Core i7/X58 Overclocking Thread

**SteveRo** · 02-11-2009, 03:30 PM

FYI - I just posted this in the ggbt mobo thread -
I have a new toy to play with over the coming weeks.
Need to insulate the mobo and cpu first, planning on going subambient, at least for testing.
Flat out and sweating I expect the boreas to get cpu temps down close to single digit C at idle and ??? at load.
I will probably start a new thread over in the tec cooling forum,

first pics

**Bludd** · 02-11-2009, 04:12 PM

Originally Posted by SteveRo

this looks pretty good depending on what speed you want to run your memory. don't be afraid to increase vcore provided your temps can take it.
Even 1.55v in cpuz at idle should be fine provided temps are ok.

Thank you for your response. I have DDR3-1600 and I am running it at 1600 MHz (DDR) 8-8-8-24 which is what they are rated for.

**Chicken Patty** · 02-11-2009, 07:50 PM

thanks for sharing your new toy with us stevero.

Can't wait for results. Make sure you link us here once new thread is up!

**highoctane** · 02-11-2009, 10:05 PM

Originally Posted by SteveRo

FYI - I just posted this in the ggbt mobo thread -
I have a new toy to play with over the coming weeks.

Damn nice toy, kinda looks like a scale model of a module for the int space station.

I'm definitely wanting to see how well that thing can tame a nicely oc'd i7!

**anzial** · 02-11-2009, 10:11 PM

AFAIK 920/940 don't respond too good cold temps (cold bug they call it or something)

**Pisklink** · 02-12-2009, 12:54 AM

@ Stevero

What is that for a kind of thing?

**Bludd** · 02-12-2009, 04:30 AM

Originally Posted by Bludd

I am not an experienced overclocker, but I am not a complete newbie. That said, I'm not really comfortable with cranking the voltages.

I would like someone to review my settings:

BCLK 160 (x20 = 3.2 GHz, turbo on, HT on)
CPU voltage 1.3
QPI/DRAM core (uncore, I think) 1.33750
CPU PLL 1.88
ICH, IOH, ICH PCIe and IOH PCIe are at default 1.1, 1.1, 1.5 and 1.5 respectively
DRAM bus 1.64

Should I raise/lower any of these? If you need more info on my system, please let me know.

I just downloaded the latest version of CPUID HW Monitor http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php (version 1.13) and it tells me my DRAM bus voltage is 1.67. I am concerned because of the 1.65 limit I've been reading about and even though I have heard people say that if QPI/DRAM is within 0.5 V of DRAM bus voltage, everything should be OK, I haven't found any documentation about it at Intel's websites.

Is HWMonitor correct? Is my BIOS setting correct? I don't want to end up with a CPU that dies on me early.

Edit: Okay, I am officially a chicken: I have reduced CPU PLL voltage to 1.82, CPU voltage to 1.28750, QPI/DRAM uncore voltage to 1.28750.

(fold as in give in

)

Edit2: That wasn't stable so I upped CPU PLL to 1.84 and QPI/DRAM uncore voltage to 1.3 but I would ideally like to have it under 1.3

**dejanh** · 02-12-2009, 09:12 AM

Originally Posted by anzial

AFAIK 920/940 don't respond too good cold temps (cold bug they call it or something)

This cannot get the temps to sub-zero, or even close. Cold bug is a non-issue with this unit.

Originally Posted by Pisklink

@ Stevero

What is that for a kind of thing?

It is a liquid-Peltier hybrid cooler. Basically, chilled water.

**anzial** · 02-12-2009, 10:27 AM

Ah, OK, I didn't realize the difference

**vincent6396** · 02-12-2009, 11:30 AM

Hi all, been reading every page here but can't get my i7 920 to do 4ghz at all. I tried to do everyone's setting but it doesn't seem to work. Right now I'm running at 200x19 with HT on, CPU volt is set at 1.39375, QPI volt is 1.35, Dram volt is 1.64 and the timming is 8-8-8-24 1t. I left everything else on auto. My setup is i7 920 (batch 3839A588), P6t Deluxe, CoolerMaster V8, Antec 900, Corsair gold plated 3x2g ram, Corsair 750w PS. I would appreciate it if you guys can tell me what to do next to get it to 4ghz. Thanks

**dejanh** · 02-12-2009, 01:19 PM

Vince, to save you some trouble, there is a very big chance that your chip just cannot do 4GHz.

