Hi Zhawn, and welcome

The stock cooler from Intel is woefully inadequate for ANY overclocking. The TIM on the stock cooler is terrible, too. What did you try for a replacement. Even with normal 'stock' turbo of 4.4GHz, that cooler can't handle the power burned in the 4790K during stress or benchmark tests. A good game is a stretch for that cooler. You did a good thing stopping the stress test.

I strongly suggest a better cooler. I've had good results with a CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO - a moderate sized air cooler. The problem there was space under the fan on that cooler for Vengeance RAM heat spreaders. My preference now would be water cooling - smaller around the RAM and video slot, quieter and more effective than air cooling. If the most you are going to overclock is around 4.4GHz and the CPU is good enough to do that at 1.20 Vcore (that is a good one), then a 2-fan all-in-one water cooler should be adequate. A good TIM also helps - Arctic Silver 5, Prolimtech PK-1, and MX-4 have worked for me.

Don't worry about Vengeance Pro DRAM. It works as advertised, and as long as it does for you, you're good.

I need to warn you about using multiple monitoring programs at the same time. I use Aida64 exclusively. It gives correct realtime readings of clock rates, voltages, power, fan speeds etc. That's when something like AI Suite isn't interfering with it. Two programs trying to read the same sensor often stumble over each other. Still, I'd take the Aida64 reading of clock rate at that moment over AI Suite which is probably reporting its setting for max turbo.

I don't use AI Suite. I do overclocking and setting fans in BIOS. With a goal of 4.4GHz turbo, the BIOS settings should be easy and sufficient.

Jeff

First thing to understand when using synthetic stress programs like aida64 and prime95 is that they use AVX instructions. Intel has designed haswell processors to increase voltage by 0.1 when AVX is called under dynamic voltage settings (adaptive or offset). So if the core voltage is normally 1.2V under adaptive or offset, it will increase to 1.3V. +0.1V is enough to make a significant temperature change. It is recommended that if you are going to be using programs that call for AVX instructions or if you are going to tune your computer according to prime95 or aida64, then you should control your voltage under "Manual" mode so that a constant voltage persists even under AVX instruction. So are you running adaptive mode or offset? If it is auto, then it is surely adaptive.

If it is still a problem under Manual mode, assuming your core voltage is within reason, then I would look at your CPU cooler (re-installing correctly), this is a problem with many H100i users installing the backplate incorrectly by not being tight enough for stability. However, your stock cooler is not recommended, even by Intel claims, if you are going to try and exceed 4.0 Ghz on the 4790k. You should really get a superior cooler, the h100i is highly recommended but needs to be installed correctly.

Thank you all for ur replies, i will try to answer ur questions below.
@NemesisChild: Ambient temp is around 21-23. CPU cooler i am currently using is stock. Case has NO fans (which is why i have side panel Off). I pre-ordered the NZXT H440 Razer edition but i'll get that in january so this is only a temporary case. The TIM i used is Nexus TMP-1000, which gives the same results as the stock TIM that was already on the cooler. I'm not sure what you mean by "how dod you apply it", but i applied a thin layer on the CPU and on the cooler (funny how the stock cooler is round so ofc it cant fully cool the CPU..).

@jab383: I will be getting a better cooler soon, but just wondering with stock cooler and stock settings it Should work fine imo. In the future i will be adding water cooling of course. Thank you for the warning about the multiple monitoring programs 🙂
I actually want to keep it at 4GHz until i get better cooling but yday when i changed the frequency in bios, i got a q code 00 so i assume i have to change voltage also but don't wanna change anything i'm not sure of. I might wait on the water cooling tho because i plan on watercooling more than just CPU in the future.

@Nurz: I believe i'm using adaptive mode cause i havent changed much on bios. Only problem is that asus's AI Suite is boosting it to 4,4GHZ minimum so i guess i have to uninstall it to get to 4GHz safely ?

"i applied a thin layer on the CPU and on the cooler"

At least part of your problem! A very thin even layer on the CPU only. I personally use the Credit Card method, Google it for instructions, although there are others. There are YouTube video's showing how.

Rick S.

Unfortunately the stock hsf is horribly inadequate. I ended up replacing mine with a coolermaster hyper 212 evo with the 2nd fan and it works great and is very reasonable.