Can't hit 4.0 Ghz on i7 930

T

t1337Dude

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 29, 2010
Messages
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First off, I studied the i7 930 Overclocking thread and a guide to hit 4.2ghz on another forum. I hope this isn't a shot in the dark but I was hoping someone could help me figure out if I'm doing something wrong. I have a Gigabyte UDR3 X58A Mobo, with 8x2Gb 1866 DDR3 G.Skill Ares RAM, and a Corsair H80i water cooler.

I just dusted everything out of my system (took apart H80i and videocard fans to clean metal grills, took couple hours!), cleaned off previous thermal paste from cooler and applied fresh Arctic silver, and applied oil to all my case fans to ensure they're working optimally. My 930 is a D0 revision, Stepping 5, Model A.

I can hit 3.99Ghz at 1.3 on the vcore and 1.475 on the VTT (because my RAM is set to 1900Mhz), but my temperatures are simply too high (hits 85 degrees in Prime95 after 3 minutes). I see people with cooling setups way inferior to my H80i and they're consistently hitting way better clocks at way lower temperatures, according to the variety of profiles. Are these people turning their fans way up for these tests or something? I have my fans set to 1600 RPM max because I wouldn't want them to have to get louder than that in any situation, and only have to be that loud when under full load. I'm pretty much following that "Guide to Overclocking the 920 to 4.0 GhZ" word for word, following the methodical testing method, except I have my memory multiplier higher (10x) so I can get the full speed out of my memory. Is it my memory multiplier that is raising my temperatures? Or is my chip simply bunk? Or is that guide not that great? I feel like I should be able to get 4.0GhZ at least.
 
Heat is a byproduct of waste electricity to put it simply. You can dissipate the heat only so much with a heatsink and fan. The next step for demanding OCing would be watercooling.

First off you seem eager to get past 3.9 ghz. Could you perchance be applying too much thermal paste? This could interfere with heat transfer to the sink. Be conservative with the paste.

Also, you are demanding about a 145% increase in clock frequency (2.8ghz to 4.0ghz). That is quite demanding, and more than just managing your temps, you may be decreasing the life of your mobo or cpu. Also, in my experience from following OC guides, it seems as if some batches of CPU perform differently on specifice OC profiles. Some batches may OC better than others. Not sure why, but again just my experience.

I would invest in an affordable close loop watercooling system, or if you would be interesting in building your own do a custom loop. I get all my WC gear at frozencpu.com, they have a number you can call to get a consultant to help you build a loop. But again it is at least at 200$ usd investment, yeah?
 
Edit: it appears you have a corsair watercooler. Sorry for having missed that!

I would try a voltage setting in between 1.3 and the 1.475 you have. The extra heat may be caused by excess voltage. You may in fact require less addt'l voltage to OC than you think. Just a thought on my part. Again, more voltage more heat, and you only need to up the voltage in so far as the CPU requires to maintain the higher frequency. Yeah?
 
I'm already using the minimum voltage on my v-core, unfortunately, lowering was the first thing I did. There would have to be some alternative solution (like raising other voltages that perhaps don't effect temperatures but stabilize clocks on lower vcore?).

If you take a look at the overclocking thread, you'll see that what I'm asking from my setup is actually not much at all compared to literally all of the other profiles on that list considering my cooling solution. It just can't be that I have the worse i7 930 out of everyone on that list, can it? I'm not looking to buy additional cooling solutions, I'm trying to get the clocks that I should be getting from what I currently have. According to my research, the revision I've got isn't a bad one, so I should be able to do this with ease. Most 920's can hit 4.0Ghz with ease.
 
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Hmm... 85 degrees looks high to me. The H80i should be enough to keep it at/or under 80 @ 1.4, unless you were unlucky with that 930. In comparison, my small 1 fan H50 keeps my 920 D0 (with HT on) @ 4ghz under 78 (dust free, climbs to 80 with dust) for years now. I'd recheck the paste (too much?) & cooler contact first.

