Another i7 920 overclocking help thread

[Aaron95]

i7 920, 1.35v in BIOS, or 1.301 in CPU-Z idle, 1.277 load.
is 90 degrees in OCCT stress test normal at 3.72Ghz? thats cutting the test off quickly too..
Intel burn test gets it to 94 in seconds, and the way the test works I usually notice the temps jumping up about a minute into the test, but with this OC I didnt wanna leave it going that hot.

I know there are a lot of threads about overclocking the 920 but my temps seem to be too high, and Im getting lower clocks out of the same voltage.
My cooler is a freezer 13 pro.
Motherboard Intel DX58SO.
Ive seen people having problems overclocking on that board as well.. is that my problem?
Also when someone or a guide says they get whatever speed at whatever voltage, does that mean the BIOS voltage option, or what CPU-Z reports because they are fairly different on mine..

Oh yeah QPI bus thing is weird, requires 1.425v, any less is not stable, same with CPU voltage I cant go any lower with that, but it seems like I've hit a bit of a brick wall.. I can push the CPU a little further but not without huge voltage increases.

QPI data rate is at 4.5 (i think, whatever the lowest option is) and runs stable, but increasing it one level to 5.something still runs perfectly stable, on a soft boot. If I turn the computer off it doesnt start, until I switch the PSU off and back on then the failsafe wathcdog kicks in and I can change the setting back.. how does that work??

and finally, RAM is Kingston HyperX T1 Black, and running at 1860Mhz at 10-10-10-27 (XMP - 9-9-9-27 @ 1600) which seems nice to me, but its doing it at 1.66v which is.. well great but changing the voltage doesnt do a thing, i still cant increase the Base Clock at all without RAM giving out even on 1.74v, what else effects RAM max speed?

So yeah any ideas as to why things are so hot, and why I cant push things any further? (not that I will at these temps but it just seems a bit odd..)

I tried IOH voltage, does absolutely nothing?

Thanks

 

[brandonwh64]

For some of the best X58 OCing advice please refer to this thread

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108526

One issue I see that you have is the cooler. The I7-920's ran semi hot at 4Ghz and I had the freezer 7 pro on a I7-920 and it was SO BAD! I would get high 80's almost on stock clocks. I reset and tried different pastes which nothing helped. I would look into upgrading the cooler.

 

[micropage7]

yep cooler, airflow and how good contact
and higher voltage may give you higher temp too

 

[Aaron95]

Well, I think I found the problem...

So as I said the QPI rate was causing problems except at lowest speed, well it must be just on edge there coos its still causing problems, just not enough for the watchdog to detect and reset OC values.

Anyway, turn computer on, and it wont turn on. Turn PSU off and back on after all power is drained, then it will work. If ANYONE can explain this??...

OCCT was reporting this weird temperatue, it called it CPU but the cores were always well below that value so meh, must be a bad sensor you know.. sometimes it filled 8 bit reading which is why I thought that in the first place.. (127 degrees).

Yeah cant be right..

Playing with OC just then and I notice the temp changes..

Maybe its something else..

*Touches Chipset Heat sink*

...yep.



So this QPI data rate, corresponding directly to Base clock, is effecting OC. I cant increase the IOH voltage or I burn the **** outta my chipset, at least it doesn't seem to need it but then what setting does allow for a higher QPI rate? CPU voltage dont help, neither does QPI voltage, or is this just the limits of DX58SO + 920?

I'm sure I saw people have had better overclocks than this? And as for the cooler I thought the 13 pro was a great cooler.. oh well

 

[Hood]

That cooler has a known problem with the plastic retainer cracking/breaking, causing a loose fit and high temps. The best budget solution is the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo ($35), a 120mm or 240mm liquid cooler would be better ($50-$100).

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

My 920 is running low to mid 60's average @ 3.5 ghz under load while crunching. I am using a Hyper 212+ with push/pull config.

 

[hat]

Okay, I think I can help you here.

