Intel i7 930 @ 3.8GHz 1.184v solid as a rock

So, ive started overclocking. Ive got a i7 930 @ 3.8GHz and CPU-Z is telling me its running @ 1.184v and 56/57/56/58 temps (mugen 2 with stock fan), whilst OCCT is running atm aswell. Is this normal or a very good chip maybe? Ive got it at 181 bClk and 7-8-7-20 timings.

I havent looked in to overclocking alot but i tend to read about people having to use a high vcore.

first, 3.8 is nothing to write home about, pretty much any 920 can do that, and with no or very slight voltage bump. 4ghz and above is where a notable increase in vcore is usually required. Second, there's a difference between cpu-z reported voltage and real one (i.e. measured with DMM). Third, most people report vcore set in bios, not under load, and there's a difference between those as well in most cases

hmm maybe this mean I can try to lower mine some more.

what mobo you using?

Yeah, it wont go any higher then this without a big volt increase. Dont feel like that actually. It does 3.8 @ standard voltage, and for 3.9 i need 1.35+. Cant be bothered. Though im happy .

skindogg: Im using a X58A-UD3R.

my 930 on MSI X58 PRO-E is running 4.2 GHz using H-50 cooler... had to turn off all the automatic cpu voltage and clocking controls in order to keep the manual settings where I want them... but all I did was set the voltage, multiplier, clock and ram timings and rebooted...voila, 4.2GHz. Runs solid. When I have time I'll try to bump it higher.

membrain said:

my 930 on MSI X58 PRO-E is running 4.2 GHz using H-50 cooler... had to turn off all the automatic cpu voltage and clocking controls in order to keep the manual settings where I want them... but all I did was set the voltage, multiplier, clock and ram timings and rebooted...voila, 4.2GHz. Runs solid. When I have time I'll try to bump it higher.

Click to expand...

I have the same MB. Can you share your bios settings (voltage, multipliers, dram, qpi, etc). I'm trying to push my 930 further and I'm running into stability issue upward from 4GB. I'm not pushing my uncore, qpi and DRAM much <1333MHz and 1.65V. I can get Linx to run 20 loops but I keep on crashing with a longer loop of Prime. I'm not sure if heat is a big issue, since I am keeping temps <83C on all cores in Linx. I see realtemp going higher in the longer Prime runs.

Pictures would be great, since documenting all the settings is quite a bit to post. Thanks in advance!

BTW, what is your IOH temp? Mine is in the 70-80 range after reseating the heatsinks down from 100c+. I'm wondering if adding better cooling would improve my overclock, but from the X58 block diagram the IOH is only responsible for the PCIe slots and the peripherals are a pass through.

rogercomley and membrain, please post your OC details on the 930 OC'ing thread when you have a chance. http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1502931

Even though my NB cooler has screws, I still performed the removal, cleaning and reinstallation with AS5... before I did this my IOH temp was 84... after I did this my IOH temp runs 54-59. Great piece of work for the guy that first figured this out and posted his results and steps. This is highly recommended for the MSI X-58 PRO-E and probably even for any other board that has a hot chip set.

I am at work but when I get home this evening I will post a step by step on what I changed to get my system stable at 4.2GHz. I had posted your same exact question at a few other well known OC forums as this mobo/cpu has quite a few selections to consider changing when you want to OC. The last time I OC'd was on my Q6600 which was fairly straight forward. Getting the i7 930 gave me a headache as everywhere I asked I was told to go research and find out for myself... OK, so I did.

Until I can get you the step by step, here is a short synopsis of what I did:

1. Set the toggles on the mobo to run at 200 (other settings were 133 default, and 166)

The rest is in the BIOS:

2. Start to turn off all the speed stepping and auto voltage settings... this was part of the confusing issues for me... had to use trial and error... see more at the end on this.
3. Set the RAM CAS values, etc.
4. Set the BLCK freq to 200
5. Set the multiplier to 21 from 22
6. lol, then set all the other misc voltages... I'll post all these with specifics later when I get back home.

The biggest problem other than understanding which to change and what does what for my cpu/mobo/ram configuration was that until I "got them right" the voltages would not stay where I set them, the cpu speed would not remain as set either.

Once I figured out what I was doing (and quite a few CMOS resets), it was a snap... again, the specifics will be posted later.

membrain said:

Even though my NB cooler has screws, I still performed the removal, cleaning and reinstallation with AS5... before I did this my IOH temp was 84... after I did this my IOH temp runs 54-59. Great piece of work for the guy that first figured this out and posted his results and steps. This is highly recommended for the MSI X-58 PRO-E and probably even for any other board that has a hot chip set.

I am at work but when I get home this evening I will post a step by step on what I changed to get my system stable at 4.2GHz. I had posted your same exact question at a few other well known OC forums as this mobo/cpu has quite a few selections to consider changing when you want to OC. The last time I OC'd was on my Q6600 which was fairly straight forward. Getting the i7 930 gave me a headache as everywhere I asked I was told to go research and find out for myself... OK, so I did.

Until I can get you the step by step, here is a short synopsis of what I did:

1. Set the toggles on the mobo to run at 200 (other settings were 133 default, and 166)

The rest is in the BIOS:

2. Start to turn off all the speed stepping and auto voltage settings... this was part of the confusing issues for me... had to use trial and error... see more at the end on this.
3. Set the RAM CAS values, etc.
4. Set the BLCK freq to 200
5. Set the multiplier to 21 from 22
6. lol, then set all the other misc voltages... I'll post all these with specifics later when I get back home.

