Advice wanted for upgrading from a 920 Bloomfield

element059

element059

element059

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20 Oct 2005
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77
Hey guys,

I want a bit of advice on whether or not I should upgrade my system.

I have a i7 920 2.67 ghz Bloomfield CPU and I wondered if I would see any gain in gaming performance if I were to upgrade to the current i7 CPU's. I was looking at this one:

Intel CPU Core i7 3930K Enthusiast

My graphics card is a Radeon 6990. I get pretty good frame rates with this card but sometimes drop to 35 - 40fps in the Battlefield 3 Karkand maps.

Is my CPU causing a bottleneck?

I have 6gigs of ram and run off 2 SSD's.

Thanks!
 
I doubt youd see much if any gains tbh, games are still largely gpu bound by and large, is your current CPU overclocked? If not OC it and you should see some nice gains
 
yes I have an asus rampage ii and I've overclocked it using the pre-configured settings to 2.9ghz. I tried 3.2ghz but I was getting a temperature of more than 70degrees c. And my heatsink isn't exactly small either!
 
element059 said:
yes I have an asus rampage ii and I've overclocked it using the pre-configured settings to 2.9ghz. I tried 3.2ghz but I was getting a temperature of more than 70degrees c. And my heatsink isn't exactly small either!
Click to expand...

Wow, I have a i7 920 which was running at 3.8Ghz at no more that 45-46 degrees under load, it is being cooled by the Coolermaster V8, I know marketing man dream that's me, looks cool must have it :)
 
Sounds like either your heatsink isn't attached properley or your case has appauling airflow. You shouldn't be hitting 70°C at 3.2GHz unless your room is very very warm! What cooler are you using?

3.2GHz isn't setting the world alight when it comes to overclocking an i7 920, assuming you have a decent cooler, reasonable airflow you should easily be able to push it upto 3.6/3.7GHz at stock voltages. With a bit of tweaking should hit 4.0GHz without too much trouble, especially given that your motherboard is awesome!

Max temp of a Bloomfield CPU's is 100ºC before they throttle and shut down, ideally you'd want it under 80ºC at full load when benchmarking or with prime95.

Voicon said:
Wow, I have a i7 920 which was running at 3.8Ghz at no more that 45-46 degrees under load, it is being cooled by the Coolermaster V8, I know marketing man dream that's me, looks cool must have it :)
Click to expand...

Was that with prime95? What case are you using out of interest?
 
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I don' t think it was Prime 95 did it a few months ago, I am using a Coolermaster CM690 case with a few extra fans on top of the stock.

It obviously wasnt Prime 95 I just run it now and my CPU temp hit 51 and the system temp hit 36
 
shadow_boxer said:
Ah, didn't think so as that is very cool for a 920 @ 3.8GHz.
Click to expand...

I'm using a Lian Li PCB10 case.

I don't know what make my heatsink is as I got it a couple years back with the CPU but it has a very large heatsink and fan. The fan runs at 1800rpm.

I should probably also mention that it reaches 80 degrees when playing games but idles at 65.

Maybe the heatsink/fan isn't doing a particularly good job. I'll check out the coolmaster!
 
I think I have the OCZ Vendetta 2. But according to reviews it seems like it's under-performing. I guess I haven't cleaned it out in a while. Will try reinstalling it and putting down some new thermal paste and see if that makes a difference.
 
Are you overclocking using a windows based utility, or from within the bios? The windows utilities tend to apply more vcore voltage than required. What is your vcore currently set at? It's always better to overclock from within the bios, as you have much better control over settings.
 
element059 said:
I think I have the OCZ Vendetta 2. But according to reviews it seems like it's under-performing. I guess I haven't cleaned it out in a while. Will try reinstalling it and putting down some new thermal paste and see if that makes a difference.
Click to expand...

Defiantely clean it out get any dust of it, that won't do you any favours.

Seeing shadow boxers sig I just clocked mine to 4.0Ghz and it idles at 37 degrees, I have installed a number of fans in my case 5 or 6 12-14cm to keep the whole thing cool.
 
I did it within the bios using the preset settings.

Here is what HWMonitor says;

What should my voltage be?

thanks

Hardware monitor Winbond W83667HG
Voltage 0 1.31 Volts [0xA4] (VIN0)
Voltage 1 12.10 Volts [0xD9] (+12V)
Voltage 2 3.33 Volts [0xD0] (AVCC)
Voltage 3 3.30 Volts [0xCE] (+3.3V)
Voltage 4 4.94 Volts [0xCE] (+5V)
Voltage 6 1.50 Volts [0xBC] (VIN6)
Temperature 0 45°C (113°F) [0x2D] (SYSTIN)
Temperature 1 46°C (113°F) [0x5B] (CPUTIN)
Temperature 2 14°C (57°F) [0x1C] (AUXTIN)
Fan 1 1654 RPM [0x33] (CPUFANIN0)
 
setter said:
Im assuming that (VIN0) is vcore. Use cpuz just to check.

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

If so, 1.31 is very high for such a slight overclock. As an example, i needed that for 4.2ghz. Also is your cooler free of dust and good airflow in the case?
Click to expand...

I've put it back down to 2.9ghz just for the time being.

CPU-Z is showing a core voltage of 1.065 under 2.9.

Will give the cooler a good clean out tmr. My fan is also only running at 1600rpm so I may need to invest in some new coolers.

On a side note the CPU drops 5 degrees when the case front panel is opened fully.
 
what temp reading should I be looking at?

I noticed my CPU core temp is 10 degrees higher than my overal CPU temp which is currently 29 degress. However, each core is currently at 40 degrees c.

Bit confused :)
 
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