Intel Core i7-3960X Overclocking Guide anywhere?

wsgroves

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Anyone have any guides for OC'ing this cpu?
I havent touched anything new since my original i7 920 system and I dont believe the new cpu is overclocked in the same way is it.

Running on a R4E...is the best bet to leave everything stock and set the multiplier manually and fool with the voltage?
You do not touch the bclk anymore with the new cpu like you used to have to on the locked 920's right.
I saw the Asus guide on their blog but it manly tells you what settings to use.

Sorry to noob it up, just want to oc this $ system the right way and not maul it up.

Thank you and Merry Christmas!!!
 
Yes, just adjust the multi. You can get maybe a bit higher on the bclk, but it's not necessary. I started with 40 and went from there. For voltage I started at stock and tried to see how low I could go. I'm not aiming for a huge oc though as I don't have custom wc or anything.
 
Just increase the multiplier til you hit a wall. Then enable load line calibration to high or very high, increase mult til you hit a wall. Then use offset voltage to add vcore, increase mult until you hit a wall / fry your CPU
 
Just increase the multiplier til you hit a wall. Then enable load line calibration to high or very high, increase mult til you hit a wall. Then use offset voltage to add vcore, increase mult until you hit a wall / fry your CPU

Pretty much. I will say that so far on the Core i7 3930K I'm using for motherboard reviews, I need a lot of voltage in order to get past 4.6GHz. (Around 1.5v.) It doesn't overclock as well as LGA1155 Sandy Bridge CPUs do. Not even close. So far it seems like these are powerful chips but they draw a ton of power and run hot when overclocked. At stock settings they are pretty good and even up to 4.6GHz they are pretty good. Getting anything beyond that though seems to take a lot of voltage and cooling. As these CPUs become a more known quantity and as they are tried out on different motherboards things will start to come into focus better. For now it looks like they don't OC as well as LGA1155 parts do. That makes sense given they've got double the CPU cores and a 130watt TDP instead of a 95w TDP.
 
Thanks a lot for the time and info guys. Yea I do not really plan to go over 4.5 on mine. I would be pretty happy with that personally.
 
Check my sig. Not all 3930K cpu's require high voltage to get a nice OC.
 
Yeah exactly what I've seen. I don't want to go anywhere near that. I'm quite happy at 4ghz with lower voltages.

I haven't seen the specifications for the Core i7 3930K from Intel, but on older LGA1155 parts, 1.52VID was the maximum you could safely handle and sustain. I'm going to guess that with the higher TDP of 130 watts vs. 95, and having two additional cores, that the same VID should be reasonable. With the voltage fluctuation of the VRMs on most motherboards, and being that VID is different than VCore (your VCore needs to be less than your VID), but I'd say anything around 1.425v up to about 1.45v and maybe even 1.475v is probably safe enough. I've had no trouble running CPUs with far more VCore than that, but I've only done it for short periods of time. Rarely exceeding 24 hours. Though I've exposed the same CPU to this type of stress multiple times on multiple motherboards. I've never killed an Intel CPU overclocking, so I wouldn't worry about it too much so long as you are in the ballpark and it tests as being perfectly stable and tests within a thermal range acceptable for both summer and winter conditions. Especially if you live somewhere like Texas where we can have summer temperatures in the winter time at random.
 
I'm at 1.33 Vcore with LLC set to high running 4.5ghz

And as we've said before, so far it seems like there is a massive difference between running at 4.6GHz and beyond vs. running at lower speeds. There is a massive increase in required voltage and a lot more heat.
 
I think you have to raise the PLL to go higher than 4.5ghz. I'd have to check my settings again, I have a 4.6 and 4.7 profile set up for when i feel like tinkering.

Edit: I also have CPU spread spectrum turned off.
 
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I think you have to raise the PLL to go higher than 4.5ghz. I'd have to check my settings again, I have a 4.6 and 4.7 profile set up for when i feel like tinkering.

You do need to raise your CPU PLL. However I've found that these chips actually require less CPU PLL than the LGA1155 CPUs did. I can typically get away with 1.9v or so and I needed 1.95 to reach 5.0GHz on SB-E CPUs. Then again I'm also not seeing the same clocks I do on LGA1155 CPUs either. Raising the CPU PLL doesn't help change that though.

Edit: I also have CPU spread spectrum turned off.

It always should be. For overclocking anyway.
 
I have a 4.3 profile for folding @ 1.234V and a 4.7 for everything else @ 1.37V. Been stable for most of this week like this.
 
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I don't think PLL is the answer for 1155, and it might not be for 3960X. Try using higher LLC and higher offset. That's all I needed to change to get to 5Ghz on my i5-2500K. My PLL is 1.7, so I don't know why Dan had to push it to 1.9v. Messing with high PLL is the fastest way to kill your CPU.
 
im happy whit the way my 3930k clocks 4.8 at 1.375v 5ghz at 1.425. but if your not on high end water theirs no way your going to keep this thing cool, i have a very high end water cooler/chiller that's keeps my water at 65f and my load temps are upper 50c prime 95 at 4.8 and mid-uper 60c at 5ghz
 
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I don't think PLL is the answer for 1155, and it might not be for 3960X. Try using higher LLC and higher offset. That's all I needed to change to get to 5Ghz on my i5-2500K. My PLL is 1.7, so I don't know why Dan had to push it to 1.9v. Messing with high PLL is the fastest way to kill your CPU.

Understand I do this all the time. On every board I review. The CPUs I've got are all capable of hitting 5.1GHz, but after 4.8 or 4.9GHz on most boards, the CPU PLL over voltage has to come up. Load-Line calibration, even at maximum is no substitute for CPU PLL voltage. And many people have had to use CPU PLL overvoltage to get past the 4.8GHz wall that many of these CPUs have. Some of you just have really good CPUs and don't need to go as far as I do to get the overclock.
 
