LGA1156 Core i7 & i5 Overclocking Guide

[GLeeM]

For i7-8xx CPUs, disable HT (Hyper Threading Technology) as well under this situation.

When do I re-enable HT and how will it affect the OC?

 

[andy5174]

When do I re-enable HT and how will it affect the OC?

Disable HT only if you can't get your system stable after OC.

Disabling HT will increase the stability of OCed system!

 

[andy5174]

penaguiento joined just now to vote NO..... ZZZzzz

 

[MadScientist]

You still don't get it.....
These are your OPINIONS, not fact. This is why I suggest leaving them OUT completely.

I agree. Hardware choices have already been and should be discussed in other threads.

 

[andy5174]

I agree. Hardware choices have already been and should be discussed in other threads.

I haven't seen a single site that does not give Prolimatech Megahalems a mention in their top end air cooling heatsink review and 99% of them have Prolimatech ranked as first.

In addition, Prolimatech Megashadow is just the BLACK edition of Megahalems and so they are on par in the cooling performance.

Hence, it is NOT my opinion and it's TRUE that Megashadow is definitely one of the top end air cooling heatsinks if not the best. It's the TRUTH.

Peoples who would argue for such an obvious truth is ignorant and I doubt how many of the members will.

BTW, I had seen some ignorant AMD fanboys debating that PII-955 is better than i5, but I have never seen a single thread debating that if Megashadow is a top end heatsink or not.

You are the ONLY one that argue about this so far.

 

[andy5174]

I did follow the advices given by Markfw900 and Gillbot to edit this.

Do you alweays get so aggressive if others don't agree with you?

BTW, it is already re-edited by the mod, Markfw900.

 

[Phanuel]

When do I re-enable HT and how will it affect the OC?

If you want HT enabled (you bought a HT chip in the first place, why not) then don't disable it while overclocking. Understand however that it will take more voltage usually to hit the same core clockspeed as a chip without HT (750) and run hotter at the same core voltage as a chip without HT enabled (5-10c higher) since it's utilizing a bit more of the CPU.

I haven't disabled HT on my 860, but 3.75ghz for example is stable at 1.312vcore but at 3.8ghz it takes 3.6vcore to become stable. 1.4vcore won't get 3.9ghz stable. The exponential increase in power requirements is just too much for my taste so I've left it at the point in which it requires huge ramp ups in power for small mhz gains. If I disabled HT I'm sure I could hit 3.9ghz or 4ghz at a reasonable vcore, but if that's the case I should have just bought an i5 (and looking back, I wish I had known about Microcenter's 920s and i5 overclocking).

 

[Keysplayr]

I've reached 3.37GHz on my i7 860 without increasing voltage, without turning off Turbo, and without turning off HT or disabling any of the power saving features. I could go higher, but I don't feel the need. I don't even know why I o/c'd at all. Just to see if I could? Probably.

 

[andy5174]

I've reached 3.37GHz on my i7 860 without increasing voltage, without turning off Turbo, and without turning off HT or disabling any of the power saving features. I could go higher, but I don't feel the need. I don't even know why I o/c'd at all. Just to see if I could? Probably.

That's because 3.37GHz is a minor OC and I believe that most LGA1156 i7 will be able to do that.

 

[Ben90]

I haven't seen a single site that does not give Prolimatech Megahalems a mention in their top end air cooling heatsink review and 99% of them have Prolimatech ranked as first.

In addition, Prolimatech Megashadow is just the BLACK edition of Megahalems and so they are on par in the cooling performance.

Hence, it is NOT my opinion and it's TRUE that Megashadow is definitely one of the top end air cooling heatsinks if not the best. It's the TRUTH.

Peoples who would argue for such an obvious truth is ignorant and I doubt how many of the members will.

BTW, I had seen some ignorant AMD fanboys debating that PII-955 is better than i5, but I have never seen a single thread debating that if Megashadow is a top end heatsink or not.

You are the ONLY one that argue about this so far.

Im pretty sure there are a couple long lost heatsinks out there that are better than megahalems. Thats not the point though, i think sticky's need to be timeless and when a new modern HS comes out for less than a IFX-14 that can perform equally as well this guide is dated. AS5 is starting to get dated as well and better performing alternatives are popping up.

