Wednesday, January 14th 2009
Intel Core i7 Makes it Past 4.61 GHz with Water-Cooling
In a move that asserts Intel's undisputed leadership over the PC microprocessor market, Intel senior performance analyst François Piednoel conducted a special exhibition at the CES 2009 event, where he demonstrated the Core i7's overclocking and resulting performance potential employing water cooling. The water-cooled Intel Core i7 reached speeds in excess of 4.60 GHz, proving it has better overclocking potential than AMD's Phenom II X4 when water-cooled.
The setup included an Intel Core i7 sample seated on an Intel "Smackover" DX58SO motherboard. The motherboard was backed by Intel's own desktop control-center software that provides software-level performance management and monitoring. The processor's vCore was set at 1.44V, with the northbridge set at 1.21V. The clock speed of 4.61 GHz was achieved with a bus speed of 144 MHz with a multiplier value of 32x. Temperatures recoded showed the CPU chugging along at 61 °C, with the CPU VRM at 31 °C and the X58 chipset at 41 °C. The feat shows Core i7 to be the better CPU to overclock when water-cooling is used, while an Intel Core i7 is yet to reach 6.2+ GHz speeds, just for the kicks.
The setup included an Intel Core i7 sample seated on an Intel "Smackover" DX58SO motherboard. The motherboard was backed by Intel's own desktop control-center software that provides software-level performance management and monitoring. The processor's vCore was set at 1.44V, with the northbridge set at 1.21V. The clock speed of 4.61 GHz was achieved with a bus speed of 144 MHz with a multiplier value of 32x. Temperatures recoded showed the CPU chugging along at 61 °C, with the CPU VRM at 31 °C and the X58 chipset at 41 °C. The feat shows Core i7 to be the better CPU to overclock when water-cooling is used, while an Intel Core i7 is yet to reach 6.2+ GHz speeds, just for the kicks.