Why did OcUK set up my system like this?

[AwesomeUsername]

Ok, well I recently purchased an overclocked bundle to get a guaranteed overclockable chip. I was obviously going to do the OCing myself and discard its current settings, but it was slightly strange as to how it had been set up.

First of all, the DRAM volts were only just within the 0.5V tolerance to VTT, which was pretty dangerous for the on chip memory controller. Plus, they were over the 1.65v general limit for i7's (probably because of the VTT constriant, however)

Second, the LLC was enabled and on level 2. You could have disabled it, compensated for the vdroop and just had slightly higher idle temps, and saved a 45nm chip a lot of voltage spikes

Third, it was set like 191* 21 multi, whereas 200*20 would have had it at the same frequency, as well as running the DRAMs at the right speed.

Fourth, the temperature and fan failiure guards were disabled, which is worrying.

I don't wish to slam or offend any of the OCuK lab team, you guys probably know something more than me, just wanted some answers, thanks.

 

[AwesomeUsername]

The VTT to DRAM was damn close to 0.5v and a fluctuation could have been dangerous, I think

A gigabyte board was sold with it as part of the bundle, so why was it not set like that? I got the chip to 4.26GHZ stable anyway with 203*21 and put the UnCore in ratio with that to keep everything right

Also, about LLC. Exposing a 45nm chip to voltage spikes will lower its life and potentially melt sockets etc I have heard, so I opted to turn it off. vDroop is there by design.

 

[AwesomeUsername]

Well, my idle volts are about 1.328V, which isnt bad I don't think. Temps only about 3C higher than they came and I also got it to 4.26GHZ

Yeah, LLC isn't categorically going to cause problems, but I disagree with it.

Kinda strange about the fan guard settings too.

You'd have thought someone who was building and testing it would choose the optimal settings for that frequency though, wouldn't you?

 

[AwesomeUsername]

To be honest I'd have thought they'd find stable settings in the minimum time possible, as the charge per bundle is pretty low and you pay staff by the hour. This is pretty much why I don't buy preoverclocked cpus (graphics cards are a different matter), I know I've got the time required to optimise the settings because my time is free. If it was stable when it turned up, and within sensible values I don't think you can object really.

I turn temperature sensors off too, but am also surprised that they did so. Can't imagine you've tested stabilty in under an hour, so best of luck with your 4.26ghz.

You've raised a fair point. It took me a few hours of stability testing etc. then getting the volts as low as possible etc, but it doesn't make much sense as you could have done 200*20. Maybe that don't work on all 920s and they had limited time like you said.

 

[AwesomeUsername]

I mean, it sounds as if they are trying to cater to people who do a lot of performance work or want to show off but don't have the capability to OC, so I doubt many questions like this are raised. Just asking, not meaning any harm here. I am not particularly experienced with overclocking, but I know my way around, so as to speak, and I knew that if I bought this bundle I'd be getting a guaranteed high clocking chip, which is what I wanted. However I hear 920's are very easy to get to 4.0GHZ.

 

[AwesomeUsername]

Yeah I figure that now, but I bought it for the guaranteed clock, really.

 

[AwesomeUsername]

Hi, I think i probably got the same bundle as you (i7 920 and ud3r?) except mine has come with the bios at default settings. Either i missed something or for some reason the bios has reset. I went for the bundle because I havent OC'd since the q6600 and didn't want to spend ages researching/testing etc. Don't suppose you could give me a headsup on the settings they set it with or should be with to get this at 4ghz? I'll call them tomorrow to ask otherwise but but it'd be nice to get it up and running today. There was thermal pate residue on the cpu so they deffinately tried something!

That happened to me when I first got it. If you press F12 on the BIOS screen, you can load OcUK's overclock profile.

 

[AwesomeUsername]

As I said, I only really did it for the guaranteed clock. I mean, my knowledge isn't that advanced, I just wondered why it had been set up like this.