~~~~~IMPORTANT SANDYBRIDGE OC INFO: Voltages & OC Guide!!~~~~~

[ChrisGTL]

Has anyone ran into issues with stress testing? I noticed in the hardocp review they mentioned that a few times they had it running prime stable for hours, then as soon as they loaded up a game it immediately gave a bsod.

Driver issue?

 

[Gerard]

Driver issue?

Not sure, from what i remember in the review they might have indicated that maybe stress testing these when clocked wasn't as straightforward as running prime. I think it was something like that anyway. Found the bit in the review:

We did find that our testing which has generally used a CPU stress test like Prime95 or OCCT, or Intel Burn In, did not work to cause "edge of the envelope" failures like we have seen with previous generation Intel processors. We had instances where Prime95 would run for hours just fine, but single threaded gaming application would cause a BSOD. So finding where the line in the sand on stability may be a bit different from what we have seen in the past. Our experience was that both our 2500K and 2600K were stable at 4.3GHz and 4.4GHz for Prime95, but a game demo would crash the OS.

 

[PCM2]

Interesting. Mine was 'auto' overclocked on day 1 to 4.3Ghz with a Vcore of 1.195V. I am quite happy with that but would be interesting to see what else it could do. I am a bit less happy about the G.Skill Ripjaw memory. The computer won't post after shut down using recommended timings @1600Mhz effective unless the DDR voltage is set to 1.625V or higher. Having read these forums I am a bit uneasy about having the RAM voltage that high but everything seems very stable at the moment and temperatures are good.

Incidentally the ASUS P8P67 has a little 'mem OK' button and a bright red LED near the RAM slots. If the RAM malfunctions during POST (which happens at under 1.625 vcore it seems) it lights up. Turning the power off then on again or holding down the button always leads to successful bootup. I am contemplating sending the RAM back to OcUK but I'm not sure if it's worth the hassle and inconvenience if it running at 1.625 is fine for the system.

Just an update on this. I've now got it running at a voltage of 1.5 with a reduced effective speed of 1333Mhz but tighter timings. I have run benchmarks of the main games I play and it actually runs about the same (in some instances slightly quicker) so I think I will leave it as I am more comfortable with 1.5 volts. It also seems stable at 4.4Ghz with the same VCORE, incidentally. I am liking the efficiency.

 

[Troezar]

Anyone tried the Geil value kits running less than their stated 1.6v?

 

[Gibbo]

Anyone tried the Geil value kits running less than their stated 1.6v?

Yep the GeIL seems happy as low as 1.45v, but so far Corsair XMS3 is leading the way with working fine as low as 1.35v.

I think GeIL and XMS3 are the best value bets as they will quite happily run at rated timings with 1.50-1.55v which is within Intel specs.

Some very lucky people will get memory that runs even lower voltages.

 

[Gibbo]

Just an update on this. I've now got it running at a voltage of 1.5 with a reduced effective speed of 1333Mhz but tighter timings. I have run benchmarks of the main games I play and it actually runs about the same (in some instances slightly quicker) so I think I will leave it as I am more comfortable with 1.5 volts. It also seems stable at 4.4Ghz with the same VCORE, incidentally. I am liking the efficiency.

I've always found tighter timings give a better real world improvement over outright speed with memory.

For me the best performance comes from finding a kit that will run at 1600MHz with 6-7-6-20 timings, though there is very little RAM out there that can do that these days, especially at sub 1.60v.

Though I shall be adding a whole new range of 1.50v to the site middle of this week that is very nice and also getting some new Corsair Vengeance lines in as well which will be perfect for Sandybridge.

 

[Dr_Watson]

Just started to OC.

What sort of max temps should I expect. At 4Ghz, mem at 1.5v, CPU voltage not touched, running prime95 I have 68deg C max after 10 mins.

Is that ok?? H70 cooler btw.

 

[dave_beast]

Just started to OC.

What sort of max temps should I expect. At 4Ghz, mem at 1.5v, CPU voltage not touched, running prime95 I have 68deg C max after 10 mins.

Is that ok?? H70 cooler btw.

Yes, that sounds ok

 

[Gibbo]

Just started to OC.

What sort of max temps should I expect. At 4Ghz, mem at 1.5v, CPU voltage not touched, running prime95 I have 68deg C max after 10 mins.

