Core i7/X58 Overclocking Thread

[Lukee]

What a tease last night. I tried the following:

200 x 21
QPI 36x
Uncore 17x
memory 8x

It was prime stable for over an hour, so I was getting a bit hopeful.

I stopped prime95 and cranked up Everquest 2 and some sounds on the speaker and lockup!!

Oh well, back to 15x uncore and 6x memory.

[Ghigo]

Cant run QPI 36x Uncore 18x memory 8x ? I run 18x but fail at 17x :P

[dejanh]

Depends on what CPU and on much youve OC'd, 4.2 is def not the max for a 965. Prob 4.5- 4.6

What are you talking about? It's all chip to chip. There is absolutely no rule of 965 clocking as high as 4.5-4.6. Infact, there is barely any that are clocked so high.

[safan80]

What a tease last night. I tried the following:

200 x 21
QPI 36x
Uncore 17x
memory 8x

It was prime stable for over an hour, so I was getting a bit hopeful.

I stopped prime95 and cranked up Everquest 2 and some sounds on the speaker and lockup!!

Oh well, back to 15x uncore and 6x memory.

you should do at least 3 hours of prime. I've learned 1-2 hours of prime on i7 doesn't mean .

[freshy]

you should do at least 3 hours of prime. I've learned 1-2 hours of prime on i7 doesn't mean .

ive learned even 20 hours prime with i7 doesnt mean . especially if you wanna fold with 2 smp clients with HT on, still working at it

[SteveRo]

Yes, but just uping the cpu mulitplier also comes with much more heat.
OCing with lower multi and high bclock keeps temps down - my results so far -

[Xello]

What are you talking about? It's all chip to chip. There is absolutely no rule of 965 clocking as high as 4.5-4.6. Infact, there is barely any that are clocked so high.

I agree. I don't know what kind of binning Intel are doing with these chips, if any, because so far we've seen plenty of 920 and 940s going to insane clocks just like some 965's are, under xtreme cooling, obviously the 965 is just a more efficient option if you are doing that because of the unlocked multi.

On a positive note, their manufacturing seems to be untouchable at the moment - the vast majority of chips are going to or near 4ghz no problem. With penryn C0/C1, this was definitely not the case, you could easily get a QX9650 and struggle to get to 4ghz under air / water. I did, mine needed really high volts for it.

I'm really impressed with i7 and x58 in general in this regard, the bios's have been coming hard and fast and pretty much every board has a feeling of maturity about it even after such a short time. It's easy to complain when things go wrong but it should be noted when things go so right

[freshy]

yep i admit im happy with my 920 , 4ghz - 4.2ghz stable with HT on is good, but i do feel sorry for the ppl that spent more on 940's and 965's and are almost getting the same clocks , ok maybe 4.3 - 4.4 prime stable* if there lucky, if the 920 goes to 4.2ghz prime stable then the 940 should go to at least 4.6ghz prime stable and the 965 at least 5ghz prime stable, but thats just my opinion

[SteveRo]

Do we pay much of a performance penalty by setting qpi to slow (gigabyte boards).
It looks like this is the setting I must use for qpi - if I want to use high bclocks with HT tuned on.
I think qpi on slow is something like - 100xbclock, so for 200 bclock that would give a qpi speed of 2000 vs stock speed (for 965) of 3239 mhz.

[Hornet331]

Do we pay much of a performance penalty by setting qpi to slow (gigabyte boards).
It looks like this is the setting I must use for qpi - if I want to use high bclocks with HT tuned on.
I think qpi on slow is something like - 100xbclock, so for 200 bclock that would give a qpi speed of 2000 vs stock speed (for 965) of 3239 mhz.

QPI only makes a marginal difference, and then only even only for multigpu setups.

[Xello]

Do we pay much of a performance penalty by setting qpi to slow (gigabyte boards).
It looks like this is the setting I must use for qpi - if I want to use high bclocks with HT tuned on.
I think qpi on slow is something like - 100xbclock, so for 200 bclock that would give a qpi speed of 2000 vs stock speed (for 965) of 3239 mhz.

Interesting point. I assumed running QPI @ 100mhz would be pretty undesirable compared to 3600mhz but run some benchmarks and find out. On slow mode i'm easily prime stable @ 222mhz bclk lol.

[veedubfreak]

Not sure what i'm running on my QPI, but my evga board only has "auto" then 16x-40x on the uncore so i couldnt drop down to 15x. I did drop the memory multi down to 6x and that seems to have stabilized things. This board is still giving a lot more voltage in windows than i am setting in the bios though. I dropped the voltage down to 1.4v in bios but in windows its still running at 1.475. Going to knock it back to to 1.35v in bios and see if i stay stable.

[Lukee]

you should do at least 3 hours of prime. I've learned 1-2 hours of prime on i7 doesn't mean .

I game. When I've been able to have a system run stable for 2 hours on Prime, I don't have any issues gaming. My PC isn't on all day, I just use it for 2-4 hours Max.

On another note, because of this chip's inability to hit over 200 Bclk with reasonable qpi/vtt, would you recommend getting another one and selling this one? Obviously I'd mention that anything over 200 bclk would be near impossible without high piq/vtt to the seller, but I'm sure there are people out there who would be ok running 200 x 21 or something below that.

[safan80]

ive learned even 20 hours prime with i7 doesnt mean . especially if you wanna fold with 2 smp clients with HT on, still working at it

lol damn. you want to really test stability try running linpack.

On another note, because of this chip's inability to hit over 200 Bclk with reasonable qpi/vtt, would you recommend getting another one and selling this one? Obviously I'd mention that anything over 200 bclk would be near impossible without high piq/vtt to the seller, but I'm sure there are people out there who would be ok running 200 x 21 or something below that.

