i7 930 @ 4.0ghz stable but max temp. is 85c.

[tifosi79]

After reading a bunch of guides online I overclocked the cpu up to 4.0ghz. I ran 26 passes of LinX and got no errors with an idle temp of 41c and a max temp of 85c. If I go any lower on the vcore I get an error usually after 9 or so passes of LinX. Since this is the first time I've ever done any overclocking I really don't know what else to change in the BIOS to make the cpu run cooler at max load. I tried reseating the cpu cooler and reapplying the thermal compound but the temps stayed the same.:|

My system:

ASUS P6X58D-E
i7 930 @ 4.0ghz
Kingston HyperX 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Noctua NH-D14
GTX 480 (stock)
Corsair 850HX PSU
HAF 922 case with 230mm intake front fan, 230mm intake side fan, 230mm exhaust top fan and 120mm exhaust rear fan.

I included some pictures of all the settings in the BIOS. Also I included a picture of the cpu package box which has the batch #, etc, so that somebody can tell me if I simply have a bad cpu. Also a picture of how I got the Noctua setup.

THX. ion advance.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

I don't remember exactly but I thought 1.3 was the max acceptable voltage on the qpi? Sounds like you are just limited by the cpu to me. Luck of the draw. Some run 4ghz on 1.25v but from my experience most are like yours and takes about 1.35v for a stable oc. What's the method you're using to apply thermal paste? Have you tried unhooking that rear 120mm fan on the case or maybe one of the top 230mm fans? You want more air blowing into the case than you do out of the case.

 

[Rifter]

85c isnt bad, thats what my 930@4.2Ghz gets up to with 20c ambients.

 

[Powermoloch]

have you ever considered water cooling ?

 

[Athadeus]

There's so few real, useful apps that will put you over 70C continuous that it doesn't really matter.

Maybe knocking down the QPI multiplier a bit would allow you to drop the vcore and still have stability?

 

[bryanW1995]

you should not run qpi higher than cpu vcore. also, at 191 bclk you shouldn't need 1.40 v there, anyway. Do you have LLC enabled? On my p6t I ran at 4.0 with LLC and vcore 1.325, but it spiked up to 1.36 + under load. On my x58 sli board that I'm using now I disabled llc but run with 1.38v or so in bios, at load it is about the same though. Regarding temps, if you max out at 85c then you are golden. do you have your case fans and cpu fans on high? I found that I can get much higher OC's when I turn my case into a wind tunnel, I actually ran for a couple weeks at 4.2 last winter but I backed off when my temps started getting into the 90's.

 

[nyker96]

that sounds about right, i7 9xx is a tough cookie to cool.

 

[RaistlinZ]

Your temps sound about right. That's a lot of voltage. My 930 runs stable at 4.0GHz with 1.30v and my max temp is about 80C.

 

[bryanW1995]

yeah, it's amazing what a difference the higher fan speeds make for me. one of my fans was making a mildly annoying noise the other day, not annoying enough to replace it but I at least decided to turn it down to low. unfortunately this was the rear case exhaust fan. imagine my surprise when the next morning my computer was locked up! I turned the fan back on high and am currently dealing with the noise needless to say...

It's almost annoying enough for me to switch to WC.

 

[SickBeast]

Sometimes heat is the price you pay for a nice overclock. 4ghz on an i7 is blazing fast. Be happy with it and enjoy it.

That said, if you can run it at 3.8ghz and keep the temps below 70C, it might work out better for you, particularly if your fans can run slower.

 

[sxr7171]

Mine gets there also.

 

[ChuckR]

tifosi79:
What are the final settings you arrived at? I am also new to OC and have the following setup. Looking at the BIOS, I know my memory can be bumped up to 1600. As you can see I am running AIR, so voltages are a concern.
AusTeK P6X58D-E with Intel 930,
Kingston128gb SSD
WDC Black 500gb,
TSSTcorp CDDVDW,
Kingston 12gb DDR3 1600MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL9 XMP
ATI Radeon 5850, HP ZR24w, Windows 7 64bit Pro,
SeaSonic X750W Gold, Xigmatex Dark Knight

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Mine gets to 85 with LinX, but with all the games I play and the GPU at full load I've only hit 75.

