i3 560 easier to 4GHz than i3 530..?

jmp_78 · 5 Mar 2011 at 21:08

Basically, would it be easier to overclock a higher speed (in the first place) chip than a lower one?

I wanna know if you'd usually achieve say 4GHz with lower volts on a 560 than you would have to put through a 530?

Please bear with me, and I know these chips are the 2 extremes of the i3. I want an i3 for my M-ITX HTPC, but want it to be as cool as possible (ie, not much extra volts!)

JonJ678 · 5 Mar 2011 at 22:27

Quite a lot of processors are identical in terms of silicon and voltages. The i7 920, 950, 975 are the same processor for example, and will overclock identically.

A brief look at intel's spec strongly suggests the 530 and the 560 will also overclock identically, and you're looking at blind luck as to what sort of voltages are required.

jmp_78 · 5 Mar 2011 at 22:33

JonJ678 said:
Quite a lot of processors are identical in terms of silicon and voltages. The i7 920, 950, 975 are the same processor for example, and will overclock identically.

A brief look at intel's spec strongly suggests the 530 and the 560 will also overclock identically, and you're looking at blind luck as to what sort of voltages are required.

So for overclocking purposes, I may as well get the cheapest i3 that I can? (540)

Marvin · 6 Mar 2011 at 00:04

jmp_78 said:
So for overclocking purposes, I may as well get the cheapest i3 that I can? (540)

Pretty much. It's unknown whether any kind of binning takes place though, some say not, others say that the higher end CPUs are better binned chips, so will have lower voltages for higher clocks. Not sure personally though. Looking around the forums there are many who can't get i7 950s to over 4GHz, while this i7 920 that I'm running will do 4.4, and is now at 3.8 on a low voltage and passive cooling.

chipps101 · 6 Mar 2011 at 00:10

the main difference will be that you have to push the motherboard and ram less with the chip with the higher multiplier as you will need lower fsb/base clock to get to the desired cpu frequency.

jmp_78 · 6 Mar 2011 at 08:38

chipps101 said:
the main difference will be that you have to push the motherboard and ram less with the chip with the higher multiplier as you will need lower fsb/base clock to get to the desired cpu frequency.

This is true actually... a 560 might put quite a lot less stress (heat) on all other components involved.

I'm after cool and quiet, so maybe this is the way forward for me.

jmp_78 · 20 Mar 2011 at 14:19

QUICK UPDATE -

Mini-ITX build complete with the i3 560 running at 4.00GHz @ 1.275v. This is stable after 50 runs of IBT and 7hrs of Prime95.

Bearing in mind the size of the Silverstone SG07 M-ITX case compared to a usual desktop, and the fact that I'm still running the stock cooler... am amazed that the temps never went above 75°C whilst 7hrs of P95 stressing. Whilst gaming this seems to top out about 65°C max.

Next step, might try and drop the volts a fraction lower and test again.