Core i3 530 Overclocking worklog

So the other day I took my friend to microcenter to purchase a new video card to replace his aging X1900XTX and stumbled across a pretty decent deal for an i3 530 for $99. well thats $25 cheaper than the egg, so i picked one up :up:

anyway on to some specifics about this chip. its batch is L939B674 with a pack date of 12/07/09. stock voltage according to what my bios defaulted is 1.1875v and at stock speeds, it idles at 25c in a 21c ambient room under a corsair H50 with 2 fans in push pull.

right now im doing some stock voltage overclocking just to see how far it will go. currently testing the following:

145x22 (3.193ghz)
1.1875v Vcore
1.05v VTT
1.8v PLL
ram at DDR3 870 8-8-8-24 1.65v
Idle temp: 25c/25c
Load temp: 40c/40c

passed 13 minutes of Prime95 in place large FFTs. moving on up 266mhz on the core speed

Linky to a screen shot

32nm is pretty awesome right now! cant wait to see how far it'll go! be back later for some more :up:

@ 3.7ghz w/ stock voltages running P95 in place large FFT's

Link

4ghz @ stock voltage. been running P95 in place large FFT's for the last 33 minutes. tried booting at 4.08ghz and it failed to boot into windows. im suspecting that this is about as high as this chip will be able to go on stock voltage, which is quite awesome for a $99 processor

Link

Very nice, Congrats.
I am looking at either an i3 or one of the 32nm i5's. Still undecided but either way all the results Ive seen have been great. Keep us posted.

well you do get a higher multi with the 32nm i5's, but theyre a bit overpriced right now IMO. keep an eye on this thread and see what the max BclK is and decide if the higher multi is worth the extra cost :up:

4ghz is indeed stable at stock voltages :D

LINK

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=976272

Nice work!

$99.00 is looking pretty good. Very nice results, keep pushing and keep us posted. :up:

4.4ghz validated. gonna test now :up:

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=977326

been running P95 for the last 30 minutes with this

200x22
1.35v vcore
1.35v vtt
1.8v pll

Link

I think 24/7 sweet spot is going to be 4.3ghz as the settings for that are 196x22 1.2875v vcore, 1.2v vtt

i am playing with i3-530 with high bclk for few days

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/1...20463d06c8.jpg

however when LinX temp reach 85C ++ with water cooling

Is this with a 8800GTX? If so what speeds.

Pretty darn good for only $99!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vinas

Is this with a 8800GTX? If so what speeds.

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yes XFX 8800GTX @ Core 630 Mem 1025 Shader 1635

anyone know what the max "safe" VTT for the i3 as listed by intel is?

I believe it is 1.40vVTT and 1.40v Vcore, very nice results on your chip.

Intel® Core™ i5-600, i3-500 Desktop
Processor Series and Intel®
Pentium® Processor G6950
Datasheet January 2010
http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/3273/vtt32nm.png

thanks OC_nub. thats exactly what i was looking for. anyway i put the i3 in an evga H55 motherboard. im pretty sure ill be able to get similar results on it compared to my P55 FTW. only thing thats annoying with that H55 is that it shows vcore adjustments as mW instead of say 1.1825v to 1.1875v. other than that, the bios looks very similar to that of the P55

^ Do you have the e657 FTW board? If so what bios are you on? I was wondering if you could open AFUWIN, its in the bios, and save the bios. I cant get my FTW board to flash to any bios past A29 I think it was. I get errors in W7 64, spent hours trying with no success. AFUWIN saves as a .ROM file which is what I need in order to flash this board.

Hi there, this is my new test on P55-UD6 and Core i3 530.

