i7-2600K to be used for distributed computing (eg. SETI) - To overclock or not?

[GLeeM]

Which projects do you have in mind?

The DC forum is like "Cheers", a place where everybody knows your name.

The TeAm is anyone who chooses TeAm Anandtech as their team in whatever is their preferred project or projects. There is someone from the TeAm crunching in just about every project there is or was including WCG and United Devices (which I think I ran for a while, didn't we call it UD?)
TeAmmates are free to run or not run whatever they want.
Some try to see how many projects they can get 100,000 or a million points in.
We sometime compete against each other or against other teams. But we help each other with advice on how to do better.
Check out a couple of threads in DC forum - Weekly Stats thread, and there is a thread on a race/competition with SETI.Germany in Correlizer currently going on!

 

[Markfw]

Unstable overclocks, which makes me wonder what a 2500k/2600k is REALLY good for as far as stable overclocks go. I see some 4.4/5's/6's around but who's testing for error's?

edit: pegging your CPU at 100% load/voltage 24/7 is a heavy task and you should consider the lifespan of the chip over the added mhz in situations like that. If it were me I'd OC as far as default voltage or .500 over stock voltage and that's about it. Its not that hard at all to degrade a chip these days and running max load like that on high OC's is a good way to do it.

My 2600k will not even finish a bigadv at stock, its something else, but nobody has told me yet, and I can't figure it out.

I say overclock !!!

 

[Ovven]

Bigadv units love ram speed, so that might your problem if you run slow ram.

 

[bryanW1995]

I've been using WCG since the days when they were still called United Devices. Originally found out about them in a PC magazine and started using it because of the screensaver feature because I was tired of the default ones in windows 98 . My laptop runs at about 92ºC so good to see someone else confirm that CPUs can take the abuse. My primary worry about O/C was returning corrupted data and not getting points for it, but if I actually buy and build the new rig I would be able to check the logs to see if my results are validating properly and getting me points - and if not I can always tweak the O/C settings. Thanks for the maintenance suggestions too.



Thanks for that. I'll keep the thread for future reference ^_^.

Petrusbroder knows. He runs a LOT of computers, quite possibly the most of anybody ever in our DC forums. His dust recommendation is particularly relevant to me right now, when my ip 35 pro died (I sold all the other components after ensuring that they were still good) I found a LOT of dust, the TUNIQ was probably 85% obstructed by dust. I'd say every 6-12 months a complete teardown/dust cleanup/etc is called for just to ensure proper longevity.

Vcore is much more important to cpu longevity than temps (see elctromigration). I'm currently running 4 home-built units on DC 24/7, plus another 5-10 part time DC crunchers at work. I generally keep my vcore within 10% of stock for 24/7 use and have never had a cpu failure.

 

[Blastman]

If your going to be running that i7-2600K 24/7, consider running it at stock speed and undervolting it. The CPU will use less power, run cooler, and at a lower fan speed making it quieter.

In this review i7-2600K computerbase the 2600K had a standard voltage of 1.20v. They used an offset of -0.16 to lower that to 1.04v under full load (3.50Ghz turbo) and it idled at 0.69v instead of 0.85v. This lowered the full load wattage of the computer from 168 to 147w.

You could turn off turbo and probably lower that vcore to ~ 1.00 - 1.02v range.

I run my i3-530 (default 2.93Ghz speed) undervolted with the stock Intel HSF it came with …

1.01v 1300 rpm 47C … full load Crafty Chess program
1.25v 2350 rpm 55C … "

Setting auto voltage in BIOS results 1.25 which is way too high for the default CPU speeds. It runs cooler and very quiet even with the small stock HSF under full load.