Could you pros check a n00bs work?

[ZX2Slow]

I have the system in my sig, I over clocked my system but things went a little too easy.

I disabled all the speedstep and energy saving stuff in BIOS, left the voltages at 'AUTO' and moved the bclk up from 133->166->180->200, the only thing I adjusted was my memory divider to keep speeds under 1600MHz.

I have HT enabled, running at 4GHz, memory is at 1604MHz. and my temps peak at 83C (watercooled), when under load I see 1.449 vcore in CPUz. I am happy at 4GHz, is there some other tweaks or steps I missed along the way? I really thought it would be tougher than this to hit 4GHz?

[Cursed_Wings]

I'd take the voltages off of auto, 80C at 4GHz under water is hot! lol

[sin0822]

DUDE your vcore is wayyy to high for 4ghz. I use less voltage (1.42) to get to 4.5ghz with my 930. Lower your voltages, not only vcore, but QPI/VTT or QPI/DRAM whatever it is on your board. Try vcore 1.35 and same for qpi.

[ZX2Slow]

Alright I am lowering my voltages. I left the 'cpu pll voltage' at AUTO, I didnt know what it was and the guides/posts I read people seem to leave it there. I am going to try dropping things a little at a time.
Currently
vcore= 1.375v
cpu pll- 1.812v (auto)
QPI/Dram =1.35v

[OCBalmang]

i was about to say, i run my Qx9650 at 1.328 vcore, 4GHZ o.0, you should be able to hit 4.5GHZ on water with 20C less temps, although you might need better RAM... still should be possible though lol 1.4 that poor 920 must be killing inside doing the intel burn in that hot on water

[ZX2Slow]

So I take it I should ignore the guide that said 1.45 vcore on air isn't to be trusted? I thought it would require a bit more power than on of the new DO cores.
Currently testing @
vcore= 1.350v
cpu pll- 1.812v (auto)
QPI/Dram =1.325v

Temps have become a little more reasonable:
41/73C
39/69C
42/71C
36/62C

My vDIMM is @ 1.8v, I dont belive I should drop my QI/DRAM voltage much lower. I really have no goal for vcore other than as low as possible and still remain stable.

[PiLsY]

Check your memory voltage too, dont leave that on auto. Make sure you never set your memory voltage more than 0.5v higher than your qpi/dram. Id stick to within 0.4v to be safe. Can fry your cpu if you go over that. Auto could be setting anything for vdimm...

[PiLsY]

Get that vdimm right down if youre using vtt that low. You shouldnt need anywhere near 1.8v and are edging towards dead cpu territory.

What mem mhz are you trying to run? At 1600mhz you shouldnt need more than 1.7vdimm, probably closer to 1.6.

[ZX2Slow]

Its the older rev G.Skill Pi series DDR3 1600 CL8 memory. The specs for the memory list 1.60-1.65V max to get there.

Dropped my voltages:
vcore= 1.325v
cpu pll- 1.812v (auto)
QPI/Dram =1.325v
vdimm=1.64356v

Temps continue to look better:
41/71
38/66
42/68
36/63

I guess I shouldn't really trust what I have read, what are the voltages for a C0/C1 core I should be shooting for here?

[Peen]

Guys he has a C0/C1 stepping, thats pretty good mhz/vcore for it

[zalbard]

Guys he has a C0/C1 stepping, thats pretty good mhz/vcore for it

And HT enabled. Agreed!

[ZX2Slow]

Dropped my voltages again:
vcore= 1.250v
cpu pll- 1.812v (auto)
QPI/Dram =1.275v
vdimm=1.64356v

Temps continue to look better:
40/67
36/63
40/65
34/66

EDIT: I am using IntelBurnTest for a quick stability testing, should I use something else for a long term stability test?

[Cursed_Wings]

Dropped my voltages again:
vcore= 1.250v
cpu pll- 1.812v (auto)
QPI/Dram =1.275v
vdimm=1.64356v

Temps continue to look better:
40/67
36/63
40/65
34/66

EDIT: I am using IntelBurnTest for a quick stability testing, should I use something else for a long term stability test?

I do similar a quick 15~30 min linx test just to see if the current settings might pass longer tests. if that passes then I run ~6hrs prime 95 smallFFT or ~8hr p95 blend test depending on what I'm trying to stress. some will suggest as much as 24+ hrs on p95, but I find a full cycle of tests (which normally takes about as long as the times I listed) is normally good enough for gaming performance.

