i7 920 overclock settings

[bullhead187]

So what are all the settings people are using for the i7 when ocing it. Include ram type, mobo, etc to give ideas on where to start. Looking at stepping stones such as 3.0ghz, 3.2, 3.4., 3.6, 3.8, up to 4. Also what are you using to cool it and what are your temps at idle and load.

 

[palladium]

3.03GHz ( 143BClk *21 - my multi is always 21), 12GB DDR3-1333 8/8/8/20 ( Kingston Value RAM series @1.5v), GA-EX58-DS4 BIOS rev F3. Vcore is 1.175V ( 1.152V load), 1.22V QPI ( now testing 1.20V) and 1.8V PLL. Stock cooler, idle ~40C with 25C ambient ( unfortunately its summer here and during the day ambient can hit 30C easily, hence the huge undervolting). Load after 3 hours of Prime 95 tends to be around 73-75C. I'm hoping to get 150BCLK without increasing Vcore and maybe a 20 or 40mV increase in QPI volatge when the weather gets a lil cooler.

Aftermarket cooler is essential for anything above 3.2GHz.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

How fast of DDR3 ram does one need to hit 4Ghz? e.g. on an 8400 machine, it would take DDR2 900 to reach a fsb of 450 to get 4.050Ghz

 

[rge]

I went to 4ghz from stock, havent tried below that, but i940 (same settings would apply for i920)

For 4ghz (20x200) 12hrs prime stable, QPI 36, uncore 17x, mem8x (uncore has to be at least 2x mem or no post)
Vcore 1.356 bios, LLC enabled, qpi/vtt 1.31, DRAM volts 1.64, 8,8,8 24 1600 (stock is 1600 at 1.65), qpi pll 1.14 (1 notch over stock 1.1)
rest stock volts. I have 1600 rated ram. If you have 1333 rated you may have same settings but 6x mem multi.
idle temps 38C, load 70C on water, GTZ/PA 120.3. People on air with aftermarket coolers are getting load temps in 80's at equiv settings.

For 4.2 (21x200) 12hrs prime stable, exact same settings a 4.0, except vcore increase to 1.41 bios, vtt/qpi 1.33, and IOH, qpi Pll and cpu pll volts all 1 notch over stock.
idle 39C, load 75C temps, at 25C ambient.

Regarding mem speed, some have 1333 DDR3 and using mem ratio 6x, uncore 12+, those using 1600 DDR3 mem ratio 8x with uncore 16+. 2000 rated needs very high qpi and way over intel maxes. I have run my 1600 rated at 1333 speeds, 1600, and 2000 (as have others). Makes no difference in any real world application, game or any benchmark like pcmark5, spi, etc, only makes a difference in benchmarks that test memory bandwidth specifically, ie like everest, sandra. But given minimal price difference between 1333 and 1600, I would go with 1600 rated, gives the most flexibility for settings.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Wow, nice overclocks. Do those DDR 3 numbers make a difference between your i7 940 and a i7 920? What would be more stressed to hit 4 or 4.2 with a i7 920?

 

[ajaidevsingh]

How cum ppl are going to 4Ghz on air and i cant get stable on 4ghz with a Ultra 120 the best i get is 3.8Ghz and for best results settled at 3.6ghz

 

[PCTC2]

Originally posted by: ajaidevsingh
How cum ppl are going to 4Ghz on air and i cant get stable on 4ghz with a Ultra 120 the best i get is 3.8Ghz and for best results settled at 3.6ghz

If you look at rge's sig, he's on water. A lot of people won't reach 4.0GHz on air because the i7 puts out so much heat. 3.6GHz is still a 1GHz OC and that is still really nice.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: ajaidevsingh
How cum ppl are going to 4Ghz on air and i cant get stable on 4ghz with a Ultra 120 the best i get is 3.8Ghz and for best results settled at 3.6ghz

No doubt that is what most people are also getting (3.6-3.8) on air but who is going to report this when the bar has been set by early adopters "4GHz on air is teh eazy!".

