Thanks lads for all the good advice.
Now can I ask a dumbass questiona as I will be the one clocking it and am new to i7 clocking.
According to this asus link, when clocking an extreme I can ignore BCLK and just whack up the multiplier to 30 to give 4ghz, all the time leaving the BCLK at stock.
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx...e&id=20081220191040237&page=1&SLanguage=en-us
1. Doesn't keeping the BCLK at stock and hitting 4ghz with multi only give worse performance than an i7 920 D0 which has the BCLK adjusted to hit the same 4ghz ? I am coming from socket 775, so I assume the BCLK is something akin to FSB speed in terms of calculating the final speed of the cpu.
2. Typically what is the safe range of cpu voltage operation for an extreme, and what should I expect to need to hit 4ghz. I know every chip is different, but just wondering if it's common to hit 4ghz at stock settings. And while I'm at it, what is stock ? Can I trust auto voltage and assume the asus board won't overvolt the cpu ?
3. By not touching BCLK for the time being, doesn this mean memory, uncore and qpi won't be influenced either ? Should these be left on auto ? Same with their associated voltages ? Should I always dial in 1.65v for memory if not running it at the specced 1600mhz or 2000mhz ?
4. Should I disable Turbo mode ?
5. My understanding is memory frequency is bclk x memory multiplier
so if I leave the bclk alone at 133mhz, I assume the memory multiplier will default to 8 or 10 (even using the Corsair 2000mhz stuff); giving me 1066 or 1333mhz. And the uncore will be twice that (2133 or 2666). From looking at the link above, the common multipliers keeping the bclk at stock 133 are 6 to 14, so doesn't this mean the fastest speed I could hit for 2000mhz cas8 memory would be 1866 (133x14), pushing the Uncore up to 3733 or if I used 1600mhz stuff, I could use a 12 multiplier for a 3200 uncore, and still avail of CAS 6 timings and run the memory at it's specced 1600mhz. Given all this, what voltages would I need to change to make this happen ? I know memory can't go over 1.65, but how low can it go ? And what other voltages need to change ? I can't help thinking I would get better performance using a lower multiplier (say 10), and hopefully using a 200mhz BCLK, or even 180mhz BCLK. Of course that means having to mess with other voltages.
6. What effect does XMP profiles have ? Does it clock the memory and all the other gubbings to do with the cpu automatically. Can it be trusted ?