A lot depends on the motherboard too, I don't have experience with that Gigabyte model, but one of my setups uses a MSI X58 Platinum and it adjusts the voltage automatically when overclocking. Whenever I tried to do it manual the OC would crash, on auto it would work. Something to look into. Also make sure your boost & HT are off for testing.
 
Yakk said:
Hmm... 85 degrees looks high to me. The H80i should be enough to keep it at/or under 80 @ 1.4, unless you were unlucky with that 930. In comparison, my small 1 fan H50 keeps my 920 D0 (with HT on) @ 4ghz under 78 (dust free, climbs to 80 with dust) for years now. I'd recheck the paste (too much?) & cooler contact first.

A lot depends on the motherboard too, I don't have experience with that Gigabyte model, but one of my setups uses a MSI X58 Platinum and it adjusts the voltage automatically when overclocking. Whenever I tried to do it manual the OC would crash, on auto it would work. Something to look into. Also make sure your boost & HT are off for testing.
Click to expand...

Well I've had my H80i for maybe a couple years and when I first got it and seated it on, I was pushing 4.3Ghz and over 1.40v at 85 degrees under load. I had an Hyper Evo 212+ fan or whatever it was on here before the Corsair H80i and I was easily doing 3.8Ghz, so I feel like something isn't work out for me at the moment...

I'll recheck the paste I suppose. Maybe I did too much or too little. I did a tiny dab...I always try to use as little as possible...maybe I used too little? For some reason I feel like it's a stretch.

Shouldn't I have HT on for testing if I intend to have it on all the time? And as for the automatic voltage adjusting for overclocking...I doubt my mobo has that capability but honestly I've never given it a whirl. It does have an "auto setting"...I never see anyone recommend using that before though.
 
t1337Dude said:
I have my fans set to 1600 RPM max because I wouldn't want them to have to get louder than that in any situation, and only have to be that loud when under full load.
Click to expand...

I would guess this is probably at least part of your problem. Trying to have a whisper quiet and massively overclocked PC don't usually work well together. It looks like you are trying to run those fans at about half of their max speed according to this…

http://www.corsair.com/en-us/hydro-series-h80i-high-performance-liquid-cpu-cooler

That processor is dumping massive amounts of heat into that radiator that it's having a hard time dissipating.
 
timta2 said:
I would guess this is probably at least part of your problem. Trying to have a whisper quiet and massively overclocked PC don't usually work well together. It looks like you are trying to run those fans at about half of their max speed according to this…

http://www.corsair.com/en-us/hydro-series-h80i-high-performance-liquid-cpu-cooler

That processor is dumping massive amounts of heat into that radiator that it's having a hard time dissipating.
Click to expand...

1600 RPM is pretty loud. 2200RPM sounds like a 1ft fan turned to its max setting...kind of like a jet or something. If I doubled their speed, I'm be able to hear my computer from the other side of my house.


EDIT: 1900RPM isn't that bad of a compromise I guess. Not much louder and I get 78 under load instead of 85. Still pretty loud...though I suppose I'll never have to turn my fans that high because games never get as hot as stress tests, correct?
 
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t1337Dude said:
1600 RPM is pretty loud. 2200RPM sounds like a 1ft fan turned to its max setting...kind of like a jet or something. If I doubled their speed, I'm be able to hear my computer from the other side of my house.


EDIT: 1900RPM isn't that bad of a compromise I guess. Not much louder and I get 78 under load instead of 85. Still pretty loud...though I suppose I'll never have to turn my fans that high because games never get as hot as stress tests, correct?
Click to expand...

You are probably going to need more radiator and more fans if you want less noise, either that or lower voltage and clock speed.

I'm not very familiar with the all-in-one coolers, but that's what some quick Google searches show me about the H80i. For example…

http://www.overclock.net/t/1387070/h80i-fans-bad-performance
 
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timta2 said:
You are probably going to need more radiator and more fans if you want quieter, or less voltage and clock speed.

