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i7 920 overclocking - safe voltages?

B

Busterizer

n00b
Joined
Nov 25, 2008
Messages
39
Hi folks,

I just recently set up my new machine (see sig), and have begun playing with overclocking. I've gotten to bclk 180 (3.6ghz, up to 3.78 with all cores fully loaded in prime95) and all I did was set vdimm to 1.64 and vcore to 1.33. With these settings, I idle around 40c, and under full load with Prime95 I max at 70c.

To get beyond this I think I'm going to need to start adjusting voltages, because the system crashed immediately upon starting prime95 with a bclk of 190 with all other settings left as above. I'm pretty new to this, but as I understand it, there are a few voltages that I should be playing with:
* vcore
* vdimm
* QPI
* Any others?

Before tweaking voltages much, I tried to find information about the stock voltage settings, and what safe ranges were for each one. Unfortunately, information for anything except vdimm (1.5-1.65) has been pretty hard to come by. Can anyone fill me in on what's safe for the other settings, especially vcore? And if there are any others I should be tweaking, speak up ;)

Thanks,
-Fin
 
Im sure your gonna hit heat issues more than volt issues, but since its 45nm, im sure the right number would be 1.4V for 24/7. It might support higher due to it being a new arch, correct me if im wrong.
 
Thanks for the input. I think you're right that I'm going to run into a thermal wall before a voltage one. Even so, I still want to know what the range I'm working in is and what some common volts are before I start picking my own values :)

-Fin
 
Understood :cool:

Look up your batch number, goggle/yahoo/ask will do, and see what similar chips have gotten. :cool:
 
Cool, will do. I take it from your first post that you'd consider 1.4v and below safe for 24/7 operation at least. I'm not interested in maxing out the clock speed at the expense of long term functionality, just looking to get what I can safely get out of it :)

-Fin
 
Hahaha - after quite a bit of searching over the past few days I did another search for the heck of it and found this: http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=521

The poster states that Intel recommends the following maximums:
* VCore 1.55v
* VDimm 1.65v
* QPI 1.315v

I guess you never know when you'll finally find what you're looking for.

-Fin
 
1.45V is what intel says is the max voltage for 45nm. 1.4V is what the majority of people consider safe. Also keep in mind that some overclocks might not be worth the big voltage jump, For example, my E5200 wants 1.525V for 4.4ghz, While it runs 4.3Ghz at 1.49V fine. That right is not worth it, and even in real world performance, its a minimal jump.

You might be wondering why im i saying this when i have my E5200 @ 1.47V, Its actually because im testing the whole ''Over 1.45V you might experience cpu degration'' I have been keeping my chip @ 4.1ghz @ 1.47V for almost a week now (Never goes over 62C), and its still 100 Ibt runs stable. Im gonna push it to 1.525V and leave it at 4.4ghz and see what happends. Since the whole subject intrigues me.
 
Hahaha - so you're just waiting to see what happens to it eh? Now I'm kinda curious too, since that sounds like pretty much what I'm trying to avoid doing by accident ;)

I'll play some more with voltages later tonight or tomorrow, but I'm currently downloading Fallout 3 from Steam so it's going to have to wait :D

Thanks for all your input.

-Fin
 
Busterizer said:
Hahaha - so you're just waiting to see what happens to it eh? Now I'm kinda curious too, since that sounds like pretty much what I'm trying to avoid doing by accident ;)

I'll play some more with voltages later tonight or tomorrow, but I'm currently downloading Fallout 3 from Steam so it's going to have to wait :D

Thanks for all your input.

-Fin
Click to expand...

Just saw your post, i knew i was gonna be wrong, but jebus, 1.5V is safe for a i7? :eek:

Yea i have been told wayy too many times, to watch out on the voltages and always made me wonder, now that i upgraded to a Q9550 (Currently under rma) might as well test it.

Enjoy your system man, Keep me posted on your overclocking results :cool:

You are gonna love Fallout 3, I can't wait for the expansion :D
 
Casper312 said:
Just saw your post, i knew i was gonna be wrong, but jebus, 1.5V is safe for a i7? :eek:
Click to expand...

I think you misread that. 1.5-1.65 for vDimm, not vCore ;)

Edit:
Err... never mind, you mean from the link I quoted. I guess that's what I get for watching movies while talking voltages :rolleyes:
 
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