Hardware Overclocking Intel's Core i7 920

I was initally very interested the real performance numbers for Nahalem.

Must say however I'm a little dissapointed, especially on gaming performance. It's certainly nothing to tempt me away from my current setup though, now what to do with my Christmas bonus...hmmmmm

 

It's good to finally hear about some improved performance since Core 2 and with Intel's manufacturing muscle it's about time. They will of course be able to charge a premium for it until AMD are able to step up to the mark.

AMD's will have to provide something substantial on both the graphics and cpu front's to save being relegated to simply being a budget brand.

 

If this were Dragon's Den.... "The whole platform is too expensive for me. Im out."

My Abit ip35 Pro motherboard gets my e6750 to 3.6Ghz on air, and was about £80 when I bought it. The 4GB memory pack was about £75 I think.

So to even contemplate spending over £230 on a motherboard and further crazy amounts on DDR3 memory plus the CPU is unthinkable right now.

 

Nice review! Throwing a 4Ghz Q6600 vs 4GHz Core i7 into that afformentioned value article would be great...

Interesting note regarding HPET. However MS stated HPET should be enabled for Vista regardless, and configured to match either 32/64 according to whichever varient of Vista is installed. Interesting ASUS changed the BIOS name for this, Gigabyte labels it by name.

 

Nice on the IP35(2-P5K Deluxes @ 3.51GHz w/a Q9300M1 and a QX6700B1(ES) each), But I'm more interested in the P6T Deluxe(so far), a 920 cpu, Patriot Viper DDR3 ram(in Blue) and a Thermalright LGA1366 Ultra 120 heatsink(in copper?), Other motherboards like from DFI or MSI or Foxconn(no Abit, drat) will be interesting to see and read about(Provided the blue smoke doesn't escape again).

 

Welcome!

I was referring to HPET because you can run with it off, but it's not on by default which is bad imo. It's just a reminder for those who don't know

I've got 1800 excel cells of "value" info currently calculated for another article, but a 4GHz Q6600 is unreasonable - 3.0-3.6 is more usual for this CPU, and I'll probably throw it on at 3.2-3.3 which is a "typical average" and compared that platform-performance cost.

 

There will be differences around the world but here the difference between 6GB of corsair (high end) 1600MHz and 6GB of valuekitt @ 1066 about £50-55. When you are buying that expensive memorys you might as well put in some extra. Its about 25% extra of the total price (for the value kitt)...

I don't think the real world performance gap will be big though, trippe channel @ 1066 will be enough. If not the memory is not you biggest problem

 

This is PORN.

'nuff said.

 

This is yet another Core i7 article we have planned

 

/ me wants!

*runs for a lottery ticket at the nearest shop

 

I thought these were limited in their OC ability. Could someone explain how this high of an OC was possible?

 

Misguided musings from Taiwanese manuf. and other journalists? (mostly the latter )

They took a while to get the BIOS' right because it's a new platform and normally journo's fear the worst

 

Wow that's expensive. £200 for a "low-end" mobo? You must be f**king kidding me.

i7 should sell in pitiful amounts until it becomes more affordable (i.e. P55 early next year).

 

When are they going to start to use DDR5 on motherboards? It works wonders for the 4870X2 graphics card!

I think only then will I upgrade as my Q9450 @ 3.5Ghx and DDR2 RAM @ PC9200 is plenty fast enough.

 

Some random shopping:

i7 platform:
6gb memory (triple) config:
Intel i7 920 | 281,59 euro
Asus P6T Deluxe | 263,50 euro
OCZ3G1600LV6GK DDR3 | 285,99 euro
Total: 831 euro

Core2 platform:
Asus Rampage formula | 315,26 euro
Intel core2 quad Q9550 | 294,90
Corsair Dominator TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF DDR2 8GB | 102,50 euro
Total: 712 euro

As you can see, the DDR3 prices need to drop big time or else you would be a thief of your own wallet to upgrade.

And did you know you can only shop for 3x2GB memory for triple channel max.
But you can shop 2x4GB for DDR2 for 1,5 the price of 3 strips of 2GB DDR3. Makes you wonder why the want us to use triple channel of DDR3. They must be desperate to sell their overstocked pile of DDR3.

Whats even more ridiculous is the fact that 3 small pcb's with a few layers called DDR3 is more expensive then a 8 layer 20 times bigger pcb full of hardware and stuff called i7.

The price of the motherboard are almost even if you take the topline of 775 motherboards as comparison.
Same goes for the processors. Considering the performance is almost the same.

 

"AMD retires to GFX chips only", larrabee > "AMD goes bust" .. chipzilla wins!

 

I think that GPU's are using different memory type. You see - DDR3 are currently 1600MHz+, while GDDR3 is now somewhere around 2100MHz(ie GeForce 260).

Or maybe I just misread something.

 

Well, for the "Value and Performance" Article.

Maybe it's an Idea to create overclocking categories:
Most people don't overclock at all.
Many who do look for a simple, stable performance boost (without much tinkering / stock cooling).
Enthusiasts will tinker and cool (to fight instability) and get faster.
And a select few go all the way to the max.

first would be stock.
second would be I7920@4Ghz Q6600@3Ghz*
third would be I7920@4.27Ghz Q6600@3.3-3.6Ghz
fourtht would be ...dunno (Nitrogen cooled?) ;-)

Thats what your overclocking guide was aiming at as the level "this is what every chip should reach on stock cooling", right?

Just some thoughts...

Xir

 

Good idea, the extreme methods (phase/nitro) are probably unnecessary but a good selection would be:

Stock- straight out of the box
Air 1- stock cooler
Air 2- aftermarket cooler
Water- pushed to the max

 

It is pretty much the same ram, gddr3 is rather similar to ddr3 if you look at the architecture, but, there are still big enough differences to make it incompatible.
Also the higher speeds on the gddr parts are mostly due to the fact that the ram is soldered on the pcb, it will only be paired up with a certain gpu, every latency setting is known ahead, so they can push it far closer to the limit than the normal ram as there they have to plan in security margins for the worse signal quality, big range of cpu's / chipsets, unknown amount of ram, unknown latencies.