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Before Starting, Please Note:

This guide applies to both Core i7-4770K and i5-4670K as the principles of overclocking both chips are the same. Hitting the magic 5GHz with a K-series LGA1150 requires an excellent CPU (read: a lot of luck) and a great motherboard to achieve it. As the TechReport noted:

Of the processors ASUS has tested, 70% hit 4.5GHz, 30% reached 4.6GHz, and 20% made 4.7GHz. Only 10% were stable at 4.8GHz. Heat is reportedly the limiting factor, and Asus recommends using a dual-fan water cooler to prevent thermal throttling past about 4.5GHz or 1.25V. Going beyond 1.35V is apparently problematic even for high-end water coolers.

Even if your CPU cannot achieve this, following the basic overclocking principles outlined in this guide will get you most of the way towards this goal.

Paired with the Maximus VI Formula, this gives the user the a full ROG-tweaked UEFI BIOS, with pre-sets and functions that make it easier attempting to hit that 5GHz Overclocking to anything above 4GHz on a Core i7-4770K or i5-4670K will require a large CPU cooler or, ideally, a liquid cooling system. Intel ‘Haswell’ LGA1150 CPUs, generate more power than their previous counterparts as they include digital VRMs for power management on-chip.

While the Maximus VI Formula’s CrossChill cooler can be cooled both with air or water, equally, the motherboard VRMs also generate heat when under high load and voltage, so if you are air cooled then please ensure your case has some active back-to-front or bottom-to-top airflow. In our Formula we’ve hooked up a basic water cooling loop, integrating the CrossChill into the CPU cooler.

We will skip the installation part in this guide, however you can refer to a previous guide for a reminder.

maximus-vi-formula-watercooled-5ghz-oc

We used EK water cooling hardware with some BitsPower barbs, Corsair fans, G.Skill 2400MHz Ripjaws Memory, an ASUS R9 290X DirectCU II graphics card and In-Win D Frame chassis.

Please note: Water cooling is not mandatory. If you are air cooled or use an integrated liquid cooler (LCLC/AiO cooler) you can still follow our guide, however be mindful your CPU cooling capacity will be more limited.

Updating the BIOS

  • Before overclocking your Maximus VI Formula it’s a good idea to update it to the latest version of the BIOS. Check what BIOS version you have in the Main tab in the ROG BIOS and compare this against the Maximus VI Formual product page/support tab/downloads.
  • Updating the BIOS can be done within it via the Tool menu, and by selcting ASUS EZ Flash 2. So long as the valid BIOS file is on a FAT32 formatted USB flash drive, it’ll appear in the menu. Load the new BIOS and wait for it to install; a process which will typically require a reboot. If you’re super impatient, you can also update the BIOS before even installing the CPU or RAM using ASUS’ USB BIOS Flashback technology.
5GHz Overclocking Guide EZ Flash 2
5GHz Overclocking Guide BIOS Flash

Make sure everything works

  • There’s no point to overclocking your PC if it isn’t stable at stock to start with, so first make sure everything’s working as it should.
  • Start the system and enter BIOS
  • Press F5 to load optimized BIOS defaults, and set the boot device to your Windows HDD/SSD.
  • Hit F10 to save the BIOS and restart, booting into Windows.
  • Once in Windows, if you haven’t already done so, now’s also a good time to install a temperatures monitoring software such as CoreTemp or RealTemp, as the Asus AISuite software will report from sensors on the board. Running temperature software keeps an eye on things to make sure your cooling setup isn’t being overwhelmed.

Help! Something crashed! What do I do?

Don’t panic! Switch off the system and locate the Reset CMOS button on the rear I/O panel. Press it for a few seconds, then this should clear all the BIOS settings back to default, allowing you to start overclocking again.

Testing Time!

  • Load up Realbench 2 and run it at least once. If the system completes the benchmark and produces a score, all it good! Record it for reference as we’ll need it later. Realbench will test single-core and memory, multi-core and cache, an OpenCL enabled GPU and it will heavily push the system in multi-tasking. The full test should take less than ~7 minutes with an Intel ‘Haswell’ CPU.
  • During each test note the temperature to make sure everything is within acceptable limits.

All good? Now back to the BIOS!


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