Overclocking an i7 920 D0 - 4.7GHz

[rjk]

today i have been busy giving my chip a thrashing

after the untimley demise of my p6t deluxe [RIP] and with it my old 920 and memory

i decided to use a new setup

Biostar TPower X58 motherboard
i7 920 D0 stepping
OCZ 6GB 1866MHz Reaper HPC

along with my existing GTX 280 SLI

the D0 chip is already a massive improvement over my old chip
although the memory and board were holding me back before
my memory would only go to 1600 and nothing more
my board was bclk limited at 200

the chip is being cooled by a thermochill triple radiator
all of the overclocks have hyperthreading enabled- this is because hyperthreading is made of actual win

STARTING OUT

i started out at 3.8GHz using stupidly low volts - easy enough

4GHz was a breeze - using 1.25v

PRIME STABLE

4.2GHz @ 1.298v passed prime for 8 hours

4.3GHz @ 1.328v also passed prime for 8 hours and will be used as my 24/7 profile using speedstep

BENCHMARK STABLE

seeing how far the chip could go in prime left me at 4.3ghz
i tried 4.4ghz @ 1.4v but got errors after a few minutes

being intreagued at how far i could go with this before the BCLK limited me
i pushed for 4.5GHz @1.4v
whilst not prime stable - it did a damn good job in 3Dmark Vantage

PUSHING FURTHER

i couldnt get stability in vantage after 4.58GHz
but i was eager to see what the maximum BCLK i could get out of the board was. turns out the BIOSTAR X58 goes all the way to 222 BCLK!

something i have yet to see even a Rampage Extreme II obtain!!!

so i had to try the next test using super pi as Vantage crashed on the third test no matter what i did.

4.66GHz @ 1.456v
super pi wouldnt do a 32m run - but the rest of the entries are impressive enough

i managed to get into windows at 4.73GHz but it crashed when any application loaded

here are my HWBOT submissions with these overclocks

SuperPI @ 4.66GHz
CPUZ @ 4.66GHz


EDIT***

after trying to get it past 4.66 i have given up

it wont do it - looks like 222 is my bclk wall

shame

cant wait to see a 950/975 in action if this is the standard of the

 

[rjk]

Pretty sweet.

I have the same RAM and I managed to get the timings to 8/8/9/24/1T @1600mhz without really trying. I'm sure you could easily beat that.

If you're push ur cpu that hard might as well whip everything else in ur build until it falls dead on its back

i did that last time and my rig died!

however - this ocz 1866 reaper beats my old 1600mhz dominator hands down
i pushed it to 2000mhz at stock timings and it sat there all day laughing at memtest!!!

not bad for £100 memory considering i paid £200 for the dominator 1600 on release!

i had to slacken the memory off on this occasion in order to eliminate it from the overclock - that way i could concentrate my efforts on my chip

Awesome! I am selling my regular 920 now and buying a D0 stepping one! I don't care about the fact I'll loose out on £60

its worth it - without a shadow of a doubt
i may have got lucky - but in the right board - these chips are monsters

Definately worth seeking one of these out over any other stepping then, i7 gets more and more tempting as time goes by.

i would agree
personally i wasnt sold - but the low voltage requirements compared to my old C0 stepping chip is just great
im pretty sure 4.66GHz is the highest im going with HT on

ive overclocked a lot of the 965's at work and the best one i saw did 4.3GHz

im liking this Biostar more and more
its on par with gigabyte's fantastic UD5
and beats the p6t deluxe hands down in my opinion

 

[rjk]

also - futuremark ORB system seems to pick my chip up as a 975 when its overclocked past 4.5GHz

hope they fix this

 

[rjk]

cpu pll is two notches above auto
sorry i dont know the exact amount [on my phone at the moment/ not at the pc]
my old p6t deluxe used to need 1.325 QPI/DRAM to get stable over 4ghz

i noticed that bclk limits rampages

its stupid how a £300 extreme overclocking board gets bclk limited at 205
whereas the original 775 rampage had the highest fsb out of all the x48's

my biostar posts at 4.8GHz [230 BCLK] but BSOD's on the windows loading bar

 

[rjk]

no, I agree. The gigabyte extreme is an all round better board in my opinion

 

[rjk]

Hey rjkoneill,

I'm not sure if I'm reading this right but are you saying you toasted a £500 of hardware?

yes - unfortunatly the vrm's blew on my p6t deluxe

taking out my £200 ram and my £250 chip

so thats a grand total of around £700 worth of top end hardware that got RMA'd back to intel/asus/corsair

good because it meant i could get a D0 920 as a replacement

bad because it meant i was without my PC until the issue was sorted

 

[rjk]

the thermochill triple is hung out of the back of my case atm

should be mounting it internally soon but it will require me to take my whole system apart

 

[rjk]

managed to get a 4GHz profile stable at 1.18v

 

[rjk]

Cool my D0 arrives tommorow But after failing to overclock my C0 could you please tell me what you changed the qpi voltage to? (I think its called that, its the other voltage that needs to be changed with cpu volt but I'm not sure of the name)
I have a p6t deluxe btw so does that mean bios settings have a different name?

i used to have that board - its fairly easy
what cooler are you using?

