Quick Overclock Questions for my popluar hardware please

vwgolfman

vwgolfman

vwgolfman

Associate
Joined
26 Jan 2005
Posts
221
Location
Dorset
Hi I have just purchased the following hardware and would like to overclock it a little.

Asus P6T SE Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366)
Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 (1600MHz) Tri-Channel (TR3X6G1600C9)

I am not new to overclocking but have hardly had a chance to investigate what can be done with what I have.

I am air cooling with the...
Zalman CNPS9700-LED CPU Cooler

I would like to run the CPU somewhere between 3.2GHz and 3.5GHz. Any higher and I suspect I would be running the risk of it falling over?

At default the BIOS is configuring the RAM to run at 1066MHz so would like to bump this up to 1600MHz or greater if possible too.

Although I would really welcome a complete step by step guide on how to do this, especially from somebody who has the same hardware as me and has done the above I think that would be asking a lot and I should really read up on these forums to try to suss it out for myself. I also need to get to grips with the BIOS settings.
Having said that I am far from being an expert and if anybody would like to offer advice then please please do.

I don't necessarily need to get the absolute maximum out of what I have. In fact I would be happy with the above improvements and a safe, stable system.

Please can I also ask you kind people for recommendations for the best stress test and temperature monitoring programs?

If it makes any difference I am using an nVidia 8800GTS (512MB) Graphics Card.

Many thanks for any help you can offer.
 
Lol, Oh i see, didn't know you could get that :)

Stefan :)

Btw, ive just recently brought the same stuff before xmas,finally got my system stable at 4.0ghz With the same setup there you ordered. i can get you the settings if you like, ile post them on here later on :) But the cooler iam using is a H50 Idle's 38 degree's loads 69 degree's :)

Stefan :)
 
Hi Stefan,
Yes please I would really like to know your BIOS settings :)

Would you be so kind to explain each setting and why you have modified it if you have?

I would be happy at 3.2GHz or maybe 3.5GHz.
4GHz sounds fantastic but I'm not sure I want to risk taking it so high.
EDIT: I have just realised that the H50 is a water cooler so I don't think I will be able to reach 4GHz without frying my CPU anyway :D

Could you help also with settings which would give me say 3.5GHz?

Also please recommend a stress test program and temperature monitoring program so I can test my system.

Thankyou very much for your help :)
 
As I don't own the Asus P6 board, I cannot assist you personally on the bios settings.
However, for stress testing, people generally would use:-

Intel Burn Test
Linx
Prime95

Then the following for temperature monitoring:-

Real Temp
Core Temp

When you start overclocking, you would be altering the BCLK, this would automatically be change the frequency of your memory. So you should play around with the CPU multiplier as well as the System memory multiplier until you obtain your desired CPU and memory frequency.

You should also take note that your Uncore frequency is also multiplied by the BCLK, so to get the memory stable you would have to make sure that the (uncore * bclk) = at least double the frequency of your memory i.e. (16x Uncore * 200 bclk = 3200MHz) which is twice the amount of your desired 1600MHz memory frequency (This is based on a 20 CPU multiplier).
You should be looking at setting yours to 18 CPU multiplier, because 18*195bclk = 3510GHz. Then set Uncore to 17, because 195bclk * 17 gives you 3315 which is approximately twice the 1600MHz Dram frequency (Just over to be precise, but so long you are at least double the frequency, then you're fine).

In terms of Dimm voltage, you shouldn't go beyond 1.66v (1.65 is the recommended maximum) and when you adjust Dimm voltages, makes sure you adjust the QPI voltage as well. They have to be within .5v of each other i.e. 1.60 Dimm volt requires QPI Volt to be at least 1.20v.

It's not much, but I hope it's enough to get you started ;)
 
Last edited:
Thank you for your help PakJai.

Hmmmm the P6T SE BIOS looks so much more complicated than the last BIOS I adjusted for an overclock (IX 38 QuadGT).

There are so many settings and I am completely confused.

Would it be best to overclock my CPU first and then worry about the DDR3 afterwards?

Are you still there Stefan?
Maybe you could post image(s) of your BIOS screens?

Thank you once again.
 
I can confirm that the 9700 Zalman is good enough to cope with an i7 clocked to 3.6GHz, I used to have the 9700NT on my i920 when I put my i7 rig together, and it would run happily at 3.6GHz, however, the fan was extremely loud on that heatsink, it sounded like a jet taking off once you put a load on the processor!!

If you're only looking to run at 3.2GHz it will be just fine.

If you use 160 Bclk, 20x CPU, 10x Mem Multi, 20x Uncore, 36x QPI (or 18x iirc on Asus mobos?), that should give you 3.2GHz with your RAM running at 1600MHz.

Remember you'll need to set your RAM timings accordingly, and also find out what the lowest Vcore and Vtt your CPU requires to, this takes some time to find your chips sweet spot, with lots of stress testing between each change in voltage to.

iirc my 1st chip would do 3.2GHz by undervolting the Vcore, and keeping Vtt and all other voltages on "Normal", I don't know if the Asus boards have a "Normal" settings for their voltages, but leaving them on auto shouldn't really cause any problems tbh.

3.2GHz is a relatively mild o/c for these chips, I personally find that it becomes a lot more trickier once you're pushing past 200 Bclk...
 
Last edited:
vwgolfman said:
Thank you for your help PakJai.

Hmmmm the P6T SE BIOS looks so much more complicated than the last BIOS I adjusted for an overclock (IX 38 QuadGT).

There are so many settings and I am completely confused.

Would it be best to overclock my CPU first and then worry about the DDR3 afterwards?

Are you still there Stefan?
Maybe you could post image(s) of your BIOS screens?

Thank you once again.
Click to expand...

I find it much easier to stablise the RAMs first and then work on the CPU. It's easy to find a working CPU voltage but trickier finding stable memory settings and voltages.

What I did on mine was to start off with the lowest recommended RAM setting and then gradually increasing the DRAM frequency by modifying the Bclk. So long you keep it within the memory's spec i.e. mine was quoted to work up to 1333MHz at 9-9-9-20-T1.

Therefore I made sure I used the lowest memory multiplier to keep the frequency of the RAM to under 1333MHz, altered the Bclk and tested until stable. Then I just tighetend the tightened the latencies. I eventually managed to get it stable and running 7-7-7-21-t1 at around 1333MHz on 1.5V (haven't changed the DRAM voltage from my bios). I then worked on my CPU settings and carried on testing after each alteration until both were tested stable :)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom