Noctua NH-DH14 & Ivy Bridge Core i7-3770K – in Pursuit of 5.0GHz

The Test

We have been living with the Noctua NH-DH14 inside our case for many weeks and we love it for all of our needs including extreme yet quiet overclocking. The last time we ran a comparison, we got our Core i7-3770K to 4.2 GHz on the entry-level Cooler Master Hyper N212 plus cooler. However, the temperatures were a little high when we attempted 4.4GHz and a no-go at 4.6GHz on any synthetic test like OCCT that really stresses the CPU.  But we want a higher overclock than a budget cooler can provide.

Let’s take a look at our setup:

The Setup and the Test

Test Configuration

• Intel Core i7-3770K (stock, 3.50GHz) overclocked to 4.2GHz, 4.4GHz, 4,6GHz and at 4.8GHz
• ECS Z77 H2-A2X (shipping BIOS, USB 3.0/PCIe 3.0 specification; CrossFire or SLI 8x + 8x)
• Gigabyte GA-Z77MX-DH3 Series 7 (shipping BIOS, USB/PCIe 3.0 specification; CrossFire or SLI 8x + 8x)
• 4 GB Kingston DDR3-PC1866 RAM at 1866MHz (2×2 GB in dual-channel; supplied by Kingston)
• GTX 680, 2GB, reference clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• GTX 690, 4GB, reference clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.2 hard drive
• ToughPowerXT 775 W power supply (supplied by Thermaltake)
• Noctua NH-DH14 Universal Cooler (supplied by Noctua)
• Elite 430 mid tower case (supplied by Cooler Master)
• Hyper N212 Plus CPU Cooler (supplied by Cooler Master)
• Overseer RX-I full-tower case (supplied by Thermaltake)

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce WHQL 301.42 Driver; high quality filtering and optimizations off

• Windows 7 64-bit SP1; very latest updates
• DirectX latest.
• All games are patched to their latest versions.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Vista 64, all DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths
• OCCT 4.1

The Test

Here is our Noctua cooler with the CPU after 25 minutes under full load with everything at stock speeds and on “auto”.  Turbo is properly applied to hit 3.7GHz across all 4 cores and will run one core up to 3.9GHz.  Temperatures are good reaching the mid to upper 50sC under full load.

Now we raise our CPU speed to 3.9GHz and note that the temperatures are up a few degrees to mid-60sC even though the voltage is left on “auto” and it pulls a little more wattage than at stock.

Now we boost our voltage by .03V and up our clockspeeds to 4.2GHz. This is  where the Cooler Master Hyper N212+ started to see some temperature increases and we are seeing temperatures just below 70C with our Noctua NH-DH-14 when all the cores are fully loaded.  So far, so good for both coolers!

To increase our clockspeeds to 4.4GHz, we did not need to add any voltage and the temperatures rose by only +2C over 4.2GHz.  At this point, our Cooler Master Hyper 212+ began reaching temperatures above 80C.  At 4.4GHz is where we began to see differentiation between a budget and a premium cooler.

To reach 4.6GHz took a bit more voltage to stabilize it, but the temperatures did not rise appreciably over 4.6Ghz with the NH-DH14, so we will continue to see how far we can go.  In contrast, our Hyper N212+ had given up on anything over 4.4GHz as the OCCT test was now shutting down at 90C! at 4.6GHz after a few seconds.  Now we need a premium cooler to get the maximum overclock out of our quickly-becoming-hot CPU.

 At 4.8GHz, we required a solid voltage boost of +.013V to +0.15V to achieve a stable overclock and the temperatures on a couple of cores rose into the low-80sC.

At 4.8GHz at idle, the temperatures are great which lead us to believe that we could get much more.

At this point, when we were about to change out our motherboard, we realized that we had reversed the two fans in the NH-DH14 cooler so that the air flow was coming from the back of the case to the front!  The Noctua’s CPU cooler fans were competing with the case’s rear exhaust fan for air flow.  We realize that the temperature delta between the premium Noctua NH-DH14 and the budget Cooler Master is even greater than the preceeding tests indicate.

Retesting with the full-sized ECS motherboard in the Thermaltake Overseer RX-I full-tower now show temperatures at 4.8GHz now remain below 80C, or about 4C cooler!  Of course, some of the thermal improvement was due to the full tower case’s superior air flow over the mid-tower’s.

So now that we have everything working properly in a large full-tower case and with very decent temperatures for idle as well as with all cores fully loaded, we tried for 4.9GHz and found that we ran into a wall.  Using both the Gigabyte and the ECS motherboard, NO amount of added voltage would allow us to go any higher.

It may be limitations of the CPU itself or perhaps some motherboard settings are holding us back from a higher overclock – but the issues are not thermal.  Even though we got great temperatures with our Noctua NH-DH14 that we could not dream about with our budget Cooler Master Hyper 212+ , we still cannot reach higher speeds than 4.8GHz with our Core i7-3770K.  Of course, 4.8GHz is a very decent overclock for Ivy Bridge!

We will revisit overclocking again with our newest motherboard, the EVGA Z77 FTW and the Noctua NH-DH14, when we evaluate it for you later on this week and we shall also throw watercooling into the mix with the Thermaltake Water2.0 Pro.  In the meantime, we now have a completely stable Core i7-3770K at 4.8GHz with decent temperatures remaining below 80C when all cores are fully loaded thanks to the great cooling of the Noctua NH-DH14.  Best of all, the fan speed remains stock and ultra-quiet!  When gaming we rarely reach temperatures above the low-70sC and we never hear our Noctua CPU cooling fans while gaming.

Let’s head for our conclusion.