4909 Mhz on air...

http://valid.canardpc.com/cache/screenshot/976263.png

http://hwbot.org/community/submissio...30_4909.06_mhz

Some test:

http://hwbot.org/community/submissio..._530_69500_fpu

http://hwbot.org/community/submissio...30_18444_marks

http://hwbot.org/community/submissio...30_10sec_686ms

http://hwbot.org/community/submissio...in_44sec_636ms

Seeya :cool:

NICE! what ended up being stable clocks?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OC Nub

^ Do you have the e657 FTW board? If so what bios are you on? I was wondering if you could open AFUWIN, its in the bios, and save the bios. I cant get my FTW board to flash to any bios past A29 I think it was. I get errors in W7 64, spent hours trying with no success. AFUWIN saves as a .ROM file which is what I need in order to flash this board.

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Yeah, i have the e657 FTW, not the nF200 or classy. Im running bios A51 and I cant update to A56 either in windows 7 64bit. I did safe my bios though for you and will upload it :up:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GenTarkin

NICE! what ended up being stable clocks?

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4ghz is 8 hours prime stable at stock voltages, 4.3ghz looks like it will be the sweet spot as it runs with 1.2875v Vcore, 1.2v VTT. I just have to test it in my evga H55, but i have to head back to microcenter tomorrow as the kit of ram i have for that board was DOA. multiple errors in memtest86+ even at reduced speeds and timings paired with increased voltage :down: 4.4ghz was able to run for 30 minutes in Prime 95 @ 1.35v Vcore, 1.35VTT. once i get the replacement kit of ram, ill try for another 8 hour run :up: and i still have another .05v on the vcore and vtt until i leave the "safe zone" :explode2::devil::up:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bt_medic04

Yeah, i have the e657 FTW, not the nF200 or classy. Im running bios A51 and I cant update to A56 either in windows 7 64bit. I did safe my bios though for you and will upload it :u

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That would be great, Thank you.

bt_medic04, do you think you can run a 1M superPi at 4.0ghz and 4.3ghz? trying to see if these are faster than c2d's at the same speeds. also, any way to measure the power draw from the wall with that vcore?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Solid Snake

Hi there, this is my new test on P55-UD6 and Core i3 530.

4909 Mhz on air...

http://valid.canardpc.com/cache/screenshot/976263.png

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4.9 on air :eek:. is this chip batter than average or can i expect this with all i3's? btw, i love your sig pic. wonder where you got that from :up:. i did a crummy job with that one you used, but this one i have now is a slightly better version.

I was hitting 5+ on air with a megahalems and a slower fan today - on a Trinergy ... now I have the board prepped for some -160C action :)

wow maybe I will go with one of these dual cores! I was going to get an i7-860 but these results are impressive!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by WhiteFireDragon

bt_medic04, do you think you can run a 1M superPi at 4.0ghz and 4.3ghz? trying to see if these are faster than c2d's at the same speeds. also, any way to measure the power draw from the wall with that vcore?

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as soon as i get more thermal paste. i have enough ICD7 left for one application and ive already put the i3 in my evga h55 board. the bios on that is very rough right now and i cant clock past 173BclK on it :brick: when i get more TIM, ill throw it back in the P55 E657 and run that for ya :up:

FWIW i did run it at 4.4ghz on a sPi 1mb run and got a 9.94s time on it, but that was with my ram running only at DDR3 1200 with 8-8-8-24 timings. im sure if i tighten them up and run the ram at DDR3 1600, ill have better results :up:

I picked up a core i3-540 at fry's with a gigabyte H55m-S2H for a combo price of $200.
my highest clock is @ 5ghz on air with 1 core disabled and HT disabled.

my 24/7 stable is 4.6ghz(200x23) @ 1.3875vcore and 1.375vtt/qpi

I can do 1m all the way up to 4.9ghz with 1 core, I get into the mid to high 8 second range w/ ram at 1284 7-7-7-16 1T. I cheaped out on the ram too. lol

when I try to get stable past 4.6 I crash unless I add obscene amounts of qpi/vtt voltage. 1.470 will get me up to 4.8ghz semi stable. I think the mobo has a soft wall at 201mhz, everything after that is just not stable without ridiculous voltage. I got the board cause it was combo'd, but if I had to do it over again I wish I had gotten a better mobo. I am almost certain its the reason I cant get stable higher.