May be your are right and I should try pushing my CPU higher. However, I think he should try the other options before he pushes PLL.
 
May be your are right and I should try pushing my CPU higher. However, I think he should try the other options before he pushes PLL.

No doubt. I only push that high because I'm going for the most massive stable overclock I can achieve. CPU life is not a concern. Temperatures aren't even a concern either so long as I can actually dissipate the heat well enough to prevent the CPU from throttling.
 
One question I have is which BIOS/CPU voltage setting determines how the voltage scales with clockspeed? Mine is running 1.5V at 4.7ghz, which is probably un-necessarily high.
 
One question I have is which BIOS/CPU voltage setting determines how the voltage scales with clockspeed? Mine is running 1.5V at 4.7ghz, which is probably un-necessarily high.

That is high. You need to set your CPU voltage manually. You can use offset voltage or input it normally. Offset gives many people better results though it requires some math on your part. You shouldn't need more than 1.425v - 1.45v at the very worst to get to 4.7GHz. Usually I can get to about 4.6GHz on stock voltages and settings on LGA1155 processors like the Core i5 2500K and Core i7 2600K. I typically need between 1.375v and 1.425v up to about 4.8GHz. If the board has particularly bad vdroop then I might need to set the thing up for 1.45v or so to hit my target voltage. Now getting to 5.0GHz+ often requires 1.45v-1.51v depending on the board and CPU. Typically getting past 4.8GHz requires setting your CPU PLL overvoltage option to enabled and increasing your CPU PLL voltage. I typically need close to 1.9v on either side to do it with the chips I'm using.
 
That is high. You need to set your CPU voltage manually. You can use offset voltage or input it normally. Offset gives many people better results though it requires some math on your part. You shouldn't need more than 1.425v - 1.45v at the very worst to get to 4.7GHz. Usually I can get to about 4.6GHz on stock voltages and settings on LGA1155 processors like the Core i5 2500K and Core i7 2600K. I typically need between 1.375v and 1.425v up to about 4.8GHz. If the board has particularly bad vdroop then I might need to set the thing up for 1.45v or so to hit my target voltage. Now getting to 5.0GHz+ often requires 1.45v-1.51v depending on the board and CPU. Typically getting past 4.8GHz requires setting your CPU PLL overvoltage option to enabled and increasing your CPU PLL voltage. I typically need close to 1.9v on either side to do it with the chips I'm using.

Thanks for the info. I am able to get 6 cores and HT enabled to 4.8Ghz with 1.38V. Cant get 4.9 to boot into windows even with a lot more volts. Im gonna run it like this for a while and enjoy it.

Thanks again for the help.
 
Thanks for all the helpful input all. I'll be assembling my sig here in about 2 days so I'll keep referring back to this thread.
Probably will run stock speeds for a few days to let it all burn in then test my luck.
Like I said, do not really need to go any higher then 4.5
Happy Holidays!
 
Thanks for all the helpful input all. I'll be assembling my sig here in about 2 days so I'll keep referring back to this thread.
Probably will run stock speeds for a few days to let it all burn in then test my luck.
Like I said, do not really need to go any higher then 4.5
Happy Holidays!

People all disagree about whether or not CPUs need some kind of burn in before overclocking them. I wouldn't know. All I've done is pulled them out of the package and clocked the snot out of them. Always works for me. :D
 
Yea I am sure, I just rather let it run a little bit first lol. No real reason why except maybe piece of mind I guess .
 
People all disagree about whether or not CPUs need some kind of burn in before overclocking them. I wouldn't know. All I've done is pulled them out of the package and clocked the snot out of them. Always works for me. :D

Perhaps that's related to curing the TIM but I agree, just get the show on the road.
 
Perhaps that's related to curing the TIM but I agree, just get the show on the road.

Artic Silver and some other thermal compounds do need a curing time but as someone who uses it on nearly every motherboard review, and has for the last 6 years, and in his own personal builds I can tell you that curing only nets you about a 1c-2c drop in temperature over Artic Silver that hasn't cured.
 
What are you guys with 8 dimms filled achieving for RAM speed? Are you stuck at 1333mhz?
 
Question guys, when I manually change my cpu voltage to say 1.33v, it changes the color of the box to purple. What exactly does that mean?
When I leave voltage to auto it fluctuates between about 1.38 to 1.416, this is @4.5

edit, lowered the voltage to 1.35 instead of auto. The cpu pll voltage is auto however and it hovers around 1.8-1.9. Thats probably too high for this OC right....what should i try to manually set it at.
 
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wsgroves, Im thinking about getting the same system you have, can you contact me so I can ask you a few questions?
 
Question guys, when I manually change my cpu voltage to say 1.33v, it changes the color of the box to purple. What exactly does that mean?
When I leave voltage to auto it fluctuates between about 1.38 to 1.416, this is @4.5

edit, lowered the voltage to 1.35 instead of auto. The cpu pll voltage is auto however and it hovers around 1.8-1.9. Thats probably too high for this OC right....what should i try to manually set it at.

That's a bit high. I run folding @ 4.3 with vcore of 1.27v with pll on lowest setting. This reads as 1.23v under load. My 4.7 oc is around 1.34v under load set at 1.37 in the BIOS. PLLVoltage is manually set to 1.80000.

I think the colors in the uefi just point out it's been changed, not totally sure on that though.
 
Thanks for the reply. Testing now 1.30 on the cpu and 1.8 for the pll. I'll keep bumping it down a notch until it wont run. Thanks.

edit, so far max temp at the above numbers has been 63c under p95.
 
Anyone at 5ghz? HardOCP is right, as soon as you past 4.8 voltages go up. I'm at 4.8 right now with 1.44.
 
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