Gulftown, Bloomfield, Lynnfield, Clarkdale, SB Overclocking Guides (1155/1156/1366)

[Lsdmeasap]

Anytime man!

What's your max Bclk so far?

[Salty]

Now yr putting me to shame. The UD3R only goes to 1.6v, and I've depended on multiplier, so a miserable 203 x 23 for 4.669 on water (i7-950), no pretense of stability. It must be my conservative streak. Haven't messed with dry ice or phase or LN2. Haven't chased maximum bclk/fsb. Just interested in all this somehow though.

Don't X58 usually run out about 227 (without slow mode)?

EDIT: Just tried slow mode for 3.something and no boot. My idea of settings is obviously out of the ballpark. Would love to see a template for one of those overclocks you posted at OCN - by PM (?) if risky to hardware - big ask maybe - if so no worries.

[Lsdmeasap]

You don't need 1.6V or above for high Bclks, I can run 246 Bclk on water with my 980X using about 1.4 Vcore and 1.5 Vtt.

Drop your CPU multi down and see how far you can push the Bclk, now if you leave the CPU multi high that would be where you'd need extreme cooling or 1.6V or above.

EX58 topped out at about 222-225 without a hard mod, about 239 for me after the mod, X58A can do 245-250 without any mods nor extreme cooling needed.

Of course not all CPU's can do massive Bclks without being frozen though, but I think just about anyone's should be able to do 225-235 on water.

I'll send you a template with the settings I used for that 250 w/ 965 CPU later today, if I forget remind me (That was phase cooled though)

[miahallen]

Just finished the Sandy Bridge Guide rev1

3 Step Overclocking Guide - Sandy Bridge

[Lsdmeasap]

Thanks, will update!

[Spillertwo]

Read the guide and must say thanks for the excellent guide. Completely new to overclocking so this is just what the doctor ordered.
One question though: what would your advice be on memory for a SB system with the 2600K ? I was thinking about Corsair 2x4GB 1600mhz 9-9-9-24 memory. Would this be a good bet or would you go for higher speed memory ?

Just finished the Sandy Bridge Guide rev1

3 Step Overclocking Guide - Sandy Bridge

[draemn]

Great articles! Although I don't follow this method, I still say it's a great intro and I personally like the method of only pushing 1 thing to it's max first :)

I knew that I would be happy running my RAM at specs (1.65v, 1600 Mhz, 9-9-9-27), so I just kept the memory multi at x6 until I found what I wanted for my i7-930 and then pushed the RAM back up. Heck, I'd even be fine running my ram at anything above 1333 Mhz as only benchmarks really care about ram faster than 1333 CAS-9 9 (as far as I can tell). The main thing I did different was (since I wasn't going for a maximum o/c, just a nice 3.8 for 24/7 use) jumping up my vcore, VTT, IOH core to levels that people use for 4-4.2 Ghz range and then working my voltages back down. I just did 10 minute tests between each change to look for anything serious and once I hit my first BSOD from too low of VTT voltage, I pushed it back up one notch and I've passed 1.5h linpack and 3 passes of win7 memory diagnostic tool set to extreme.

I'm not sure how I plan to attack a max o/c on air yet, but probably more like your method where I make small jumps upwards from 4.0 GHz.

============ But I do have a couple questions to ask if anyone wants to answer?

My goal is to have my 3.8 Ghz at the lowest voltages/heat possible with all power saving features enabled (and some of these questions will help with my max overclock). Only turbo boost is disabled since I'm not using the max multiplier.

I'm using the dynamic DVID instead of changing vcore as that was suggested when you enable power saving features.

There are all these "other voltages" that people say tweak this to change that, etc, but most of them I know nothing about so I leave them alone!

I've heard that CPU PLL isn't important for 45nm bloomfield, but someone suggested that raising that will let me lower other voltages? I've also heard some people lower it from stock voltage... what effects does PLL have on power/other voltages/max bclk? Any?

IOH core seems to be for when you have multiple GPUs and I found the suggestion of 1.2v for 3 GPUs was BS and just gave me unstable temps (+15 C compared to 1.14). Other than stability with higher o/c, will increasing IOH have any benefits for lowering other voltages in such a way to lower overall temps? From my experience, I can't see any reason to increase IOH other than stability as it really increased my temps.

PCIe voltage shouldn't need changing unless I have higher than 100Mhz frequency for PCIe? Does it even need to be anything other than auto?

QPI PLL is something that seems to have some discussion around it... I haven't read anything that to say that there is a consensus. Can you explain the effects of QPI PLL (other than it helps with stability at high QPI frequency) and how it effects other voltages/temps?

ICH I/O I've seen people tweak this, but other than know 'what' it is, I've not no clue how this voltage helps with o/c and if it ever needs to be more than auto?

ICH core again, I haven't heard much about this and it doesn't seem important. Care to explain why this might be needed to be anything but auto and how it would effect stability/temps/other voltages?

If you want to see my BIOS settings, I've got a running thread about my progress.
Starting the i7-930 GA-X58A-UD5 o/c - Rampant Speculation Forums

[miahallen]

Sorry I missed these qustions earlier...

Read the guide and must say thanks for the excellent guide. Completely new to overclocking so this is just what the doctor ordered.
One question though: what would your advice be on memory for a SB system with the 2600K ? I was thinking about Corsair 2x4GB 1600mhz 9-9-9-24 memory. Would this be a good bet or would you go for higher speed memory ?

I would get as high a speed as you can afford up to DDR3-2133, beyond that is pretty silly. I would also suggest to sticking to memory with even timings (ie 8-8-8-24, not 7-11-7) for better performance.

Great articles! Although I don't follow this method, I still say it's a great intro and I personally like the method of only pushing 1 thing to it's max first :)

For your goals, don't cloud your mind with unecessary data....you only will need to mess with three voltages or less. CPU Vcore (or dynamic is fine for your goals), QPI/VTT, and DRAM Voltage. All of the other ones can be set to "Normal" for you to reach your goals

[draemn]

For your goals, don't cloud your mind with unecessary data....you only will need to mess with three voltages or less. CPU Vcore (or dynamic is fine for your goals), QPI/VTT, and DRAM Voltage. All of the other ones can be set to "Normal" for you to reach your goals

I actually asked the question for two reasons.

1) I hit my lowest VTT voltage (based on BSOD errors) and still want to lower temps. i.e. I have heard a lot of people LOWER CPU PLL and get stable o/c at lower VTT voltage as a result ???

2) I want to find the max o/c I can achieve on air (when I get time) and would rather understand things (I'm taking engineering, I guess that makes me curious) rather than just have someone say "lower this, raise that."

[Salty]

afaik lower pll doesn't affect other volts. On pll, I like this quote from mikeyakame at Xtreme:

pll voltage has absolutely nothing to do with vcc voltage. its the voltage that the internal phase locked loop needs to lock all the cpu phases to the analog pll clock generators supplied reference frequency and fsb phases. you only need a higher pll voltage when you can see through say cpu-z or bios info that your fsb frequency is bouncing either side back and forth from the target frequency, since deviations in the fsb frequency as usually a result of the cpu phases in misalignment to the fsb phases with respect to an insufficient input voltage on the internal cpu pll.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...84&postcount=7

But is it right?

You can lower cpu pll to 1.5 ~ 1.6 without apparent problem or gain.