I think just edit section 0 to elaborate that there are alternatives out there

 

[Piano Man]

I haven't seen a single site that does not give Prolimatech Megahalems a mention in their top end air cooling heatsink review and 99% of them have Prolimatech ranked as first.

In addition, Prolimatech Megashadow is just the BLACK edition of Megahalems and so they are on par in the cooling performance.

Hence, it is NOT my opinion and it's TRUE that Megashadow is definitely one of the top end air cooling heatsinks if not the best. It's the TRUTH.

Peoples who would argue for such an obvious truth is ignorant and I doubt how many of the members will.

BTW, I had seen some ignorant AMD fanboys debating that PII-955 is better than i5, but I have never seen a single thread debating that if Megashadow is a top end heatsink or not.

You are the ONLY one that argue about this so far.

You are already making our point by debating the HS/F choice. Stick to the BIOS settings and how to properly test for stability, and you'll be good. I don't disagree with you on your HS/F as its one of the better ones, but it still doesn't have a place for this otherwise helpful thread.

 

[Keysplayr]

That's because 3.37GHz is a minor OC and I believe that most LGA1156 i7 will be able to do that.

That's exactly right. Just thought I'd show what is safely done with none of the bells and whistles turned off.

 

[andy5174]

You are already making our point by debating the HS/F choice. Stick to the BIOS settings and how to properly test for stability, and you'll be good. I don't disagree with you on your HS/F as its one of the better ones, but it still doesn't have a place for this otherwise helpful thread.

Am I hearing right?

It's you guys who want the HSF part removed to avoid debate and start the debate by saying I am wrong which I am not as Prolimatech IS one of the top end heatsinks IF NOT the best.

OK. I will stop here and so the debate won't go on.

 

[Gillbot]

This is why I suggested leaving product suggestions out, but since I need to reiterate my point I'll do so:

You believe it's top tier, this is still OPINION. Many users will not want to spend that much money on a cooler. Plus, here's a review that was not pleased with that cooler: http://www.ocia.net/reviews/megashadow/page5.shtml

I was a little disappointed with the performance of the Mega Shadow. Not that it performed badly, because it did ok, but it was outperformed by a cooler, albeit an excellent one, that cost less than half as much.

No matter what, speculating the "position" of a cooling solution in any "tier" level is purely opinion. The previous "top tier" winner was always the TRUE, but for many the TRUE offered minimal performance gains over other popular and more affordable cooling solutions. Personally, my AC Freezer 7 Pro with an upgraded fan solution toppled my brother's "top tier" TRUE cooler at better than half the cost.

 

[imported_RJR]

Andy, you can do away with all this by removing the pictures of both the cooler and AS5 and just explain to people that your cooler and Tim choice will effect your OCing potential and link to the case and cooling section for research. It's not taking anything away from the effectiveness of the guide.

 

[Cattykit]

I've read too many reviews comparing pretty much all the coolers out there. I do not doubt Prolimatech Megaxxxx is the one of the top coolers out there. Some reviews indicate it's the no.1, some say it's marginally below other coolers such as TRUE series and Noctua NH-D14. To me, it doesn't matter which is really no.1 because those 3 coolers stand above all the other coolers out there; they are all no.1.
Yes, time will make difference but he's not saying this product will be the best one regardless of time. Come on, people here and everywhere know the difference time makes. If not, tell Anand how he was so damn wrong when he recommanded AMD K6.
Yes, there are very a few reviwers who don't like Prolimatech Megaxxxx for some reasons. Compare those a few reviews to tons of other reviews done by professionals and regular people like you and me. It's too expensive so it shouldn't be mentioned? It's not for you or me to decide. It should be decided by indivisuals who read it; not by a thought police. (BTW, it's be hilarious if we have a search engine with such logic. You shop for a CPUs and it decides 'many people don't spend much money on a CPU, so it intelligently provide search results of Celerons...etc.)

Simply put, I don't think there's any problem with you mentioning the cooler you use. It's not like you sugar-coated an awful cooler to make it sound like it's the devine best thing out there. Just like others are pouring their opnions, you should keep your opnion because you're nowhere near being wrong.

