One of the perks of owning a PC is the ability to get more performance out of your hardware through a variety of tweaks. And one of the best tweaks that you can do is overclocking your CPU.

That said, manual overclocking is a mammoth task if you have never done it before. Thankfully, tools like the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility (Intel XTU) make the process a lot easier. Let’s see how you can use Intel XTU to overclock your CPU and gain some free performance.

Things to Consider Before Overclocking

Overclocking is the process by which you increase the CPU frequency beyond the standard, manufacturer-decided frequency. In other words, by overclocking the CPU, you are assuming the risk of general system instability and even component death.

So, before you jump head-first and put a massive overclock on the processor, make sure you know the risks and how to minimize them. And one of the steps that you can take to safeguard your CPU is to invest in better cooling.

Related: The Best Cooling Systems for Your PC

When you increase the CPU frequency, the CPU draws in more power. And more power equals more heat generation. If your cooler is not good enough, this excess heat will cause your CPU to thermal throttle, reducing its performance. And if the cooler is severely limited, the system will eventually shut down to protect the components.

The second thing you need for overclocking is a CPU that has an unlocked frequency. CPU manufacturers like Intel lock the frequency of some models of their lineup for added stability.

Finally, you will also need a motherboard that supports overclocking. Got all of these down? Great, now you are ready for some overclocking action.

Download and Install Intel XTU

The first thing you need to do is download Intel XTU and install it. So, go to the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility webpage, check if your CPU is supported under the list of supported CPUs, and download the installer if the CPU checks out. Next, install Intel XTU from the setup you just downloaded.

Perform the First Base Benchmark

After installing Intel XTU, you should run an initial benchmark to gauge the overall performance of your computer. You will use the results of this benchmark as a reference to see how much performance increase you achieve after overclocking. To do this, open Intel XTU, and navigate to the Benchmarking tab and click on Run XTU Benchmark.

Intel XTU Benchmarking tab

Run the benchmark a couple of times and note the average score to get a more accurate picture of the situation. After the benchmark finishes running, you should note down the score somewhere for later use.

Overclocking the CPU

Intel XTU provides options for both amateur and experienced overclockers. We are only going to cover the Basic Tuning option as it is easy to use and is more than enough to put a respectable overclock on the CPU.

The first thing we are going to do is adjust the Processor Core Ratio and increase the multiplier. All CPUs come with a base clock for every core on the chip. This base clock is in the “MHz”, so not a lot.

The final CPU frequency is the result of this base clock along with the multiplier put on top of it. For instance, if the base clock of a processor core is 100MHz putting an x40 multiplier on top would result in 4000MHz or 4.0GHz frequency. So, adjust the Processor Core Ratio slider and increase the multiplier by 1x. Apply the changes, and reboot your computer.

Intel XTU Basic Tuning tab

If your computer boots up fine, run the benchmark as you did before, and compare the score with the pre-overclocking score. If you see an improvement, then the overclock has worked and you can keep increasing the multiplier by 1x to test further.

If you see no improvements, your CPU is likely performing its best and you can tweak other parts of your computer for a performance bump. Related: How to Overclock Your Graphics Card (GPU) One other overclock that you can perform in the Basic Tuning section is adjusting the Processor Cache Ratio. A CPU cache is an ultra-fast memory that bridges the speed gap between the processor and the RAM. So, if the cache is not performing at its optimal, it will reduce your computer's overall performance.Therefore, increasing the Processor Cache Ratio multiplier is crucial when you are overclocking your CPU.

Ideally, you want to keep the Processor Core Ratio and the Processor Cache Ratio multipliers at the same level. So, adjust the Processor Cache Ratio slider, save the settings, and reboot your computer. Finally, run the benchmark to see if you notice any performance improvements. Repeat the process until you hit a roadblock like your computer not booting up, stutters, or other stability issues.

Ironing Out Stability Issues

If your PC boots up but turns off after a while, your PC is possibly experiencing an overheating problem. In this case, you can either decrease the overclock settings or get a better cooling solution to solve the problem.

If, on the other hand, your PC boots up fine but stutters a lot, the CPU might not have sufficient power to run. To solve this, go to the Advanced Tuning tab inside Intel XTU and adjust the Core Voltage Offset slider. Remember to limit the voltage changes to 0.05V at a time.

Intel XTU Advanced Tuning tab

Afterward, save the changes, reboot the system, and see if they're no more stutters. Repeat the process more than once if necessary.

Test Long-Term System Stability After Overclocking

After overclocking, you must test the long-term usability of your computer. Because benchmarks that only push the system for a couple of minutes don’t simulate extended workloads, you will need to run longer benchmarks to simulate a real-world use-case.

Related: How to Safely Stress Test Your Overclocked CPU, GPU, and RAM

You can run long benchmarks inside the Intel XTU’s Stress Test tab. So, run a benchmark for 30 or more minutes. Such an extended benchmark will be indictive of sustained workloads like video rendering or playing games. See if everything works as it should.

Intel XTU Stress Test tab

If everything works normally, then your overclocking efforts have bore fruit. Now, see if the games you play have increased frame rates. After all, most of us do it for games, don't we?

Clocking Into Overclocking

Overclocking your PC can be an intimidating task, but with a little bit of know-how and some clever tweaking, you can squeeze out every last drop of performance from your PC. And now that you have an overclocked PC on your hands, why not check out how high you can get your frame rates now?