i7-920 locked mutliplier?

[exe163]

From what I head from multiple review sites 920 and 940 have locked multiplier. But people manage to "unlock" the multiplier on their chips?

such as:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=206775
(multiplier stock at x20 and supposedly locked)

 

[ilkhan]

hes running 200x20(21 on turbo). how hes getting turbo to activate at 4ghz i dont know, but its not unlocked. (well thats an unlocked engineering sample, but hes treating it as locked)

 

[exe163]

Umm... Little confused. So 920 is able to do x21 (maybe possibly x22) if we manage to enable to Turbo despite the restriction?

 

[BillParrish]

you OC by disengaging the tubro/current restrictions and run up the BCLK (base clock that is used to determine the cpu speed ) BCLK x CPU mulit = cpu speed. Stock BCLK is 133MHz and you just increase it to 170MHz + and Bob's your uncle.

If you have not seen it, watch the video here it shows you exactly what you need to know. Its very very easy to OC

http://www.hardocp.com/news.html?news=MzYwMTAsLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdCwsLDE=

 

[exe163]

I see. One offtopic question, what kind of ram do I need to use in order to OC 920 to 3.8 or maybe 4.0? 1333 or 1600?

 

[ilkhan]

Either will work. It appears that mem multi's have been unlocked in the newer BIOS versions, so you can freely adjust. Without any adjustments and a 200Mhz base clock DDR3-1600 lines up exactly from the 1066 base ram clock.

 

[DanNeely]

The big question becomes if running ram at non 1:1 ratios has any nontrivial penalty.

 

[exe163]

Nice to hear that, now i7 build does not cost as much as I initially thought. Does anybody know where I can get 3 x 2 gb of DDR3-1066?

Without any adjustments and a 200Mhz base clock DDR3-1600 lines up exactly from the 1066 base ram clock.

Umm I don't quite get how this works, do you mind explaining it to me one more time? I am still a novice OCer, from my experience with the AMD build I have FSB x CPU multi = CPU clock; FBS x CPU:RAM ratio = DRAM Frequency. I failed to find how this adds up for DDR3.

 

[rostabosta]

RAM will likely have a ratio you can set in the BIOS relative to the BCLK. So you can set this lower to keep the RAM speed near stock, as you raise the BCLK.

 

[ilkhan]

The big question becomes if running ram at non 1:1 ratios has any nontrivial penalty.

1:1 would mean running DDR3-400, so it might have a non trivial penalty. The 1:1 thing was because the ram traveled over the FSB, the FSB is gone and the mem controller is now on die. RAM multiplier usage is now totally not a big deal.

Nice to hear that, now i7 build does not cost as much as I initially thought. Does anybody know where I can get 3 x 2 gb of DDR3-1066?

newegg has triple kits available, ZZF has kits, others do too.

Umm I don't quite get how this works, do you mind explaining it to me one more time? I am still a novice OCer, from my experience with the AMD build I have FSB x CPU multi = CPU clock; FSB x CPU:RAM ratio = DRAM Frequency. I failed to find how this adds up for DDR3.

The official top ram speed is 1066. 4Ghz cpu comes from 200x20 (for the 920). The base 920 runs at 133x20. 200:133 :: 1600:1066, its the same 50% increase.
Basicly if you do nothing but adjust the BCLK and vCore and achieve 4.0Ghz you'll be running DDR3-1600 on an i7 920.

RAM will likely have a ratio you can set in the BIOS relative to the BCLK. So you can set this lower to keep the RAM speed near stock, as you raise the BCLK.

Newer BIOS releases are supposed to be exposing them, I worked out that math above by looking at 6 and 8x multis, but if those are indeed exposed the ram you buy really doesn't matter, if the ram cant handle it, drop the multi and charge ahead.