4GHz or beyond?

[ExcaliburMM]

Hi Anand,
On the machine in my sig, my 920 is nice and happy at 4GHz w/HT on. Stress tests keep me below 70c, usually 65-68c at the highest on the hotter cores (Typical few degrees difference between them.), and I figure I'm comfortable with 75-80c as an absolute top limit.

Right now my vcore is 1.32v BIOS, 1.31v CPUz idle, going down to 1.28-1.26 under load. Since my RAM is well within spec (I think its running DDR3 1333 or something.), and I'm comfortable with vcore up to 1.35v, should I push it up to 4.2? Further? Its not that I need the speed per say, its just, my E2140 and E6400 topped out at 3.2GHz, and I liked knowing they were as high as they were going to safely go on air. Its just nice to have.

If I'm not looking to increase plain old CPU frequency, how would I keep it at 4GHz and push the RAM up instead? The few i7 guides I've looked at weren't very helpful on that end, and the fact that DFI likes to put things in non-matching terms doesn't help either.

 

[alyarb]

http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=3589

higher memory clocks will not make your system faster. if anything, they will slow it down.

if you can't think of any specific scenarios where you need the additional 200 MHz, then you do not need the additional 200 MHz. either way, if it costs you more than 0.5 volts it isn't worth it.

 

[ExcaliburMM]

alyarb, wouldn't it only slow it down if the CL had to go higher? They can get 1600 at the same CL7. How would that create a slow down? 😵

 

[alyarb]

you would think so, but it doesn't appear so in all cases. read the article.

 

[Shmee]

also uncore frequency may make a difference. Wasn't there an old article called "Overclock your uncore?"

Anyways, I would just go for maximum CPU/uncore frequency. Memory makes much less of a difference.