Procedure for overclocking core i7 920 ?

GunRunner

GunRunner

GunRunner

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31 Jan 2007
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603
I am pretty well up to speed with over clocking intel socket 775 Cpu's see my signature, and have successfully overclocked 4 other systems very recently for my family.

But... I am having a problem with a newly built i7 set-up that is using the following:

Antec 900 case
i7 920 Cpu
Gigabyte EX58 -UD5 Motherboard
G Skill 6GB DDR3 PC3 -10666C9 (1333 mhz) Triple channel RAM (3 x 2GB)
BFG GTX 295 - 1792MB
Akasa AK-967 cooler now fitted on 4 March 09

Where ever I look on the web, there are very comprehensive write ups on how to over clock the i7 920 cpu, that are without a doubt written by well informed experienced experts. Some of these write ups are pages long, and because the person writing it, wants to convey the message fully and give a full account of why and how they did it, the very salient procedure and details are hidden inside the report and it is quite difficult to see the wood for the trees.

My question is: Does anyone already have procedure that is a condensed down version that is easy to follow and does not have all the padding? If they don't, has anyone considered doing this? I would even be happy to send the person doing it a beer or 4 or 5. Not joking!:D

I would hope the procedure would take the form of...

In the bios.....to clock to 3.0 Ghz do the following:

a.
b.
c.
d
e.
f.
etc.

Test for stability at this setting for a determined time.

Rinse and repeat for 3.2 Ghz.

Test for stability

Rinse and repeat for 3.4 Ghz etc.

Now before you say google it, I have and that is why I am getting bogged down with too much detail. Also I am now getting too long in the tooth and the older you get the harder it is to retain the information. The truth be known I am an OAP. There I have said it!

Can anyone help please?

Kind regards
 
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mr_x_plosion said:
How high are you hoping to get? You will easily get 3.2 on stock voltages.

I'm at work at the moment, if I have time later I can post my bios settings for 4Ghz, although the list will be big and you might not want to go this high.

I would manually set the vcore to 1.2v and increase the BCLK frequency 10Mhz at a time and test for stability each time in Prime95 keeping an eye on temps in Coretemp then increase vcore a few notches when you get blue screen or errors. I found I could get 3.5Ghz on stock 1.2v.
Click to expand...

Great! Thanks! Anything you post with regards to overclocking would be gratefully received and appreciated. I mean anything! I feel I must start off low down and test for COMPLETE stability, as I play IL2 Forgotten Battels 2 (open GL2) and I have to fend off the nvlddmkm error that occurs in Vista x64.
 
mr_x_plosion

Did you look at your BIOS settings last night?

Has anybody else any thoughts on a procedure?

Regards

Edited. Since posting this request, I have re read the following review of my motherboard:

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/gigabyte_EX58-UD5_review/

I found at the end of the review the following settings:

Overclocking

Overclocking on the GA-EX58-UD5 went very easily until I tried to exceed 21x183MHz - at which point it required more finesse.

I was even able to get to the Windows desktop at 4.2GHz - however I could not get it stable, as the Vcore required generated too much heat for the Noctua 12 to keep the processor below 100'C; however I am sure that 4.2GHz would be workable with a good water cooling kit.

In order to hit 4.03GHz I had to:

* Enable "Turbo Boost"
* disable C1E
* disable C3/C6/C7
* enable EIST
* enable Base Clock control
* set base clock to 192MHz
* set PCIe to 100MHz
* set memory multiplier to 6x at 1152-7-7-7-20-1T or 8x at 1536-9-8-8-24-1T
* Vcore at 1.475V
* Load Line Calibration enabled

Frankly, I would not run the system with these settings long term; I'd back down to BCLK of 183MHz as that ran with a 1.4V Vcore.

end of quote from the review.

Any comments? I would NOT enable Turbo boost!
 
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OK new fan fitted! Temperatures now are now 10 degrees C lower at idle.

I had been overclocking to 3.26 Ghz with the standard fan, so now I aim to move onwards. I will not enable turbo, because I found I got the dreaded nVidia driver error using that function. I just ran the 3dm06 and found with this mild overclock that I am 600 points better than the one in my signature and the main improvement is in the CPU score.
 
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bagwaa said:
I overclocked my i7 920 upto 3.8ghz, getting to 3.2ghz was easy and didn't need much in the way of changing settings, I just set the BCLK and started with a low CPU multiplier, I then stepped it up until I got to what I would consider maximum temperatures.

My BCLK is currently set to 200, my CPU multiplier is 19, and I manually set the RAM speed to 1600mhz (this is also determined from the base clock, another reason I used the multiplier to step the CPU speed up in 200mhz chunks).

I then raised the CPU core voltage up until it was stable, I found that my system would boot, but as soon as I put load on it with prime95 it would blue screen, at which point I slightly upped the Core V, however I didn't want to touch 1.4v on the core, and now it sits at around 1.25v @ 3.8ghz and seems stable under load.

Temperatures are around 38degrees idle, and 65 under prime95 load, that's with air cooling and a crappy case.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this information. I am just twiddling around at the moment with no overall plan and it is stable at 3.6ghz. It is running a bit warmer than yours, so perhaps I need to drop the voltage.
 
