Newbie - Need advice overclocking i7 960

[Monster667]

Just upgraded my rig again, from an amd phenom II 550 to a core i7 960. I had overclocked the phenom II before and that was pretty simple. just raised the FSB and lowered a few things. Now this seems quite a bit more complicated than socket AM3.

my motherboard is ASUS Sabertooth x58, i have 3x2GB 800mhz ddr3 running in triple channel. I read the sticky article there about the 1366 socket and overclocking, but it didn't help much. I'd like some actual examples of what exactly to do. I looked around in the BIOS and tinkered with some things but wasn't sure of what to do at all. I raised the BLCK to 143 from 133, then the RAM went to something like 990 mhz. I tried to figure out how to lower it back to 800 with no avail.

I'd really appreciate some help out on this. Also, my cooler is the corsair h70. hoping to at least hit 4ghz, maybe 4.2-4.4 if at all possible.

 

[hat]

If you have a camera, it could be helpful if you took screenshots of your BIOS so we can see what everything looks like in there.

 

[Monster667]

Gonna try getting some pics tomorrow. My camera is horrible so they might just be blurry and unreadable but I'll try.

 

[hat]

Try doing it without flash on the camera and with the room dark, so the monitor is bright. They should come out clearer this way.

 

[HammerON]

Just upgraded my rig again, from an amd phenom II 550 to a core i7 960. I had overclocked the phenom II before and that was pretty simple. just raised the FSB and lowered a few things. Now this seems quite a bit more complicated than socket AM3.

my motherboard is ASUS Sabertooth x58, i have 3x2GB 800mhz ddr3 running in triple channel. I read the sticky article there about the 1366 socket and overclocking, but it didn't help much. I'd like some actual examples of what exactly to do. I looked around in the BIOS and tinkered with some things but wasn't sure of what to do at all. I raised the BLCK to 143 from 133, then the RAM went to something like 990 mhz. I tried to figure out how to lower it back to 800 with no avail.

I'd really appreciate some help out on this. Also, my cooler is the corsair h70. hoping to at least hit 4ghz, maybe 4.2-4.4 if at all possible.

Set your memory divider to 2:8 or 2:6. You can do this by going to "Ai Tweaker" and then choose "DRAM Frequency". Then make sure your memory timings match their specs by going into "DRAM Timing Control".

Disable "SpeedStep" and "C1E". Leave everything else on auto. Raise BLCK and test stability until you hit a wall. Then start raising "CPU Voltage" and "QPI/DRAM Voltage" (In my experience they should be about the same voltage) and raise BLCK and again check for stability.

I had the ASUS Sabertooth with an i7 920 and really enjoyed the board. I used 1.26 Vcore and QPI/DRAM to reach 3.8 GHz stable for crunching at 100%. I was able to reach 4.3GHz with (I think) around 1.40 Vcore...
You may also need to increase your DRAM Bus voltage as well when you get up to 4.0GHz on the CPU. Just set the voltage to 1.65.
Besides the "CPU Voltage", "QPI/DRAM Voltage", "DRAM Bus Voltage", "DRAM Frequency", and BLCK leave everything else on auto (besides disabeling "SpeedStep" and "C1E").
This is from my experience at least, but I have never had the i7 960 (just many i7 920's and my current two i7 970's)...

This is what your BIOS should look like for those that are interested:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1457/4/

 

[claylomax]

Set your memory divider to 2:8 or 2:6. You can do this by going to "Ai Tweaker" and then choose "DRAM Frequency". Then make sure your memory timings match their specs by going into "DRAM Timing Control".

Disable "SpeedStep" and "C1E". Leave everything else on auto. Raise BLCK and test stability until you hit a wall. Then start raising "CPU Voltage" and "QPI/DRAM Voltage" (In my experience they should be about the same voltage) and raise BLCK and again check for stability.

I had the ASUS Sabertooth with an i7 920 and really enjoyed the board. I used 1.26 Vcore and QPI/DRAM to reach 3.8 GHz stable for crunching at 100%. I was able to reach 4.3GHz with (I think) around 1.40 Vcore...
You may also need to increase your DRAM Bus voltage as well when you get up to 4.0GHz on the CPU. Just set the voltage to 1.65.
Besides the "CPU Voltage", "QPI/DRAM Voltage", "DRAM Bus Voltage", "DRAM Frequency", and BLCK leave everything else on auto (besides disabeling "SpeedStep" and "C1E").
This is from my experience at least, but I have never had the i7 960 (just many i7 920's and my current two i7 970's)...

This is what your BIOS should look like for those that are interested:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1457/4/

Wow HammerOn, looking at your specs you surely know a thing or two about i7 9XX overclocking.

 

[Monster667]

thanks HammerON! Just the kind of reply I was looking for. Gonna see what I can do now...

 

[Radi_SVK]

Just upgraded my rig again, from an amd phenom II 550 to a core i7 960. I had overclocked the phenom II before and that was pretty simple. just raised the FSB and lowered a few things. Now this seems quite a bit more complicated than socket AM3.

my motherboard is ASUS Sabertooth x58, i have 3x2GB 800mhz ddr3 running in triple channel. I read the sticky article there about the 1366 socket and overclocking, but it didn't help much. I'd like some actual examples of what exactly to do. I looked around in the BIOS and tinkered with some things but wasn't sure of what to do at all. I raised the BLCK to 143 from 133, then the RAM went to something like 990 mhz. I tried to figure out how to lower it back to 800 with no avail.

