review

Overclocking

Intel processors with the letter “K” on their model number are targeted to overclocking, as they have several internal locks opened. As it happens with the “Sandy Bridge” CPUs, the “correct” way to overclock “Ivy Bridge” processors is through the adjustment of the Turbo Boost technology, since you can’t increase much of the CPU base clock.

The Core i7-3770K has a default clock multiplier of x35 (3.5 GHz) for its standard clock and x39 (3.9 GHz) for its turbo clock.

In our case, we were able to increase the CPU base clock to only 110 MHz. However, we were able to increase the clock multiplier for the first and second CPU cores to x42 (making them run at 4.62 GHz, a 32% increase over the standard clock of 3.5 GHz and an 18% increase over the default turbo clock), the clock multiplier for the third CPU core to x41 (making it run at 4.51 GHz, a 29% increase over the standard clock and a 16% increase over the default turbo clock), and the clock multiplier for the fourth CPU core to x40 (making it run at 4.40 GHz, a 26% increase over the standard clock and a 13% increase over the default turbo clock).

In order to achieve these numbers, we increased the CPU main voltage (Vcc, a.k.a. “Vcore”) from 1.1 V to 1.2 V, the CPU I/O voltage (VTT) from 1.05 V to 1.10 V, and the CPU PLL voltage from 1.8 V to 1.9 V.

We are pretty sure that with more time and patience you will be able to achieve even better results.