i7 overclock help.

[Rifter]

Ok so i just finished installing the new parts, went from system in sig to i7 930, ASUS P6X58D-E, Corsair xms3 3x2GB 1600, and a MSI cyclone 460 1 GB

So where do i start, ive done some reading but want your guys input.

Im a experienced AMD overclocker but have not had a intel CPU since my celly 300A and as im sure you all know that did not take any effort to OC. So im pretty much a intel OCing newbie.

Heat can be a issue i hear with i7 hitting 70c+ stock under load so i went all out on cooling.

Its got a Noctua NH-D14 on it with both of the fans that come with it at full speed. Im good at lapping and have done it to every CPU/GPU i have ever owned or built for friends so its also lapped to 2000 grit mirror polish and so is the heatspreader on the 930 CPU. Ive honestly never lapped anything as well as this but spent extra time as its hot here this time of year. Used paste that came with noctua as i hear its good stuff and only other option was AS 5 which i hear is outdated nowdays.

Case is Antec 300 with 2 Yates on intake duty and 1 on rear exhaust, the 140mm stock antec top fan is on full speed. I was not able to mount a side fan as i have the NH-D14 mounted pointing up and the bottom fan on the NH-D14 interfears with the side fan mount on the 300.

That said i have no AC and ambient temps are around 30c right now, or a little higher i think it might hit 35 today. So its idling at around 37c, not bad at all considering the ambients but leaves me less headroom than i would like temp wise, in winter ill really see what it can do but for now i think ill have to make compromises.

So im thinking a good place to start is lowering the memory divider so the ram runs at 800 and then start upping the FSB? Should i leave CPU/RAM voltage on auto or do it all manual?

Note i would like to keep hyperthreading enabled and as many of the downclocking/powersaving features as possible, if thats possible when you OC a intel chip.


EDIT: This QPI thing is kinda confusing me but is it the same as HT link for
AMD?

UPDATE now at 3.74Ghz 1.265V hitting 75c under load.

 

[AlucardX]

sounds good to me, i would set the voltages to manual for vcore and vdimm, lock in your vdimm voltage and allow some small increase in vcore as you have stability problems.

 

[Rifter]

ok what should i set the CPU voltage to? it says .8 - 1.375 on the intel website but doesnt list a normal voltage, i guess around 1.2? 1.25?

 

[bryanW1995]

my i7 920 d0 has a default voltage of 1.2, yours is probably similar. I couldn't find it written anywhere, I just set vcore to auto and saw that it was 1.2 at idle and load (with llc enabled) in cpu z.

 

[Rifter]

Thanks for the info, had to re-install windows so that slowed me down. Im doing a prime95 run now to get a baseline on load temps, been over 45 min now and temps have stabilized at 60-63c. Not bad i guess for being 30c+ in here. Am going to reboot now and start the OC.

 

[Rifter]

Update, been running prime for over a hour now.

3.3Ghz 1.25v
Ram running only at 1200 right now at 1.5v
FSB is 150

Temps 61-65C

Am going to try for more, this chip seems easy to work with so far. Im still getting used to the Intel bios and dont know what alot of stuff is but im learning.

 

[Rifter]

Thought i should ask, whats a safe temp for these chips? Im running now at 3.75Ghz 5 min into prime and hitting 70-75c at 1.265V

 

[Rifter]

I know everyone likes pics so

http://a.imageshack.us/img225/3906/96489812.jpg


Are those temps safe?

 

[Kenmitch]

Temp wise you are getting into the danger zone for the faint of heart

Just remember that most of the time your system will not be subjected to the same level of load. Depending on your intended use you may be able to bump her up some more

 

[Rifter]

Thanks for the answer, Im not faint of heart ive brought chips to thermal shutdown before and im sure ill do it again lol. It just pisses me off so much right now that its 34c in my computer room I cant wait till winter

 

[Rifter]

Ok so ran prime all night(last 12 hours) since it cooled down a bit at these settings:

185 FSB
3.88Ghz, 4.07Ghz with the turbo 1.3V in bios droops to 1.288 in CPU-z
Temps hit 75C at highest during the night
Ram running at 1500 9-9-9-24 1T 1.6v
Hyperthreading is on and are all the downclocking and power saving features.

I dont think it will handle prime during the heat of the afternoon(30c-35c ambient) at these settings but i dont think it will overheat from gaming or normal use so im going to keep these settings and go from there and just keep an eye on temps, alot better than i thought for sure. I love this CPU. I dont know how intel does this, no way would AMD cool n quiet would work at this level of OC.

 

[Rifter]

ok so ran prime for 18 hours during the hot part of the afternoon and all night, Im willing to call it stable now. It hit 84c but never went out of turbo or had any errors.

These things are way to easy to OC i was really expecting more of a challenge. Cant wait to see what it does in the winter as i know the ambients have to be holding me back and im not willing to OC farther when im hitting mid 80's now.