[sin0822]

IBT is fine for on the run stability testing. 20 runs should be good to give you an initial reading. Now your voltages are better, but your qpi/vtt can be lowered, if you can, and vcore is good.

[ZX2Slow]

I think I am getting close to a vcore limit and I believe I hit the limit for qpi/dram, any lower and I can boot but will bluescreen in the middle of IntelBurnTest.

Im running 20 passes of IBT at high stress level at these settings now:
vcore= 1.250v
cpu pll- 1.812v (auto)
QPI/Dram =1.275v
vdimm=1.60381v

I dropped my vdimm voltage, Temps are still under 70C under IBT load. From what I have read I may need to add a little to vdimm to drop the QPI voltage anymore.

[ZX2Slow]

Thanks all for your guidance. I appreciate all that have participated. If anyone has anymore tips or observations I would greatly appreciate it.

I wasn't able to get stable at 200BCLK. I changed the multiplier to 21 and dropped BCLK to 190, I was able to drop voltages a little more, things seem more stable when QPI/DRAM voltage is equal to VCORE. I'd now like to get some DDR3 1800/2000 memory as the memory divider wont allow me to run my memory at DDR1600.

Temps have topped out at 70C during benchmarking, Id like to run cooler if I could but I guess thats D0 core territory.

So my settings in BIOS are:
190x21=3990MHz with HT enabled.
vcore= 1.250v
cpu pll- 1.812v (auto)
QPI/Dram =1.250v
vdimm=1.60381v

I ran through 20 passes of IBT at on high settings and 20 passes of LinX on maximum settings (I took the settings from the 4.5GHz LinX stable thread) and everything is stable. Dropping VCORE or QPI/DRAM to 1.200 resulted in a bootable system that would bluescreen during a IBT test. during benching I noticed that I was only getting ~26GFlops in LinX when the system was unstable, I see ~52GFlops, does that seem like reasonable performance?

Screenshot (Ran LinX, superpu 1M & 32M, and IBT back to back):

[PiLsY]

Yup looks good .

More ram mhz (and uncore) will get you more gflops. Also turning off HT helps as linx isnt great with it. You can also get a few more mhz with HT off - decide yourself if you want it on or not based on what apps you run.

[acebmxer]

looks good see my sig of BSOD codes keep it up and keep pushing if you can

[ZX2Slow]

Thanks

Passed 6 hours of p95. I'm calling it stable now, my goal was 4GHz with HT enabled so I am very happy. I am looking for some DDR3 1800-2000 memory now, Id like to make things more efficient at this point.

EDIT: I was able to boot @ 4.2GHz but I didn't do more than a quick stability test.

[OCBalmang]

good DDR3 ram would have to be the Cas 8 8-8-8-24 2200 super talents speed series, make sure it has Black PCB by calling 1 800 number, its the cheapest Elpida hypers second revision, but if you can get your hands on some Cas7 hypers which are expensive are hard to find... buy those

go to ewiz.com or superbiiz.com same website but they offer a good amount of Ram at decent prices even though they ripp you off with the shipping cost, i'm getting my Qx9650 to 4.5 GHZ on air cooling with those modules... there pretty exclusive and run smooth.

[PiLsY]

G.Skill Eco C7 modules will easily hit 1900mhz, most will go to 2000mhz at decent timings - 8-9-8 1T. Low voltage sticks too - 1.6vddr is all youll need. You could get 12gb of that for the same price as 6gb hyper. If your target is up to 2000mhz you really dont need hypers.

[PatRaceTin]

WoW i never seen i7 - 920 C0 that require low vcore like this one!!!!

[PiLsY]

Yeah its better than the majority out there. Like always though they run out of go fast whereas the D0s tend to go scale a bit further when you start adding voltage.

I've also not seen one pushed hard on a modern generation x58 recently - could be some improvements coming from maturity of chipset/board.

Still a good chip for sure and a very nice overclock. That will certainly last you a good long time .

[Metroid]

Here is another golden 920 CO/C1, been almost 3 years with it.

[ZX2Slow]

I cant find any triple channel G.Skill ECO kits, I am looking at a kit of CL9 DDR3 2000 G.Skill rjpaw memory.