Virgin Overclocker

Uncleiven · 30 Mar 2009 at 20:06

I soon will be the proud owner of an i7 965 Extreme CPU on a Asus Rampage II Extreme M/board with a Noctua NH-U12P cooler.

As title suggests I haven't really done any Overclocking before so I am just after some friendly advise regarding my setup and what benchmarks I should be looking to aim for.

From what I have read this M/board is very "Overclocking Friendly" and already has 2 pre-set Overclocking levels to set to (3.60GHz or 4.00GHz) which automatically adjusts the Base Clock and QPI voltage, I also read they aren't quite stable enough so require further adjustments.

What do you reckon is achievable using this cooler etc...?

Thanks :cool:

Uncleiven · 30 Mar 2009 at 20:23

Also got 6GB of Dominator DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600) RAM. Maybe even upgrading to 12GB in the near future

Uncleiven · 31 Mar 2009 at 10:36

DavieCramb01 said:
Suits you sir.

Sounds like a nice bit you ahav there.

Not to sure how and whats possible with this but will be watchinjg this post to find out. seeing as natural progression for me soon will be an i7

Thanks

Uncleiven · 31 Mar 2009 at 10:41

rjkoneill said:
you should get 3.8 if the chip does low volts

i would personally get a 920 if you are using air cooling
a 965 is a massive waste of money if you arent on water or better

using a rampage 2...
most 920s i have seen do 4ghz on water
max i have seen out of a 965 is 4.3 on water

from what experience i have with the rampage 2, they seem to be very good on the current latest bios - so grab that now

if you need a hand - email me and i will send you some settings to try

i will need to know what memory you have too

I think people have different opinions about the 965 being air cooled. Some say it will easily do 4Ghz being air cooled but more stable at 3.9

Yeah I will get the latest BIOS ready, this system isn’t actually built yet BTW.

I posted my memory above mate - 6GB of Dominator DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600)

Thanks for your offer of help, I appreciate it as I don’t want to **** up my CPU/Mobo.

Uncleiven · 31 Mar 2009 at 10:51

reflux said:
Hmmm - if you haven't bought the 965 yet, don't. As rjkoneill has pointed out - you won't get a better overclock, but you will have paid £600 more than you needed to for the privilege.

No it has been bought but it hasn’t been built yet, so too late for that lol. I did my research and read several articles / posts across the web so the decision to get the 965 was pretty justified.

At this stage the CPU is only air cooled but I do plan to get into water cooling once this system is built and I see what I can achieve with the Noctua

Uncleiven · 3 Apr 2009 at 13:39

My system is all built now so I will be looking for some help later with regards to a decent overclock.

I have already just used the preset one in the bios which is to 3.8Ghz and it seems to be pretty stable. Need to do more stress testing tonight. I will post up later on and hopefully you guys will be able to help me improve my oc