I was wondering if someone has good experience overclocking, especially on this mobo and cpu.
For the life of me I can't get it to overclock, at all! Stock speed is 3.20 GHz...with turbo boost on by default it goes to 3.50 GHz...if I go beyond that it fails to post. I've read others able to go at least 4.5 GHz...by simply changing the multiplier from the default 32 to 45, leaving the rest on Auto. You can see a youtube video of that and a couple of reviews, one of them being the 3960X but they're almost the same if you read up and compare them. In terms of overclocking them, apparently they're identical. And two of them did it on the Gigabyte GA-X79-UD3 mobo which I was able to snag up for $260. The Sabretooth, Rampage, etc. are all like $400-450...not worth it in my opinion.
I have an 860W PSU (tried another one too). Corsair H80 cooler, 650D Corsair case and an old EN9600GT PCI-E 2.0 video card. Strangely, the video card causes Windows 7 x64 to freeze within seconds of logging in if its inserted into any of the PCI-E x16 3.0 slots so I have to use it in the PCI-E x8 slot for it to work properly. I guess it's not 100% backward compatible. Lastly, G.SKILL F3-12800CL9Q-16GBXL ram (4x4 GB) CL-9-9-9-24 @ 1.5V. The mobo detects it as 11-11-11-28 for some reason but even if I manually specify the correct timings it makes no difference.
I've tried exchanging the mobo and ram already but same problem. Also, I tried overclocking using the gigabyte ET utility and selecting one of the preset optinos 1) 4 GHz, 2) 4.2 GHz 3) 4.4 GHz...it won't post with 4 GHz. Tried updating the bios firmware too from F3 to F4 (latest).
I'm wondering if the video card is not allowing me to overclock, being about 3-4 yrs old (though no issue on my Q6600 system oc'd to 3.60 GHz).
I got it as high as 3.67 GHz but that's the absolute max (I increased BCLK to 105...it won't post at 106. Increasing the voltage on the ram or cpu doesn't help me at all.
My temps are fine...25 at idle, 45 at full load. Any ideas?! I still have about a week or so to return/exchange any parts...but 5-15% restocking if I just return....5% on exchange if there's nothing wrong.
P.S. Ignore my signature...I'm not updating it until I've been able to overclock the 3930K to at least 4.5 GHz.
For the life of me I can't get it to overclock, at all! Stock speed is 3.20 GHz...with turbo boost on by default it goes to 3.50 GHz...if I go beyond that it fails to post. I've read others able to go at least 4.5 GHz...by simply changing the multiplier from the default 32 to 45, leaving the rest on Auto. You can see a youtube video of that and a couple of reviews, one of them being the 3960X but they're almost the same if you read up and compare them. In terms of overclocking them, apparently they're identical. And two of them did it on the Gigabyte GA-X79-UD3 mobo which I was able to snag up for $260. The Sabretooth, Rampage, etc. are all like $400-450...not worth it in my opinion.
I have an 860W PSU (tried another one too). Corsair H80 cooler, 650D Corsair case and an old EN9600GT PCI-E 2.0 video card. Strangely, the video card causes Windows 7 x64 to freeze within seconds of logging in if its inserted into any of the PCI-E x16 3.0 slots so I have to use it in the PCI-E x8 slot for it to work properly. I guess it's not 100% backward compatible. Lastly, G.SKILL F3-12800CL9Q-16GBXL ram (4x4 GB) CL-9-9-9-24 @ 1.5V. The mobo detects it as 11-11-11-28 for some reason but even if I manually specify the correct timings it makes no difference.
I've tried exchanging the mobo and ram already but same problem. Also, I tried overclocking using the gigabyte ET utility and selecting one of the preset optinos 1) 4 GHz, 2) 4.2 GHz 3) 4.4 GHz...it won't post with 4 GHz. Tried updating the bios firmware too from F3 to F4 (latest).
I'm wondering if the video card is not allowing me to overclock, being about 3-4 yrs old (though no issue on my Q6600 system oc'd to 3.60 GHz).
I got it as high as 3.67 GHz but that's the absolute max (I increased BCLK to 105...it won't post at 106. Increasing the voltage on the ram or cpu doesn't help me at all.
My temps are fine...25 at idle, 45 at full load. Any ideas?! I still have about a week or so to return/exchange any parts...but 5-15% restocking if I just return....5% on exchange if there's nothing wrong.
P.S. Ignore my signature...I'm not updating it until I've been able to overclock the 3930K to at least 4.5 GHz.