The Official OC (OverClocking) Thread!

I am thinking of getting the i7 920 now LOL

How much better will the octo cores perform?

Should I just stay with my q6700 for now and just upgrade to the octo core when they come out or will I see a big difference in performance from the q6700 to the i7 920?

How much will will the i7 920 hardware be worth in November, how much will I lose in terms of money?

If the i7 920 is that much of a difference then i will upgrade from my q6700 --> i7 920 (for now) --> octo core (in Nov/Dec).

-im1992

 

The i7 strips the pants off the Q6700, even the 920, but the Octo cores I can't say. I haven't seen an 8 core coming up any time soon, only a 6 core as a successor to the i7, but to be honest, the i7 will do fine.

 

Sophocles,
Screwed that one up, didn't I! It should have been 2.0 to 2.2V. This was with the G.Skill 800MHz. Stock was 1.9 to 2.0v! I'll amend my post! Thanks for pointing that out!

Russ

 

Ok, so, cooling problems fixed for now (I'm running my case with the side off) so I've got acceptable temperatures. Now time to overclock. I've read a review of my motherboard, and the guy was also using a core i7 920. He used 1.375v vcore and 1.24v VTT, and I'm currently running 1.35v vcore, same VTT, bclk 200 with 20x multi, 8x ram multi for 1600mhz, 16x uncore, and 32x QPI. Does all this look ok? I've turned off turbo obviously, but not HT. When I run 8 thread prime95, it runs for about 1 minute, temp goes up to around 78c (I don't know if the TEC on my V10 has kicked in at that point) then it BSODs. So it's either a) the fact that I have HT on or b) my vcore is too low. Is 1.375v safe? I don't even know what the stock vcore is for this chip, but I remember sam saying once that he doesn't like going anymore than 0.15v over stock. And would turning off HT make a difference other than temperature? And would that decrease performance? Thanks!

 

Acceptable temperatures are not a good place to start overclocking from.

That is not an acceptable temperature. Your problem isn't case air flow although that helps. You need considerably better processor cooling.

 

For a core i7 c0 stepping at 4.0ghz? are you kidding me? By acceptable, I mean at idle stock, 35c, load 50-55. I would've thought that 75-80 at 4.0ghz with HT enabled is absolutely fine, considering no processor ever runs at 100% load all the time and it will never reach that temperature again. Thats plenty good enough when room temp is 30 or so. This cooler outperforms a TRUE120 because of the TEC unit so unless I go high end water cooling (not really necessary) then there is no better....

Edit: With HT off, it appears stable at 1.325v. Hasn't bsod while running prime95. Hottest core 68, coolest core 60. Definitely happy with those temps. So is keeping HT off going to hurt performance much?

 

rubizcube,
If you are seeing 78C in about a minute, something is wrong with the CPU and the cooler surfaces not mating properly, or the thermal grease
not being applied properly, or you've left on the plastic cover, or the Cooler is defective. My guess would be that some small component is interfering somewhere. It doesn't take very much to screw that up! Did you check the flatness of the heat sink to be sure it's flat? In Fahrenheit, that 78C is 172.4C. I don't even think my Mini Furnace of a P4 Prescott came close to that temperature. You need to find out what the problem is and correct it! Quickly!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

That is pretty warm, even for intel. No insult intended. Just an observation. After all, if they do indeed run quicker and harder, logically they're gonna run hotter.

 

OK I ripped her apart, here are some photos of the contact.

Image 1
Image 2

There is a lot of TIM towards the edges... but overall I don't think it looks like bad contact. It is thin in a few places though. For the record, I am using OCZ freeze because I heard it was better than AS5, but if anyone thinks I should be using AS5 instead I have some on hand... Also whats the best method for even TIM spread using this cooler/processor? With my core2duo I used to do the single strip down the centre.

 

Are you kidding me? Those both are horrible! You will note that the very bottom of the picture shows no TP on it's corners. Something is interfering with the contact. There should be a thin, even coating all the way across the CPU and the cooler contact point! Something is most definitely interfering with the contact of the cooler and the CPU. I prefer Ceramique from Arctic, over the AS5. I find it much easier to use, and works just as good as AS5 and it's 100% non conductive!

Russ

 

alright i'll try again

 

Alright, re seated. Had my friend apply pressure to the motherboard so I got even contact while bolting the backplate on. Now at 1.3125v 4.0ghz HT off, 66c hottest core under load. I imagine that if I turned HT on, I'd just get the same temps as before anyway..

 

At 4Ghz, the maximum load temperature my mate Jon has with his i7 (940) and a Noctua NH-U12P, is about 70ºC, but that's after a long stress test. If it's the core temperatures then your temps are fine. If it's the main CPU temp, it's much too hot.

I'm guessing from '66C core' that you were talking about the core temps all along which is fine, as under a full stress test (Linpack), my cores reach 80C as well, though they go no higher.

 

Yeah, core temps as reported by the latest version of CoreTemp. Is your friend running with HT on?

 

No idea, I didn't ask. Be advised though that in certain games, HT actually harms performance significantly.

In most worldbench apps, disabling HT adds 10% performance. The only gain is 3DSMax rendering which adds about 5% performance. You gain about 10-11% in Crysis Warhead, 8% in UT3 and 5-6% in Far Cry 2 by turning HT off.

 

The following, is a list of my DDR II timing Items unchanged!(More or less the way it looks LOL)
I also attempted and am running at 2.0 volts to see if it would do it automatically. NOPE! And everest reports 1.97, though when im benching it goes up .02 volts! And according to CPU-Z, I need another .05V to reach the desired threshold for 1066Mhz!

 

Why does it have '--' in your command timing row? For arguments sake I'm going to assume you are running 1T - that could be the problem with you not reaching higher speeds - 1T timing stability is much harder to achieve with 4 sticks from what I've heard. But on the other hand if you are running 2T.. then I don't know.
Is this the sticks you are using?
Try backing off your timings a tiny bit, even though they it says are rated for 5-5-5-15, and increase the voltage somewhere closer to 2.1v as it says it's rated for that. No harm in trying! Hope it helps.

 

What you see, is what its at LOL! "--" <-----Those, are exactly what the bios shows. And yes, I bought the Dual pack 2 2GB X2 = 8GB. For arguments sake, these are they!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146785

 

Yep, thems be the ones. So you can't manually set the command rate in the BIOS? If thats the case, then I suspect it's probably defaulted to 2T because 4 sticks are in. Which brings us no closer to helping you increase your speed.