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Intel Core i7-6700K ‘Skylake’ overclocked to 5.20GHz with air cooling

Intel Corp.’s upcoming Core i7-6700K “Skylake” processor will hit the market only in August, but samples of the chips have already been shipped to select Intel’s partners, who test them in their labs. According to a new report from a Chinese web-site, the new chips are pretty good overclockers: one of the engineering samples of the product has been overclocked to 5.20GHz.

HKEPC web-site has published a CPU-Z screenshot of Intel Core i7-6700 “Skylake” processor overclocked to 5.20GHz. Specialists from the web-site claim that to overclock the central processing unit they had to increase core voltage to 1.35V. The overclocking was conducted using an air cooling, but it is unclear whether the chip was stable enough to run benchmarks.

intel_core_i7_haswell_lga1150

If Intel Core i7-6700K “Skylake” processors can be overclocked to 5.20GHz on air and can work stably at such a high frequency, then many people who are using outdated and overclocked Core i7 “Sandy Bridge” microprocessors now will consider upgrading their CPUs. Keeping in mind that Intel Z170 chipsets have considerably better functionality that previous-generation core-logic sets, great overclockability of the Core i7-6700K will further increase popularity of the new platform.

intel_corei7-6700k_overclocked

The Intel Core i7-6700K features four cores with Hyper-Threading technology, 4.0GHz/4.20GHz base/turbo default clock-rates, 8MB last level cache, an integrated graphics core and 95W thermal design power. The chips use LGA1151 form-factor.

Intel did not comment on the news-story.

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KitGuru Says: Looks like despite of the fact that Intel’s upcoming “Skylake” processors use rather mediocre internal thermal interface, the new Core i7-6700K is a decent overclocker.

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35 comments

  1. Sounds too good to be true. I did get my i7-4790K Devil’s Canyon to o/c to 4.4GHz on air using the CM Hyper 212 EVO at 76C at the max when running torture test. Adding even as much as 200MHz, and the temp started to climb precipitously tho. This is the best o/c I have had since my Sandy Bridge. Can Skylake do as well? Have to wait and see.

  2. Got my old fx 6300 on 5.5ghz with evo 212 running at 80 degrees with prime 95.. this sounds pretty promosing

  3. samo same strategy… hyped up and super pre selected chips/waifer.

  4. I call 1-800-bull****t on that. Didn’t they say the same about Haswell before it was released?

  5. I imagine with something stronger than the 212 with a 14mm, or better a dual-tower with 2x14mm like that Phanteks PH-TC14PE you could get even higher!

  6. Really hopeful for good numbers. I think it’s time to retire the ole 920 @ 3.2. Even something like 4.6 at good temps would be phenomenal coming from that.

  7. Demon Highwayman

    I heard similar claims with the 4790k and the retail chips couldn’t match the sample chips.

  8. Charles Charalambous

    Well even at it’s base speeds that is decent enough for me as I am stuck on a 3rd gen I7 which does not support dx12.

  9. Benchmarks or it’s all hot air, pardon the pun!

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  11. lol, yeah… BS. I’m sure about 10% will.. it’s just marketing.

  12. all cpu’s will support dx12….. but why even care about that? you own a gpu don’t you??

  13. No benchmarks, no story. It’s the same thing with the “5GHz intel laptop” that they showed off using an Alienware a few years ago at one of the conventions. 5GHz doesn’t hold well enough on 4 cores, so they disabled two of the cores and let people build the hype, when in reality it was pointless.

    AND even if it were 4-core, hyperthreading-enabled, benchmark-stable, air-cooled 5.2GHz, I have huge doubts that the chip will remain cool enough. Haswell was hotter than SB/IB; Broadwell is hotter than haswell… Skylake jumping to be so much cooler than both SB and IB that what is beyond liquid cooling is now possible on air seems like a pretty far-fetched idea. More reason to disbelieve.

  14. I honestly don’t care. Even if it was overclocked to 10 GHz. What I wanna see is performance per clock cycle.

  15. Demon Highwayman

    Ahh well they can’t show that because that would reveal the truth !

  16. Demon Highwayman

    Thats not really an overclock either because thats it just running at its boost frequency, you can get the same effect by setting performance in windows to maximum performance. I’ve not even bothered trying an overclock my 4790k – I know it will be a disappointment 🙁

    The whole reason I bought my 4790k was because they made the same claims about it as they are doing with the 6700k. I’d expect a 5%-10% speed improvement over your 4790k.

  17. My 920 is running at 4GHz 99% of the time stable, on a cheapo £15 Arctic V2 cooler. Can definitely get more than 3.2 out of it! Join the 50% OC club on 3Dmark! You know you wanna 😛

  18. Woah, that’s crazy! How?! I am using a Thermalright U-120 Extreme with dual fans atop Maingear T1000, and I’ll see temps hitting in the 70s under load. Too much voltage, I wonder?…

    What are you running for BCLK and Voltage?