BTW, QPI can go way beyond 1.35. For some memory sticks, you really need 1.4+. If you read Patriot, Corsair, and G-Skill forums, the staff there have recommend up to 1.6 in some cases. It just depends on what kind of sticks you are using. The G-Skill Ripjaws I have require high QPI. I RMAed them thinking they were faulty, but the new sticks are the same. I followed the recommendations, and you need like 1.55 or something to hit DDR2000.

 

[ChuckR]

I found the following settings. Do they make sense for my system? What other adjustments should be made? I am trying for 4.0 stable.

ASUS P6X58D-E i7 930
Kingston Non-ECC 1600MHz Unbuffered (DDR3, 1.65V, CL9, FBGA, Gold)
Xigmatek DarkKnight

Ai Overclock Tuner.....................[Manual]
CPU Ratio Setting......................[21.0]
Intel(r) SpeedStep(tm) Tech............[Disabled]
Xtreme Phase Full Power Mode...........[Enabled]
BCLK Frequency.........................[181]
PCIE Frequency.........................[100]
DRAM Frequency.........................[DDR3-1451MHz]
UCLK Frequency.........................[2903MHz]
QPI Link Data Rate.....................[Auto]

CPU Voltage Control....................[Manual]
CPU Voltage............................[1.25625]
CPU PLL Voltage........................[1.84]
QPI/DRAM Core Voltage..................[1.24]
IOH Voltage............................[1.20]
IOH PCIE Voltage.......................[1.50]
ICH Voltage............................[1.20]
ICH PCIE Voltage.......................[1.50]
DRAM Bus Voltage.......................[1.66]
DRAM DATA REF Voltage on CHA...........[Auto]
DRAM CTRL REF Voltage on CHA...........[Auto]
DRAM DATA REF Voltage on CHB...........[Auto]
DRAM CTRL REF Voltage on CHB...........[Auto]
DRAM DATA REF Voltage on CHC...........[Auto]
DRAM CTRL REF Voltage on CHC...........[Auto]

Load-Line Calibration..................[Enabled]
CPU Differential Amplitude.............[800mV]
CPU Clock Skew.........................[Delay 300ps]
CPU Spread Spectrum....................[Disabled]
IOH Clock Skew.........................[Auto]
PCIE Spread Spectrum...................[Disabled]

C1E Support............................[Disabled]
Hardware Prefetcher....................[Enabled]
Adjacent Cache Line Prefetch...........[Enabled]
Intel(r) Virtualization Tech...........[Disabled]
CPU TM Function........................[Enabled]
Execute Disable Bit....................[Enabled]
Intel(r) HT Technology.................[Enabled]
Active Processor Cores.................[All]
A20M...................................[Disabled]
Intel(r) SpeedStep(tm) Tech............[Disabled]
Intel(r) C-STATE Tech..................[Disabled]

Core Speed 3800.7 Mhz
Multiplier x21
Bus Speed 181.0 Mhz
QPI Link 3257.8
Dram Frequency 724.0 Mhz
FSBram 2.8
CL, tRCD, tRP 8clocks tRAS 24clocks
tRFC 74clocks Command Rate 2T

 

[tuskenraider]

^^ Looks good. Try getting the blck up to 200 and backing the multiplier down, playing with the CPU and VTT voltage if necessary. You might try disabling hyperthreading to help out as well.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

disable HT at 4

 

[RaistlinZ]

What's the point of getting an i7-930 if you're going to disable Hyperthreading? If that's the case, just go with an i5-750 and get the benefit of less heat.

