Core i7-950 Overclock

[state4plasma]

Hey guys Hope everyone's doing well... been a while since I last posted here. I was wanting to overclock my i7-950 a little... what voltage and multiplier values should I use?

Aim:
i7-950 @ 3.6 to 3.8 Ghz on stock cooler
Run RAM at rated 1600MHz

Problem:
New to overclocking - never OCed before.

Current setup:
Core i7-950 3.06 Ghz
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5
12GB OCZ Intel Core i7 RAM (running at 1066 Mhz, rated at 1600 Mhz)
Galaxy GTX 285 GFX card
850W Antec CP-850 PSU

So basically I need to know the voltage, multiplier etc. values for the Gigabyte mobo in specific.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers

 

[BinaryBoy]

I have a similar setup for my computer:

i7 950 with V8 Heatsink
GA-EX58-UPD4
Kingston HyperX 6GB triple channel DDR3 rated at 2000MHz
Geforce GTX 295
Antec 850W Quattro PSU

I currently have a stable OC on CPU @ 4GHz and DDR3 @ 1750MHz

However, I strongly recommend you replace your stock Heatsink/fan with some decent cooling, the stock fan barely keeps your i7 cool at stock speeds.

you should also download CPU-Z, Core Temp and a stability testing program like Prime95

once you have decent cooling, you'll want to leave your DRAM multiplier (should be around 8x) alone until you get your CPU sorted as DRAM speeds increase when you increase the Bclk, so try to keep your DRAM at around 1333MHz or under until then.

make sure you have Load Line calibration turned on before starting.

I recommend a Bclk of 160MHz, I suggest leaving your CPU multiplier (23x) alone for the time being. your CPU VCore should be raised to around 1.2v if needed to maintain stability

That will give you a speed of 3680MHz, Turbo boost will raise that futher to 3840MHz when all cores have a 100% load.

Be sure to do a good few hours stress testing with Prime95 and check it's running temperatures with Core Temp. any temp at around 70C - 75C or lower at 100% load running Prime95 should be ok, if it peeks over 80C or you encounter a blue screen of death, I recommend going back to stock speeds.

To get your RAM to run at 1600MHz or over, you need to raise DRAM Voltage to no higher than 1.65v, then you need to up your QPI/vtt Voltage to around 1.3v, set your DRAM multiplier to 10x, and if needed, set the UnCore to 3200MHz

you may also need to search for your RAM Timings, I'm unfamiliar with your RAM, but I'm guessing it should be one of the following

8-8-8-24
9-9-9-24
9-9-9-27

the most stable RAM Timings at high speeds (such as 1600MHz) would most likely be one of the last 2 settings.

if your computer doesn't start, you need to reset the CMOS to get your computer working again.

Again you'll want to do another stress test to make sure it's all running smoothly using Prime95, you should probably go for a 12 hour test or more.

Good luck with your overclocking, and again I strongly recommend replacing your stock Heatsink/Fan with a decent cooling solution.

 

[jorzeh]

Hmm im getting upto 80C load on my core 930 @ 4Ghz with a H50 cooler.. i say be careful you're prob allready over the 100C+ with a stock download Real temp or Core temp.. don't risk killing that 950 off.