Possible Upgrade

Silverberg · 5 May 2012 at 16:27

Hi guys, first time here.

I am thinking of doing a few upgrades to my pc. The main question is, will there be much of a performance increase compared to what i have now.

Current Build:
Intel i7-920 @ Stock speeds with standard Intel cooler
Gigabyte G1 Guerilla Motherboard
Kingston HyperX Genesis RAM 24GB
ATI 6990 4GB

This is what im thinking of changing it to:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3820 3.60GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £215.99
1 x Asus P9X79 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £192.98
1 x Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9) £89.99
1 x Intel Liquid Cooling Solution CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1155/1156//1366/2011) £72.98
Total : £583.34 (includes shipping : £9.50).

What do you think? Any feedback would be great, thanks.

Silverberg · 5 May 2012 at 16:46

Sorry, I use it for gaming, recoding films and just general internet etc

Silverberg · 5 May 2012 at 18:43

May try that then. Tried overclocking once before but i dont think the cooler liked it. Even just a tiny bit. Thanks for your help

Silverberg · 5 May 2012 at 20:26

I bought the CPU when they first came out, so it isnt the D0. The case i have is the Antec 902 (but the older version to what Overclockers now sell)

Silverberg · 5 May 2012 at 20:47

Silverberg · 5 May 2012 at 20:53

Ok thanks a lot for your help. When the new cooler arrives (yet to decide which one) I will have a go with what you just said, although the part about the RAM has lost me completely :confused:

Silverberg · 5 May 2012 at 22:57

cmndr_andi said:
Basically when you are overclocking this CPU you increase the base clock (BCLK) frequency. This influences both the CPU and memory clockspeeds, though each of these is on their own multiplier. The stock BCLK is 133MHz, the stock CPU multiplier of the i7 920 is 20x and the stock memory multiplier of PC3-10600 RAM is 10x.

However, when you overclock the CPU on the X58 platform - so that the BLCK goes up (for example increasing it from 133MHz to 180MHz)- the 20x CPU multiplier will increase the CPU frequency to 3.6GHz (a nice overclock, so long as you provide enough core voltage to the CPU). However, this same adjustment will mean the memory is trying to run at 1800MHz on the standard 10x memory multiplier, even though it is only rated to 1333MHz (in this case, your memory may be rated higher).

Therefore, when you overclock a CPU on the X58 platform just make sure you lower the memory multiplier enough so that the memory is still running at around spec level (ideally below it so you know it will be fine).

Thank You very much!