Cooling and Overclocking an i7 950

southy1978

southy1978

southy1978

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Joined
16 Oct 2003
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652
Location
West Sussex
Hi all, I'm after a bit of advice! I recently noticed that my 7970 is being bottlenecked by my processor so decided its time to overclock it. Rig is below

I7 950 @ stock (for now)
Gigabyte ga-x58-ud3r mobo
24gb corsair vengeance (6x4gb) 1600mhz 9-9-9-24 1.5v
OCZ ModXStream Pro 700w Power Supply
Gigabyte 7970 3gb
Sandisk 240gb extreme ssd
60gb ocz agility 3
1tb samsung spinpoint F3
Asus xonar essence st
Antec 300 case

I was hoping to get the processor to around 3.8ghz if possible and maybe more, I know this will be harder as I have all 6 dimm slots populated. I need recommendations for a decent air cooler that is up to the job or maybe an aio water cooler if these are any good and will fit in my case!
I've seen the Noctua NH-D14 but don't think it will clear my ram.

Hopefully if I can overclock I can release the full potential of the graphics card for a while until I can save some money and upgrade on the next gen release. The i7 950 is still a capable chip right?

Many thanks in advance :)
 
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Bloomfields were extremely easy to overclock, even more so if it's the D0 version. Do you know which it is?

Set your RAM at rated timings and voltage, set the core voltage to 1.30 and set the multi to max with a bus of 175mhz.

Or try 20 multi with 200mhz bus. Since you're running 6 RAM modules, increase the VTT a new notches.

Should boot no problem with everything else at auto. If not then try a little higher core v's.
 
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Looking at cpu-z it is a D0 so hopefully it'll clock well! I just need to find a decent cooler which will - a)fit in my antec 300 and
b)clear my corasir vengeance ram
Any recommendations?

This is worth keeping for a while over the latest gen i7's though isn't it?
 
Definitely, should be a fine CPU for a while if you plan to stick with single GPU.

Can't really recommend a cooler to use, I'm unfamiliar with the case do don't know what would fit.
 
After a lot of googling and spec checking i think i've found a few that will fit! The true spirit as doyll suggested, the silver arrow sb-e and a noctua nh-u12p se2!

Has anyone used any of these coolers and could recommend them?
 
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