Official MSI P7N Diamond (780i) Discussion/Review/Overclock/Guide/BIOS Thread

[theYipster]

Overspeed,

People are indeed having success getting their E8400's to 4.0ghz on 780i-based motherboards, and I am quite confident that it can be done here too -- if not with the latest BIOS, than likely with a future one. Take a look at the 780i and overclocking forums over at evga.com. Right now the evga 780i A1 is the most popular 780i board on the market, and as such has the most OC information available (as well as the biggest community to help people achieve their overclocking goals.)

Now many of the settings for the evga board don't apply to the P7N, due to the different BIOS used. However, you will no doubt see people putting more volts through the NB in order to achieve their goals. I am confident that you will need to do the same. At 1.4v, my circupipe does get rather hot, but it's not burning to the touch. I did order an Antec Spot Cool fan so that I can keep the NB reasonably cool while pumping more voltage through it. If you're goal is 3.6-4ghz, which I do believe is obtainable, then you should look to do the same.

Note that for my quad to boot and benchmark at 3.6ghz, I need 1.4v in the NB

EDIT: Unfortunately if you did not build the computer yourself, getting the batch number will be difficult. It will involve dismantling the cooling system from you cpu so that you can read the numbers across your cpu's heat spreader. I wouldn't recommend doing this -- it's certainly not worth the hassle.

[BKA]

Yes I did review your results, I think using shipping BIOSs we have both hit the same wall. I was using the MSI app to monitor my temps. I will try your HW monitor and see if it's different. That said, someone once told me that the E8400's were produced with a sometimes faulty temperature monitoring diode.

Edit: Ok I have CPUID HW running. I also set my bios to your exact settings. Here is what it reads:

vcore: 1.29v
tmpin0: 23C
tmpin1: 47C
core 0: 35C
core 1: 36C
gpu: 56C

What are the tmpin temps, I think 1 may be the mobo temp. I will now put under stress and see where the temps go...... ..... ..... .....
Ok according to CPUID HW monitor my temps hit 42C max after a 15 min prime95 run. The cores cooled back to the low 30`s within a minute. One thing I do notice about your settings is my NB did not get nearly as hot and still seems stable.

New high hit on the E8400. 3.51Ghz using these values:

BIOS: 1B4
FSB: 1560
RAM: 780
VCORE: +0.2v
DIMM: 2.1v
NB: 1.35v
SB: 1.6v
FSBT: 60

Stability unverified, but so far so good.

Edit: Above values refined after experimenting, still able to achieve 3.51Ghz:

BIOS: 1B4
FSB: 1560
RAM: 780
VCORE: +0.15v
DIMM: 2.1v
NB: 1.35v
SB: auto
FSBT: auto

I'm not sure what role the FSBT plays but I was able to get here with it left on auto. SB modification also seemed to be redundant. System would only become stable when NB voltage bumped up. 1.2v = fail 1.25v = fail 1.3v = OS load but not stable 1.35v = stable sweet spot. I'm also noticing that the vcore can remain relatively low ... at least at my current best of 3.51Ghz. More to follow.

Haven't checked in on the thread today, I picked up God of War for PSP and got caught up playing that most of the day. Anyways, yes my NB did seem pretty hot when set at 1.35 volts and under full load. I also had the same thing with the NB voltage, until I bumped it up to 1.35 Windows wouldn't even load without locking up. And I agree about the CPU not needing a lot of voltage.

With CPUID HW tmp0 is system temp and tmp1 is MB temp if I remmeber correctly. You have a pretty cool system temp going there because mine is in the low 30's. I get your kind of system temps in the summer when the air is on but normally get higher system temps in the winter with the heat blasting. And this has been one cold, snowy winter here in MI.

I'm currently back to default settings until probably this weekend. I will also try flashing one of the beta BIOS. I want to get some gaming in for now, still have to complete Hellgate London and Crysis. I would love to hit 4.0 for benchmarking purposes but would like to get a nice 3.4 - 3.6 stable OC for everyday computing.