Speedstep, use when OCing or not?

[Rifter]

Hey guys, trying to push my 930 as far as i can now that my ambient temps are down and its been a few weeks and had a chance to burn in. Should i disable speedstep, will it make a difference at all if i do or dont?? i have it on right now.

Current OC is 195x21 for 4095Mhz, 1.3V in bios reads 1.288v under load in CPUz.

Ram clocked @ 1560 9-9-9-24 @ 1.65v

ran prime95 overnight on that OC, hit 71c max temp. Idles around 35c.

So far pretty much all bios settings are auto except the mem divider is lowered, CPU voltage set static 1.3V, Uncore 1.2v, CPU PLL 1.8v. Have now disabled turbo. HT still enabled, want to keep HT and see how high i can push it. QPI is as low as possible, which is 3510Mhz.

Any other suggestions?

what FSB(called Bclock now?) can i hit? whats good for air cooling? seems like im already pushing it pretty far, and if i go much further ill have to drop another memory divider to keep mem speed down, and my ram will be running closer to 1333 than 1600, will that even matter?

Thanks guys.

 

[MJinZ]

Expect 45-50C idles with it off.

It doesn't make a difference.

It depends on your chip.

Go experiment.

 

[Rifter]

Expect 45-50C idles with it off.

It doesn't make a difference.

It depends on your chip.

Go experiment.

Thanks! yeah the plan is to experiment. I figured it would kill my idle temps if i turned it off.

 

[Rifter]

Seems to be a wall at 4.2Ghz, do you other i7 overclockers hit this wall? is that why so many i7 OC's tend to be in the 4-4.2Ghz range?

Ive had a few crashes now, all within a few min of starting prime. Trying for 200x21 for 4200Mhz.

I think ive got it under control now but ive had to push the CPU voltage up to 1.35v(1.336v in CPUz), and the uncore up to 1.325v, ram running at its rated 1600 1.65v. Been running prime95 for 15 min now, hitting 78c.

Going to go fire up the lappy and let this thing stress for a few hours and keep an eye on the temps.


EDIT:

to stay ontopic i have disable speedstep now, and my idles were 46c before i started prime.

 

[Rifter]

I know everyone like pictures so screenshot at 4200Mhz after 1 hour of prime95

http://a.imageshack.us/img842/2695/4200mhz.jpg

 

[SilentAssassin]

What was your idle voltage with speedstep enabled? I'm working on getting my i7 930 stable at 4.2ghz as well and with speedstep enabled my multi drops to x12 but the vcore doesn't change? With my core 2 duo system the vcore drops quite a bit to save power, does the i7 not lower voltage and only drop the multi?

 

[Rifter]

I noticed when i was playing with it that the voltage will only drop if it is set to auto, as soon as i specified the voltage manually it stopped dropping it when speedstep kicked in. Other motherboards may be different but thats what mine did.

My idles were around 10c lower with speedstep enabled.

Been almost 8 hours now, prime95 still running away and even with the afternoon heat it hasnt gone over 84c. Ambient's up to around 25-30c now in my computer room so 84c aint that bad, normally around 75-80 just random spikes up to 84c. Im willing to say its probably stable at 4.2Ghz but im going to run prime overnight just to make sure.

 

[SilentAssassin]

hmmm I wonder if I should just dissable speedstep or not then. It will lower my idle temps but that's it. So far my 4.2ghz overclock likes lower vcore but it's pretty demanding on the qpi voltage. I'm only at 1.239v vcore under load but it won't even boot into windows with anything under 1.37v for the qpi.

 

[Rifter]

Thats amazing, my CPU would not boot windows above 3.6Ghz till the CPU voltage was above 1.3V(1.288 in CPUz)

Seems my QPI is in the same range as yours, needs 1.325v to get to 4.2Ghz.

I found i had to disable speedstep to get stable at 4.2Ghz, kept getting blue screens with it enabled within a few min of prime till i disabled it. I dont really like the high idle temps but what can ya do, its the price you gotta pay for the performance i guess, im amazed HT is still working.

 

[SilentAssassin]

Thanks for the info. If I keep getting blue screens even after raising the vcore I'll try dissabling speedstep. I'm at 1.247vcore(CPUz) currently. Did you turn off c-states too?

 

[Rifter]

Thanks for the info. If I keep getting blue screens even after raising the vcore I'll try dissabling speedstep. I'm at 1.247vcore(CPUz) currently. Did you turn off c-states too?

no the C-states are still enabled, i would also try some more CPU voltage if i was you as mine seems happy at 1.35V(1.336V in CPUz) so you have some room to bump voltage. What cooler are you running? whats your load temps like?

 

[SilentAssassin]

Same cooler as you but my temps are already getting high with this voltage. I'm hitting 79-80c on the hottest core with prime95 going. So you only dissabled the eist setting in the bios then? I believe that's the one for speedstep correct?

