Quote Originally Posted by rge View Post
For anyone considering cooling, my core i7 overclocks much better, either higher or with less voltage with cooler temps. At 26C ambient, max OC for running chess stress test was 21x212, and even that was barely stable with 1.64Vcore, up to 1.68v no help. 21x213 no boot, no matter what.

Open the windows and cooled the room to 12C, and then it ran chess stress test easily 10x in a row at 21x215 (trying to get max score) and needed only 1.65 vcore. 21x215 in cold was very stable, 21x212 at 26C even using same Vcore and other settings would barely run, constantly crashing.

Just tried running linpack, and could lower vcore 2 notches and make a successful 25 run by dropping temps 14C, where same settings at 26C always failed.
Yup, I noticed this too having used three separate i7 940s. Even on pure air the same thing happens if you just drop your temps. Even just 3C - 5C difference in ambient can mean stability over complete failure. That's also why I was saying that this new i7 940 I got should be able to go as high as 4.6GHz if temps can be kept under control.

Not every chip obviously reacts exactly the same, but all of the ones that I tried did at least...