One thing you can try is using 211MHZ BCLK with 19x multiplier and setting the CPU voltage to 1.4V to start (should be plenty so later you can lower this), QPI/DRAM voltage to 1.43750V (also a start, you can lower this later as well through trial and error), and DRAM to 1.65681V.

The high QPI/DRAM voltage is there to try to give you stable 211MHz BCLK.

Try that and then report back.

**vincent6396** · 02-12-2009, 02:27 PM

Originally Posted by dejanh

Vince, to save you some trouble, there is a very big chance that your chip just cannot do 4GHz.

One thing you can try is using 211MHZ BCLK with 19x multiplier and setting the CPU voltage to 1.4V to start (should be plenty so later you can lower this), QPI/DRAM voltage to 1.43750V (also a start, you can lower this later as well through trial and error), and DRAM to 1.65681V.

The high QPI/DRAM voltage is there to try to give you stable 211MHz BCLK.

Try that and then report back.

Thanks for the help Dejanh. I load your sugguested settings but when I ran Prime 95 it crashed into the blue screen and the pc rebooted.

The highest I had gotten to was 205x19 (3.8990) at the settings I mention above, ran prime 95 2x for 10 and 12 hrs respectively. Thought it worked but it was unstable so I lowered the base clock to 200 and now it's stable. I am thinking my cpu batch sucks and I am probably stuck at my current setting.

**dejanh** · 02-12-2009, 05:14 PM

Originally Posted by vincent6396

Thanks for the help Dejanh. I load your sugguested settings but when I ran Prime 95 it crashed into the blue screen and the pc rebooted.

The highest I had gotten to was 205x19 (3.8990) at the settings I mention above, ran prime 95 2x for 10 and 12 hrs respectively. Thought it worked but it was unstable so I lowered the base clock to 200 and now it's stable. I am thinking my cpu batch sucks and I am probably stuck at my current setting.

Unfortunately, this is very likely true.

**Bludd** · 02-12-2009, 07:23 PM

Originally Posted by Pisklink

Thanks Bludd for your fast reply. I'm running Vista Premium 64-bit and not Windows Server 2008.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...postcount=3235

Maybe you have this same problem? I don't know this APIC utility, but maybe you should investigate?

**Pisklink** · 02-13-2009, 05:07 AM

@ Bludd

Many thanks for thinking with me and providing some information. Fortunately I found the solution yesterday.

SOLUTION
I found the solution and felt I needed to share this with you.

I knew that HT worked in the beginning after I just installed Windows. I started figuring out what I could possible have changed that could cause this problem.

I recalled that I changed the amount of processors (cores) Windows should use to start up. I set this amount to 4 processors in the "BOOT advanced settings" section of msconfig. Apparently this causes Windows to only recognize a total of 4 cores / threads regardless of what is set in the bios.

**Pisklink** · 02-13-2009, 05:12 AM

Originally Posted by dejanh

....QPI/DRAM voltage to 1.43750V (also a start, you can lower this later as well through trial and error), and DRAM to 1.65681V.

The high QPI/DRAM voltage is there to try to give you stable 211MHz BCLK.

Do you think it can do any harm for a 24/7 OC to use QPI/DRAM and DRAM voltages higher than Intel's max. recommended voltages (1.35v and 1.65v respectively)?

**SteveRo** · 02-13-2009, 06:21 AM

Originally Posted by SteveRo

FYI - I just posted this in the ggbt mobo thread -
I have a new toy to play with over the coming weeks.
Need to insulate the mobo and cpu first, planning on going subambient, at least for testing.
Flat out and sweating I expect the boreas to get cpu temps down close to single digit C at idle and ??? at load.
I will probably start a new thread over in the tec cooling forum,

first pics

I started a new thread for the Boreas Assessent - http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...=1#post3649401

**YukonTrooper** · 02-13-2009, 08:59 AM

Originally Posted by Pisklink

Do you think it can do any harm for a 24/7 OC to use QPI/DRAM and DRAM voltages higher than Intel's max. recommended voltages (1.35v and 1.65v respectively)?