That's brilliant man! What load temps are you getting with that profile?

around 60'c max
its about the same temps as i get at 4.3ghz/1.28v whilst gaming

so pretty good as a nice 'failsafe' profile

 

[rjk]

no problem - if you are on air it may be more difficult

if you are buying a rig from ocuk then i will be clocking it for you

if it is a full system - call up and ask to speak to rich

i will discuss how high i can clock for you

 

[rjk]

Place the order online or call up and ask to speak to Sam. He will guide you through what you need based on your budget. Once it's built I will clock it for you and keep you updated in this thread if you like?

 

[rjk]

rjkoneill, just out of curiosity have you managed to push the DRAM Frequency above 800mhz? as those OCZ Reaper 6GB (3x2GB) are specced at 933mhz (1866MHz) ?

I've tried two sets of ram with the Biostar TPower X58, cannot get either above 800mhz no matter what timings are used & my 2nd set of sticks are rated at 1000mhz (2000mhz).

Definitly seems like a Bios issue, I notified Biostar about this on 6th April so they are aware of this issue, whether they fix it is another story.

mine goes up to 888 using a 222mhz bclk

i cant get it to run on other dividers either
dont know why yet
assuming its a bios issue

they need a divider to run 1866 using 200BCLK

Do you know roughly how high it will let itself clock upto, or do you really have to have the chip installed and working before you will be able to find that out? Just like a rough guide of the speed increase I will be looking at, all thanks to your good self

i would need to check it out

if its on air i could probably get 3.8/4ghz depending on the cooler

if you go for watercooling with a double rad maybe 4.2

i would say go for air on a noctua cooler

that way its pretty certain

but remember - we have to offer support for the system so i would send it out at the standard 3.6/3.8 overclock with a profile for 4ghz

 

[rjk]

its ok for short bursts

its hardly going to impact intels rated 80+ year lifespan

in 50 years - the chip in my system will probably be in a landfill somewhere

 

[rjk]

rjkoneill - How is the overclocking of my machine coming along, have you managed to push it as far as it will go, and if so how much?

whats your name/order number? i will see if it has been built tomorrow

 

[rjk]

it will be finished off today

i will let you know what i manage to get out of it

 

[rjk]

good news - your system is being dispatched now

i have saved you profiles for 4 overclocks
you can set these by going intoi the bios and selecting which one you need

you have the following:

• 3.6GHz
• 3.8GHz
• 4.0GHz
• 4.2GHz

the 4.2 is on the very edge though - it is stable but your cooler will struggle if you dont put your case fans on high settings, i would only suggest you use this for benchmarks etc

the 3.8/4ghz is probably the ones to go for for every day use

Vantage Runs [PhysX Disabled] :
STOCK SPEED

3.6GHz

4.2GHz

Here are the overclocks...
tried to get the voltages down as much as possible

3.6 stable

3.8 stable

4ghz stable

4.2GHz

let me know if you have any questions

 

[rjk]

no problem - hope it works better than my inability to upload the correct screenshots

 

[rjk]

i dont have access to that forum - sorry

the settings for the overclocks are saved in the overclock profiles in your bios

if you go into your bios and go across to TOOLS

you should see an option that says load from profile

load each profile that you want

then get into windows - using cpuz and prime - you should see the speed hop up to the overclocked speed

i left speedstep on all of the overclocks so that your system wouldnt be at 100% all the time

 

[rjk]

I went through the options and "Turbo Mode" is enabled, but for some reason it doesnt let me select any of the 4 overclocking profiles, as it seems to already be overclocked to 3.58, but how do I select the other 3 profiles if I want to? I need an idiots step-by-step guide to make sure im not doing anything wrong

take a read through your motherboard manual - it should show you how to select overclocking options on your rampage extreme 2

 

[rjk]

did you have to update The BIOS to get the D0 chip to work in yor board?

no - every x58 board will work with a D0 chip

but you do need to update the bios to the manufacturers latest D0 compatible Bios to get the chip to run properly

Hi rjkoneill

Would you be able to tell me exactly which voltages you used for your 4ghz overclock please? I'm trying to get mine 4ghz stable and can't bring my volts anywhere near yours. I have a feeling I'm going wrong somewhere.

most x58 boards and D0 chips i have seen will do 4GHz/4.2GHz at 1.3v

or at least a couple of notches up from that

i cant give you the exact settings unfortunatly as every setup is different

you have to experiment for yourself