We saw the same thing happen with Q6600. Early adopters were proud of their 3.6-3.8GHz and said it, the growing number of us (who defined the typical OC value) under-reported our OC's which were more generally in the 3.2-3.4GHz range. So later on multitudes of folks started asking "why can't I get 3.6GHz here?" to which 1 or 2 people would say "I don't know, I do it" but 10-20 people would come out of the wood-work and state "sorry but that's all I get here too...3.4GHz is tops for my rig".

And thus the realistic average finally came out.

i7 overclocks are no doubt going thru this right now, and PhII OC's will soon be doing the same. It's not that early adopters are misleading anyone, their OC's are real, but because of their pride and excitement (they are early adopters in part for some psychological aspects...) they are more likely to post about their OC's versus the guy who happens to buy one and struggles to get a near-record OC so just doesn't put much effort into broadcasting their seemingly mediocre overclocking results.

Just a personal theory of mine, could be complete BS.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Could also be that the 4Ghz i7 crowd are using top notch boards with better electrical conductor material and stabilizing methods.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: ajaidevsingh
How cum ppl are going to 4Ghz on air and i cant get stable on 4ghz with a Ultra 120 the best i get is 3.8Ghz and for best results settled at 3.6ghz

No doubt that is what most people are also getting (3.6-3.8) on air but who is going to report this when the bar has been set by early adopters "4GHz on air is teh eazy!".

I posted on this a few months ago in another thread:

Expected Air Overclocks by model number:

core i7 920: ~3600mhz
core i7 940: ~3700 - 3900mhz
core i7 965: ~3900mhz +

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=28&threadid=2241021

I agree people shouldn't be running around saying 4Ghz is easy on core i7. It just runs very hot and there are many variables to take into account. I'd say follow RGE's advice if you want to get there though. ;p

 

[dmens]

Expected Air Overclocks by model number:

core i7 920: ~3600mhz
core i7 940: ~3700 - 3900mhz
core i7 965: ~3900mhz +

for what it's worth, there are oddball i7 920 parts with low VID's that are supremely overclockable, i think about 1 in 20 last i heard. you'd have to boot it up and look at the VID to see if you got one.

 

[iCyborg]

My 24/7 settings for i7 920 @ 3.6GHz are:
cpu vcore: 1.2750v
qpi: 1.28125V
pll: 1.86V
ram: 1.62V
cpu diff amplitude: 800mV

Everything else is on Auto. I've only tested it with prime for ~6 hours, load temp is 70, idle is 35-40, though lower if one uses Speedstep like I do.

With cpu and qpi @1.30V, it's stable on 3.80 GHz, temps are around 72-73. With cpu and qpi @1.37V, ram @1.66, I could run a short gaming benchmark at 4.06GHz, but I didn't really check temps or anything, just ran the benchmark and got the hell outta there.

I'm sure I could run it stably at some reasonable load temps at 3.80-3.90GHz, but even 3.6 is more than I need.

My RAM is ocz platinum 1600, p6t Deluxe board, cpu cooler Ultra 120 with a single fan.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Why is PLL so high? Is that normal? I thought any voltage above 1.5v on these things would fry them. Not so?

 

[palladium]

@VirtualLarry - Stock PLL is 1.8V.

Originally posted by: dmens

Expected Air Overclocks by model number:

core i7 920: ~3600mhz
core i7 940: ~3700 - 3900mhz
core i7 965: ~3900mhz +

for what it's worth, there are oddball i7 920 parts with low VID's that are supremely overclockable, i think about 1 in 20 last i heard. you'd have to boot it up and look at the VID to see if you got one.

Noob question, but where/how can you find the VID? Last I check there were no such option in my BIOS.

