Mobo for "golden batch" i7 920

surge · 23 Sep 2009 at 09:52

Looking for some advice from you major overclockers ( and hopefully rjkoneill

)

Having resisted i7 up until now, I couldn't say no to an i7 920 D0 from the (allegedly) golden batch 3845B which I just managed to pick up. Most of these do in excess of 4.5GHz at pretty low volts.
So I am trying to pick a motherboard (and Ram for that matter) for this. CPU will be cooled by chilled water (overclocked Q9650 system in my sig, which will be on MM soon

- runs IBT at 50 deg C

), and the board will also be cooled (using my existing seperate loop, not chilled). My initial thoughts are

The old faithful GB X58 Extreme ( but doesn't that have a problem with BCLK > 220?)

EVGA X58 SLi plus EK blocks

Don't really want the EVGA Classified (or Asus equivalent)- seems over the top unless using phase or cryogenic coolants, OcUK don't have any, and maybe my chip won't be as golden as I hope in which case would be a waste of money!

What do you guys think?

Many thanks
Geoff

surge · 23 Sep 2009 at 10:32

Thanks a lot for that

Yes the Classified was never really on my list.
I was thinking about the P6TD (which you guys sell

) as well.
How hot do the VRMs get on that board- is it in fact necessary to have any waterblocks on an X58 board if one is aiming for 4-5-4.7 GHz. I've heard that they do get a bit toasty on the EVGA Sli and the DFI (which I am not looking at)

surge · 23 Sep 2009 at 11:41

Thanks again

On that basis maybe the GB X58 Extreme (ie the UD5 with waterblock) would be the best bet?- saves buying board blocks

surge · 23 Sep 2009 at 15:05

chippy08 said:
Your lucky getting the 38 batch as when i brought mine last week from overclockers retail version it was batch 39.

Yes, the 2008 batches are hard to come by. Which motherboard are you using by the way?

surge · 25 Sep 2009 at 22:23

reygjabla said:
Does 3841A712 belongs to the "Golden" batch as well or just the 3845Bxxx batch only?

A few 3841As here, in the table on page 1

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=213105&highlight=3841A

Look pretty good

surge · 26 Sep 2009 at 15:22

So I went for the GB X58 Extreme in the end. Sorry rjk, I know that wasn't your top recommendation

But its essentially the UD5, which is highly rated, plus water block, and since I wanted to watercool the NB and PWMs anyway it seemed like the logical choice. Also, I'm pretty familiar with GB boards- see current sig!

My first play with this chip gave me 4.0 Ghz after about 10 mins- 1.20 Vcore under load, 1.216 idle, all other voltages at stock, HT on, turbo off (for now

). OCCT stable 1 hour. VID appears to be 1.16 from Bios. Using Corsair XMS 3, 6GB, cas 7, at 1600. Originally ordered the Dominators, but OcUK went out of stock during my order processing. Still they replaced it with the XMS, refunded me the difference immediately, and sent it off straight away- great job OcUK

Will post screenshots and more results in the Overclocking thread

surge · 26 Sep 2009 at 15:36

JonJ678 said:
I'm reasonably sure that the water block is aluminium

Yes I heard that mentioned before, but I had a look inside the block- definitely looks like copper, as is the one on my EP45 Extreme. Does have 10 mm barbs but since the loop it is in is only cooling the GPU and the hotside of my Peltier chiller, its not a problem

I forgot to mention load max temps in OCCT at 4GHz- upper 40 degs C. Using chilled water at around 18C under full CPU load

surge · 26 Sep 2009 at 18:30

JonJ678 said:
I'm reasonably sure that the water block is aluminium

You got me a bit worried (mixed metals and water loops :eek:

), so I had a google around. Here it says its nickel (on the outside) plated copper

http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/reviews/15041-gigabyte-ga-ex58-extreme-living-review.html#post44175

I believe some of the rest of the heatpipe system (which is all copper on the EP45) is now aluminium