It will just degrade your parts quicker over time, but your parts will degrade at any voltage. Still, at those levels, I would expect your hardware to last longer than you'll have it.

**dejanh** · 02-13-2009, 11:41 AM

Posted this in the R2E thread earlier with the new R2E 1104 BIOS that now includes TDP override (finally!)...

Here is a 4140MHz 20-pass LinX run with 1804MHz DRAM, 3600MHz Uncore, 3960MHz QPI. DRAM is 100% stable and has been extensively tested in both Memtest86+ 2.11 and Memtest HCI. The settings are as follows...

TDP Override - Enabled
BCLK - 180MHz
Multiplier - Auto (22x, 23x with Turbo)
DRAM - 1804MHz, 8-9-7-19-1T
CPU Voltage - 1.36250V
QPI/DRAM Voltage - 1.35000V
DRAM Voltage - 1.65681V
Load Line Calibration - Auto

All else is on defaults...here is the screenshot...

**Pisklink** · 02-13-2009, 06:31 PM

My results at this moment

CPU Freq.: 4020 Mhz
QPI: 3812Mhz
Multi: 18x
LOAD vcore: 1.288v (CPU-z)
CPU VTT: 1.90v
QPI/DRAM: 1.35v
Hyperthreading: OFF
LOAD core temps: 57 / 58 / 60 / 55
Cooling: Water

On the short term I will try to get 210 x 20 stable. Then I will make a choice between 212 x 19 or 210 x 20 OC. The advantage of 212 bclk is that my RAM runs at 1700Mhz (8-8-8-24-1T) but on the other side with 210 bclk my CPU runs faster and RAM could get tighter timings. What would you suggest?

Will also try to get a 4Ghz setting stable with HT enabled. Tried that today for a bit but seems it needs a lot more vcore then (like 1.42v under load in CPU-z). Should I try to increase QPI/DRAM voltage when enabling HT?

**cardnut99668** · 02-13-2009, 06:57 PM

I've got a question. I am starting to tweak my RAM, but I can't get it windows stable. I can run memtest all day long at 7-7-7-24 at 1528, but I can't get it windows stable (either linx or prime). I'm at 1.375 Vtt, 1.40625 CPU, and 1.65 VDIMM. I've also been able to hit 8-8-8-24 at 1910 in memtest with slightly different settings (don't remember off the top of my head), but again it wasn't stable in windows. What do I need to adjust? It's a 1600Mhz kit, so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

Here's a CPUz screen:

**mojooh** · 02-14-2009, 05:51 AM

Hello, i have a similar problem... I have an i7 920 and a p6t deluxe and i want to run my ram at 1333 without overclocking so the bclk is 133. I have no problems in memtest (not even at 1600 dram) but i always fail linx unless i run the memory at 1066.

I have all the values in auto in bios. Running 1333 dram the qpi becomes 3.2ghz and the uncore 2.66ghz.

Can you help me with what might be causing the problem?? do i need to up some voltages to work? Changing the qpi clock is it considered a overclock in i7? ...

THANKS!

**AceBaran** · 02-14-2009, 06:17 AM

is this the cpu power limit ? TDP Override - Enabled

**rge** · 02-14-2009, 08:48 AM

Originally Posted by AceBaran

is this the cpu power limit ? TDP Override - Enabled

Yep. It should give the permanent multi of 21 when turbo enabled on i920 or 23 on i940. You can check and see if working by downloading everest trial version...download from stasio thread
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=216918

go to computer>>sensor so it shows watts. And use cpuz/real temp to show multi/mhz.

then overclock computer to 4 to 4.2 and run linx, just get TDP to 150W or so and see if still enabled, ie multi is still 21 for i920 or back to 20 or still 23 i940 or back to 22...like pic here, TDP is 263W (way over 110-120W where turbo kicks out on F3 bios on GB board which has TDP limits enabled, and temps 100C, current way over rated max)...http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...95#post3574895

EDIT, just saw you have i965...irrelevant for you, if you want higher multi you dont need turbo.

**cardnut99668** · 02-14-2009, 11:46 AM

I tried looking for that option you were referring to in Bios and in Everest and don't see either one. Here is a screen:

Maybe I need to adjust something else?

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