JakFrost
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2005
- Messages
- 241
After 10.5-years of running on an Intel i7-920 4C 2.6 GHz @ 3.6 GHz Air I am finally upgrading to the Intel Xeon X5690 6C 3.46 GHz and will try for the 4.2 GHz overclock that seems to be pretty standard overclock on Air after spending all of $85 USD on eBay for it.
Alright, finally an update. I replaced the old i7 920 CPU with a new one X5690 and set the BCLK to 165 from 180 and set the voltage levels in the BIOS back to Auto, which cranked up the CPU to 1.35 V from 1.2 V and the RAM from 1.5 V to 1.56 V which is a bit lot more than the old system running on manually set 1.2 V and 1.5 V but what the hell at this point in time. The new CPU X5690 from stock 3.47 GHZ is at 4.29 GHz (165 MHz x 26-Multi). I haven't run any long-term stability tests but the quick one-run CPU and GPU benchmarks run fine. I set the BCLK to 175 MHz and I get instant blue-screen so I hope that the lower 165 MHz with the higher voltages set by the BIOS Auto settings are fine. I tried running it at 170 MHz but CineBench R20 crashes quickly.
At this point in time I don't have the patience to eek out more performance on the bus clock speed since I'm very happy with 4.29 GHz on Air XigmaTek single 120mm Fan even though I would have been happy with 4.2 GHz.
Not sure if it's stable, will play some 3D games to test since the real test is 3D Gaming and all the other 2D and 3D benchmarks can go to hell for all that I care since I learned that stability is only certain in 3D games such as the old Battlefield 2 (2009) after 15-minutes of no crashes and no PunkBuster kicks.
If this works then I am done! Only things I did was CPU replacement with cleaning off old heat spread and applying new one and changing BCLK to 165 from 180 and voltages setting to Auto for CPU and DRAM. Easiest upgrade ever it seems and cheaper than an Intel Core i7 990X which is going for $250 USD right now on eBay and $120 USD for 980X also.
I played a bit with the memory DIMMs DDR3 at 1600 MHz at 1,654 MHz (2:8) at 1.8 V Auto voltage setting and then at 1,322 MHz (2:10) at 1.56 V Auto voltage and settled on the slower setting since there was no performance increase and the Auto voltage setting bumped the memory up too high in voltage since it used to run stable at 1.5 V for 10-years, and the new 24 GB at ~ 3-years or so. I'd rather have lower voltage on the memory than slightly more speed, especially since at the higher speed the Row Refresh Cycle Time (tRFC) is at 208 clocks at 1,654 MHz (2:10) versus 139 clock on the slower 1,322 (2:8) multi so the performance takes a hit at the higher speed and doesn't yield any faster results. (As we also know from testing memory speeds for decades now.)
Updated: I posted pictures and stability at BCLK 170 MHz but it wasn't stable in CineBench R20, so lowered it to 165 MHz and am testing it now. Same deal as before with this motherboard and the old 920 CPU which would run and work fine at BCLK 190 MHz but wasn't fully 3D long-term stable until I lowered it all the way to 180 MHz. I tried to get that old CPU stable at 187, 185, 183, but No-Go until 180 MHz, no matter the voltage I would push through it.
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CPU-Z - Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.6 GHz.png51.8 KB · Views: 0
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CPU-Z - Intel Xeon x5690 3.47 GHz @ 4.29 GHz (165 x 26), 1,322 MHz.png59.2 KB · Views: 0
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CPU-Z - Intel Xeon x5690 3.47 GHz @ 4.29 GHz (165 x 26), 1,322 MHz - Memory.png42.7 KB · Views: 0
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HWiNFO64 v6.22 - Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.6 GHz.png78 KB · Views: 0
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HWiNFO64 v6.22 - Intel Xeon x5690 3.47 GHz @ 4.29 GHz (165 x 26), 1,322 MHz.png76.9 KB · Views: 0
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Prime95 - Benchmark - Intel Xeon x5690 3.46 GHz & 4.29 GHz (165 x 26), 1,322 MHz.png77.9 KB · Views: 0
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Prime95 - Benchmark - Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.6 GHz.png97.7 KB · Views: 0
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3DMark06 - Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.6 GHz = 8,883.png43.6 KB · Views: 0
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3DMark06 - Intel Xeon x5690 3.47 GHz @ 4.29 GHz (165 x 26), 1,322 MHz = 10,428.png43.6 KB · Views: 0
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3DMark - Fire Strike - Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.6 GHz = 12,227.png1.5 MB · Views: 0
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3DMark - Fire Strike - Intel Xeon x5690 3.47 GHz @ 4.29 GHz (165 x 26), 1,322 MHz = 14,623.png1.5 MB · Views: 0
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ASUS TurboV - Intel Xeon x5690 3.47 GHz @ 4.29 GHz (165 x 26) - 165, 1.35, 1.56, 1.3.png337.3 KB · Views: 0
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