overclocking i7 950 plz help

[crazy.wingman]

Hi ppl need help in overclocking my i7 950

my config is:
i7 950
Cooler Master N620 Cpu cooler
Asus P6X58D-E
Corsiar dominator 3X2GB DDR3 PC3-12800(1600MHz) CMP6GX3M3A1600C8
Corsiar TX750 psu
WD Green 1TB

i want an decent overclock abt 3.8 with HT enabled, plz help i am new to overclocking n noob in all these
voltage n multiplier tweaking

 

[Rifter]

set the QPI and Vcore manually not auto(i would start at the 1.25v range for both). Adjust the ram divider down to take the ram out of the equation and then keep upping the Bclock 10-20 at a time till you run into instability, then up the QPI and Vcore till its stable.

I have the same mobo so feel free to ask any bios questions you run into and i will help if i can. It's a great board, runs my 930@4.2Ghz just fine.

 

[crazy.wingman]

thanx alot buddy
can you plz tell me the exact bios multiplier n voltage settings ?, i am doing these all for the first time
also want know why my 1600mhz ram not running at 1600mhz ?
what shud be the ambient an full load temperature for both mobo n cpu ?

waiting for reply

thanks

 

[Rifter]

im at work, when i get home ill take a picture of my bios and show you, it will be alot easier than trying to explain this in words if you have never done it before.

Your ram is not running at 1600 because intel does not support 1600 as a stock memory speed. You need to put up the memory divider to get to 1600. which you are NOT going to want to do till you finish the overclock on the CPU, get the CPU stable where you want it before starting on the RAM.

 

[Rifter]

also read this, it will help you understand the meanings of all the things you will be adjusting in the bios.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i7-920-overclocking.html

 

[crazy.wingman]

thanks buddy

can i set the ram to 1600 mHz without overclocking the cpu ?
as i have brought it now, is it really gonna usefull for me if i don't overclock the cpu ?
n yep waiting for your BIOS pic for refference

 

[crazy.wingman]

I am bit more corcern coz, i do this editing n 3D rendering work all the time so i don't wanna blow up my system or else no work ?

 

[Rifter]

well the pics will have to wait till friday, girlfriend has the camera and is away till the end of the week.

Dont worry about blowing up your computer, as long as you dont do anything crazy like try and run 1.45v or higher Vcore your CPU will be fine. My heavily overclocked system is as stable as a rock, can run prime 95/linx/OCCT/whatever test for 48 hours plus and not crash so its very possible to have a high overclock and a stable system. And the overclock you are going for is not even that high.

Im going to try and walk you through this using the manual, do you have the motherboard manual with you? if not download it from the Asus website. i will use it to show you where you need to make the bios changes.

Also is your ram 1.5V or 1.65V? if its 1.65V you will have to manually change the voltage on it as well as the Vcore and QPI.

When you reply letting me know you have the manual i will post some changes to get you started.

 

[crazy.wingman]

thanks again

i have the manual n my ram runs at 1.65v.

 

[crazy.wingman]

need help

 

[Rifter]

sorry, totally forgot about this thread.

Go to page 3 - 12

This shows the Ai Tweaker bios options, most of the setting you need to work with are in this section of the Bios.

You are going to want to change the First setting (Ai Overclock Tuner) to Manual, this will let you select the options you want to change manually which is what you want to do.


This next section is explained on page 3 - 13, 3 - 14


You will now be able to change the BCLK setting, you will use this setting to change the speed of the CPU. I would probably start with 150 and go from there for a mild overclock.

I would disable Turbo if overclocking.

Set PCIe Frequency to 100, you dont want to overclock this.

DRAM Frequency allows you to set the memory speed, this is based off the memory multiplier and the BCLK you are running. It will display the differnt speeds in Mhz so you can always make sure your Ram is clocked slower or even with its rated speed. Dont worry about overclocking the memory it gives very little performance boost, keep this setting low for now while you test the CPU if overclocking.

The bottom of the Ai Tweaker section has the voltage options, these are on page 3 - 16

You want to change CPU voltage control to manual.

Then set the CPU voltage to whatever you want or need for stability. I would start with it at 1.25v and go from there. You can test stability and then lower or raise this till its at the lowest amount possible while remaining stable at the speed you are running the CPU.

Also set the QPI Voltage to whatever you need, starting with it at 1.2v or 1.25v would probably be fine. Again you want this as low as possible to remain stable.

Then change the DRAM Bus Voltage to 1.65v, as i believe thats what you said your ram voltage was. This will probably display in red after because it is over the 1.5v DDR3 specs by more than 10%. dont worry about it it's fine at 1.65v as that's what your ram is rated for.


Any questions just ask or PM me.

 

[Baasha]

I have an i7 950 as well and just started OC'ing last week!

I am now at 4.2GHz @ 1.28V (V-Core) with HT, SpeedStep, and LLC enabled and it's stable! I ran OCCT for 1 hour without any errors. More importantly, I played BF: BC2 Vietnam for 2.5 hours with complete stability!

To start OC'ing, just read this guide: http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/overclocking/22106-core-i7-overclocking-guide-beginners.html

It is so straightforward and keeps it really simple to OC up to 4.0GHz. Beyond that is where it gets tricky but for air-cooling, like I have, I wouldn't push it much more anyway.

Clunk's guide is for keeping HT on so it is perfect. I am not sure why most people say we have to turn OFF SpeedStep, Turbo, C1E, and other C-States to OC. If someone could explain that it would be great. I mean, does it improve stability? I tried to OC to 4.23GHz (raised BCLK from 200 to 202) and Prime95, LinX, and OCCT ended up with a BSOD. I presume it was something to do with the Voltages, specifically, the CPU Voltage and QPI/DRAM voltage right?

OP, I also ran MemTest86+ for 2 passes and it went smoothly with no errors. I also ran HyperPi (calculates Pi using several cores for multi-core processors) 32M and it passed perfectly as well @ my current OC settings.

You have to be very careful beyond 4.0GHz I think and that is why Clunk's guide is only up to 4.0GHz. Beyond that, you might have to tweak other settings, RAM timings etc. etc. and it could become much harder to pinpoint the exact cause of instability in case of BSODs.

So, since you only want 3.8GHz, just follow Clunk's guide and test for stability with OCCT. It's a 1 hour test and it is really good. Much better than running Prime95 for hours on end; at least, that's what I've read. And, there is no stability test like running the programs and games you use and play. If your system is unstable during work and/or gaming, your system is unstable. Don't be fooled by the hypothetical "stability test" madness that is out there. Many will say your system is unstable unless you can run Prime95 for 24 hours with no errors or LinX or Intel Burn Test for 20 runs at high calculations etc. etc. The bottom line is, you need to be able to run your programs smoothly and use your computer. If you can't do that, turn the OC down a notch or two and rerun them. Just to give you peace of mind, run Prime95 for an hour (Blend) and OCCT.

Here is a pic of my OC:

 

[crazy.wingman]

thanks guys, ready to overclock now.

3.8Ghz or even 3.6 will be ok for me with HT n turbo on for my multi n single threaded rendering.

mostly i do rendering so my rendering will be few sec's faster
"happy happy"

will ask some more queries if i get wrong. thanks again guys