The biggest problem other than understanding which to change and what does what for my cpu/mobo/ram configuration was that until I "got them right" the voltages would not stay where I set them, the cpu speed would not remain as set either.

Once I figured out what I was doing (and quite a few CMOS resets), it was a snap... again, the specifics will be posted later.

Click to expand...

I had to smile when I saw your post. I also came from a Q6600 and the 930 was my first i7. Had the same rough learning curve, but the folks that have been following the i7 930 OC'ing thread were nice enough to point out a couple of good beginner guides.

Looking forward to your step-by-step. I take from your description and your original post that you started at 4.2GHz and then tried to get your voltages as low as possible. I was able to get 4.2GHz on air, but since turning on HT 4.0 is the limit maybe due to temperature.

I've heard of people getting their IOH temps down below 60c. Starting at 100c I was happy for the 20c+ drop to the low 80ies. The only thing I didn't do 100% correctly was not scrapping of the pink TIM on the bare IOH die. That might be holding me back, but from my understanding 80ies is fine for the IOH and I'm not really sure if it impacts my OC'ing. I tried pushing on the IOH heatsink to see if the temperature would drop further but it didn't seem like contact was an issue. I'm hesitating taking my whole rig apart to redo the heatsink if the IOH temp doesn't really impact OC'ing (or if my OC problem is related to something else - IOH only runs PCIe and connection to SB, not memory/uncore/core). I could add a NB fan quickly for testing purposes if anyone can tell me that they have better OC'ing experiences after cooling the IOH down to a more reasonable 60c.

I had tried using the MSI overclock utility which supports the board, but this usually resulted in lock-ups. Going straight to the BIOS settings produced the best results. It may turn out later that the MSI utility will only be good for some fine tuning since I wouldn't have to reboot between tweaks... unless it just locks-up.

membrain said:

I had tried using the MSI overclock utility which supports the board, but this usually resulted in lock-ups. Going straight to the BIOS settings produced the best results. It may turn out later that the MSI utility will only be good for some fine tuning since I wouldn't have to reboot between tweaks... unless it just locks-up.

Click to expand...

I have had good experiences with the MSI utility. The main danger is that you can modify the voltages way too easily into dangerous areas. If you know what your doing it really saves time, since I could do a run of Linx/Prime and bump up specific voltages and do another run without having to reboot. The only thing you can't change are the multipliers and turning on/off eist, ht, etc.

I also had the lock-ups, they were mainly related to clicking on the profiles. Before I understood what they are. I stay away from those and just go straight into the advanced set-up where I can change the voltages. Just make sure you know where the limits are or you can do serious damage. I've stopped using SetFSB because the MSI program is more functionality.

Thanks to Wicked at http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=317935
as his info helped me the most... and I will not take credit for his work... and I take no responsibility for your system should you decide to try his or my steps/settings.

I used his guide as a baseline to determine what to set for my MSI X58 PRO-E with i7-930 to get it running at 4.2GHz.

***NOTE - I am also using the latest 7522v8A BIOS. Also that there may be a setting change that requires your system to restart, in which case, just pick up where you left off.***

Here are my steps:

1. On the mobo, (with the system TURNED OFF!) manually set the Hardware Overclock Base clock Switch: CPU_CLK1 to use 200 (Up,Dn,Up), other settings were 133 (default) and 166.

2. Turn on the system and get into the BIOS to set the following:

****NOTE - If it isn't listed, I didn't change it... leave it alone!*****

3. Advanced BIOS Features | CPU Feature | Hyper-Threading Function - Enabled

4. Advanced BIOS Features | CPU Feature | Execute Bit Support - Disabled

5. Advanced BIOS Features | CPU Feature | C1E Support - Disabled

6. Advanced BIOS Features | CPU Feature | Overspeed Protection - Disabled

7. Advanced BIOS Features | CPU Feature | Intel Virtualization Tech - Disabled

8. Advanced BIOS Features | Chipset Feature | HPET - Enabled.

9. Green Power | CPU Phase Control - Disabled

10. Cell Menu | Intel EIST - Disabled

11. Cell Menu | Intel C-STATE tech - Disabled

12. Cell Menu | Base Clock (MHz) - 200

13. Cell Menu | Adjust CPU Ratio - 21

14. Cell Menu | QPI Configuration | QPI Links Speed - High-Speed Mode

15. Cell Menu | QPI Configuration | QPI Frequency - Auto

16. Cell Menu | Advance DRAM Configuration | 1N/2N Memory Timing - 1N

17. Cell Menu | Advance DRAM Configuration | CAS Latency(CL) - 9

18. Cell Menu | Advance DRAM Configuration | tRCD - 9 DRAM Clocks

19. Cell Menu | Advance DRAM Configuration | tRP - 9 DRAM Clocks

20. Cell Menu | Advance DRAM Configuration | tRAS - 24 DRAM Clocks

21. Cell Menu | Advance DRAM Configuration | Advanced Memory Setting - AUTO

22. Cell Menu | Extreme Memory Profile - Disabled

23. Cell Menu | Memory Ratio - 4

24. Cell Menu | Uncore Ratio - 8

25. Cell Menu | CPU Voltage (V) - +0.240 *****(this you can play with reducing or increasing after you get a stable boot, but this should put your Vcore to just under 1.5 V)

26. Cell Menu | CPU PLL Voltage (V) - 1.88

27. Cell Menu | QPI Voltage (V) - 1.25

28. Cell Menu | DRAM Voltage (V) - 1.65

29. Cell Menu | All remaining Voltages - Auto

30. Cell Menu | Spread Spectrum - Disabled

31. Save & Exit

See what you have

If it locks up then you will have to clear/reset the CMOS.

Thank you.