I'm not very familiar with the all-in-one coolers, but that's what some quick Google searches show me about the H80i. For example…

http://www.overclock.net/t/1387070/h80i-fans-bad-performance
Click to expand...

Looks like better fans should be at the top of my list. Anyone here have personal recommendations or should I just grab the ones that guy got in that thread? Or is it a bad idea because then I can't control my fan speeds?

Btw, thanks for the thought out and hasty replies.
 
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My 920 (under load) on a 3x140 radiator with two GTX 580s (not under load) at 4.2 ghz would hit ~80-85 C, using ~1000 RPM fans. Try increasing the PLL to 1.88v, it may help decrease your vcore.
 
Tsumi said:
My 920 (under load) on a 3x140 radiator with two GTX 580s (not under load) at 4.2 ghz would hit ~80-85 C, using ~1000 RPM fans. Try increasing the PLL to 1.88v, it may help decrease your vcore.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll try that.

Still, no matter as much as I tweak the voltages, could I be doing my H80i a disservice with their stock fans? I read that these Noctua NF-F12 fans are really good. Is there anything better in a similar price range and has the PWM connector?

I'm tempted to pull the trigger if someone thinks it's worthwhile, but then again maybe I should just hold off until a processor upgrade because there's not really that much extra juice I should be trying to squeeze out of this i7. I don't know. I saw someone pull 4.5ghz but I doubt I'd be able to even hit 4.2ghz with new fans.
 
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Drop your memory to 1600MHz and see how far the cpu will clock. You may just be asking too much of the memory controller inside the cpu, at the same time as trying to ask a lot from the cores. Gains past 1600MHz are not very much. It's a teeter-totter effect.
 
Your temps are way too high for the voltages and cooler you are running.

A tiny dab is probably not enough heatsink compound. I would take the water block off and see exactly what the coverage of the heatsink compound is. You should have a thin layer over the whole IHS.

If either the IHS or the water block are very unflat, it will cause you to have higher temps than what you could have.

And what exactly is your RAM configuration? You state that you have 8x2GB, but that board only has 6 RAM slots.

Pretty sure the model number is UD3R and not UDR3 as well.

If you are running 2x8G, then you are only running dual channel and will see a nice speed increase from adding a 3rd stick which will cause it to run in triple channel.
 
cyclone3d said:
Your temps are way too high for the voltages and cooler you are running.

A tiny dab is probably not enough heatsink compound. I would take the water block off and see exactly what the coverage of the heatsink compound is. You should have a thin layer over the whole IHS.

If either the IHS or the water block are very unflat, it will cause you to have higher temps than what you could have.

And what exactly is your RAM configuration? You state that you have 8x2GB, but that board only has 6 RAM slots.

Pretty sure the model number is UD3R and not UDR3 as well.

If you are running 2x8G, then you are only running dual channel and will see a nice speed increase from adding a 3rd stick which will cause it to run in triple channel.
Click to expand...

I've read articles regarding applying thermal compound to heatsinks and they say excess can be just as bad as not having enough, and considering how much pressure is applied between the surface and heatsink, a small dab usually is enough to uniformly spread and cover the CPU. And you're correct, I'm running 2x 8Gb sticks, my mistake.

I should recheck it just to be sure I suppose. I could just be running my memory multiplier too high and that's what's causing the major temp spike.

And you're correct about the model number, I was just pulling it off the top of my head. I was previously running a triple channel setup (2x2x2) but haven't really seen any triple memory packs that were enticing so I picked up a pair of cheap 1866 G.Skill Ares and thought I could always pick up a 3rd stick separately if I ever found the need.

So perhaps instead of spending ~$50 on new CPU fans, I should drop the memory multiplier to 8x and pick up a 3rd 8Gb stick for ~$70? Is triple channel more valuable than a slightly better cooling solution?

http://www.overclock.net/t/681697/the-truth-about-i7-1366-memory-both-dual-channel-vs-tri-channel - This thread doesn't really make it seem like triple channel is all that worthwhile.
 
