Core i7/X58 Overclocking Thread

[rge]

turbo enabled, bios F3, 1.49 vcore, loadline enabled, cpu PLL 1.96, IOH core 1.16, cpu clock 800mv, 1.64 DRAM volts, 1.38 Vtt, QPI 36X, uncore 17, mem 8.
http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=462368

[bowman]

Hello all,

I just ordered my i7 920, should be arriving by Dec 2nd. Still to decide on mobo - Asus/ GB / Evga - I am confused which to pick (I am not an extreme overclocker though 3.6 to 3.8 would do fine with me.)

Can anyone tell me, if my TUNIQ Tower will fit on this LGA1366 socket layout ? Or Do I have shell out money to get a new CPU Cooler too ????

Thanks for your help.

I don't know how the Tuniq attaches to boards but if it uses a loose bracket you should be able to get an LGA1366 bracket for it. If it's made specifically for the LGA775 you're out of luck, 'cos the mounting holes are different.

[fornowagain]

The thermalright 1366 mounting kit should be adaptable to the Tuniq with a bit of packing I would think.

[beast200]

hi
i too have had problems with 200 x 20
still at 190 x 20 totaly stable

can get 211x 19 to work ok but volts sarting to get high
and still waiting for fuzion 1366 mounting bracket
change mem from corsair xms 1333 to 1600
much better

for icecold 316 the gigabyte ud5 is a very good board
first gigabyte board i have purchased

normal go for asus but no hesitation about recommending this board

cheers

[TiTON]

nevermind

[Viss]

I don't know how the Tuniq attaches to boards but if it uses a loose bracket you should be able to get an LGA1366 bracket for it. If it's made specifically for the LGA775 you're out of luck, 'cos the mounting holes are different.

Should work fine, perhaps add a washer. Bought 2 of them, 1 is for me Tuniq. Wil make pic.

[Guacamole]

Use the 2.85 beta version it supports the i7 cpu better than the old ones

Thanks pinto got it also looks like the new core temp is goos too...

hi
i too have had problems with 200 x 20
still at 190 x 20 totaly stable

can get 211x 19 to work ok but volts sarting to get high
and still waiting for fuzion 1366 mounting bracket
change mem from corsair xms 1333 to 1600
much better

for icecold 316 the gigabyte ud5 is a very good board
first gigabyte board i have purchased

normal go for asus but no hesitation about recommending this board

cheers

As far as I can tell the 200 X 20 has some kind of issue I think it's a multiplier issue actaully I am testing right now 211 X 19 and it is going better but I left for a few hours and came home and I had rebooted so I upped some volts and I am giving it another run..

We shall see but it's okay to put some voltage to this stuff we are not OCing FSB and NB stuff anymore everything is different.

I agree with the recommendation about the Gigabyte it has been an excellent choice for me personally...

[Metroid]

TJMax is 100C.
When overclocking you'll probably lose long term Prime stability near 90C.

What about this?

[icecold316]

Should work fine, perhaps add a washer. Bought 2 of them, 1 is for me Tuniq. Wil make pic.

Good to know that. So its possible to make Tuniq fit on it with a slight mod. I definitely dont want to do CD Rack Mod like Pedro did with Tuniq on 920. If possible show me the pic. Thanks.

[Metroid]

It took me just one attempt to do this, less than 2 minutes.

4.188Ghz with just 1.34 V, below the 1.35 V limit, very much stable.

Who did say overclocking this would be hard?



CPU-Z Validation

[johnyz333]

Guacomole what trFC setting are you using?

[Guacamole]

Guacomole what trFC setting are you using?

everything is on auto besides the 9-9-9-24 but I just got the corsair 1600 cas8 and everything is changing....

[johnyz333]

Ok plz update us on changed settings with the corsair.
So what was the final outcome with the 4ghz oc, was it 24/7 stable??

[Guacamole]

Ok plz update us on changed settings with the corsair.
So what was the final outcome with the 4ghz oc, was it 24/7 stable??

No not yet stable at 4.0 I made it 3 hours in prime95 then Prime stopped working and windows asked if I wanted to close the program so I started over and I am now trying the 19X multiplier with my Bclk at 211 still freezing and having some issues and also new memory so I will update after I have some time to sort it all out....

[johnyz333]

ok sweet.
The reason i ask is im picking up my ud5 tomorrow, but still have a chance to get the evga instead. All i want is 4ghz on air(thermalright 120). U think i should stick with the ud5?

[sinister1st]

How high we letting load temps get? Is 90 ok?

[Metroid]

How high we letting load temps get? Is 90 ok?

Yes as long as the system is stable, if it trespasses 100 then the multiplier will be dropped until it reaches their required temps, lets say 60 celsius.

[sinister1st]

Yes as long as the system is stable, if it trespasses 100 then the multiplier will be dropped until it reaches their required temps, lets say 60 celsius.

Great

[unclewebb]

All Core based CPUs are designed to start throttling just before they hit TJMax. Usually when Distance to TJMax is 2. RealTemp will show this in the Thermal Status area at the bottom. When it says OK that means there have been no thermal throttling episodes since you started up your computer. If it says LOG that means there has been at least one thermal throttling incident logged since you last booted up and if it says HOT that means your processor is presently throttling. Your CPU will automatically drop the multi and total MHz only long enough to get your temperatures under control and then will return the multi to its previous value. It will continue to cycle the multi up and down to control heat and will let the CPU basically sit at its maximum temperature.

