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Sandy Bridge Extreme Overclocking Thread (X79, 3930K, 3960X)

mrjoltcola

mrjoltcola

Senior member
Time to start a thread concerning these chips / boards. I'd like to see the thread used for gathering statistical data, as well as to discuss overclocking. Newbies welcome, but please stay on topic, the thread is not for discussing the best value chip, or why the 2500K is a better deal, etc. There is also an SB-E Owner's thread here : http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2205664 for general discussion, builds, etc.

Please give me feedback and I'll edit this as needed.

Leaderboard in the first post, and overclocking guidelines in the second post as we accumulate.

We are just as interested in seeing low voltage stability as high overclocks. Personally I don't plan to go extreme with my 6-core chip, I have a 2600K for that. I plan to run mine 24/7 at around 1.35v, but to each his own, I am interested in seeing what sort of clocks people get at mild overvoltage.

Posting your results: Please post all relevant information, chip model, base clock (BCLK), multiplier, motherboard, VCore (BIOS setting and observed value with CPU-Z), Load Line Calibration level, your cooler, and the temps achieved during stress test. Most importantly, please validate your overclock with a minimum stress test before posting. I suggest 5 passes of LinX or 2 hours of Prime95. Read the forum sticky post stability testing guidelines here : http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2195063

This isn't a race; it is data gathering and overclocking discussion.

Results:

DooKey - 4800 Mhz (100*48) @ 1.392v - 3930K - ASUS P9X79 WS - Cooler Master Hyper 212+ EVO - BOINC 24x7
nanaki333 - 4680 Mhz @ ?? - 3930K - ASUS P9X79 PRO - Corsair H100
TheUnk - 4625 Mhz (125*37) @ 1.344v - 3930K - P9X79 Pro - Corsair H80
mrjoltcola - 4625 Mhz (125*37) @ 1.35v - 3930K - ASUS Rampage IV Extreme - Corsair H100 - 61C Prime95 16 hours
ExarKun333 - 4620 Mhz (132*35) @ 1.34v - 3930K - ASUS Sabertooth X79 0604 BIOS - NH-D14 SE2011 - Prime95 48 hours
Angpd - 4600 Mhz (100*46) @ 1.34v - 3930K - ASUS Rampage IV Formula - Koolance Waterblock - Linx AVX 4hrs
Diogenes2 - 4600 Mhz @ 1.35v - 3930K - ASUS P9X79 PRO - Cooler Master Hyper 212+
GrooveRiding - 4600 Mhz (100*46) @ 1.35v - 3930K - ASUS Rampage IV Extreme - NH-D14 - Prime95 30 minutes
The-Noid - 4500 Mhz (100*45) @ 1.33v - 3960X - Gigabyte Assassin G1 - H80 Corsair
AdamK47 - 4500 MHz (125*36) @ 1.375v - 3960X - ASUS P9X79 Deluxe - Corsair H80


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With my 3930K I settled on 4.60Ghz @ 1.350v for the first pass. I'm using an ASUS Rampage IV Extreme with Corsair H100 Cooler. I don't plan to punish this chip with long Prime95 runs, instead I will do 2 passes, then test with other stuff like Unigine Heaven, BOINC/Folding clients, a quick Intel Burn Test, etc.

Passed 24 hours of BOINC (Correlizer) crunching. Two passes of Prime95 and a few passes of IBT.

I'll update here when I try 48x and 50x.
 
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3930K Asus P9X79 PRO with Coolermaster 212+

I'm at 4.6g @ 1.35 volts also. Running Folding@Home at the moment for testing..
I don't have a lot of time for tweaking right now, but will work with going higher
later.
 
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Can people get this 3960 processor to 5Ghz ? Assuming they have adequate cooling or are running under water. gl
 
I can run my 3960X at 4.5GHz with 1.375V. This is with a Corsair H80.

I've been playing around with the Prolimatech Megahalems with this CPU. I found that the Socket 2011 mounting studs for the H80 work with the mounthing brackets for the Megahalems. So far the temps are 3 to 5 degrees cooler at load. The idle temps are about 5 degrees higher. It's the load temps that matter the most though.
 
Updated, thanks guys.

For what its worth, I'm going to try the ASUS Level-Up to see what it thinks I should run. Have you guys given it a shot?

EDIT: Scratch that. It only goes to 4.25Ghz.
EDIT2: Ack - the Load Extreme OC Profile (Low Current) on my ROG board wants to set VCore to 1.55V, and the (High Current) profile sets to 1.60V. Is there a new voltage range for these procs? I never dreamed of going over 1.5V, much less 1.55V / 1.6V ! Looks like the ranges are not the same as standard Sandy Bridge, or else ASUS doesn't mind seriously stressing my chip.
 
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haha I notice that each core is limited to 2.5mb cache. If you thinking about disabling any cores your benches are going to hurt as in the end you will have less cache than the 2500k
 
LiuKangBakinPie said:
haha I notice that each core is limited to 2.5mb cache. If you thinking about disabling any cores your benches are going to hurt as in the end you will have less cache than the 2500k
Click to expand...

No, the L3 cache is shared. I did a quick test by disabling 4 cores and leaving 2 enabled. CPUZ shows 15MB of L3 cache as does Prime95.

2core_3960X.png

2core_3960X-P95.png
 
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LiuKangBakinPie said:
haha I notice that each core is limited to 2.5mb cache. If you thinking about disabling any cores your benches are going to hurt as in the end you will have less cache than the 2500k
Click to expand...

Not sure where that came from, but it is incorrect, the L3 cache is shared across all cores.
 
ewwwww auto uses way to much vcore lol. You can do the same with less vcore 🙂.

Binning on SB is known as setting vcore to 1.55 and then booting with 50,51,52,53 etc on up as high as you can into windows. Some chips do 50x, some do 57x.

Just was curious what your chip was doing multi wise 🙂.

My buddy just bought 3 3960x's and i know for a fact one of his does 57x =D.
 
That isn't binning, that is just POST & boot. Binning a chip involves more than that, and isn't limited to 1.55v. The fact that a chip will boot windows means it will boot windows, but doesn't prove stability. Booting will use a small subset of the full instruction set, and doesn't stress the processor under a condition that proves stability. Intel's binning process involves test programs that are run at each voltage / speed.

Unless your chip passes several test suites, you can't consider it stable, regardless of booting.

I've tested a batch of Sandy Bridge chips and I found that each chip is unique, like a snowflake. Some chips will fail on instructions that cause OS crashes, whereas others will fail in ways that result in invalid test results, but never a crash. Some chips will run games for hours at high multis, but fail a single pass of SuperPi.

I haven't tried near 1.55v yet on my 3930K. With regular Sandy Bridge, 1.55v is considered high, and most overclockers here look for safe, long-term stability. Opinions vary as to what is safe voltage, but between 1.35 - 1.50 seems to be the range most are comfortable with.

My 3930K won't go stable yet at 48x up to 1.425v, so I've decided to look at other settings before going higher. Most all regular Sandy's I have will go 48x at < 1.4v so I'm not convinced that the VCore is the culprit yet. This board is a new ballgame. Plus, I'm running 32GB RAM in 8 slots, so its new ground for me in overclocking.
 
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fastamdman said:
ewwwww auto uses way to much vcore lol. You can do the same with less vcore 🙂.

Binning on SB is known as setting vcore to 1.55 and then booting with 50,51,52,53 etc on up as high as you can into windows. Some chips do 50x, some do 57x.

Just was curious what your chip was doing multi wise 🙂.

My buddy just bought 3 3960x's and i know for a fact one of his does 57x =D.
Click to expand...

That is NOT called binning a chip.
 
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