New lower voltage with new MOBO

Aug 1, 2007
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Hi,

I have overclocked my QX6850 to 3.66GHz. Running everest ultimate for stress testing I had found my PC stable with 1.4875v. After stress testing for 8 hours... I thought it was good enough.

Recently I had RMA'd my MOBO (Sriker Extreme) and wanted to re-attempt to lower voltage at least by 1 or 2 notches... I felt it wasn't going to be much different lowering 1 or 2 notches but wanted to retry and get the lowest possible stable voltage... My PC generates too much heat.

So last night I started by lowering voltage by 2 notches and it was stable... and I was like... hmmm, let try lower, so I lowered 4 notches before going to sleep and when I woke up it was still running (7.5 hours).... I was like wow!! I thought... for sure, it's gonna fail if I continue... but for me to check what's the lowest, I've got to continue lowering until it fails... so I lowered another 4 notches and left the stress test running before leaving for work.

OK, so far I have lowered voltage 6 notches and 7C cooler. Still checking how much lower I can go but I called my place and I was told me that it's still running... so stress test has been running for 5 hours and a good possiblity to be stable for 8 hours...

I'm happy to have been able to lower voltage by 6 notches and good possibilty to lower further, but I'm surprised that this was possible by changing MOBO (same model but not sure what BIOS version I had with previous MOBO).

Does anyone have any comment on why I have been able to lower voltage with new MOBO.

Thanks in advance for any comments.
 

Denithor

Diamond Member
Apr 11, 2004
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23
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I don't have experience with your particular motherboard but I have this example from my setup.

e6400

Gigabyte 965P-DS3 rev1.0
2.8GHz @ 1.4V

Abit IP35-E
3.0GHz @ 1.32V (stock)

With the new motherboard I was able to run the same processor at a faster speed completely stable with lower volts and less heat (52C versus 57C under load).
 
Aug 1, 2007
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Thanks Denithor,

So it appears that stress testing stability is very dependent on MOBO's and possibly BIOS versions... That's interesting.

My current temp is about 51C versus 57C under load. I was testing 1.4125v and it appears stable... so looks like I will be able to continue to lower voltages.
 

Idontcare

Elite Member
Oct 10, 1999
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Similiar but not identical experience here.

Had my QX6700 overclocked on a striker extreme to 3.73GHz (phase cooled though) but could not touch the FSB (had to leave it at 267Mhz) if I wanted the system to be stable for weeks and weeks. I also could not touch 4GHz at any voltage.

The striker eventually died. I replaced it with an Asus P5E WS Pro (X38 chipset) and wowzers! I could clock my same QX6700 to 4GHz with ease and with the FSB all the way up to 400MHz.

My conclusions...whatever killed i680 boards for the yorfield upgrade cycle was also holding back all those kentsfield overclockers for the ~18months we had that POS $400 mobo in our cases.
 
Aug 1, 2007
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This is very interesting.... Because reading forums, people always were saying that voltages were mainly dependent on the CPU not the MOBO's. People would always say that the CPU's required different voltages even if they were the same model which explained why I had different voltage from other people that had QX6850. People with same QX6850, would tell me that my voltage was too high... but with my old MOBO it was not stable lower than 1.4875v.

Well, I'm just glad to be able to lower my voltage... I always have to be turning on my Air Conditioner due to the heat generated from having the voltage so high... argh !!

Hopefully, my room won't heat up as much as before :)
 

Denithor

Diamond Member
Apr 11, 2004
6,300
23
81
Yep, I was pretty amazed by the performance of the e6400 on my IP35-E. I thought it was a mediocre chip (only hit 2.8GHz max with pumped volts on the earlier mobo) but it turns out I had a crappy motherboard holding it back.

Now I have to see what I can do with my new parts: e8400/IP35 Pro/2x2GB DDR2-800. Just need time to build and OC.