A few questions about XMP and other related overclocking

I recently decided to overclock my PC to the max because I intent on upgrading maybe in a year or 2 or less and I have a few questions about it, hopefully some expert overclocker can help me.

I am still on the Haswell- E platform, i7 5820k using a Asus x99 Sabertooth motherboard and some Corsair Dominator Platinum RAM rated at 2666 Mhz.

I have a EK Custom loop for my CPU but everything else is air cooled just through the fans in my case.

I managed to get my processor to 4.5 Ghz @1.32 V but it crashes in certain stress tests only like Cinebench R15 but is stable in others. When I’m playing games or browsing ( Basically all I do with this PC ) It never crashes though. The CPU max temperature on a single core went up to 70 degrees C during stress testing but under my normal usage during all the games I play, it hovers around 45 - 60 degrees C.

Can someone tell me if that’s a safe thing or should I just dial back the overclock to 4.4 Ghz and a lesser voltage where it’s stable on all stress tests?

With the RAM overclocking I boughta kit a few years ago of corsair dominator platinum 4x4 at 2666 but like most of these RAM kits you have to enable the XMP profile in the BIOS.However I actually tried setting the profile to 3200 Mhz although it was rated for 2666 Mhz and I left it at the stock voltage and it’s stable and has never caused any crashes. Is something like this usual?

I would like to know if there are better ways to overclock RAM.
Any tips would be appreciated.I learned to do this just by looking at some youtube videos so I’m still a bit confused on some stuff but I use this PC for mainly gaming and no kind of stressful programs etc.

If it’s running 3200Mhz you’re fine, just don’t go over the XMP voltages (the IMCs in Haswell-E aren’t the best, a lot of them blew out when overclockers pushed past 1.4v on DDR4). You’re better off tuning the timings, though I haven’t gotten into that yet either.

Your 5820K seems to be a very, very slightly worse bin than mine. Mine does 4.5Ghz at 1.32v but doesn’t crash anywhere. In my current rig though, it runs at 4.2GHz with 1.2v. Much, much cooler (high 70s on an NH-L12S, at 1.32v on my NH-D15S it hit the 90s), not much performance impact. 100-200, even 300Mhz doesn’t usually make a massive difference in real world use, mostly benchmarks. Unless you’re doing high refresh rates, you don’t need the minimal gains.

Have you tried tweaking your ring clocks as well? Tightens up the CPU overall, makes it a little snappier and adds a bit to benches. I run 42x core, 34x ring, 100BLCK. Then on voltages I run override, 1.2v core, 1.05v ring, 1.9v input voltage, everything else left alone. My RAM runs at the stock 3200Mhz CL16 with 1.35v, and I pull around 2750 or so on an all-core Cinebench R20 run.

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