Hardware Asus P6TD Deluxe and Core i7 Overclocking

Asus challenged us to test the fact that its P6TD Deluxe can overclock a Core i7-920 D0 to 4GHz - and run it overclocked, all day, everyday. We put its claims to the test, and show you BIOS settings so you can get the same results at home.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2009/12/17/asus-p6td-deluxe-and-core-i7-overclocking/1

 

LoL, I can give you a "Cherrypicked" i7 that won't even go above 3.2ghz.

Srsly, Asus saying that is just plain idiocy. You can't get EVERY i7 up to 4ghz.
If they would send me a board with that claim, I'd ask for a new one untill they actually gave me a processor to go with it for the same price. Hey, it's their claim

 

Yikes! Corporations lie?? The horror...

 

"Lie" is a misinterpretation. Please read the conclusion.

 

I have had stable 4+ghz on that board however after having it die on me and then getting two DOA that were brand new I gave up on it as a bad idea...

 

1.3825V for 4Ghz on 920 D0??

i thought people were claiming 920 D0 were easier to overclock. seems like those are false claims. my 860 does 4Ghz at 1.3v, 3.8Ghz at 1.23v.


although i must say, the Corsair H50 isn't that good. at first it's temperature are amazing, but after you load the CPU for 2 hours, you'd see the temperature slowly going up. my 4Ghz has load temperature of 75c initially, but it slowly goes up and tops after 2 hours at 85c. i expect it's because the fans are not powerful enough to remove the heat or the radiator is not big enough.

however, despite it going over 80c when using Linx (Lin pack algorithm by Intel) i've never had over 60c in every day uses. i know because i've got Everest logging temperature into CSV.

 

No that's what I started with. Just nailed the voltage like usual and went "ooops too high"

 

surely you should start low and creep higher instead of the other way round?

 

Effect of time - trying to nail something that will definitely do the job within the time I have available. In an ideal world, yes, we'd take the long winded iterative approach.

 

The HD50s cooling ability is VERY much dependant on what case it is put in.

For example I originally had it a Jeantech Phong which had the normal push pull confirguratiion. Thanks to the H50s intake requirement I simply had to change cases. Now my system is housed with a Fractal Design R2 (which has two 120mm intakes, 2 x 120mm exhausts and the H50 acting as an intake) my temps have dropped considerably.

Of course the i7 CPUs put out so much heat (especially once overclocked) that temperates will still be high (relatively speaking) even with a high end water cooling setup. The H50 is better than most high end air coolers (especially when you have higher than average ambient temperatures) but it can't perform miracles.

 

tbh i rarely take the long winded approach myself, if you know the chip and the board you can usually get around about the right voltage and tweak downwards. nothing will explode, trust me.

 

I've currently got my P6TD Deluxe and 920 D0 at 4GHz on water with:

* vCore: 1.225V
* CPU Uncore: Auto
* DIMM: Auto
* PLL: Auto
* IOH: Auto
* ICH: Auto
* CPU Clock Amplitude: Auto
* Base Clock: 191MHz
* CPU Multiplier: 21x
* Memory Clock: 1,904MHz (6GB G.Skill Trident PC3-16000C9)
* Loadline Calibration: Enabled
* Memory Timings: Auto

Speedstep and Spread Spectrum options disabled. HT enabled.

Max temp after 6 hours Prime95 = 55ºC (ambient 20ºC).

I bought this board after reading the CPC review, well pleased with it. I've only been playing with it for a few days and I'm expecting to get a fair bit higher than that when I've figured out what everything does. I'm starting low and creeping higher.

I think I've been lucky getting a decent 920.

 

I think thats the main part of it. At home i have my 920 at 4ghz on a 1.3v vcore, whereas the 920 i have at work needs 1.35v to hit 3.6ghz (I wont take it any further as i dont wanna have to pay for it if it melts).

both are D0 steppings btw, but i guess i just got lucky with mine having a lower VID to start with.

 

Mine doesn't show a VID in Core Temp or Real Temp but CPUZ was showing 1.084v when everything was set to Auto at stock speeds.

 

every i7 does 4ghz

i have overclocked enough of them to know -
its especially funny when Asus ask me for overclock settings to their boards

this is not news
a £90 gigabyte ud3r can do 4ghz

 

I can't quote what Asus did say, but from my understaning they only said the board could do 4GHz stable, not "every i7".

 

My Gigabyte GA-EX58-UDR3 does 4.0 GHz stable all day no problem, and while I don't know if it will go for years and years this way, it's been a few months with no signs of trouble (unless I tweaked things). Turn off hyper threading and turbo mode, and be sure to keep on the power management settings so it doesn't run at full speed the whole time. I rarely go far past 70 degrees, and although it might not survive a week-long torture test, nobody runs their CPU that fast, that hot, for such a long period of time. Good luck getting a Core i7 to 100% capacity during regular use, for longer than a few seconds at once, anyway. If it runs stable with all programs and all regular activity, frankly I don't care too much if Prime95 crashes it after a few days.

 

If it doesn't run at 4ghz 24/7 what's the point in overclocking?

It's fast enough for general gaming at stock speeds. ( run mine at 3.4ghz for gaming- never seen an fps issue ever full HD resolution to HDTV ) ( 3.4 ghz is a tiny overclock I know but it does the job)

Only reason I overclock is to run programs that require 24/7 stability that actually benifit hugely

The v core is quiet high for what it is.

 

I read with interest your latest review of the Asus P6TD Deluxe. You mention in the review that the board now features a 'True 16+2-phase design when in fact or three versions of the board feature the 'True 16+2-phase design. As can be seen on Asus own website link: http://www.asus.com/compare.aspx

What was also interesting was the original Asus P6T Deluxe was faster than the V2 & P6TD with an overall media benchmarks score of 2,294 verses the V2, 2,170 & P6TD 2,236 of which you would expect the latest update of the board would have the best performance improvement? In the article you benchmarked the P6TD at 4.2GHz, a 21x multiplier & a 205MHz QPI. Should that not have given you a CPU speed of just over 4.3GHz? Where's the Turbo Key, which provide one-button overclocking which is also mentioned in the article?

 

I can't believe you used an engineering sample of the i7 920 D0.

Maybe you should try this again with a proper i7 920 D0?