Here's what an E8400 looks like after running Prime Small FFTs for 3 hours with the CPU fan turned off.
Only one core hit 100C and that only happened once even though the CPU fan was turned off for 3 hours.



The Core i7 is designed to do the exact same thing. As long as your overclock isn't maxed out, they can both run quite reliably at some very high temperatures. So far the Core i7 looks like it has more temperature headroom compared to Core 2 Duo.

[Guacamole]

Allright after much deliberation I think I have finally done it.. Although I may not be able to reboot (inside joke for Gigabyte owners) here we go:



Everything is basically on auto I went back and read the article on HARDOCP about the P6T Deluxe then I remembered that these boards are owned and manufactured by the same company.. I mean Gigabyte now owns Asus so it made sense that they would be nearly identical in a lot of ways... Anyway, I am just rolling along and I will take pictures of my bios again after about 5 hours of Prime95.. The only settings I adjusted were Vcore, DRam voltage, Loadline enabled and I manually set my memory timings to 9-8-8-24...

[dejanh]

Well, after some more fiddling with the stock cooler I came up with some mixed results. Using Core i7 940 at 3.4GHz (200x17), uncore at 3.2GHz, and QPI at 3.6GHz the system is rock solid 24/7 using just 1.208-1.216V with temps maxing out at around 88C on all 4 cores. Upping the multiplier to 18 yields 3.6GHz with everything else the same, including voltage and can Prime successfully for anywhere between 15-45 minutes. In that time the temps will climb to over 90C and it seems that as soon as that becomes sustained it is only a matter of time before the system will crash. So essentially, 3.6GHz (200x18) with a stock cooler should be stable enough for even gaming as there will be no sustained 100% load on the cores during that time. But, it is a bit of crapshoot. The best I managed to do on stock is boot Windows and run SuperPi at 4.1GHz using about 1.35V. This was not stable for any sustained period of time really. One other thing to note is that my computer is stuck in a corner so it is definitely not in the most optimal setup for air cooling. Furthermore, my room temperature is typically anywhere between 20C-22C which is a bit on the warmer side. I'd expect that with some water cooling I could keep the volts and temps down and quite comfortably get 4GHz-4.2GHz.

This is all done on R2E mobo, with only voltages for core, QPI/DRAM, and DRAM being adjusted. I have not noticed anything else affecting the OC ability for now. I also noticed that the CPU seems to respond better to finer adjustments of voltage on the lower end to get higher clocks than cranking up the voltage. I'm sure this is also in part due to temperatures. Also, Intel lists 1.35V as max, so I am not comfortable going too much past that. Unfortunately, R2E gets not ability to modify QPI and Uncore multipliers so this blows when trying to isolate max stable CPU clock as QPI and Uncore are always playing a role. Maybe this should be a feature request in future BIOS? Who knows...one can only hope...

I was thinking of picking up Swiftech H20-220 Ultima Plus WC kit to cool this better but since I am new to WC, I am not really sure this thing is worth the money...thoughts?

[safan80]

I was thinking of picking up Swiftech H20-220 Ultima Plus WC kit to cool this better but since I am new to WC, I am not really sure this thing is worth the money...thoughts?

you shouldn't buy a kit. Read the Liquid Cooling section of this forum and you'll find out why.

[Guacamole]

you shouldn't buy a kit. Read the Liquid Cooling section of this forum and you'll find out why.

Agreed if you are going to water cool do it right the first time spend the money do your research use companies like swiftech, thermochill, EK, Danger Den, etc.. It's kind of a big deal..

So I am having trouble with Easy Tune 6 on the F3 bios I cannot install EZ Tune and get it to work is anyone else having a problem? I get an error that says Intel sockets fail to intialize and I get a MUI MFC error anybody know what this could be?? I think there might be something wrong with the board..

[Ghigo]

Agreed if you are going to water cool do it right the first time spend the money do your research use companies like swiftech, thermochill, EK, Danger Den, etc.. It's kind of a big deal..

So I am having trouble with Easy Tune 6 on the F3 bios I cannot install EZ Tune and get it to work is anyone else having a problem? I get an error that says Intel sockets fail to intialize and I get a MUI MFC error anybody know what this could be?? I think there might be something wrong with the board..

I got same problem on vista 64 and know of other 2 with same i guess is jsut buggy software, you got an ati card ?

P.S. I see you got a 4870-512 like me

If can, can give a try with the 280 gtx ?

[T_Flight]

hey folks,
I have the CAS8 1600 Dominators. If you have this Kit and the RIIE see my thread about rhe BIOS in the Xtreme Bandwith section. It won't run stable on 0403 original BIOS. I flashed mine to 0602 and was able to run 6400 QPI, DDR1600 on the DRAM Freq, 1.64xxx (keyed in 1.64) and mnaually adjusted timings to 8-8-8-24. I have not messed with any other OC settings yet becasue I was fighting a Video issue the last 3 days. It turns out my card was defective and needs to be RMA'd.

Those settings seem much more stable with the new BIOS. Before my RIIE would not boot after setting the above advertised specs into the BIOS. It would only run at BIOS deafaults of 1333. Now it runs smoothly, stable, and as advertised. I highly recommend flashing your BIOS for complete memory support if you are using the RIIE.

I also measured and verified DRAM voltage through ProbeIt and got a 1.639v actual reading on the DMM. These are safe advertised settings. The 6400 QPI is advertised for the Extreme i7 965.

Just passing on my findings on this particular RAM, and the BIOS issue I found. Thought it would help. The Dominators are really good modules. I can't wait to tweak them and start OC'ing when I get my Video Card RMA taken care of.