 

[tifosi79]

What are the final settings you arrived at? I am also new to OC and have the following setup. Looking at the BIOS, I know my memory can be bumped up to 1600. As you can see I am running AIR, so voltages are a concern.

One thing I did which I hadn't done before was to disable HT. This alone allowed me to lower the coreV and qpi a few notches. Now the CPU max temp on Lynx is 72c and on Prime95 is 68c. I do feel like Im cheating by disabling HT. All I do is gaming and internet so I don't know if Im missing performance. I really don't know what uses HT and how much of a difference it makes enabled vs disabled.

These are my current stable settings. Still working on them one step at a time. 24hrs of Prime95 and 25 passes of Lynx:

Ai Overclock Tuner.....................[Manual]
CPU Ratio Setting......................[21.0]
Intel(r) SpeedStep(tm) Tech............[Disabled]
Xtreme Phase Full Power Mode...........[AUTO]
BCLK Frequency.........................[191]
PCIE Frequency.........................[100]
DRAM Frequency.........................[DDR3-1531MHz]
UCLK Frequency.........................[3063MHz]
QPI Link Data Rate.....................[6893MT/s]

CPU Voltage Control....................[Manual]
CPU Voltage............................[1.30625]
CPU PLL Voltage........................[1.88]
QPI/DRAM Core Voltage..................[1.28125]
IOH Voltage............................[1.14]
IOH PCIE Voltage.......................[AUTO]
ICH Voltage............................[1.20]
ICH PCIE Voltage.......................[AUTO]
DRAM Bus Voltage.......................[1.65]
DRAM DATA REF Voltage on CHA...........[Auto]
DRAM CTRL REF Voltage on CHA...........[Auto]
DRAM DATA REF Voltage on CHB...........[Auto]
DRAM CTRL REF Voltage on CHB...........[Auto]
DRAM DATA REF Voltage on CHC...........[Auto]
DRAM CTRL REF Voltage on CHC...........[Auto]

Load-Line Calibration..................[Enabled]
CPU Differential Amplitude.............[AUTO]
CPU Clock Skew.........................[AUTO]
CPU Spread Spectrum....................[Disabled]
IOH Clock Skew.........................[Auto]
PCIE Spread Spectrum...................[Disabled]

C1E Support............................[Disabled]
Hardware Prefetcher....................[Enabled]
Adjacent Cache Line Prefetch...........[Enabled]
Intel(r) Virtualization Tech...........[Disabled]
CPU TM Function........................[Enabled]
Execute Disable Bit....................[Enabled]
Intel(r) HT Technology.................[Disabled]
Active Processor Cores.................[All]
A20M...................................[Disabled]
Intel(r) SpeedStep(tm) Tech............[Disabled]
Intel(r) C-STATE Tech..................[Disabled]


If anybody sees anything that should be changed please advice.

 

[HumblePie]

it happens. Not every chip is a golden chip. Don't let many of the OC results you see on forums skew your opinion on what your particular chip can overclock to. Many people who post their kick butt overclocks do so after acquiring several chips and testing them all for the best one. Whether they buy them all or are sponsored to get them free, many people who post some awesome overclocks do so because they have many pieces of equipment to test for the best combination. Others are just really damn lucky.

Most chips only come to about 70-90% over the higher posted overclock shown around in various forums. At least that has been my experience. So if you see several people posting they got a particular chip to overclock from 3Ghz to 4Ghz.... expect yours to do around 3.6Ghz or so for an overclock. That is just the nature of the beast. You may get lucky and have one that hits the top end with ease, but that is not common at all even with great cooling.

I've been lucky myself three with "golden" chips that overclocked for what they were like a dream. One was my original Celeron 333. Very very very few could overclock to 500 Mhz even on water back then. I got to 500 Mhz on air without a voltage bump.

My next one was the AMD K7 1 Ghz chip I got to 1.4 Ghz which was outstanding back then.

