i7 OC tips and advice

[devione]

Hi all,

I'm an avid reader of Anandtech. I'm fairly informed and have a fairly good knowledge of building PCs. However, i'm about to enbark on a new PC building venture and would like some tips and advice from the Anandtech forum gods. I've poked around the Anandtech forums for some tips and advice but so far i've only found one thread so far

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...AR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

which offers any overclocking advice about the new i7 at all.


I've built about 2 PCs in my whole life (so far, more to come hopefully) but i've never overclocked any at all before. I've recently purchased parts for a new i7 system and would like to overclock it to the maximum extent possible without crossing any safety thresholds. Any advice and tips regarding overclocking this new i7 would be much appreciated.

EDIT: the new rig will be air cooled

The rig -
PSU: Corsair HX1000W
Motherboard: Gigabyte EX-58 UD4P
CPU: Intel Core i7 920 LGA 1366
Cooler: Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme 1366
RAM: Corsair 3x2GB XMS3 1333MHz
GPU: Palit Radeon HD4850 1GB (crap card, would probably upgrade over time)
Audio: Creative SoundBlaster Audigy2zs (from old AMD build)
HDD: x2 7200rpm 32mb cache
Case: CoolerMaster Stacker 830

Anything i should know / avoid before i start out? Any tips, tricks and / or advice?

I apologise if this is posted in the wrong section, if so please direct me to the right forum where i can post my enquiries.

Thanks.

 

[Dodger1]

Looks good to me but do you really need a 1000W PSU? The TX650, or TX750 would be more than sufficient but if you want modular the 620HX would be my #1 choice.

 

[devione]

Hi, thanks for the response. I didn't really want my PSU to limit future expansion, hence getting a 1000w. Might add a couple more harddisks and maybe go SLI or Crossfire in the future. But thanks for the feedback all the same.

 

[RMSe17]

Originally posted by: devione
Hi, thanks for the response. I didn't really want my PSU to limit future expansion, hence getting a 1000w. Might add a couple more harddisks ...

Just a little power fyi for comparison.. I am not sure about SLI/Crossfire, but my computer had 5 hard drives (all power savings disabled), 2 DVD drives, and an E6600 @ 3.6 (50% OC 1.52V) and GeForce 8800GTS, and would never hit 400W (tested at outlet)

 

[Tweakin]

OK, I'll tear it up:
Power supply is way overkill...a 700 would be fine. (nice unit though)
I had troubles with my Gigabyte X58 board, so I'm biased and switched to an ASUS.
I would ditch the TRUE eXtreme...I hated the mounting method, and as such they ran hotter then my Noctua.
I would also upgrade the memory to any DDR3-PC1600 units.
I would also heave the SB...The new ASUS Audio Cards are really nice.
Add a couple of WD 640Black units and you have a nice system.
Cases are always personal...no comment.

Should be a nice system

 

[Dodger1]

I went through the same thing ~ a month ago and here are some specs on PSU's that you might be interested in:

Corsair TX750 - $89.99
+3.3V@30A,+5V@28A,+12V@60A, -12V@0.8A,+5VSB@3.0A

Corsair TX850 - $109.99
+3.3V@30A, +5V30A, +12V@70A, -12V@0.8A, +5VSB@3A

Corsair 1000HX -$219.99
+3.3V@30A, +5V30A, +12V1@40A,+12V2@40A -12V@0.8A, +5VSB@3.5A

I went with the TX850 because it is almost a twin of the 1000HX but for $100 less.

Motherboard(s)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813188046

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813157150

Take a look at the reviews on the WD 640 black and you'll see why I went with it and why Tweakin recommended it.

If your motherboard supports DDR3 PC1600 go with that.

 

[devione]

Hi all, thanks for all the feedback. It's much appreciated.

I've already purchased the stuff, but in light of the advice here i might return some of the stuff and replace them with some of the recommended parts here.

About overclocking, any tips and advice? Especially with the Nehalem / i7 chips? There seem to be a lack of guides out on the internet at the moment.

 

[somethingsketchy]

Originally posted by: devione
About overclocking, any tips and advice? Especially with the Nehalem / i7 chips? There seem to be a lack of guides out on the internet at the moment.

It is kinda hit or miss with the Core i7. Intel changed the way the Front Side Bus is handled within the CPU core. Long story short the ways of overclocking haven't changed too much, but it has changed enough that there are not concrete instructions to guarantee a stable overclock (yet).

I suspect some of the more hardcore overclocking sites and forums would have more detailed instructions of what fields in the BIOS you should change to increase the speed of your CPU, RAM. I have only since the BIOS to an Core i7 machine (a "rich" friend of mine owns one for "CAD purposes") a few times, so I am not an expert on overclocking the i7. I leave that answer to someone who has owned an i7 build longer than a few weeks and has successfully overclocked it.

Hopefully you'll find the answers you need to continue with your overclocking goals. Good luck!

 

[Sacraster]

It is pretty easy to get 920 to 3.7 ~ 3.8, anything above that it will depend on your 920 batch. some batch can overclock better than other. I got 3841 batch and I can reach 4.0 with 1.375 in vcore, but the temp is way too high for me, so i'm running at 3.8 now.

 

[alcoholbob]

For me the limiting factor is my RAM just can't get high enough (my ram was gskill 1600mhz but it can't hit that freq to save its life even at cas 12 latency) and if you're stuck with a 20x multiplier your overclocking is handcuffed. If you had a higher multiplier you could get to a higher freq while running a lower ram freq since the minimum ram multi is 16x and your tied to the blck frequency.

 

[Sacraster]

on my evga x58, i can drop the memory divider to 2:8 and raise my blck to 190. so my cpu is at 3.8 while my ram is running at 760 (1520)

 

[devione]

Hi all, thanks for the replies and advice.

So far so good, i've found a few guides regarding some info on how to overclock an i7 / Nehalem chip. I'm hoping (fingers crossed) to achieve a 3.6 - 3.8Ghz overclock on air 24/7.

Wish me luck, and thanks again people.

 

[LyNX31]

hey guys,

im wondering why everyone is recommending ddr3 1600 mhz? from what i read, for the vast majority of real world apps, the performance difference is extremely minute, especially for the core i7 architecture.

devione, i guess if you dont have a budget might as well get the best 1600 though. also, are you trying to get a max overclock or a nice overclock that requires only minimal voltage increases? i preferred the latter and was able to get to 3.78 (after turbo). i think when start venturing in the 3.8-4 ghz range you need more significant voltage increases.

 

[Sacraster]

ddr3 1600 allows much higher oc headroom than 1333

 

[LyNX31]

Originally posted by: Sacraster
ddr3 1600 allows much higher oc headroom than 1333

but with the dividers these days isn't that a mute point?