Highest validation with both cores enabled and HT enabled.
http://valid.canardpc.com/cache/banner/993326.png
http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=993326

I swear I had a 5ghz validation with only 1 core enabled, oh well. someone needs to make an official i3 overclocking thread.

Hello all (new here). Ive just set up an intel sabertooth i55 along with one of these chips and a review sample of some g.skill 1.35v 1600mhz ddr3. (will link to review when published fri if you wish). Anyway, my batch number is 3945B302. Anyone got any ideas of what to expect? Its going under water to begin with and then an SS once I get used to how the sabertooth overclocks. On a side note its a rock solid board that doesnt flake over no matter how hard I have pushed it so far.


Any thoughts on this would be brilliant, especially regarding the batch number.


Thanks


Andy

This processors are incredible. This is my validation on MSI Trinergy, on air (TRUE):

http://i48.tinypic.com/23t17yq.png

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1019540

WOW. Thats alot of voltage into that chip. I thought they started dying after 1.5v?!

I got my i3 up to 4.8 in around 20mins of tweaking. These chips are fun :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kow_ciller

WOW. Thats alot of voltage into that chip. I thought they started dying after 1.5v?!

I got my i3 up to 4.8 in around 20mins of tweaking. These chips are fun :D

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Yes, the voltage it's high, but as you say this chips are fun :yepp:.

I love the i3 chips, fast mhz with little work? What more could you want?

would you guys mind posting some of your results and tips for your OC's in this thread?
that way we can help each other out with our findings.thanks
~intel core i3/i5 32nm dualcore overclocking thread~

I have an i3 530 3941B415 Vid 1.1875v packed on 12/16/09 paired with a P55-UD5.

Im finding it hard for a point of comparison as there's not many posts out there, but I think my batch is a good one. Im using the standard retail cooler for now (w/c next week or so) and have got past a 50% overclock already...

3.85ghz no vcore increase
4.10ghz @ 1.25 bios (1.19v load)
4.20ghz @ 1.30 bios (1.24v load)
4.31ghz @ 1.35 bios (1.29v load)
4.43ghz @ 1.4125v bios (1.35v load)

Stopped there due to temps (88c load in p95), still stable.

Have been running blend for the last few days to try and max the bclk and mem out. So far havent had to do much....

Currently testing 18x230 having passed 18x229. 8x mem multi, 8-7-7-24-1T timings, 36x QPI (finding unstable with QPI>2xcpu regardless of overclock). Still mild on voltage, left cpu volts at 1.4125v, set qpi/vtt to 1.34v and ddr to 1.64v and started raising fsb. Have so far only had to bump vddr, still sitting pretty at 230bclk 1.34vtt and priming. Couple of hours ill up it again to 233 and see how that goes. Im guessing itll need a memory volts bump again but im getting concerned about vddr>vtt+0.5v - is this still an issue on i3 and i5, or is it only the i7 that needs to follow this rule?

i3 cpu's are garbage and nothing more than that!!!

I have one for me, but it's only good in o/c and nothing more. HT is marketing trick and only works in sintetic test's, no real apps so, price of i3 is too big for what they are offer to consumer.

But, steel, I beleive in Intel!!!

I think its just you and the AMD fanboys that think that zorz...

I'm getting excellent performance from my 530, i'm very impressed with mine. Infact I'd put them up there with the old celeron 300A's. I've certainly not managed a 50% oc on a retail box cooler for a long time.

HT works great in ripping/encoding/cad/rendering. It all depends if you use an app thats HT aware or not, and I assure you there are a LOT of those. Like you though I've got HT disabled (and on my i7 950 too). VT-x is also a great addition to this cpu - makes it a good home server workhorse too.

The price here in the UK is very good - costs the same as an E7200 and is a much faster cpu.


Looking at your signature it looks like you have too little ram and not enough gfx for the cpu. I'd look here at your performance issues before blaming the cpu.