 

[Tempered81]

open up coretemp for chips VID, and cpu-z for realtime Vcore

 

[ayabe]

I've posted this in other threads but here she goes again:

i7 920 Current 24/7 stable 38C idle/70C load
Components:
Lian Li a7110b
Antec Signature 850
Gigabyte X58 UD5 F4 BIOS
TRUE-1366 with stock fan
IC7 TIM
Corsair 3x2GB DDR3-1600(TR3X6G1600C9)


3.8ghz
Multi: x20
BLCK: 190
Vcore: 1.3
QPI/Vtt volts: 1.35
DRAM- 1.65
QPI Link: x36
Uncore Freq: x17 The reason I bolded this is because there seems to be conflicting opinions on what this setting should actually be. Some say it should be DDR3 speed x2, so if you're running at ~1600 then it needs to be x16 to equal 3200. Others say it's DDR3 speed x2+1 so in the previous example we would need to use x17 to get 3400. I would recommend trying both methods as it might be a motherboard thing.
System MemMult - 8x
DRAM timings: stock for the 1600 XMP profile so, 9-9-9-24@2T. I've tried running at 1T and it's stable but doesn't yield better performance in my case.

Other items of note: I disabled every power management feature in the BIOS to ensure stable voltages. Turbo mode is also disabled as well, I didn't have much luck with it at higher clocks. Everything else is at the default settings.

I can run 4.0 by changing the BLCK to 200, upping the vcore to 1.35, load gets to ~75C after a few hours of prime and the rig will not do a hot restart. It will POST from a cold boot every time however. Everything else works.

For now I happy with my system, I may be adding another fan to the TRUE for a push-pull setup and may upgrade my case fans. But at this point, I don't feel like spending more money just to get 4.0ghz 100% stable with decent temps. The performance difference from 3.8 just isn't there.

In summary, I would highly recommend the Gigabyte board, this was by far the easiest build/OC experience I've ever had. Through more than a 100+ reboots, sometimes with pretty insane settings, never once did I have to clear the CMOS. This dual BIOS feature is no joke, if she won't POST with what you set, the other BIOS kicks in and boots with the default settings. I think the best part is that when you get back into the BIOS, whatever you were trying to do is still preserved so you can back it off from there. Far superior to writing everything down each time, clearing the CMOS, trying again, etc.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Hardware Monitor by CPUID also has real time vcore monitoring

 

[Labdog]

not exactly the same because i920 supports just x20 max

 

[aigomorla]

4ghz is easy.

You guys just dont have the required cooling for it.

99% of the water people are getting 4ghz easy as pie.

Thats why its hard.

Ive only seen 1 chip out of 5 (and it was on air) that couldnt do 4ghz, but it got dayam close to 3.965.

You guys cant do it cuz your cooling cant keep up with the overclock.

(Lapped TRUE with hard mount + sanyo denki sanace in push/pull) <-- i dont think any of you guys have air cooling at this calibur.

Originally posted by: Labdog
not exactly the same because i920 supports just x20 max

Turbo on makes it 21x

 

[Elganja]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
4ghz is easy.

You guys just dont have the required cooling for it.

99% of the water people are getting 4ghz easy as pie.

Thats why its hard.

Ive only seen 1 chip out of 5 (and it was on air) that couldnt do 4ghz, but it got dayam close to 3.965.

You guys cant do it cuz your cooling cant keep up with the overclock.

(Lapped TRUE with hard mount + sanyo denki sanace in push/pull) <-- i dont think any of you guys have air cooling at this calibur.

Originally posted by: Labdog
not exactly the same because i920 supports just x20 max

Turbo on makes it 21x

i have a lapped TRUE Ultra doing a push up to the top of my case (antec 900). I am using this fan on my heatsink. I took the stock heatsink fan and used it for the side fan on my case (trying to achieve positive pressure, dropped temps by roughly 2-3C)
edit: I'm sorry, there was something else I did. I wasn't comfortable with how loose the cooler sat on the cpu. So i used 1 washer on each screw to get a tighter fit (i.e. more spring pressure).

i920, 21x175 (turbo on) = 3675 ... temps are 52,57,57,54 (+- 2-3C, measured with real temp) with prime95 running. I have the EVGA x58 board. The CPU was rock solid with the settings above (ran prime95 small ffts for 9 hours).

now if i could just get my memory to be stable i would be set (i had 12gb of gskill 1333 RAM). I suppose I could of messed with the IOH,ICH,IOH/ICH more but this was an excuse for me to get better (faster rated) RAM.

