Issue 77 - Overclock i7-920

[Kanga]

Hi everybody

This is my first post here, l'm not very savvy about over clocking but have tried over clocking my Asus P6T, Core i7-920 and 6gb 1600 Ram using the Issue 77 feature. Having used the settings my system is totally unstable and blue screens nearly straight away. Is there anywhere l can access with different settings to try to overclock but with slower settings i.e 3.2ghz or 3.5ghz.

Any advice would be most appreciated.

Kanga

[MaverickWill]

No settings will work for the same people. Rules of thumb with overclocking:

Have an aftermarket cooler on your CPU.
In the BIOS, enable Load Line Calibration, disable Turbo Mode and Spread Spectrum.
Make sure your RAM voltage is set correctly, as well as the timings.
Manually set the processor voltage to its stock voltage (different for each chip, use CPU-Z to identify the voltage used when left at Auto, and processor under full load).
Start increasing the speed in 10MHz increments on the baseclock (140, 150, 160, 170, 180, 190, 200).
Increase the voltage when the processor fails a Prime95 run. Ideally, you want to stay under 1.4V.
Set the RAM to the lowest divider, so it doesn't interfere with your overclock, then change it once you've got it stable.

It's possible your chip may not get a guaranteed 4GHz overclock, but it's always worth aiming high. My C0 i7-920 does 3.6GHz at stock voltages, but needs a real push to get to 4GHz.

[Kanga]

Thanks for that MaverickWill. Will have a go over the next couple of days to see what speed i can get stable and let you know.

[Cleggmeister]

Thought I'd chime in on this one too...

I took my i7-920 up to 3.8Ghz per the settings in the mag, all worked fine however I was hitting 85 degrees under full load. Dropped back to normal running for now.

What is a "safe" temperature to run at, assuming I want the processor and motherboard to last at least 3 years?

Many thanks,

Cleggy.

[MaverickWill]

Originally Posted by Cleggmeister

Thought I'd chime in on this one too...

I took my i7-920 up to 3.8Ghz per the settings in the mag, all worked fine however I was hitting 85 degrees under full load. Dropped back to normal running for now.

What is a "safe" temperature to run at, assuming I want the processor and motherboard to last at least 3 years?

Many thanks,

Cleggy.

Under 80 at full load, Prime stable, is normally good. What case/cooler you using?

EDIT: just read your sig. Silly me. You got the extra fans in the 300?

[flamin9_t00l]

Originally Posted by Cleggmeister

I took my i7-920 up to 3.8Ghz per the settings in the mag, all worked fine however I was hitting 85 degrees under full load. Dropped back to normal running for now.
Cleggy.

Hi Cleggy, I have the exact same motherboard and same stepping processor (D0). Try dropping the voltage from 1.275v to 1.25v. This is super stable on mine with acceptable temps (75c hottest core) under full load for hours. The processor used in the article was a C0/C1 stepping (shown in CPU-Z in the mag) which is known to need more volts than the D0. It was also stable at 1.225v during prime95 stress testing but I took it to 1.25v just to make sure it was rock solid stable. Hope this helps.

__________________

CPU: i7 920 @ 3.80GHz (HT) / Cooler: Titan Fenrir / MB: ASUS P6T SE / GPU: Sapph 4870X2 / Mem: 6GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 @ 1450MHz (9,9,9,24 2T) / HAF 932 / Xigmatek NRP 751 / alpha LCD / 24" iiyama / Win7 64bit

[erratum1]

The processor used in the article was a C0/C1 stepping (shown in CPU-Z in the mag) which is known to need more volts than the D0

That's the problem with overclocking, every chip is slightly different. Just cause custom-pc put 3.8ghz in great big print it doesn't mean that's what your chip is going to do.

And once you've settled on an overclock you need to run prime for about 8 hours to really know if it is stable, an overclock that's stable for a few hours doesn't count.

Their is nothing worse than having an unstable pc that keeps making errors.