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1900MHz DDR3 means minimum 3800MHz Uncore, which is a lot. I was getting instability over 3600MHz Uncore when new, even at 1.425Vtt, so I just left it at 3600MHz. My CPU has degraded a bit, and wanted even more Vtt and Vcore to maintain my 4.2GHz overclock. Even dropping the cores to 3.8GHz wouldn't let me get away with less than 1.425Vtt. I just dropped my Uncore multi to give me 3200MHz, dropped the voltage to 1.35Vtt, 3.8GHz on cores at 1.30V, and it seems to be stable (*knocks on wood*).

Not all Uncores can run at 3.8GHz like you're asking it to. Drop it down and see how it responds. You need minimum 2:1 Uncore : DRAM frequency, of course. :)
 
RickyJ said:
1900MHz DDR3 means minimum 3800MHz Uncore, which is a lot. I was getting instability over 3600MHz Uncore when new, even at 1.425Vtt, so I just left it at 3600MHz. My CPU has degraded a bit, and wanted even more Vtt and Vcore to maintain my 4.2GHz overclock. Even dropping the cores to 3.8GHz wouldn't let me get away with less than 1.425Vtt. I just dropped my Uncore multi to give me 3200MHz, dropped the voltage to 1.35Vtt, 3.8GHz on cores at 1.30V, and it seems to be stable (*knocks on wood*).

Not all Uncores can run at 3.8GHz like you're asking it to. Drop it down and see how it responds. You need minimum 2:1 Uncore : DRAM frequency, of course. :)
Click to expand...

To be fair, it's handling it just fine - it's just running a little warm under quiet fan speeds :p I don't really need to be pushing this 5 year old i7 chip much further than 4.0 ghz...but hey, if it makes more sense to drop my memory multiplier and up my vcore and speeds for the same temperatures, I might just swing that route.
 
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I've had a I7-930 too. I was in the same boat, I wasn't able to hit 4.0Ghz either. I think the max I got was 3.4, and even that with 1600Mhz RAM Speed, my 2000Mhz ram kit turned out to be a waste of money.
 
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I was up to 1.425Vcore and 1.425Vtt, and still not fully stable anymore at 21x200 with a 3600MHz Uncore. Dropping my Uncore to 3200MHz at 1.35Vtt, and cores to 19x200 at 1.30V, it passed 8 hours of Prime95 overnight. I'm now up to 21x190 (3.99) at 1.30Vcore, and it's been solid for 4 hours so far this morning. I'm about to bump it back up to 4.1 or 4.2 and see if it'll accept this lower voltage now that the Uncore is lower. My temps are now 71-77C, a 10C drop from yesterday's testing at 3.8GHz. Dropping my Uncore and Vtt has made a difference for me so far.
 
Thanks for the report Ricky. I think my plan of action is to wait for a good deal on a 3rd 8Gb stick, and when I get that, I'll drop down to 1600Mhz, drop my Vtt, and see if I can squeeze out 4.1Ghz or 4.2 Ghz stable. If all's well, I'll simply tighten the timings from there. This should let me get the most I can out of my CPU and my memory without having to purchase new fans.

I think new fans on my H80i would be really neat and all, but in the end I don't think I'm going to see any miracles from a $50+ fan upgrade, I think I'm really hitting a wall of diminishing returns past 4.0Ghz because it requires a lot of extra voltage and it gets significantly hotter for the measly potential 400 extra Mhz. But then again, I feel like perhaps I'm also hitting a wall of diminishing returns by grabbing another 8Gb stick and going triple channel.