First off your temps are not abnormal at all. First gen i7s are HOT HOT HOT. I had a lapped i7 920 at one point, paired with a a lapped corsair h70. It took 1.3v to get to 4GHz (with HT off) and even so (ditching HT reduces temps a lot) I ran at above 80c crunching. If you want to reach high clocks with an i7, you're going to need a lot more than that Freezer 13 (though it doesn't look like a bad cooler by any means, it's just not enough for these white-hot chips).

A number of things to consider:

I think the IOH voltage is the voltage of the Northbrige. That should probably be left alone, even with my sky-high clocking adventures I never needed to change it.

Your QPI bus voltage I think is much like the FSB voltage of the old days... the voltage the QPI bus runs on. I read somewhere that this bus speed tops out at around 4000, no matter what board, chip, voltage, or cooling you have. That's it.

Your memory is intertwined with your "Uncore" speed (displayed in cpu-z memory tab). This is the speed your memory controller runs at. As you increase BCLK, you increase your memory speed, and the speed of the memory controller. Uncore should be at least 2x your RAM frequency, but there's a problem... Uncore, like the QPI bus, can only go so fast, no matter what you do. This means your memory can only go so fast, limited by the uncore. At the same time, uncore cannot be faster than your QPI bus. So, for three reasons, 1. uncore must be 2x ram speed and 2. uncore cannot be faster than QPI bus and 3. uncore can only go so fast, you are limited to around 1600MHZ RAM.

Considering all these things, these are the settings I ran at:

BCLK 200
CPU Multi x19
CPU core speed 3.8GHz, HT on, 1.2v vcore (IIRC it was 1.2v vcore anyways)
RAM 1600MHz
Uncore 3200MHz
QPI Bus 3600MHz

I changed no voltages this entire time other than CPU vcore. 200BCLK is the sweet spot I believe, it allows you to run uncore, QPI and RAM in perfect harmony (there are certian ratios they're supposed to be at as I mentioned earlier), and you can just adjust the CPU multi to run at whatever clock you're looking for.

For you, considering your cooling, I would recommend using the x18 multiplier and not the x19 or even x20 multiplier. This will land you squarely at 3.6GHz, which is still quite a respectable speed, but not too wild to handle with a cooler like your Freezer 13. I think 3.6GHz should only take around 1.15v to run, or at least that's what my testing on my system showed. So you'll be running 200BCLK, 1600MHz RAM, 3200 Uncore and 3600 QPI. If you can stabilize this, you can try running the x19 multiplier to reach 3.8GHz, which should require 1.2v vcore... but I think you'll be too hot to comfortably run there. If you want to reach higher speeds you'll have to get better cooling, but ask yourself, is buying a ~$100 cooler worth 200 or 400MHz?

 

[Aaron95]

Thanks hat. Just updated BIOS as i have seen it supposedly helps, im not sure if its that or just that my chipset isnt running at 100+ temps but the CPU does seem to be down

I tried the 200 BCLK, even with RAM and CPU incredibly slow (no way are these the culprit), the PC will crash, and I still have the startup problems. It has to be the QPI data rate, because of the 200 BCLK it was running at 7.205 speed (4.5 selected, so at 133 BCLK it would do 4.5)

The highest setting is 6.4, i guess I cant go much further over whatever it was on 186 BCLK with 4.5 selected, that still gave startup issues..

was this setup similar to mine? My chip is a D0

also, when you say 1.2vcore, is this what the BIOS says or what is actually being fed (as reported by CPU-Z?). Mine is usually 0.05v different and for all I know is different between motherboards?

Thanks

 

[hat]

I had a D0 i7 920, but I had a Rampage 3. Maybe your board can't reach that high of a BCLK. When I say 1.2v vcore I do mean set in the BIOS as 1.2v, but I'm not sure of what the voltage reported by cpu-z was.

Sounds like you may just have to shoot for a lower overclock. :/