Overclocking an i7 920 D0 CPU

[Nazool]

Greetings all,

I was considering a cheap processor upgrade but I am aware that my existing chip has a good core for overclocking. I am a complete overclocking virgin, despite having a lengthy tech background, so I thought I would seek your advice before going ahead. I guess what I am looking for is a complete beginners guide that explains everything in relative layman's terms. I will try to provide you with as much info on my setup below...

Antec 902 tower
Thermaltake air Cooler with Arctic Silver
Intel i7 720 Bloomfield 2800Mhz (AIDA64 confirms it as a D0 chip)
Asus PT6 SE Mainboard
6Gb Corsair 1333 Dominator Ram
AMD Radeon 6950 2Gb Card

I have CPU-Z installed as well as AIDA64 Extreme if you need any more info.

Currently my cores are running at an average heat of 50c.

I am not looking to push things to the limit but if I can get any sort of performance increase then that would be great.

Any help would be most appreciated

[kalniel]

http://forums.hexus.net/cpus/168306-...beginners.html

[Nazool]

Thanks kalniel.

[Spreadie]

It's very easy to push a D0 chip to around 4GHz, and most will fly past that. My old 920 was stable at 4.5GHz with 1.475 vcore and would bench at 4.7GHz.

A lot depends on your particular CPU and it's standard operating voltage (VID)- run CPU-Z with the chip at stock settings and note the vcore when under load - the VID of each chip can vary, with most of them requiring anything between 1 and 1.35v. Intel's spec is 0.8v to 1.375v - the lower the better.

With a bog standard 3rd party air cooler don't go mad - you can start off with a bclk of 190 and a multi of 20 for an easy 3.8GHz, which won't stretch your cooler too far. Stay within Intel's voltage spec unless benching, but I seruously doubt you'll need 1.3v or more to get a stable overclock - mine was stable at 3.8 with 1.2v, 4Ghz with 1.25v, 4.2GHz with 1.35v, 4.4GHz with 1.45v and needed 1.55v to bench at 4.7GHz (not recommended). You do hit a wall when pushing X58 hard, and it starts to need really hefty vcore increases for relatively small frequency increases.

You can start at 1.3v, stress test and try dropping it down later once you're comfortable - this is opposite to the way you should learn to overclock - gradually push up the clock speed, test it, stabilise with small voltage adjustments, and re-test; but it is a fairly fast and dirty (and effective) way to get a simple boost from your X58 chip.

Don't forget to keep an eye on your temps - run a temperature monitor and ensure thermal protection hasn't been switched off in the BIOS. Also bear in mind that a heavily overclocked x58 CPU sucks a lot of juice, so it's best to have a reasonable PSU and not some generic no name silver box.

Finally, get a notepad and record your changes and results - scribbling it down on a scrap of paper is fine but scraps tend to get binned.

[Nazool]

That's just what I was after Spreadie, thanks very much for taking the time to type that up. My vcore is running around 1.200 on average with heavy load. I forgot to mention I have a Corsair 650 watt PSU. I'm hoping that will suffice. Will be running a few tests this week so I'll keep you informed. Thanks again!

[tavalin]

Your PSU should be fine. I'm running a 700W PSU and I've got a GTX 470 OC'd and an i7 920 OC'd to 4Ghz and it's not come close to limits.