 

[Rifter]

i diabled the speedstep setting, it has its own. When i did that it automatically disabled eist which also had its own setting in a different section of the bios.

If you haven't already and arnt scared of sandpaper lapping the heatsink and CPU might get you 5c better load temps.

I lapped them before first installation so i dont know what my temps were unlapped on this exact CPU but from past experience lapping i usually see a 3-7c diff in load temps. Something to think about if you want to squeeze every last Mhz out of the CPU but dont want to go completely all out with water

 

[SilentAssassin]

Ah ok. I don't have a specific speedstep setting for my motherboard but there is an option to dissable eist. I'm starting over on all voltages now. I don't need 1.38v on the qpi. I lowered the multi and kept everything else the same and I was able to boot into windows with only 1.25v qpi but it wasn't stable. So I'm going to find the stable qpi before I go back to adjusting the vcore. It should be something closer to 1.3v instead of the 1.38 I was using. I think you are right though I need to up my vcore closer to the area you are in.

Not sure if I want to enable my motherboards vdroop options or not. Might be better to have the voltages closer if the vcore won't be lowered using speedstep anyways. Some say to leave vdroop and other say don't ><

 

[Rifter]

yeah i dont know about the vdroop, i think i have some xtream phase setting or something which might be that in my asus bios ill have to look into it.

Im still getting used to the intel bios's as ive only been overclocking with AMD for the last 3 generations.

Honestly the intel bios scares me a bit lol

 

[SilentAssassin]

It scares me too lol. I've worked with some intel systems for my friends but for my own system... My old computer that I just upgraded from was an AMD Athlon XP... It's like night and day going to this. I'm not used to things instantly loading like this haha. I'm using the MSI Big Bang Xpower motherboard it's really nice so far. Can't wait to use this thing at 4.2ghz I must get it stable!!!

 

[Rifter]

thats the spirit, im still running prime95 to make sure its stable, almost 10 hours now non stop. Its amazing how you can run prime95 and still use the comp for other things, i got music playing and it never skips and i even played mass effect 2 for a while with prime95 still running and it was only a little choppy lol. I remember back in the single core days when stress testing the comp was pretty useless for other tasks.

 

[Rifter]

Overnight and all day today running prime95 and no errors or crashes, didnt get as hot today only hit 80c during the hot part of the day.

So shes stable at 4.2Ghz, now to decide if i should push for more or not.

 

[SilentAssassin]

Nice results. I don't think you need to go any higher. I'm at 4ghz @ 1.256v(CPUz) right now and was able to pass 1 hour of occt and linx. I don't think I can push it any higher with my temps without dissabling hyperthreading. I don't think I should be hitting 81c with only 1.256vcore though? Seems high for the noctua nh-d14 even without lapping. Maybe I need to reseat it?

 

[Rifter]

i know i dont "need" to lol but i sure want to, i dont think i can push much higher Vcore though without a water setup.

 

[VirtualLarry]

So shes stable at 4.2Ghz, now to decide if i should push for more or not.

My gosh man. You've gotten 4.2 Ghz out of her, and you want MORE?

 

[Rifter]

My gosh man. You've gotten 4.2 Ghz out of her, and you want MORE?

lol i know, first it was 3.3Ghz at 1.2v and i was happy. Then 3.8Ghz at 1.3V still with turbo. Then i disabled turbo and started reading up on intel BIOS setting which still confuse the hell out of me and went for 4+ and now im at 4.2

Guess i should stop before my less than 1 month old $300 CPU goes up in smoke, i do plan on keeping it for the long haul, 3+ years.

 

[aigomorla]

I know everyone like pictures so screenshot at 4200Mhz after 1 hour of prime95

http://a.imageshack.us/img842/2695/4200mhz.jpg

cuz in debugging / helping out / describing on the interweb, there is no better way to express it.

I cant tell people enough that in art, they say a painting shows 1000 words, but in you asking for help, a picture can speak tell 10,000 without u saying a single word.

 

[SilentAssassin]

LOL! soooooooooooo.... Suddenly after a full night of prime95 stable I get a blue screen out of nowhere today and then windows won't even boot anymore. So I try to up the vcore to 1.3v and still can't boot into windows. So I thought of this post and dissabled speedstep... GUESS WHAT??? Loaded into windows right away. Then I thought maybe I was stable a long time ago and those bluescreens were from speedstep. So I started over again on my overclock for the 3rd time now haha. I'm starting with a low 1.2v with low vdroop in bios which gives me an actual 1.19v full load. And what do you know... I booted into windows at that low of voltage at 4Ghz and occt has already been going for 10 minutes with no error or blue screen. This is getting fun and interesting lol. I wonder what my actual stable settings will end up being.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm starting with a low 1.2v with low vdroop in bios which gives me an actual 1.99v full load. And what do you know... I booted into windows at that low of voltage at 4Ghz and occt has already been going for 10 minutes with no error or blue screen.

You better pray that it's not actually at 1.99volts. What are the temps like?