Is that ok?? H70 cooler btw.

Our rig on an open bench was using an Akasa Venom at lowest fan speed and at 4.2GHz after 5hrs it was 62c.

 

[Dr_Watson]

Good to know. 4Ghz seems rock stable anyway without doing anything apart from changing to x40....nice.

 

[JonJ678]

Setting auto in the bios has never been a great plan, but inevitable failure if the bsck goes over 100 seems particularly unforgiving. I don't understand why changing it would be an option if any alteration is fatal. I'm hoping for more developments on that front in the future.

The dead chips seem a very brutal early adopter tax, so I thank you for starting this thread. The fewer dead chips the better. I think I'll avoid sandy bridge for a few months however.

 

[Jokester]

I don't understand why increasing it would damage the CPU, can see it making it unstable/crash but actually killing the CPU?

 

[TrojanWhore]

have just got mine up and running an into windows, (2500k, XMS3 Asus PRO), and it has auto set my BCLK to 100.3 MHz, should I go into bios and set it manually to 100 exactly, or is this small a nudge acceptable?
also, I have no Idea what voltage it has chosen for my memory, but its at 669(x2) MHz, so about 1333 DDR. Jdec for 1333 is 1.5v, so i guess its this, but what software can I use to check?
gonna have a look in bios in the next couple of days, set mem at 1600 (I'll try 1.4v, cheers Gibbo!), so I will prob set the BCLK to 100 then.

Trojan.

sidenote: didn't recieve my copy of lost planet 2 either, I'll call you (OcUK) about that one tomorrow!

 

[Gibbo]

have just got mine up and running an into windows, (2500k, XMS3 Asus PRO), and it has auto set my BCLK to 100.3 MHz, should I go into bios and set it manually to 100 exactly, or is this small a nudge acceptable?
also, I have no Idea what voltage it has chosen for my memory, but its at 669(x2) MHz, so about 1333 DDR. Jdec for 1333 is 1.5v, so i guess its this, but what software can I use to check?
gonna have a look in bios in the next couple of days, set mem at 1600 (I'll try 1.4v, cheers Gibbo!), so I will prob set the BCLK to 100 then.

Trojan.

sidenote: didn't recieve my copy of lost planet 2 either, I'll call you (OcUK) about that one tomorrow!

Hi there

Manually set BCLK to 100MHz.

Set your memory to 1600MHz and set the voltage to 1.50v

 

[james.miller]

reminds me of the northwood sudden death syndrome.

 

[Gibbo]

reminds me of the northwood sudden death syndrome.

My 1.6 Northwood ran at 3.2+ for months before it electromigrated, but I was giving it some serious voltage and it did run SETI 24/7

 

[bulldog147]

Well our test rig at 4.2GHz is sitting around 1.2v, we shall see what she can reach at 1.3v tomorrow.

I give my i7 920 @ 4.2GHz at 1.2v and memory at 1.50v and see how it go! If not stable, then it stay as 1.3v instead.

 

[Nocky24]

I give my i7 920 @ 4.2GHz at 1.2v and memory at 1.50v and see how it go! If not stable, then it stay as 1.3v instead.

Read the thread title again mate. They're on about sb chips. Also you're ram will be fine at 1.65 if that's it's stock rated volts.

 

[nlel1975]

Interesting. Mine was 'auto' overclocked on day 1 to 4.3Ghz with a Vcore of 1.195V. I am quite happy with that but would be interesting to see what else it could do. I am a bit less happy about the G.Skill Ripjaw memory. The computer won't post after shut down using recommended timings @1600Mhz effective unless the DDR voltage is set to 1.625V or higher. Having read these forums I am a bit uneasy about having the RAM voltage that high but everything seems very stable at the moment and temperatures are good.

Incidentally the ASUS P8P67 has a little 'mem OK' button and a bright red LED near the RAM slots. If the RAM malfunctions during POST (which happens at under 1.625 vcore it seems) it lights up. Turning the power off then on again or holding down the button always leads to successful bootup. I am contemplating sending the RAM back to OcUK but I'm not sure if it's worth the hassle and inconvenience if it running at 1.625 is fine for the system.

Mine auto overclocks to 103 * 39 or 4ghz and it dishes out 1.240v vcore in the process... I guess some can auto overclock to 4.3 and others only to 4.0ghz

 

[dave_beast]