After reading myself to death on loads of threads and overclocking reviews, it appears that many people turn off the hyperthreading when overclocking. So that is what I have done. I am still "fumbling" around and have now got it stable at 3.8ghz. I ran prime95 for a couple of hours. The maximum temperature on any core was 62 degrees C. After that I ran 3dmark06 and this is the result.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=10221477

As you can see it is far better than my setup below..from June of 2008. That machine does not exist anymore in that form because I had cold boot problems inside the guarantee period and replaced the board. This is 5 boards of 680i and 780i (2 were EVGA) in 2 years that have failed. Never again will I go the nVidia chipset route.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=6980656

Anyway, I digress, I tried to run this new i7 system (see opening thread for details) at 4.0ghz but it blue screened on me. My guess is that it will do it easily, it is just that I am unsure what I need to tweak to get it stable.
 
Richdog said:
No-one should have to spend their precious time writing out a complete guide for you when there are PLENTY of them on various forums.

EDIT - Don't take it personally, i'm just too jaded. :p
Click to expand...


I ask only one question! Why write a statement like that if you did not mean it personally and you were just jaded? My opening thread was just the same question asking for help. That is why this forum and many other forums like it exist. By using google the person finds the questions such as mine and then finds the "helpful" people who will assist where they can.

Note. I am now over clocking mine (only to 3.9ghz) and still keeping the core temps to 65 degrees C and less. When I have asked a few more questions to other readers, I will be writing a procedure. It might not be the "dogs" but it will be a starting point for others.
 
Here we go! This basic guide is written for the Gigabyte EX58-UD5 with BIOS revision F5 with the following:

intel i7 920 2.66Ghz (Akasa AK -967 Nero Cooler)
G.Skill 6GB DDR3 NQ PC3-10666C9 1333Mhz Tripple channel RAM
BFG Geforce GTX 295 1792MB
Corsair HX 1000 W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Power Supply.

The PC is a general work horse PC that is also used to play the Flight Simulator game Forgotten Battles IL2 (OpenGL 2).

Procedure:

1. Into BIOS and intelligent Tweaker (MIT)

2. CPU clock 20X

3. Into Advanced CPU Features
a. Turbo Boost [Disabled]
b. CPU Multithreading [Disabled] leave rest as they were.

4. Uncore & QPI features
a. QPI link speed [Auto] or x36 = (7.02)
b. Uncore frequency (x15) = 2.925Mhz (I have some doubt about this and it appears it can go higher but less than the main frequency..comments any reader?)

5.BCLK [enabled]
a. BLCK Frequency [195]

6. Advanced Clock Control [Enter]
a. BCLK Frequency [195]
b. PCI Express Freq [Auto] (I have read that this might need setting to 100)
c. C.I.A.2 [Disabled]

7. Performance Enhance [Standard]

8. System memory multiplier (SPD) [6] (This is set so that ram frequency is at 1333 or lower)

9. DRAM Timetable Selectable (SPD) [Manual]

10. Advanced DRAM Features
a. Performance Enhance [Standard]
b. System Memory Multiplier [6]
c. DRAM Timing Selectable [Manual]

11. Load Line Calibration [ENABLE]

12. CPU Core [1.3875] (This set for testing and going on to 4.0ghz) (Is it too high anyone?)

13. QPI/VTT Voltage 1.150 [Auto]

14. IOH Core 1.100v [Auto]

15. DRAM Voltage 1.500v [1.600v]

Note 1. I have found that by running the processor with Turbo Boost and multithreading disabled, and the Performance Enhance as Standard, I do NOT get the nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered error when playing the Flight Simulator Game IL2.

Note 2. Please remember this is my first stab at this procedure. If anyone wishes to comment on it, please do. Also if anyone wishes to refine it and add to it then please be my guest. My intention is to help anyone as much as I can. I will be using it to move up to 4.0Ghz and higher if possible. Although it appears that on air 4.0Ghz is probably the highest it will go!

Note 3. Whilst typing this procedure Prime95 has been running and the highest temperature recorded on any one core is 68 degrees C.
 
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sithlord said:
Is the whole purpose of overclocking to get more of your current CPU without spending money.

So why are people disabling features like Hyper threading, why not go and disable all the cache as well to get more MHz but less overall speed ? :/
Click to expand...

OK...plain and simple in my case! The game IL2 Forgotten Battles, only uses one core and only one thread. So when playing that, I have a profile in the BIOS to disable hyperthreading. I also have another profile to enable it for other applications if I need it on. Eventually, I will leave it on all the time, at the moment it is off for testing.
 
sithlord said:
Thats fair enough. I prefer to push the CPU to the MAX, Overclocking is also a kind of game to some of us and Hyper-threading on is part of the challenge.
Click to expand...

OK...I carried out some experimenting today, and this is what I managed.

CoreTempwithprime95_40ghz.jpg


I did not expect it be stable using 211x19 giving 4.0ghz. Only time will tell. My signature gives the 3dmark06 for what its worth. The TDP is only 114w as opposed to using the 20 x multi and getting TDP of 130W @ 3.8ghz and 3.9ghz. I could not get 4.0ghz using 200 x 20 that is why I used 211 x 19. Rather strange!
 
Funny thing happened this morning. It would not boot at the above settings. It came up in the bios saying that there was an over clocking problem and it would default to 2.66ghz. Once it started to load the default, I hit delete and loaded my 3.8ghz settings and went into Windows Vista x64. I ran that for 5 minutes and then rebooted it back into the 4.0ghz configuration, and all is fine. Very confusing! :confused:
 
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