I mean, it sounds like a pretty big damn upgrade, expanded memory bandwidth at all, but I'm struggling to imagine what the real world benefit would be. My 2x8Gb sticks in dual channel at 1900Mhz seems pretty damn fast...I don't really see any bottleneck now or in the near future, and I'll probably have sold this all off and moved on to X99 and DDR4 by the time anything could potentially use that extra memory (or extra memory bandwidth).
 
Think you have a bad stepping for the 930. Some people had problems with some 920/930 stepping's would not budge over 3.8-4 stably regardless volts.
 
What version of Windows are you running? Win7 Home-Premium x64 has a limit of 16GB, so unless you have Pro (or Win8) you shouldn't bother with another stick. From what I've been reading today triple channel only helps in some benchmarks and server/encoding programs, and moving to dual channel mode reduces latency in the IMC. So you might just want to stick with your dual channel for a while. If I could justify getting more memory, and found someone to buy my 3x2GB Corsair, I'd just get 2x8GB and call it a day.

Today has been productive. Keeping a nice low 1.35Vtt and 16x Uncore multiplier, I'm rock solid at 191x21 at 1.30Vcore for 4.0GHz. I need 1.35Vcore for 195x21 (4.1GHz), and 1.40 for 200x21. I've got some MX-4 paste on the way, so hopefully after some better contact my temps will drop back down again. I had MX-3 in before, but too many LAN party trips and moves must have unseated the base, so I've been running this weekend with the Thermalright CF3 stuff that came with my cooler. My temps are higher than I'd like, possibly due to too much paste, but I don't have enough left to re-apply.
 
I'm on Windows 8.1, so it'd recognize it, but I'm definitely leaning towards calling it a day as far as memory is concerned. That money could be better off saved towards one of the new NVIDIA cards coming out.

Your i7 sounds similar to mine in the way it behaves to voltages. I used to have mine running at 4.2 but it required my voltages to be 1.4 or higher, which of course ran a lot hotter than 1.3v for 4.0 Ghz. A part of me wants to buy new fans, reseat my H80i, etc. but another part of me just wants to call it a day. I feel like it's an unnecessary speed boost considering how much extra heat and stress it puts on the chip. It's already 5 years old, I don't know if I should still be pushing it...

But then again, these i7's are champs ;)
 
It'd be easy to drop a couple hundred on a 6-core Xeon, and another couple hundred on more DDR3, but at the end of the day do I really need to sink more money into this older platform? Yes it would perform similar to the new stuff, but I'd be missing out on the newer advancements in SATA/USB/efficiency. I don't want to end up like I did with my old AthlonXP system, dumping way too much into it even after Athlon64's were out. I have two $250 2x512MB DDR1 kits that I have absolutely no use for, lol.
 
You don't need to drop another couple hundred on a 6 core Xeon, there are plenty of 6 core Xeon's that can do 4GHZ for less then $100 shipped. There are at least two threads based on these cpu's here.
 
And I've gone through them. To get the headroom I'd want, I would need to spend more. With my P6T Deluxe board and stretched DDR3-1333@1600, I'd be maxed out multi-wise at 4.0GHz with an X5650. Maybe I just need to settle on max 4.0, lol.
 
Personally I'd get a better mobo such as the R2/3E for cheap specifically for overclocking as the P6T series (one of the first 1366 boards from Asus) weren't great overclockers. Running a hexacore at 4ghz+ with your RAM is pushing it for the P6T. IME speaking that is.

Other worthy option is to completely upgrade.
 
lol i had a day one 920 that would go 4.4 @ 1.45v on P6T SE version 1
watercooled with swiftech everything block d5 pump 3x120 w push pull

what is your room temperature?
 
Quick question: If I take off my CPU to see if it my thermal paste job was insufficient, do I need to clean and reapply paste again even if it looked sufficient? I wasn't sure if it's considered a "no-no" to reseat a CPU with previously spread paste.
 
If it's sufficient and not dried up (flaking and etc), you can leave it as is but I'd put a small drop in the centre of the die to make sure contact with the hsf is optimal again.
 
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