Myself and Yewen have been doing some research into the capabilities of the new i7 950
inkeeping with my last thread on my personal D0 stepping 920, i will be giving my first impressions and a brief summary of the chips capabilities
the chip itself was used in a Biostar Tpower X58 using 1866MHz Dominator GT
in the absense of a good radiator we made do with the excellent titan Fenrir cooler
initial boot was easy and we got the bios on the board updated
with the board updated and supporting the chip properly we got into windows at stock speeds
we turned turbo mode on and bumped the multi up to the max setting of X24
after pushing to 3.6 using a BCLK of 150 we decided to push further
managing to achieve 4GHz and 4.2GHz at 1.26v and 1.3v respectivley
so far - performance was exactly the same as my personal 920
similar voltages [my chip uses less
] and similar speeds but with the benefit of a lower QPI BCLK frequency
in theory my own biostar X58 does 224BCLK - so with this chips multi of 24, a speed of [224X24] 5.37GHz should theoretically be obtainable
however, this particular board seemed to limit its BCLK at 203BCLK which was a massive shame as it only allowed me to get the chip into windows at 4.87GHz using 1.43vcore
i am sure that on my own board - a higher speed would have been obtainable
after 4.3GHz we used a Delta fan on the fenrir to cool the chip down more efficiantly
the 950 looks to be a very promising chip
its high multiplier is great for overclocking as it gives you a lot of headroom for high clocks and does not require your board to be able to achieve a massive BCLK frequency
however my only gripe is that the chip gave me only two memory dividers opposed to the five dividers that my 920 gives
using 200 bclk allows you to run 1600mhz memory on the highest divider making the fantastic dominator GT we had in the board a massive waste
this means thatfor users running 200BCLK through their 950, any memory rated above 1600mhz is a waste [so that tasty 2000MHZ blade would be a waste]
i really like the 950, its a nice step up from the 920 and a great alternative to the 975
personally i cant see any rig running above 4.5GHz 24/7 so i wont be buying into it
but there are plenty of people who would benefit from its 3GHz stock speed and its high overclocking potential
its a great alternative to the new extreme chip in my opinion
i will post my progress in other boards as i get a chance to test
inkeeping with my last thread on my personal D0 stepping 920, i will be giving my first impressions and a brief summary of the chips capabilities
the chip itself was used in a Biostar Tpower X58 using 1866MHz Dominator GT
in the absense of a good radiator we made do with the excellent titan Fenrir cooler
initial boot was easy and we got the bios on the board updated
with the board updated and supporting the chip properly we got into windows at stock speeds
we turned turbo mode on and bumped the multi up to the max setting of X24
after pushing to 3.6 using a BCLK of 150 we decided to push further
managing to achieve 4GHz and 4.2GHz at 1.26v and 1.3v respectivley
so far - performance was exactly the same as my personal 920
similar voltages [my chip uses less
] and similar speeds but with the benefit of a lower QPI BCLK frequencyin theory my own biostar X58 does 224BCLK - so with this chips multi of 24, a speed of [224X24] 5.37GHz should theoretically be obtainable
however, this particular board seemed to limit its BCLK at 203BCLK which was a massive shame as it only allowed me to get the chip into windows at 4.87GHz using 1.43vcore
i am sure that on my own board - a higher speed would have been obtainable
after 4.3GHz we used a Delta fan on the fenrir to cool the chip down more efficiantly
the 950 looks to be a very promising chip
its high multiplier is great for overclocking as it gives you a lot of headroom for high clocks and does not require your board to be able to achieve a massive BCLK frequency
however my only gripe is that the chip gave me only two memory dividers opposed to the five dividers that my 920 gives
using 200 bclk allows you to run 1600mhz memory on the highest divider making the fantastic dominator GT we had in the board a massive waste
this means thatfor users running 200BCLK through their 950, any memory rated above 1600mhz is a waste [so that tasty 2000MHZ blade would be a waste]
i really like the 950, its a nice step up from the 920 and a great alternative to the 975
personally i cant see any rig running above 4.5GHz 24/7 so i wont be buying into it
but there are plenty of people who would benefit from its 3GHz stock speed and its high overclocking potential
its a great alternative to the new extreme chip in my opinion
i will post my progress in other boards as i get a chance to test
That said i am now on a voltage reducing spree... Just priming at 1.275v (1.232v Actual) Temps with a Fenrir are about 74Degrees while priming.