I'd wait a few months till there are better motherboard bioses. besides in 5-8 months there should be a better stepping cpu from intel.

[Hot'n'Chilly]

ive learned even 20 hours prime with i7 doesnt mean . especially if you wanna fold with 2 smp clients with HT on, still working at it

You're 20 hourse Prime stable??? Whats your settings?

[freshy]

lol damn. you want to really test stability try running linpack.

link for linpack ? please

You're 20 hourse Prime stable??? Whats your settings?

ive been more than 20 hours prime stable blend and small ftt and my pc still crashed when running 2 smp cllients with ht on, priming now with f4r bios 16 hours still going
191 x 19 + turbo on, HT on
uncore x16
mem x 8
qpi link x36
vcore 1.38v
qpi/vtt 1.35v or1.375v not sure i forgot , half asleep when i started it
vdimm 1.66v

still need to try drop voltages a bit more

[003]

link for linpack ? please

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=197835

[Hot'n'Chilly]

ive been more than 20 hours prime stable blend and small ftt and my pc still crashed when running 2 smp cllients with ht on, priming now with f4r bios 16 hours still going
191 x 19 + turbo on, HT on
uncore x16
mem x 8
qpi link x36
vcore 1.38v
qpi/vtt 1.35v or1.375v not sure i forgot , half asleep when i started it
vdimm 1.66v

still need to try drop voltages a bit more

Looks like you have a really nice OC going there. How far do you intend to drop those voltages, do you think your current ones would risk you eventually burning out your CPU early? I've seen people all over the map with voltages... its come to the point where I'm not even sure what considered OK anymore except Intel's offical quotes (1.65v).

[safan80]

link for linpack ? please

you can use LinX which is a gui for linpack

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...highlight=linx

Core i7 owners, to fully stress your CPUs you'll need to run 2 instances of LinX at the same time.

[icecold316]

I dont plan to do Extreme overclocking with I7 on my Stock Cooler..... till i find a 1366 kit for my Tuniq tower or little cheaper heatsink.

What do you thinks about below OC on Stock Cooler :
Bclk : 200
CPU Multiplier : x15 (3 Ghz -3.2 Ghz)
QPI : 18x
Uncore : 17x
Mem : 8x (1600 Mhz)

[safan80]

I dont plan to do Extreme overclocking with I7 on my Stock Cooler..... till i find a 1366 kit for my Tuniq tower or little cheaper heatsink.

What do you thinks about below OC on Stock Cooler :
Bclk : 200
CPU Multiplier : x15 (3 Ghz -3.2 Ghz)
QPI : 18x
Uncore : 17x
Mem : 8x (1600 Mhz)

I bet you'll need more voltage than the stock cooler can handle.

[Chicken Patty]

I dont plan to do Extreme overclocking with I7 on my Stock Cooler..... till i find a 1366 kit for my Tuniq tower or little cheaper heatsink.

What do you thinks about below OC on Stock Cooler :
Bclk : 200
CPU Multiplier : x15 (3 Ghz -3.2 Ghz)
QPI : 18x
Uncore : 17x
Mem : 8x (1600 Mhz)

hi bro, just thought I'd share this with you, with the stock cooler I was able to do 170x 20 = 3.4 GHz ram divider 8. uncore x16. The voltages were all auto except for dram which was set to 1.65v. Max temps were about 80-90ºc but that was during prime. Daily use and 3dmark runs all stayed reasonable at around 60-70ºc. I say reasonable because these things run scorching hot out of the box so, you get my point.

[Classic Satch]

hi bro, just thought I'd share this with you, with the stock cooler I was able to do 170x 20 = 3.4 GHz ram divider 8. uncore x16. The voltages were all auto except for dram which was set to 1.65v. Max temps were about 80-90ºc but that was during prime. Daily use and 3dmark runs all stayed reasonable at around 60-70ºc. I say reasonable because these things run scorching hot out of the box so, you get my point.

My 920 absolutely HATES the 20x multiplier. I can't get it to pass a 3DMark Vantage test at 200x20, Turbo On(4.2Ghz actual) to save my life, even at 1.43v. However, it runs at 211 Bclk x 19 all day long at 1.36vcore.

I think that I'm missing something simple but I've done extensive research and I can't figure out what the hell is holding me back.

Cooling is not an issue because my max temps @4.0 range from 69-73C across all four cores with HT enabled.

Yes, I was lazy and put a Koolance Exos-2 LX with an Apogee GTZ water block on it but my CPU is the only thing in the loop and it seems to be working very well. Plus, I must admit, if you heat this stuff in hot water and then apply it correctly, I think it's paid off royally:

http://www.acousticpc.com/innovation..._compound.html

My temps are consistent with the most "hardcore" H20 rigs and I think it's because I used the best water block and TIM, not to mention that my CPU is the only thing being cooled.

[Xello]

ive been more than 20 hours prime stable blend and small ftt

Do you mean 10 hr small fft + 10 hour blend, or 20 hour small fft + 20 hour blend? You shouldn't waste your time with small fft, it's for testing max heat output - good for testing your cooling. It puts less stress on the cpu than large fft, which is why Blend is the best option

I always use 24hr blend as the pass mark for my final OC's - has never failed me.

[Extigy]

i have a 965xe. Am i right in saying _ALL_ i need to do to overclock this is just increase the multiplier (along with Vdim) and not worry about the QPI? I am currently running at 4ghz stable with:
BLK: 133Mhz
Multiplier: 30x
Core voltage: 1.275

My QPI is currently 3.2GHz.

I use everest, but for some reason it does not show my real cpu speed or multiplier, for that i have to use cpu-z, any dieas ? is everest not compatible with i7 ?