New to overclocking external article question

[subzero1011]

Recently upgraded to a D0 Core i7 920 chip and I am looking to overclock it. (Hopefully from 2.6 to 3.6 for a bit of a boost). Have been reading the overclocking guides and forum posts here on Anand and am getting a basic understanding of how to go about doing it. (There are no 920 direct guides but I've been able to gain insight from the others)

Looking for additional info I came across this article: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2335839,00.asp (linked to the relevant information)

They have the same mobo I am using (ASUS P6T Deluxe) so I was interested in their experiences. The part that jumps out at me is using the auto voltage settings on the motherboard they are able to get a stable OC of 3.8 and then a bit later in the article they state all the voltages are running at default?!

My question is how is this possible? Can anyone explain how they managed to get a stable 3.8 OC on a 920 using stock voltages?

 

[alyarb]

3.8 ghz @ stock voltage is par for the course with D0 i7. by the end of the 90 nanometer timeframe (3-4ish years ago) it became increasingly more common to see larger and larger overclocks without higher voltages as gates became smaller the insulator became "better" (better for us, not leakage current). HKMG is obviously best but SOI has had some great payoffs (I personally didn't think it would make it to 45nm) as well. in fact, most intel chips can still get a 800+ MHz overclock with a .2 volt reduction from "stock."

you need to realize when people say "stock voltage" they do not mean "auto" voltage. "auto" in the BIOS means you are giving the board liberty to decide what the voltage should be, and usually its wrong. Sometimes the voltages spike up to something you really don't want, but usually you just have a less efficient machine. After you're satisfied with your OC, you should test all of your voltages and use the configuration that allows for you to keep the lowest vcore with stability. do not leave any voltages set to "auto" in the BIOS. a lot of D0s can do 4 GHz with 1.2v which you can consider to be slightly less than "stock."

 

[subzero1011]

Thanks Aly I think I misread the article. By stock voltages I was thinking they were referring to the voltages the processor runs out of the box (clocked at 2.6 ghz) by stock voltages they are referring to anything within the range of .65 - 1.3 as specified by Intel's processor specification.

Is this a correct assumption? I wish in that article they had posted the voltages from CPU-Z would have made things a bit clearer

 

[Markfw]

Well, I for one can't even get 3.8, and the 3.7 I have is not at stock. But maybe its because I have HT on, and run 100% load 24/7. I run 1.3 vcore.

 

[alyarb]

you have an assortment of good and bad OCs in your sig. the more you do it, the more you expect, and the worse your luck gets. the best D0s probably wind up in mac pros or in some kid's HP.