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Which i7 1366 or get 1156 instead?

Greebo

Greebo

Greebo

Caporegime
Joined
20 Jan 2005
Posts
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Location
Co Durham
I am upgrading my system and will be watercooling and overclocking.

Was going to get am i7 930 or a 2nd hand 920 but then the 950 dropped in price.

But after reading around it seems to make little difference as to whether you get an 920 or 950 as the i7's all seem to hit a max overclock and it's just pot luck whether you get a good/bad clocker. With a decent mobo it appears you can set a BLK much higher than even the 20x multi of the 920 can handle eg the max speed is limited by the cpu.

So is it worth my bothering getting the 950? Or even the 930 and just get a 2nd hand 920?

Equally on reading around searching for my answer, I keep seeing 1156 i7's performing better clock per clock than their bigger brothers. Do these overclock as well as them as I can save money on both the cpu and mobo.

I thought I knew what I wanted but now stuck again. :confused:
 
i would go the 1366 route, 16x/16x pcie lanes, tripple channel memory, 1156 is not going to be around much longer so you will be limiting your self in future cpu upgrades
 
1156 wasn't and isn't very good. As chronic says; less pci-e lanes, less memory capacity/bandwidth and sandy bridge will kill it when it comes out. It's also quite expensive (close to 1366) unless you go for the i5 and lower setups.

As for overclocking i7 930 or 950 depending on how far you plan on pushing. Obviously getting a good cpu is essential but the 950 may allow you to hit a higher clock due to the extra multi.

The only reasons the 1156 perform better is due to the aggressive turbo modes they have. Turn it off and it should be the same/slightly slower.
 
Thanks for the replies so it just comes down to which one then, 920,930 or 950?
 
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Greebo said:
I know. I just need somebody to convince me I will get a better overclock from the 950 ;)

I got spoilt having a 4.9Ghz q9650
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Nothing is guaranteed with overclocking though. For what it's worth, I'm 2 hours into a linx run on a 950 at 4.1/1.264v

Temps are at 75-77 occasionally going up to 80 for bursts on a u12 w/ 2 quiet fans.
 
Big.Wayne said:
Ooohh hehe you come to the right place! :p

Are you overclocking for competition or overclocking for a day-to-day speedup?


You had a Yorkfield running "stable" on 545MHz-FSB? :eek:
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Overclocking for the fun of it and occasionally getting cups and points on Hwbot. I was lucky enough to buy a 2nd hand q9650 which I knew could do 4.25Ghz at 1.29v.

With the right mobo (gigabyte p45) and memoruy (OCZ blades 9200) I had it running 24/7 stable (prime95, intelburn etc) at 4.65Ghz at 1.3975v. That took me about 3 months of hard work.

Not 545Mhz FSB I'm afraid, it was 4.932Ghz at 548Mhz FSB ;) (was not stable but would be long enough to do a cpu-z shot which got me 3rd place at HWbot at the time and for a long time was the highest q9650 on water - can't compete with dice/ln2).

http://hwbot.org/community/submission/870238_greebo_cpu_z_core_2_q9650_3ghz_4932.05_mhz

I think I managed to do some wprime and superpi runs at over 4.8Ghz.

Yep: 9.590ms at 4.86Ghz :D

http://hwbot.org/community/submission/870278_greebo_superpi_core_2_q9650_3ghz_9sec_590ms

In fact on checking, all my records in benchmarks on hwbot were done at 4.86Ghz so that must have been the highest "stable" overclock I got to. Although it certainly wasn;t prime stable - lol.
 
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lay-z-boy said:
Nothing is guaranteed with overclocking though. For what it's worth, I'm 2 hours into a linx run on a 950 at 4.1/1.264v

Temps are at 75-77 occasionally going up to 80 for bursts on a u12 w/ 2 quiet fans.
Click to expand...

My head (and wallet) says buy a 2nd hand 920 but my heart says get a 950 or I will be disappointed.

Hoping for 4.4Ghz for 24/7 running. Is that acheivable?
 
Greebo said:
My head (and wallet) says buy a 2nd hand 920 but my heart says get a 950 or I will be disappointed.

Hoping for 4.4Ghz for 24/7 running. Is that acheivable?
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On air with a top cooler and half decent chip you could probably worm out 4.2-3. Great chips will do 4.4-6 but at that point water may be required to keep temps in order.

Up to 4.2, same settings. :p
 
lay-z-boy said:
On air with a top cooler and half decent chip you could probably worm out 4.2-3. Great chips will do 4.4-6 but at that point water may be required to keep temps in order.

Up to 4.2, same settings. :p
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Watercooling no problem as I have a heatkiller v3 and one of the best custom watercooling rigs you can buy ;)

Was your chip new from ocuk?
 
Greebo said:
Watercooling no problem as I have a heatkiller v3 and one of the best custom watercooling rigs you can buy ;)

Was your chip new from ocuk?
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Yup :)

I must have a bad hk3.0 I was hitting 80-85c after 5 remounts and triple checking screws, washers and everything.

Ended up going back to air. :(

Need to get a dh14 + something better than as-ceramique, temps are too toasty for my liking to push any further. :p
 
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