Newegg was kind enough to let me return it. I ordered some OCZ Gold 1600 RAM, but just 6GB. I think the combination of subpar RAM and full slots were leading to instablitiy in the RAM (even though it passed memtest86 for 8 hours, it would BSOD randomly with memory module errors). New ram comes today so I will do some prime blend tests and occt/linpak tests for stability.

 

[JMapleton]

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN
How fast of DDR3 ram does one need to hit 4Ghz? e.g. on an 8400 machine, it would take DDR2 900 to reach a fsb of 450 to get 4.050Ghz

If you're spending so much money on an i7, I don't see why you're not buying ddr3 1600.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Elganja
i have a lapped TRUE

List all hardware.

CPU: i7 920 correct?
RAM:
BOARD:
PSU:

Board Bios revision also if possible.

Take a picture of your bios screen. I want to see what you have configured. It looks simular to this:

http://i125.photobucket.com/al...aigomorla/IMG_0162.jpg

 

[Elganja]

New memory just got here, results very good...

Running at 21*180 = ~3780... temps are as follows (only have been running prime for 30min now)

avg: 62,65,65,60
high: 65,67,66,62

edit: vreg's are ~60C

I'm pretty happy and I doubt I will push it any further on air... my goal was to stay under 70C under load and I have achieved that, this i7 ROCKS!

This is my entire setup:
Mother Board ( EVGA X58 X3 SLi )
Drivers ( Latest )
Bios ( SZ1A )
CPU ( 920 i7, Batch 3839A )
CPU Cooler ( TRUE Ultra Lapped w/ AS5 )
Memory ( OCZ Gold 1600 )
PSU ( Corsair 850TX )
GPU ( 295 GTX )
Drivers ( Latest )
CPU Clock Ratio ( 20X )
CPU Host Frequency (Mhz) ( 180 )
CPU Uncore Frequency (Mhz) ( 17x )
Spread Spectrum ( Disabled )
PCIE Frequency (Mhz) ( 100 )

Memory Feature
Memory Control Setting ( Enabled )
Memory Frequency ( 2:8 )
Channel Interleave Setting ( 6 Way )
Rank Interleave Setting ( 4 Way )
Parameters
tCL Setting ( 8 )
tRCD Setting ( 8 )
tRP Setting ( 8 )
tRAS Setting ( 24 )
tRFC Setting ( 74 )
Command Rate ( 1t )

Voltage Control
EVGA VDroop Control ( Without VDroop )
CPU VCore ( 1.2825 )
CPU VTT Voltage ( +150 )
CPU PLL VCore ( 1.80 )
DIMM Voltage ( 1.65 )
DIMM DQ Vref ( +0 )
QPI PLL VCore ( 1.15 )
IOH VCore ( 1.15 )
IOH/ICH I/O Voltage ( 1.6 )
ICH VCore ( 1.15 )
PWM Frequency ( 800 )

CPU Feature
Intel SpeedStep ( Disabled )
Turbo Mode Function ( Enabled )
CxE Function ( Disabled )
Execute Disable Bit ( Disabled )
Virtualization Technology ( Disabled )
Logical Processor Setting
Intel HT Technology ( Enabled )
Active Processor Cores ( All )
QPI Settings
QPI Control Settings ( Enabled )
QPI Link Fast Mode ( Enabled )
QPI Frequency Selection ( 4.8 )

 

[Shmee]

19x169
1.2825 Vcore
1.180 QPI VTT
2:8
1.5 Vdimm
Uncore on auto (16x)
and I think rest is on auto...still using stock fan, hope to get True soon.

Oh, and HT is off, so is turbo. Set to 19x, cuz i heard i7's prefer odd multi's.

Remember, having HT off can increase stability, especially at high speeds.

 

[Labdog]

pll limit isnt 1.82v?