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Weak i7-950 OC?

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Mr. Stryker

Supreme [H]ardness
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EDIT: Thanks to everyone here who provided advice on overclocking the Nehalem. I got her to 4.44GHz and I'm satisfied with the results. Post #17 has the CPU-Z Validator link.

I don't know if it's my motherboard being a budget version, but I was able to take my 980X ES to 4.5GHz with little to no issues, and with less effort/tweaking. I know that it was a 32nm processor compared to this 45nm, but still. I had a 920 C0 and it overclocked better than this.

Pictures of my BIOS settings:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/c11ipohqy5edhcl/SHEfA-xJP0

What baffles me is that I bought a H100i to be able to provide extra cooling for the 45nm CPU to allow me overclock it further. It's a D0 stepping and I thought it would have overclocked better than my 920 C0 in the past for crying out loud. The person I bought this from could do 4.2 with reasonable volts.

I have to use 1.500v (that's even with LLC enabled) just to do 3.95 GHz? What am I forgetting here? I have 5 120mm fans blowing inside the case, and the radiator is obviously blowing out of the case at the top.

If you're wondering why I don't have the 980x anymore, it was an engineering sample and I wanted to get it out of my hands.

EDIT: Understand that C.I.A. 2 is disabled right now.
 
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So I was wondering if it matters which board I have? If I had something somewhere along the lines like, say, a Rampage III or G1 Sniper or Sabertooth, would I have better OC results?
 
4 sticks make that much of a difference compared to 3 (to keep the tri-channel benefit)? Thanks for posting here, btw. Would you happen to know what the recommended voltage for the QPI/DRAM to be at? G.Skill sticks that I have are rated for 1.5V, I believe.
 
Mr. Stryker said:
4 sticks make that much of a difference compared to 3 (to keep the tri-channel benefit)? Thanks for posting here, btw. Would you happen to know what the recommended voltage for the QPI/DRAM to be at? G.Skill sticks that I have are rated for 1.5V, I believe.
Click to expand...

It isn't just that you're running 4 DIMMs of memory, it is that those DIMMs are 4GB/each. For Nehalem, as you up either the DIMM count, or the DIMM size, or the RAM speed you usually need to up the IMC voltage.

When I was running X58 with a D0 950, for 3x2GB at 2133 I needed almost 1.5V on the IMC to get it stable without even moving the BCLK....When I threw in 3x4GB at 1600, the IMC needed 1.35V to be happy at stock BCLK.

Question for you is, when you back off the core voltage to sane levels, what BSOD codes do you get? You could have a poor clocker in the end...but we don't know that for sure based on the available data points.
 
jeez dude, that sucks, I was really happy with it, that chip ran at just under 4.2 for a long time on very reasonable voltages.

http://www.overclockers.com/3-step-guide-overclock-core-i3-i5-i7/
is the guide I used when I set it up.

It really wasn't that I was trying to pawn off a bad chip, thing was a champ for me, I just traded up to a Gulftown when they became affordable and it was gathering dust.

If you are really unhappy PM me and we will work something out
 
Thanks for chipping in jojo, and don't worry about me being unhappy. It's my problem and I don't want to get you involved with anything, you sold me a fully functional CPU and that's that :) I didn't ask you to send me a cherry picked one. I was merely venting out but it's because I'm a noob at overclocking in general and the Sandy/Ivy Bridges take nearly no effort to overclock and I don't remember how my 920 was able to OC better, probably out of pure luck. I'm at work right now, but will try raising the QPI/Vtt voltage to 1.5, since it's sitting at 1.315 right now and hopefully that'll let me overclock to 4.2 without using 1.5 volts.

On a side note, you owe me a heat eval :p
 
Mr. Stryker said:
Thanks for chipping in jojo, and don't worry about me being unhappy. It's my problem and I don't want to get you involved with anything, you sold me a fully functional CPU and that's that :) I didn't ask you to send me a cherry picked one. I was merely venting out but it's because I'm a noob at overclocking in general and the Sandy/Ivy Bridges take nearly no effort to overclock and I don't remember how my 920 was able to OC better, probably out of pure luck. I'm at work right now, but will try raising the QPI/Vtt voltage to 1.5, since it's sitting at 1.315 right now and hopefully that'll let me overclock to 4.2 without using 1.5 volts.

On a side note, you owe me a heat eval :p
Click to expand...

With 1366, be thorough and take the time to test the chip per any of the plethora of guides out there. simply slamming the IMC volts up won't be that informative. 1366 were old-school tough to OC chips. Just about any of the Nehalems could come up to 4gHz, getting the extra 200mHz took experimentation....which means finding the max BCLK with RAM deliberately underclocked, and vice versa.

The key is the symptomology when voltages are kept sane. There are tables out there of BSOD codes to diagnose a failed OC on 1366.
 
yeah, I have about 4 heats stacked up I need to deal with, thanks for the reminder

pretty sure I hit the wall with it around 4.18x GHz, also I had to RMA my mobo at one point and it clocked differently on the 2nd one so there is some voodoo interaction with board components for sure.

Take your time and isolate each subsystem for best results, I found the link above very helpful.
 
QPI 1.35 at a minimum. I needed 1.39 to get mine up to speed. On the 32nm you shouldn't go over 1.4, and on 45nm you should stay below 1.5 afaik.

Also CPU pll can go up to 1.9 safely. Keeps your BCLK from going into decimals. Dont go over 1.9, you can toast the mobo afaik.

IOH and ICH look good.

DRAM voltage goes up to 1.65. Do it. Also turn off XMP..

