undervolting Lynnfield

[plonk420]

looking at its pitiful looking HSF (and the crappy selection on newegg), i may start off with stock and just hope that undervolting keeps temps "sane"... anyone tried keeping stock speeds (well, with turbo mode still "able") but undervolting? how low have you gotten, prime95 stable?

 

[imported_RJR]

My i7 860 idles at .848v and goes to a little over 1v at load, prime stable. How low do you want it to go?

You can also pick up a MegaShadow if you want a good cooler.

 

[plonk420]

i don't think i need something THAT insane for a 95 watt TDP. it sure would be nice if i could use my i7 920's HSF the 860... that 860's looks smaller than any fan i've ever seen in my life.

 

[CurseTheSky]

Not only does the stock HSF LOOK pitiful... it also PERFORMS pitifully.

http://img269.imageshack.us/im...5036/i7860stockhsf.png

You can see my idle temps in Core Temp under the Low column - not too bad, I thought... until I fired up Prime95.

Ugh.

 

[plonk420]

i'm assuming that's undervolted @ cursethesky?

edit: also, did you lock the multi @ 22 in bios? or is it doing it due to the CPU thinking TDP is "low enough"?

 

[CurseTheSky]

Nope - that's on all stock settings with speed step and other heat / energy saving features turned on - which is the primary reason for the low idle temps.

That's just some testimony about the stock HSF... which is (as expected) abysmal.

 

[MrK6]

I ran my i5 750 on the stock heatsink for awhile while I waited for Noctua to send me a Socket-1156 backplate for my NH-U9B (which they didn't, I eventually gave up and just bought one). The heatsink is indeed minimal, but the worse part about it for me was the fan. At anything above its minimum speed, it whines and grinds to a point that it really is annoying. Keeping all power saving features on and turning Turbo mode off, I ran my i5 750 at 1V Vcore with no issue. IIRC, it refused to boot .95V, but I didn't fine tune it from there. I also ran the chip at 3.4GHz (200x17) on the stock heatsink with 1.1625V, which was stable as well (although noisey).

 

[plonk420]

i guess we'll see how THIS cpu fan performs. my 920 didn't fit or SOMETHING. either it or an overheating MSI northbridge BSOD'd Win7 as the CPU hit 85C in prime (even after 2 reapplications, and even recently verifying the heat spreader was credit card as well as razor flat... thankfully i had a Dark Knight ready to put on)

 

[plonk420]

ah, i got it down to 1.025v. pity i couldn't hit 0.99v that would just be fun to be under a volt.

edit: ~72C under prime. ~65-63 on a distributed computing project (ht on). 54C "on cpu"
edit2: http://forgottenwebsites.com/DSCF1312resize.jpg Left is a 65watt cpu fan, on the right is the 920's cpu fan...

 

[magicrat03]

Do not pay extra for a Prolimatech Mega Shadow if you are thinking about, just get the Megahalem Rev B it has 1366/1156/775 mounting included.

Those are some decent temps on your 860 here is my stock clocked 920(while priming) with a Megahalem Rev B for comparison

http://i681.photobucket.com/al.../magic_rat03/CPU-Z.jpg

 

[Ayah]

Originally posted by: magicrat03
Do not pay extra for a Prolimatech Mega Shadow if you are thinking about, just get the Megahalem Rev B it has 1366/1156/775 mounting included.

Those are some decent temps on your 860 here is my stock clocked 920(while priming) with a Megahalem Rev B for comparison

http://i681.photobucket.com/al.../magic_rat03/CPU-Z.jpg

The Mega shadow is just a normal Mega that's black. They're the exact same.

 

[21stHermit]

My i7 860 idles at .848v and goes to a little over 1v at load, prime stable. How low do you want it to go?

How do you have a lower voltage at idle? I thought you select one voltage in BIOS and that's it. Then under load the voltage drops a small amount.

 

[Stefan Payne]

You can't undervolt that thing much, 'cause silicon ciruits need at least 0,7V to work, so 0,85V is near the minimal voltage a silicon baset integrated circuit needs to work.

 

[lothar]

How do you have a lower voltage at idle? I thought you select one voltage in BIOS and that's it. Then under load the voltage drops a small amount.

There are several power saving technologies in my BIOS options.
I don't know which is which...I just enabled them all.

I haven't even touched my voltage yet.