The last one I had was an opteron 165 that went from 1.8 Ghz to 3.2Ghz on air with very little bumpage in voltage. My friend still has that chip in his daughters system and it runs very well to this day at that overclock. Btw, I built and tested easily a dozen or more opteron 165 chips and that was the only one that could do that overclock, let alone at such a minimal voltage increase. Everything else I tried was stuck between 2.6 and 2.8 Ghz.

Beyond those chips, I've had most lackluster overclocking results.

 

[ArchAngel777]

I purchased my i7 920 before Lynnfield was released. I have mine clocked at a completely stable 4.2Ghz with HT disabled. I don't use any programs that take advantage of more than 4 cores so having HT enabled is pointless at this point. Also, this allows me to keep the chip cooler and running on less voltage. Current load is 74c after several hours of flooding all 4 cores. If I enable HT and load all 8 threads, the system is still stable, but requires more vcore and puts out more heat. The chip climbs to around 80c under that scenario. I also have both the downclock and downvolt options enabled in BIOS. My system idles a lot more than anything else, so no need to idle on full voltage and full clock speed. Multipler drops from 21 to 12 in that scenario, BLCK is at 200Mhz

When I start to use programs that utilize more than 4 cores, I will simply up the voltage a bit and enable HT. Until that time, I find it relatively meaningless and is just a waste of energy/stress on the chip.

 

[tuskenraider]

What's the point of getting an i7-930 if you're going to disable Hyperthreading? If that's the case, just go with an i5-750 and get the benefit of less heat.

Hyperthreading isn't the only difference between an 1366/X58 and 1156/P55 setup no? None of the programs I use, use hypertheading. Guess I never should have bought it.

 

[scrubman]

While I dont have experience with settings on your cpu, I did find something very interesting last weekend when changing the fan config on my overclocked Q6600. This might be helpful or might not. Anywho, my buddy just got one of those new Antec LanBoy Air cases that look awesome! So I was reading about it and saw how they recommend having ALL fans as intake and no exhaust fans. Its all mesh and allows for enough of the air to esacpe freely with all the positive pressure I suppose. So, in trying to get better temps on my Q6600 I had this thought in my head already from the LanBoy and also felt really strong about the idea of having cold outside air blowing straight onto the cooler/cooler base/motherborad/RAM for better cooling than indirect warmer air finding its way to the cpu cooler. So I put all fans blowing straight in from the top, rear and side panel as well as the front for the hard drives. I have to say I dropped 10c easily! I was shocked and quite thrilled. Just an idea that you can try if you are real concerned. I personally wouldnt worry about those temps you are getting though. If I could lower them I would and them bump up the that overclock even higher!! Like someone else said, normal PC gaming and general use will never see temps like these stress tests. Good luck!

 

[ChuckR]

Is there a way to see the BIOS settings from within the OS?
If I am forced to, I would have to write what they are and what they get changed to. This is if I need to revert to the default settings. Also, it would allow me to post the current values here for comparison.
Thanks

 

[aigomorla]

Mine gets to 85 with LinX, but with all the games I play and the GPU at full load I've only hit 75.

BTW, QPI can go way beyond 1.35. For some memory sticks, you really need 1.4+. If you read Patriot, Corsair, and G-Skill forums, the staff there have recommend up to 1.6 in some cases. It just depends on what kind of sticks you are using. The G-Skill Ripjaws I have require high QPI. I RMAed them thinking they were faulty, but the new sticks are the same. I followed the recommendations, and you need like 1.55 or something to hit DDR2000.

actually thats too much QPI!

If im not mistaken QPI/DRAM Voltage on ASUS is his VTT
My safe zones are:

LGA1366 ONLY!!!
65nm i7 C1/C0 -> 1.375~1.45
65nm i7's D0 -> 1.375 ~ 1.4
32nm i7's -> 1.275 ~ 1.3

when i see people running 980X with 1.4V in VTT i cringe.. i lost 2 gulftowns that way.