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safe volts for 950 i7
- Thread starter andyr
- Start date
That isn't what vid means.
The chip will degrade at any voltage, including stock. The rate depends on voltage, temperature, and how much God hates you.
Under water (assuming 60 degrees or so) I'm happy at 1.4V on Vcore and QPI, but would be nervous around the 1.45V mark. Under 1.35V would be excellent. The absolute limit on Vcore is 1.55V from Intel's specifications (and 1.35V on qpi), but bear in mind that this is not the voltage set in the bios, but the voltage seen by the chip which tends to oscillate above and below the bios setting. Rumour has it qpi isn't limited to 1.35V, but to within some distance of Vdimm (ram). So if your ram is over 1.65V, qpi over 1.35V doesn't seem to be a problem.
It's all essentially gambling though. "Overclock until you hit diminishing returns" is a good rule of thumb.
The chip will degrade at any voltage, including stock. The rate depends on voltage, temperature, and how much God hates you.
Under water (assuming 60 degrees or so) I'm happy at 1.4V on Vcore and QPI, but would be nervous around the 1.45V mark. Under 1.35V would be excellent. The absolute limit on Vcore is 1.55V from Intel's specifications (and 1.35V on qpi), but bear in mind that this is not the voltage set in the bios, but the voltage seen by the chip which tends to oscillate above and below the bios setting. Rumour has it qpi isn't limited to 1.35V, but to within some distance of Vdimm (ram). So if your ram is over 1.65V, qpi over 1.35V doesn't seem to be a problem.
It's all essentially gambling though. "Overclock until you hit diminishing returns" is a good rule of thumb.
Soldato
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QPI and DRAM should be within 0.5v of each other, so QPI at 1.35v and DRAM at 1.65 = 0.3v, so well within spec. 1.55v is the absolute under spike/surge conditions etc.. not as a 24/7 working vcore. I'd stay at or below 1.4v vcore personally, however, opinons vary.
Thanks for that , my dram is at 1.65v and i will have to look what my qpi is set to as i think it is in auto in bios as is my vcore, i have always set it manually before but this time i left it in auto and read it in cpuid in windows and it always seems around 1.36 - 1.376 , temps around 36 degrees idle.
Soldato
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- 24 Jul 2006
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- Hoddesdon, London, UK
Yea, no need for auto.. your stuff could probably run at a lot lower voltage than that.
Soldato
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Pardon my ignorance....
I had no idea about overclocking untill a few people helped me out on this forum.
From the posts above, it looks like you guys are saying that the volts given tothe ram can also affect overclockability?
I thought it was just the mobo and cpu volts and heat that determined the overclock?
For instance in my example, I'v hit a wall with my cpu, where by I am stable at 3.7ghz at 1.37v on my qx9650, but I cant get stable at 3.8 or anything beyound even using 1.5v! (just did it for an experiment)
However I have my ram clocked at its slowest speed in a 1:1 ratio with the cpu, using its defaul dram volts.... I never assumed that increasing the dram volts even if the freq is the same could allow me to increase cpu overclock?
I had no idea about overclocking untill a few people helped me out on this forum.
From the posts above, it looks like you guys are saying that the volts given tothe ram can also affect overclockability?
I thought it was just the mobo and cpu volts and heat that determined the overclock?
For instance in my example, I'v hit a wall with my cpu, where by I am stable at 3.7ghz at 1.37v on my qx9650, but I cant get stable at 3.8 or anything beyound even using 1.5v! (just did it for an experiment)
However I have my ram clocked at its slowest speed in a 1:1 ratio with the cpu, using its defaul dram volts.... I never assumed that increasing the dram volts even if the freq is the same could allow me to increase cpu overclock?
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usually increasing the ram voltage only allows a higher ram overclock, with an upper limit depending on ram and cooling ect , but i think on x58 chipset boards at least ,the QPI and dram volts needs to be within 0.5 as said above.