On top of that, I have hard time understanding why people are so upset about it. I know they're trying to be safe because ATF can be infested with product marketing schemes. But, the purpose of whole hardware sites is done by testing products, then recommanding the best one. You go any hardware review sites, you get all those products recommandations, guides and what-not. You go to following forums, it's filled with people recommanding products over products. Same thing here. If one can't recommand a decent product that's been backed up by tons of reviews, everyone should just STFU and AT, ATF should disappear.
Interestingly, those who asked you to put down products details to prevent products argumentation are the ones that are responsible for starting product argumentations in the first place.

The way I see it, I think this whole mess started because it was being considered to be a sticky. People are uptight about it because this thread being sticky means it's somewhat approved by AT.
My advice? Forget about making it a sticky. Once you forget about it, you don't need to worry about this whole issue. Break free from this nasty chain of silly arguments.

 

[andy5174]

I've read too many reviews comparing pretty much all the coolers out there. I do not doubt Prolimatech Megaxxxx is the one of the top coolers out there. Some reviews indicate it's the no.1, some say it's marginally below other coolers such as TRUE series and Noctua NH-D14. To me, it doesn't matter which is really no.1 because those 3 coolers stand above all the other coolers out there; they are all no.1.
Yes, time will make difference but he's not saying this product will be the best one regardless of time. Come on, people here and everywhere know the difference time makes. If not, tell Anand how he was so damn wrong when he recommanded AMD K6.
Yes, there are very a few reviwers who don't like Prolimatech Megaxxxx for some reasons. Compare those a few reviews to tons of other reviews done by professionals and regular people like you and me. It's too expensive so it shouldn't be mentioned? It's not for you or me to decide. It should be decided by indivisuals who read it; not by a thought police. (BTW, it's be hilarious if we have a search engine with such logic. You shop for a CPUs and it decides 'many people don't spend much money on a CPU, so it intelligently provide search results of Celerons...etc.)

Simply put, I don't think there's any problem with you mentioning the cooler you use. It's not like you sugar-coated an awful cooler to make it sound like it's the devine best thing out there. Just like others are pouring their opnions, you should keep your opnion because you're nowhere near being wrong.

On top of that, I have hard time understanding why people are so upset about it. I know they're trying to be safe because ATF can be infested with product marketing schemes. But, the purpose of whole hardware sites is done by testing products, then recommanding the best one. You go any hardware review sites, you get all those products recommandations, guides and what-not. You go to following forums, it's filled with people recommanding products over products. Same thing here. If one can't recommand a decent product that's been backed up by tons of reviews, everyone should just STFU and AT, ATF should disappear.
Interestingly, those who asked you to put down products details to prevent products argumentation are the ones that are responsible for starting product argumentations in the first place.

The way I see it, I think this whole mess started because it was being considered to be a sticky. People are uptight about it because this thread being sticky means it's somewhat approved by AT.
My advice? Forget about making it a sticky. Once you forget about it, you don't need to worry about this whole issue. Break free from this nasty chain of silly arguments.

1. Nice spot! I thought that I am the only one here notice that.

2. I didn't try to make it a sticky by poll at first, because I believed that it will stay at the top as long as others think it's useful. I did that because the mod, Markfw900, suggested me to do so which is an interesting idea.

 

[andy5174]

This is why I suggested leaving product suggestions out, but since I need to reiterate my point I'll do so:

You believe it's top tier, this is still OPINION. Many users will not want to spend that much money on a cooler. Plus, here's a review that was not pleased with that cooler: http://www.ocia.net/reviews/megashadow/page5.shtml



No matter what, speculating the "position" of a cooling solution in any "tier" level is purely opinion. The previous "top tier" winner was always the TRUE, but for many the TRUE offered minimal performance gains over other popular and more affordable cooling solutions. Personally, my AC Freezer 7 Pro with an upgraded fan solution toppled my brother's "top tier" TRUE cooler at better than half the cost.

There is NO product that is 100% satisfied by everyone and NEVER will.

A product is considered as a top end as long as most peoples believe so.

Ironically it's all the members who want me to remove HSF to avoid debate being the ones who start it.

 

[Phanuel]

There is NO products that are 100% satisfied by everyone and NEVER will.

The products is considered as a top end as long as most of peoples believe so.

Ironically it's all the members who want me to remove HSF to avoid debate being the ones who start it.