Keep your DRAM multi where it is, but you need to manually set the uncore to 2x the speed of your dram. So it should be 3200mhz right there. Don't push it higher or lower, it doesn't like it.

Honestly, the best thing i've found to get high CPU clocks on my Bloomfield/Westmere was to knock down the DRAM as far as it could go whilst keeping 1.65 (max) voltages, and automatic timings. The lower I set my ram, and consequentially uncore, the higher i was able to push the CPU.

Basically, the QPI voltage drives both the uncore speed as well as the BCLK. So if you raise either of those, QPI voltage (or VTT or whatever) must go up. So i made my BCLK high and lowered the DRAM and Uncore to compensate for the voltage needs.
 
Very interesting... Looks like I'll have an interesting night to fiddle around with the settings in the BIOS. Thanks for the tips thesecond.

Ah take your time jojo69. No rush :p
 
Ok. There is a lot of info here. First check to see if you can run your CPU at 200BCLK.

Load default values in the BIOS and save.

Enter the BIOS and set proper voltages first.

CPU Vcore 1.400V
VTT to 1.4V (you may need more later when you get to 4GHz OC)
RAM Voltage to 1.6V

SAVE BIOS..... Enter BIOS.

Leave memory speeds at auto. They will clock themselves to 1600Mhz at CL9,9,9,24 when you get to 200BCLK

Desable turbo.
Destable HT
Set to lowest multiplyer of 12 I beliave

Save BIOS....Enter BIOS

Now you up the BCLK by 10Mhz and Save BIOS. Keep doing this until you get to 180Mhz of BCLK. When you get to 180BCLK, load into windows and see if your system is stable now. Now do the same for 190BCLK, test for stability.

Now you at 200BCLK and hopefully your system is stable:)

Now up the CPU multiplier to 19x200. Boot into windows and run stability test again.

If you can run 20x200 at 1.3Vcore, then you have an OK CPU:) Set the multiplier to 21x now.that should get you 4200Mhz. If system crashes, up the VTT to 1.5V and do testing again.

Hope this helps and have fun overcloking:)
 
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Results are coming in pretty fucking good. Uploaded more pics to the album in the original post.
 
4.41 GHz seems to be P95 stable at 25 minutes so far with 1.4875 volts.... My expectations have been exceededddddddddddddddddddddddddddd
 
Well, I think we can officially declare that you do not in fact have a weak clocking i7 ;)
 
Is that voltage not too high? I'm at 4.2 (200×21) but I tried to keep my voltage low so I'm at 1.33V or something like that.

When I was initially OC'ing, I couldn't get it stable at 4.0GHz and it turned out that I just couldn't use the x20 multiplier.
 
Skripka said:
Well, I think we can officially declare that you do not in fact have a weak clocking i7 ;)
Click to expand...

XD Yeah guess so.

djoye said:
Is that voltage not too high? I'm at 4.2 (200×21) but I tried to keep my voltage low so I'm at 1.33V or something like that.

When I was initially OC'ing, I couldn't get it stable at 4.0GHz and it turned out that I just couldn't use the x20 multiplier.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it is a bit high, oh well. I only care about achieving the highest OC without any BSODs, and it was attainable with 1.5v which is the max recommended vcore, as the LLC takes it to 1.488V at most during peak. I could probably do 4.2 with 1.4v now that I understand the X58 overclocking better. But nah. :p
 
This is Hardforum, right? Not something like.. Softforum. GET BACK TO WORK, i7-950! *whip cracks*

:p
 
Mr Stryker,

I just caught this thread of yours. Nice stuff. It caught my eye because i'm still on a 950 myself. I've wanted to maybe give it a tinker in the OC department but i've never delved that deep (doing work and then if i had spare time.. play... always took precedence lol). But having a look at your system... it appears near identical to mine. Perhaps if i get a chacne i can "copy" your settings and get some OC Tinkering done. :) So thanks for this and to those that responded.

Only thing is.. i'm only running a Khuler 920 and for some reason it sucks at cooling my CPu so either i need to re-seat it (and i fudged the install!) or it just sucks for this big ol' beast.
 
Oh sure go for it. :D Maybe yours will be a better overclocker by requiring less volts to attain the speeds I'm at. Your Kuhler should be able to cool the 950 well (keep on mind I put everything at their max speed, since I'm deaf the noise wouldn't even bother me) if you seated it properly, maybe use MX-2 thermal paste at least.
 
Hmm yeah i'm th8inking its not seated right. I mean... with yours OC'd.. whats the max temp it sits on? Mine running stock pegged will sit around 90-92°C and the kuhler is screaming its ring off! Which i'm not a big fan (do do cha!) of.
 
What does it mean if I turn on the computer but nothing shows up on the screen even though it turns on fine and I reset the CMOS? Dropped in a new 970 today and it was fine when I left it at stock. Decided to OC, put QPI to 1.35, RAM to 1.65 and CPU to 1.35. LLC on as well. Took out all the RAM and put 1 stick back in and took out the video cards, put the 780 in the second slot. Nothing happens after I turn it on and it looks normal but the motherboard is showing red and orange lights while it normally doesn't. Turned off the PSU, then back on, the system turns on the same time I turn the switch on the psu. Wondering if I have yo put the 950 back in. *sighs*
 
uploaded a video, it's in the album and you can tell me what is wrong with it.
 
put in my 950, exact same behavior. makes me think that it's the motherboard. *sigh* time to go mobo shopping. I can only hope that my 970 didn't just become a $300 paperweight.
 
Could somebody please watch the short video in the album in my original post? I'm deaf and would like to know if there are any beeps which would help me loads.
 
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