Virgin Overclocker

Associate
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4 Mar 2007
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129
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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:
 
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rjk

rjk

Caporegime
Joined
8 Aug 2007
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25,381
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 :)
 
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Associate
OP
Joined
4 Mar 2007
Posts
129
Location
North West
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.
 
Soldato
Joined
15 Nov 2007
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13,101
Location
Enfield
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.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
4 Mar 2007
Posts
129
Location
North West
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 :)
 
Soldato
Joined
15 Nov 2007
Posts
13,101
Location
Enfield
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 :)

Hmmm...an extra 400mhz for £600. Justification........?

Still, 'tis your money, not mine :)
 
Associate
Joined
5 May 2006
Posts
276
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 :)

Hey Mate, im trying to run the same sort of set up i have and i7 on this mobo with triple channel 1800MHZ OCZ reaper ram... can you suggest any bios settings for this, at the moment vista seems to only recognise 2GB of my RAM, im guessing its a bios setting i changed but if i have everything on AUTO i get the NVDLLMKM.SYS BSOD every 5 seconds ?

Congrats to OP im sure you will have fun with what you ordered ill post back my results in case they might help you.

Many thanks TD
 
Associate
OP
Joined
4 Mar 2007
Posts
129
Location
North West
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 :)
 
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