I'd really appreciate some help out on this. Also, my cooler is the corsair h70. hoping to at least hit 4ghz, maybe 4.2-4.4 if at all possible.

are you sure your memory is 800MHz?I'd bet is 1600MHz really..but as you mentioned,if you see 800MHz - 900MHz in bios,then Im sure you can go way above that.any standard 3-channel memory kits are nowdays 1600MHz really..by the way,yes,If you raise BLCK it will automatically raise the memory freq. too..which is not a problem up to the point,where the memory freq.is too high for it and it becomes unstable and causes BSOD,or computer simply fail to start.but dont worry about that,you will not damage your memory.just go back in bios and lower it until its stable again.nothing complicated.it just takes a lot of time until you find the sweet spot,thats your aim...Just like my rig,check my specs.Im so happy with it,runs rock solid.as you can see my memory runs at 1400 something MHz,while its a 1600MHz memory kit.Its running at lower speeds,cos my cpu is at 4GHz with 175 BLCK(23 multi)..this would make my memory run at (if I remember) about 1899MHz and its just too much for it,its also an older kit (2008 or so)..so the next perfectly stable speed for mine was 1403MHz and no,it wont make your originally 1600MHz memory run noticeably slower,you wont notice any speed decrease at all.but one think you should not forget,that if you lower your memory speeds,then you can also afford to lower the memory timings too,this will also help you optimize the memory speeds.obviously,at this point what brand of memory kit you have,Im sure its newer that mine and you will probably be able to find a higher max. stable memory speed when your cpu at 4GHz..by the way,with H70 and i7 960 you will reach 4GHz without any problems and you will be able to stay rock solid stable.

 

[SonDa5]

thanks HammerON! Just the kind of reply I was looking for. Gonna see what I can do now...

How is the over clocking going?

Looks like a solid CPU. 24x multiplier should be able to hit 25x multiplier in Turbo mode.


With decent cooling you should be able to do 4GHZ no problem.

I'm interested in this cpu so post some results when you get your system tweaked out and stable.

 

[Monster667]

Yes, my memory is actually 1600mhz. Not sure why I said 800 before.

I got to 4ghz pretty easily with 1.35 vcore and 1.35v qpi/dram. Tested stability with LinX and it passed, the max cpu temp was 75C. I might push it further later. Thanks for the replies, this actually isn't too much different from socket am3 after all. The turbo mode sounds dangerous to me, so I disabled it. Seems like it would get unstable when turbo mode engages.

 

[SonDa5]

Yes, my memory is actually 1600mhz. Not sure why I said 800 before.

I got to 4ghz pretty easily with 1.35 vcore and 1.35v qpi/dram. Tested stability with LinX and it passed, the max cpu temp was 75C. I might push it further later. Thanks for the replies, this actually isn't too much different from socket am3 after all. The turbo mode sounds dangerous to me, so I disabled it. Seems like it would get unstable when turbo mode engages.

I have I7-930 over clocked stable with turbo mode enabled with 4.2GHZ. Turbo mode works well because it allows for extra multiplier for lower BCLK.

Turbo mode is tricky to tune but worth it if you can do it. 4GHZ is nice OC.

Would be cool to see what the 960 can do.

 

[Monster667]

OK, recently I've been having problems with various games and crashing. Fallout New Vegas crashes with a windows error "this application has stopped working" and the sound continues to loop, Portal has the same problem, and Quake II with the EGL engine has the problem. I turned off the GX mode in my Asus Xonar D2x, as I remember having problems before with the GX mode. The crashes still occur, but without the sound looping.

So I bumped up the voltage from 1.35V on my processor and qpi/dram to 1.36/1.37/1.38 and these all failed stability tests. Before, 1.35V at 168 bclk (4 ghz) passed 25 times in LinX with full memory usage. Tried a bunch of other things, I even used the preset thing in the BIOS (the i7 crazy 3.85g), which still crashed in Quake II (my "test" program). This preset had set the CPU voltage to auto (which read 1.4v in CPU-z), and the qpi/dram to something like 1.46. I've also noticed that now I'm at stock, the QPI Link speed is the exact same as processor speed, before with my 4ghz overclock, it was much higher. Maybe that is causing instability?

Anyway, I'm back at stock clocks now and just played Quake II for a good period without any crashing. Usually the crash happens 5-10 minutes into the game, without warning. I'm thinking I might be doing something wrong with the memory settings. I have my memory set at the proper voltage and timings, 1.65v and 7-8-7-20.

I could not find the 2:8 or 2:6 memory divider under DRAM Frequency, just the settings for 1600mhz, 1800mhz, etc. Any help here on what I'm doing wrong? Right now I'm at stock with 1600mhz memory, 1.65v and the proper timings without any crashes. maybe I got a bad processor and mine needs loads of volts for OC? I also thought that maybe I have bad memory sticks, but the crashing has stopped for now... Here is my exact memory: CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3...

Running out of ideas here, so I'll play at stock for now...

 

[Monster667]

Ok, QII just crashed again with stock settings. So either that EGL engine sucks, or my memory is broken. I have yet to test Fallout New Vegas for crashes... though that one might be crashing because I had to force vsync off in the .ini file to get rid of annoying mouse lag. Sometimes the game runs "too fast" like an old Quake engine on a modern computer... Think I might go run memtest86 in a bit...

 

[Monster667]

just ran about 2 passes of memtest86, no errors. Not sure what the deal is now, maybe those games just have nasty crashes for some reason. Portal only crashed on me once, right when it was loading...

 

[D007]

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=144591
Some ideas people gave me to help overclocking the i7 960 ^^.. I'm at 4.2 ghz now..