Overclocking i7 920/gigabyte ex58ud3r/dominator ram overclocking help

Hi, been running the intel stock hsf since i upgraded to i7 around may of this year, and temps were pretty high, i didn't even attempt any overclocking, but yesterday i got the titan fenrir (seemed to be very highly rated in custompc magazine, and was cheap, so i got it )

Anyway, i'm looking to overclock now i have adequate cooling to do so, and i am looking for some help (possibly settings that i can just copy , im looking to get it to around 3.40-3.8 ghz, if possible)

Anyway here are my specs:

Intel core i7 920
Corsair Dominator Ram (6gbs)
Gigabyte EX58 UD3R

So any chance of u lot telling me what i need to change to OC this (i am a total overclocking beginner btw lol)

Cheers

 

http://hothardware.com/Articles/Intel-Core-i7-Overclocking--A-HotHardware-HowTo/

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=170689

 

What speed ram?
DO stepping chip?
No matter what you have right now you could bump up to 3.2ghz by just changing the Bclk to 160.
I was running 3.8 24/7 but found it to be just overkill so knocked it back to 3.2

 

Hi thanks for the sites will be sure to look at them both

I changed the bclk to what you said for 3.2, and it worked ok, but my temps seem really high when at full load (80-81 degrees c) is that normal or no? lol

My ram is the 1600mhz ominator ram

Here's a shot of my cpu-z i think it's C0 stepping :

 

Those are fairly high volts for stock... sure you didn't bump them? You should be easily able to run 3.2 on stock volts (which are 1.15v or thereabouts).

That could explain your overheating...

 

Hmm, nope haven't touched voltages at all, all i did was change the bclk to what i was told

 

Ok then, jump into the BIOS and set the volts to a nice happy 1.15 then. See what that does for your temps and stability.

 

heres what i have got. I have the same motherboard and same C0 stepping just different ram im running at 3.9ghz

Cpu Clock Ratio = 20
QPI Link = x36
BCLK = 195
Perfomance Enhance = Standard
Extreme Memory Profile = Disabled
System Memory Multiplier = 8.0
DRAM Timings = Auto

Load Line = Enabled
CPU Vcore = 1.375
DRAM Volt = 1.64

In advance CPU feature set turbo and HT = disabled

Also make sure leave everything else in default mode meaning auto

 

Ah right thanks alot will do now

Assuming that fixes my high temps (which i assume it will ) what would i need to change to up it to say...3.4?

cheers

 

i forgot to mention in Advance CPU features to DIsable C1E (its speedstep)

also in Uncore QPI Features set Uncore = x17

 

There are really two approaches you could take.
Firstly you could keep playing with the BCLK (upping by 5 or so each time), using Prime95 or LinPack or whatever you use for stability testing, if you lose stability then fiddle the voltages to try to regain stability.

Alternately you could see what voltages give you temps you are happy with, then fiddle with the BCLK from there, backing off if you lose stability.
As I don't know the speed of your RAM, I can't really recommend what to do with it. For now I would just back off the timings and multiplier so that it will not limit your CPU clocks. Then once you have found your max stable clocks at whatever voltage you feel comfortable, increase the RAM speeds and tighten the timings (I forget which has a greater effect on i7...) until you risk stability again.

@ flame696. One quick question, what CPU PLL voltage did you use? I find this has a big effect on stability and tend to have it at around 1.9v ish...

 

I have it at Auto which is 1.8 and its stable i have run prime95 for 6 hours and its fine

 

Hmm i have just had a bit of a hiccup, rebooted to try some of you guys suggestions, and it just looped for about 3 goes without actually anything showing on my screen, then the logo screen appears, then turns off again.

I did it a few times then just started mashing the Delete key so i can reset the bios, when i was in it said this pc had some boot failures because of overclocking D:

I loaded optimized defaults and it all booted fine but, scared me for a moment xD

I checked my cpu-z again and it says my voltage now is 1.040 v, i dont know how it got raised so high, i have never touched any voltage settings :S lol

 

thats weird try lowering the BCLK to 175 but keep everything the same it should work

 

K i tried with setting my BCLK to 160 again, but i set the voltage manually to 1.15 this time, temps are around 65 (not gone any higher) degrees c on full load with linx now, so... much better. Does this sound about right for a 3.2 overclock with a titan fenrir? I'm very impressed with how much of a difference going up to 3.2 has made too, it's knocked 11 seconds off my cinebench time :O

And i do 3d rendering wrok for uni so, rendering times matter

Now to try a little higher.... xD

 

thats sounds about right now you can try push the bclk up more and then start pushing the voltage up to get a big overclock

 

Is that all i need to change? the BCLK and the core voltage? i was under the impression it was much more complicated lol, i tried the settings you posted above btw, and they make me have the same "this compter has had boot failures blah blah " message :/

 

Try the voltage at 1.4 and see if that works if not reduce the memory multiplier to 6.0 and then try it

 

Ok i will try in a minute

Does diabling hyperthreading not hurt performance?

 

Only slighty if you doing tasks that need it if your gaming it doesn't make any difference