  19. ” mediocre internal thermal interface” what does this mean? what’s medicore about it

  20. Charles Charalambous

    I thought you had to have a 4th gen higher. However it seems like just if you use integrated graphics. I have a 980TI so I should be fine with my 3770K then

  21. i haven’t seen a single thing which say’s you need a 4th gen or higher cpu to support dx12… and i had a poke around on Google yesterday just to make sure.

    you could be right, however that would be totally against the point of dx12 which is meant to bring gaming to even more cores, not exclude any. even windows 10 itself they say will run on old, old hardware.

    that all said, you have a 980ti… nice. you’ll be fine so no need to spend money on another cpu now.

  22. Kinda getting tired of 4 cores / 8 threads as the only options at a potentially reasonable price. Hope AMD’s Zen CPUs can actually bring real 8 core CPUs (with decent performance) to the mainstream.

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  23. Well I’ll have to see what all the reviews say before I jump on one and leave my Sandy Bridge i7.

  24. How? Most people can only top out at 4.8GHz on air cooling with a 212.

  25. By overclocking? Not sure how to describe it lol I guess you need a good airflow for the temps and a good psu for the power consumption. Quite a lot peoples got above 5ghz if they try. Ofcourse I don’t recommend overclocking as you can easily destroy pc parts if you don’t know what you’re doing. Pretty sure you can even find some on youtube or google that reached high rates with 212 evo.

  26. Core temps are around 70-80, CPU doesn’t go over 65 though. Cores are fine on that chip up to 100 but obviously not daily. Under Prime95 they get to the scary mid-90’s, but during regular gaming I rarely see them over 75. I can’t recall the exact BCLK off the top of my head but I think I’m around 191, but I do know I’m actually undervolting it, at 1.25v IIRC. I can check back when I get home tonight 🙂

  27. People with high end water cooling kits hit like 5.2GHz.

  28. I am talking about facts and experiences lol and they hit 5.2ghz with which processor? Every processor is unique, one might reach 5ghz with ease while others are struggling at 4.5 with a fx-6300 as example. I was able to push it higher than 5.5, but after that it became instable and consumed to much power. So I kept it at 5.5 just to show off.

    Not sure what you mean with high end water cooling, but if the cooler is good they can get the same tempertures or lower as air coolers with with great heatsinks such as an evo212.

    Liquid cooling on the other hand is a lot better.

    But I have to ask, what are you trying to achieve? If it is a discussion, do you owe a 212 evo, water and liquid cooler? Do you owe processors and have you ever overclocked them? Because I do.

  29. I own a 212 evo. I’ve seen secondhand experiences of people hitting like 5GHz on water cooling. You must have really hit the silicon lottery to achieve OCing 2GHz on air cooling. I still really don’t believe it but okay. I may as well OC my 6300 to 4.6GHz on stock cooling now.

  30. I am not so sure about luck, I’d rather say you were kinda unlucky, from the peoples I know about 4 of them have a fx 6300, they were all able to push it to 4.8+ with 212 evo. I pushed it the furthest to 5.2 (went further but it wasn’t stable). With water cooling I had it stable at 5.3ghz as a limit and with liquid the limit was at 5.7 for me. But I used all on the same processor so it might’ve been able to push further since it wasn’t brand new and maybe damaged.

    Got a fx8350 aswell which I am rather unlucky with when it comes to overclocking, air cooling wise my highest was with prime95 running for 1 hour at 4.7ghz.

    Didn’t use any intel processors, because they are rather expensive and not really easy to overclock a lot.

    You are free to believe me or not, there are also some guides out there with the 212 evo on forums that give some good tips for overclocking.

    Not sure if it is mentionable but I use the push and pull effect aswell on the hyper 212 evo.

  31. For the longest time, Intel user metal-based solder as thermal interface material; but ever since Ivy Bridge, they switched to a cheaper thermal paste on their mainstream lineup while sticking with solder on their server lineup. It just so happens that X79 and X99 platforms are just rebranded and ported server into consumer, so they keep the solder.

    But Skylake, like Haswell and Ivy Bridge before in the LGA115x socket, seems to keep the thermal paste. We should however expect to see solder in the Skylake-E platform next year though, or at least it seems consistent to expect it.

    As for the “mediocre” commentary, people felt the solder allowed for better overclocking, the the cheap paste Intel now uses somehow absorbs too much heat in itself and doesn’t transfer it all to the heatsink. Turns out if you’re willing to void the warranty and remove the lid, use your own aftermarket thermal paste, your temps will be much lower than Intel’s paste, thus higher overclocks or same overclocks at lower voltages are possible.

    It is just that many among us feel Intel should have kept solder on an unlocked part, but we wrongly believe Intel actually designs these processors to be overclocked. In reality, Intel is unlocking a random otherwise mainstream quad-core via microcode and simply rebrands them, they don’t do anything special. That’s why these enthusiast-oriented parts have things we don’t need, like the cheap thermal paste and the IGP. Intel doesn’t set aside whole wafers just for us.

  32. 0.835v? That seems low.

  33. dude amd will die at tht temp

  34. well a year later I can confirm that the same processor is still being used oc’d but in my cousins pc not my own anymore 😀

  35. hey! i have that same chip and mine is at 5.95 and lol here

    http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/2567519

    thats my cpu and at max i can overclock to 6.32 GHZ! love this thing

    1.275v on core and 73c max!