I hate to beat on this subject as it appears to be rather sore at this time, but couldn't you provide links to some more reputable HSF round ups as more of a general breadth of top end suggestions for them instead of a sole 'king of the hill' solution so to speak?

The MUX-120 is probably the king of value price point, but the Mega and some others in the $60+ range are busy swapping the lead pretty regularly.

 

[andy5174]

I hate to beat on this subject as it appears to be rather sore at this time, but couldn't you provide links to some more reputable HSF round ups as more of a general breadth of top end suggestions for them instead of a sole 'king of the hill' solution so to speak?

The MUX-120 is probably the king of value price point, but the Mega and some others in the $60+ range are busy swapping the lead pretty regularly.

I NEVER said prolimatech is the best bang for the buck.

What I said was that prolimatech is one of the top end products IN PERFORMANCE.

 

[MadScientist]

We are not debating; at least I'm not, the fact that your HS, for now, is rated in the top 10 on numerous review sites. And I don't see an issue with you mentioning in your OC guide that this is the HS you are currently using.

Instead of posting pics, you may want to add something similar like the section on cooling in Graysky's "HOWTO: Overclock C2Q (Quads) and C2D (Duals)" to your OC guide:

"2. Cooling
Cooling is very important since you're asking the system to produce more heat than it's designed to produce. A quad core chip will produce twice the heat of a dual core chip, so if you're using the Intel Stock HSF, you'll probably want to upgrade to something better. Again, I don't wanna maintain a list. I can tell you that I am using a Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme and am very happy with it.

Here is a more recent list of HSs that have actually been reviewed and ranked based on performance." Place your link to recent HS reviews here.

 

[IamShakes]

Before i ask, wanted to say thanks, been stalking here for months to make my decision on setup. System is all built and have a mild OC on it right now, but just a couple of questions i don't know the answer to.

I currently am OCed to 3.2 with EIST and C-states enabled. I have my voltage set in my Bios to 1.225V. Every time my computer loads cpu-z shows voltage to my processor at 1.232. The system is stable right now as i finished memory test and p95. But i don't understand why why the difference in voltage is there.

Second is temperatures. Running P95 my temps were upper 50ties / lower 60 ties with this OC. I'm using the 212+ and already resat the heatsink twice to try to lower these. When people are pushing 3.8-4.0 what temps are they experiencing. I know i can lower them a bit by turning up my case fans, but like to know what people are getting at various clocks.

 

[MadScientist]

Before i ask, wanted to say thanks, been stalking here for months to make my decision on setup. System is all built and have a mild OC on it right now, but just a couple of questions i don't know the answer to.

I currently am OCed to 3.2 with EIST and C-states enabled. I have my voltage set in my Bios to 1.225V. Every time my computer loads cpu-z shows voltage to my processor at 1.232. The system is stable right now as i finished memory test and p95. But i don't understand why why the difference in voltage is there.

Second is temperatures. Running P95 my temps were upper 50ties / lower 60 ties with this OC. I'm using the 212+ and already resat the heatsink twice to try to lower these. When people are pushing 3.8-4.0 what temps are they experiencing. I know i can lower them a bit by turning up my case fans, but like to know what people are getting at various clocks.

A bit OT but you may find some useful info in this thread. http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=330100&highlight=

Could also be the way you are applying the TIM to the 212 Plus. It has fairly deep spaces between the base and the heatpipes that should be filled in first. Here's a good article on how to apply TIM to HDT heatsinks. http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=150&Itemid=62&limit=1&limitstart=5

 

[Ben90]

Before i ask, wanted to say thanks, been stalking here for months to make my decision on setup. System is all built and have a mild OC on it right now, but just a couple of questions i don't know the answer to.

I currently am OCed to 3.2 with EIST and C-states enabled. I have my voltage set in my Bios to 1.225V. Every time my computer loads cpu-z shows voltage to my processor at 1.232. The system is stable right now as i finished memory test and p95. But i don't understand why why the difference in voltage is there.

Second is temperatures. Running P95 my temps were upper 50ties / lower 60 ties with this OC. I'm using the 212+ and already resat the heatsink twice to try to lower these. When people are pushing 3.8-4.0 what temps are they experiencing. I know i can lower them a bit by turning up my case fans, but like to know what people are getting at various clocks.

Welcome!

