Ivy Bridge Basics

So to begin this guide a primer on overclocking the platform will be given as well as Intel’s recommended voltages and my recommended voltages:

Ivy Bridge Voltages
Proper Voltage Name	Other Names	Intel Rec. Max	Rec. Range on Air/H2O	Max on Air/H2O	Max on DICE	Max on LN2	Description
VCC	Vcore	1.52 V	1.3 - 1.45 V	1.55 V	1.75 V	1.9 V	Vcore is the voltage provided to the CPU Cores and is one of the only voltages that needs to be altered to overclock on Ivy Bridge on
VCCPLL	CPU PLL	1.89 V	1.5 - 1.8 V	1.89 V	1.89 V	2.0 V	Can help reduce temperatures and might also have cold bug impact
VCCIO	QPI/VTT	1.08 V	1.0 - 1.1 V	1.20 V	1.20 V	1.4 V	VCCIO can be raised to help with very high memory overclocking
VCCSA	IMC, System Agent	0.971 V	0.925 - 1.1 V	1.20 V	1.20 V	1.4 V	Can provide help with memory and or BCLK overclocking when under LN2
DDR Voltage	DRAM Voltage	1.50 V	1.5 - 1.75 V	1.82 V	1.82 V	>1.82 V	DDR Voltage is very important for DRAM overclocking
VGFXVID	iGFX	1.52 V	1.3 - 1.5 V	1.52 V	1.52 V	1.52 V	Voltage for the internal graphics processor

On Air/Water: Intel Rec. Max is Intel’s absolute maximum rating for the Ivy Bridge lineup, many of the numbers provided are identical to those of Sandy Bridge, however while vcore should be lower because of a better processing technology (22nm vs 32nm) it is max 1.52v here because of the SVID max. When overclocking on air the only two voltages you should need to touch on an Ivy Bridge setup are the Vcore (which you increase) and the CPU PLL( which can be decreased to help temperatures). You should not proceed to just apply the maximum voltage for the vcore, vtt, or system agent as you will heavily increase the temperature so much so that the CPU will throttle and can be damaged. Also if you start off with a higher temperature it is very hard to test stability, as you will probably be more unstable than if you used a lower VCore.
For 5GHz for instance, it is possible to OC to 5GHz with 1.4v on air:


However the wPrime score isn’t very good as the CPU’s heat is causing it to throttle a little bit.

5.3GHz is my maximum validation on air:


Under LN2/DICE: Temperature is more important for high clocks than voltage is when it comes to Ivy Bridge. Also under LN2 higher vcore might not yield a higher clock, as it will add more heat which can have an opposite effect. So while at 1.84v I might do 6.6 GHz if I increase to 1.86 I can only do 6.55, but if I lower the vcore to 1.83v I can still only do 6.55, it is all about working the volts very carefully. I should take a second and note that Ivy Bridge is an extremely tough CPU, it is very hard to kill, however you can kill it if you go above 1.6v on air and ~2.0v on LN2. Ivy Bridge also seems to be more resilient to degradation than Sandy Bridge was, however the heat produced by the CPU can cause degradations when above what Intel recommends.



TJ Max for Ivy Bridge is 105C, however you shouldn’t go above 85-90C load when overclocking. Ivy Bridge also shows a lot of power increase due to frequency alone as well. You can see this in the graph below which represents a 3770K with a fixed voltage of 1.4v. However at 5GHz it is still better off than Sandy Bridge-E and right around where Sandy Bridge is at for 5 GHz. What is increasing to increase the power is the current, you cannot control the current, but you can control the frequency and voltage.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 6 - Step 3: OC-Profiles
Page 2 - Ivy Bridge Basics	Page 7 - Ivy Bridge and LN2
Page 3 - 22 Nanometer and Maths	Page 8 - Ivy Bridge LN2 Memory Overclocking
Page 4 - Step 1: Ivy Bridge CPU Overclocking	Page 9 - Ivy Bridge BCLK Overclocking
Page 5 - Step 2: Ivy Bridge Memory Overclocking

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