Moderate OC w/Speedstep ON Possible?

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sohosources

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Oct 7, 2006
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Hi, gang:

I'm testing my new i7-930 build. It's a 24/7 productivity box that won't run games...just a bunch of VMs...

I have the chip running at 3.6 GHz / 1.21 v, with Speedstep, etc, disabled. It's presently 10-pass stable running LinX on a Hyper 212 Plus cooler. I'm still testing to lower the CPU voltage, etc.

Because I want the multitasking horsepower of hyperthreading, I'm wondering if I can get the thing to remain stable at 3.6 with Speedstep and other power-saving, temp-lowering goodies turned on?

Anybody have experience with this approach? Assuming Speedstep and its helpers can be left on at 3.6 GHz, will this technology save on electricity and reduce temps on a 24/7 box...or should I just keep them disabled and get on with the voltage testing?

Thanks!

--KK in MN
 
I think the Hyper 212 is one of the 4 heatpipe HDT design HSFs like the Xigmatech HTD-S1283, right? If so you're likely to run in to the maximum amount of heat that design can handle with an OCed i7.

Speedstep shouldn't negatively affect stability, though, so you should be fine. I'd leave it on unless this is a 24/7 folding rig... in which case it'd never get in to any of the lower power states anyway.
 
I do it with a [email protected]. Speedstep and C1E. Seems to help temps quite a bit and saves some juice when idle. Oh yeah, this is with an Ultima-90 and a 92mm fan using 1.235v without vdroop - idle at 35*C and loads at 72*C. I don't think you'll have any problems turning all of the power saving features and HT on.
 
I've settled on running my PC at 3.8 GHz, where I was able to run Prime95 for 6 hours and complete a 10-pass LinX run with no issues. Voltage at 3.8 is nice = 1.2 V, with my RAM at 1.6 V (6 GB of Patriot Viper 1333 running at 1450 MHz, 9-9-9-24 1T.

I expect to add an additional 6 GB of RAM, so I haven't really tried to dial in the RAM yet...but after running an X2-5000 BE and 4 GB of DDR2-800, the present RAM timings seem more than adequate!

With All 8 threads running, RealTemp and CoreTemp show 38C idle / 68C full load.

I had everything running at 4.1, but the voltage and temps seemed too high for a 24/7 productivity box (that runs my business and my life :) that I don't want to constantly fuss with.

The 120-mm fan on the Hyper 212+ actually runs slower than I'd like, but the full load temps at 3.8 are decent, so I probably won't add another CPU cooler fan -- although I will add some cooling to the NB/SB chips, which, although within spec, run just too hot for my taste...

I will run Prime/LinX with C1E enabled to see how it goes. The above results were with Speedstep enabled, but C1E turned off.

Thanks,

--KK in MN
 
Not familiar with that board but you should be able to change the parameters of the cpu fan so that it picks up speed sooner. I run mine wide open when temps are above 35*C - cpu temp is usually what the bios goes by - not core. Looks pretty good and I wouldn't fuss over your ) core being cooler. Probably just nature of the beast or the IHS/hsf isn't perfectly flat. No biggy. Good luck! ;)
 
Wait, I am confused - is it now possible to overclock your Intel CPU AND change the voltage, and still run with Speedstep enabled?

I used to have to keep voltage stock if I wanted to OC and keep Speedstep/CoolnQuiet running. How exactly do you do this, if it is possible?
 
With the new Intel setups (at least X58) you are bumping the VCORE in +V, so the power saving features drop the voltage in relation to that. I'm running 3.675Ghz (21x175) with SpeedStep and C1E enabled. 90% of the time the chip is clocked at 12x175 (2095) and runs ~0.125v lower than my set voltage.
 
4x4not said:
With the new Intel setups (at least X58) you are bumping the VCORE in +V, so the power saving features drop the voltage in relation to that. I'm running 3.675Ghz (21x175) with SpeedStep and C1E enabled. 90% of the time the chip is clocked at 12x175 (2095) and runs ~0.125v lower than my set voltage.
Click to expand...

Cool, that's some really good info.

Does anyone know if this feature is available on the P55 chipset as well?
 
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