Hmmm I wish someone with more knowledge would explain better the voltage conundrum. Basically I believe that software has no way of knowing what the true voltage is so it guesstimates some way or another, which I have no idea how that works. Does this mean that your voltage reading is right or wrong? No. But it definately means you cannot always trust software. This doesn't make that part of the program completely useless though, as you can measure how much your voltages and stuff changes, but only use it as a base and always go by what BIOS says first.

And for temps, I got this nice reply a while back when I asked what the maximum 24/7 safe temperature was for i7-920s:

Maximum Safe Temp For 24/7 Anything below TJmax is fine if you don't mind your CPU's expected lifetime to be "on the other side" of the 3yr warranty period. (meaning 3.1yrs or some such)

The QA engineering that goes into the process development itself is all geared towards ensuring this much just from a minimization of extenuating liabilities standpoint to Intel's books.

There is no single temperature threshold above which your cpu's lifetime suddenly diminishes. It is a continuous function that is dependent on an exponential of the operating temperature thanks to the physics that underlie the Arrhenius equation.

As a rule of thumb, for every 10C higher your operating temps the expected lifetime of your CPU is reduced by 50% (think of half-life). Whatever your expected cpu lifetime is if operating at 50C, call it X years, you can expect that lifetime to be cut in half if you operate your cpu at 60C, so X/2 years, and again cut in half once more if you operate it at 70C, so X/4 years, etc.

That may sound dire but understand the lifetime is engineered into the IC from the "top-down" in terms of the thermal specs. Meaning your thermal spec was set for your chip with the desire to minimize the number of in-field fails that would occur under warranty.

So making the assumption that your CPU has an expected lifespan equal to (really we should assume greater than as Intel would not be silly enough to make the mean of the distribution equal to their warranty period and then have to deal with the entire left-hand side of the distribution failing under warranty) the standard warranty period (3yrs) when operating at TJmax is a reasonable assumption. Then for every 10C below TJmax you operate the chip you should double the expected lifespan.

If TJmax is 90C and you operate at 80C then a very reasonable lower-estimate of your CPU's expected lifespan would be 6yrs (2 x 3yrs warranty period). If you operate at 70C then 2x2x3yrs = 12yrs expected lifespan.

What is the basis for my arguing this? At TI we required our process technology to be developed so as to enable the minimum lifetime requirement of 10yrs operating at max spec'ed operating voltage and max spec'ed operating temps in continuous 24/7 operation. It is SOP for the industry.

Now where you can really cook your goose (cpu) is over-volting and running hot. It doesn't take much to be operating your CPU in a voltage/temperature regime that in combination the two factors contribute to lowering the expected lifespan of your CPU to something <1yr.

Not too mention there is always a distribution to the lifespan and your particular chip could have some intrinsic weakness/flaw in it that puts its expected lifespan at a value below the mean of the distribution and by operating at elevated temps and volts it is destined to fail substantially sooner than the warranty period. (I killed my QX6700 in something like 18 months, never operated above TJmax or above Vccmax, but had lapped the IHS so no warranty replacement for me)

Another thing to remember is that the software that monitors temperature differently than what would seem the normal way. Each core is given a TJMax value which is basically the temperature in which the core starts throttling itself. The temp diode measures the how far away from the TJMax the core is which is where we get the distance to TJmax from. Now the problem with this is that intel does not publicly release what value TJmax may be, and its possible for each core to have a different TJmax. Each program guesses what the TJmax is and does the math from there but in certain cases its known to be really far off.

I remember a case where HWmonitor would read a good 10 degrees C* hotter than the other programs that generally put TJmax around 100C*.

 

[imported_RJR]

Now the problem with this is that intel does not publicly release what value TJmax may be, and its possible for each core to have a different TJmax. Each program guesses what the TJmax is and does the math from there but in certain cases its known to be really far off.

I remember a case where HWmonitor would read a good 10 degrees C* hotter than the other programs that generally put TJmax around 100C*.

Like you state, there are variables in the cores and the heat output of said cores. Intel is just playing it safe by giving everyone a low Tcase temperature as the recommended thermal max, which a lot of people mistake for core temperature but that's not a bad thing as the tcase would be a little lower than core temps. I've always, and still do, just keep my core temps at or below the recommended thermal max (no where near tjmax) and have never had one die on me yet, even with a substantial OC.