Overclocking an i7 930 in a P6T Deluxe V2

[Siggy]

G'Day,

I am slowly designing my next PC. The old box from 2003 is not really useful for FS anymore.

My idea is to get an ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 board and an i7 930 processor. I have never over-clocked anything (preferred stability), but after all those success stories here and elsewhere I though I will give this a try. When you overclock, do you need to raise the DRAM's supply voltage too ? I think I read somewhere that one should not exceed the 1.65V as otherwise the processor may be damaged. Does anyone who overclocks (or not) worry about the resulting CL (CAS latency) ? Slower DIMMs may have a lower CL clock count, so they might actually be better in terms of the resulting CL. Do you guys also overclock the DRAM ? Is it worthwhile doing this ?

Regarding cooling, my case (that I bought already) has options for 3+2 92mm fans plus one 120mm fan at the rear. Here's a (bad) photo showing the left hand side and the right hand side (a Chieftec case, and it actually looks silver):

My idea was to install two slow (silent) 92mm fans where the hard disks go (bottom two holes on the right hand side) and the 120mm fan at the rear, which I thought I get a temperature controlled one. Any suggestions on whether this is a good idea or whether more fans are needed (perhaps for the two places next to the handle) ? There will only be one graphics card inside.

Cheers,

Siggy

[Phil Manhart]

For overclocking it is best to run your RAM at the speed it is rated for, i.e. DDR3-1600 should be run at 1600 Mhz (if you are reading it before the data rate is tripled, that is 200 Mhz, but follow me here). You should do this because the RAM is the most likely victim in overclocking. It has very little hardware protection, and unless you use an aftermarket cooling solution, it is limited to passive heat dissipation via the heat spreaders that are clipped on them. You are also correct in not raising your DRAM Voltage above the highest rated amount for your RAM, but that is entirely up to what the RAM is rated for! Keep in mind that some high overclocking may require you to raise your DRAM Voltage in order to facilitate keeping up with a higher FSB (which is something you will be increasing to overclock your system).

For case cooling, use as many fans as your case can use! I would recommend not using thermal controlled fans as they will require that you have enough fan ports on your motherboard to power them (in order for the thermal sensing to work), instead of using them directly off of the PSU. The important thing to remember about your case cooling, is that you have enough fans pushing air out behind the major components. I would recommend the three fans on the right side of the case blow directly in over your hard drives, and that you install the two on the left side blowing in as well. Sometimes you will need to button up the case and check your temperatures, and then decide where to move fans around. To verify you have good flow through the back of the case, use some thing like an incense stick held at the front of the case, in a dark room with a flashlight to see if the smoke is indeed moving out the back.

Phil

[TenBlade]

Here´s a good read http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/240001-11-howto-overclock-quads-duals-guide for basic knowledge.

I have had no problem at all cranking my 1333MHz ram to 1600, but as implied above, have fitted them with extra coolers. Some high performance ram are marketed for overclocking, and they are fitted with heat sinks or are shipped with a little set of fans that fit over the ram slots.

What´s to be noted are ram-mainboard compatibility issues. Some times some ram won´t work properly with some mainboards. Usually the ram manufacturers website list compatibilities, the list for the mainboard is usually short. Overclocking the ram won´t affect CL unless you specifically alter the timings.

Lower latency means faster ram, but what if you have a 1333MHz with low latency and a 1600 with a high latency, which is faster? Divide the CL by frequency (7/1333 vs. 9/1600 for example) respectively, the lowest number denotes the faster ram. The ram timings are not to be fiddled with (if you ask an amateur like me), that would require a lot of work to get stable.

Make sure your processor is cooled properly, so stock cooler is right out.

I´m a bit worried about the airflow of your case, but you can always change it if your temp.s get too high. Make sure that air in equals air out, or close to it. You don´t want 5 fans blowing in and only one out, then you get stale hot air trapped inside the case.

Good luck with your build, mate!

Bjorn

[Barry Meiklejohn]

I agree with the above in respect to RAM being the big limiter in any system for overclocking. On my ASUS P6TDeluxev2 board I made the mistake of buying 1333mhz DDRIII (PC3-10666) and I couldn't reliably run my i7-920 at 4ghz.

This is because the ram multipliers work in conjunction with the bclock frequency and you can't specify the exact memory speed directly. So depending on your bclock setting you may be significantly higher or lower than the rated speed of the memory - slower will work but produce a bottleneck, faster may work but more likely will result in memory errors when running (or not boot at all). These errors can be very difficult to trace, normally ending up as FSX (or other programs) crashing for inexplicable reasons, sometimes blue screen of death, etc. Normally they are judged as buggy program, drivers or even overheating issues etc, but you can never quite put your finger on exactly what.

For me, running my i7-920 at 4ghz with a 2:8 memory multiplier works out at 1600mhz for the DDRIII. My 1333mhz RAM saved me a few bucks at the time but caused me a lot of heartache til I realised it was the limiting factor and the reason I couldn't realiably overclock past 3.8ghz. Purchasing 1600mhz RAM (PC3-12800) made my system reliable at 4ghz. The only way I have found to prove that reliability is to stress test the machine when you have your overclock set up. I use LinX and set to test maximum ram for 20 cycles. If the system passes that I have been confident I am not going to have problems.

The other issue touched on above is that of heat dissemination. As mentioned, you need to remove as much heat from the cpu as possible, so a good aftermarket heatsink is a must. I use the Thermalright Ultra (TRUE-120) and find it very efficient teamed up with a Noctua high pressure 120mm fan.

I agree that your case will be a factor with heat dispersal - the problem I see is the plethora of 90mm fans required. They will not be all that quiet. You should be very careful with your cabling to try not to obstruct the required airflows, critical areas to ensure you are exhausting heat are from the CPU, GPU and PSU. Some harddrives can get hot (such as a RAIDed pair of WD Velociraptors) but one or two HDDs with space in between should not get critically hot so as to need their own fans.

The other way to deal with heat is space, the route I went down was to get a full sized tower case, this allows plenty of room for components, plenty of air gap and easy to fit larger (slow moving) fans if desired. I also purchased an aluminium case, the logic being that the case itself acts as a heat sink. Of course, buying a new case can significantly add to the cost of any upgrade.

To answer some of your specific questions -

• When you overclock, do you need to raise the DRAM's supply voltage too?

No - you should not run your RAM above it's rated voltage (try and get RAM that doesn't need to be overclocked at your desired overclock speed).

• Does anyone who overclocks (or not) worry about the resulting CL (CAS latency)?

Try to use the DRAMs timings, if you aren't overclocking the RAM this will not be an issue - although you should always check using a program like CPU-Z that the timings have been set correctly, sometimes the motherboards auto setting doesn't pick up the correct SPD timings and you need to set manually.

• Do you guys also overclock the DRAM?

No - see answer above

• Is it worthwhile doing this?

If you need to bump your memory slightly to achieve the desired CPU overclock - yes, but be very careful the ram isn't going to cause you grief by checking thoroughly with a strong and long stress test.

Good luck with your overclocking, it is definitely a worthwhile pursuit towards FSX nirvana...

[Siggy]

Thanks for all the very useful and detailed replies, guys !

If you are interested, I found an article regarding airflow in PC cases, very interesting:

http://tech.icrontic.com/articles/pc_airflow_heat_cooling_guide/

Cheers,

Siggy

[Siggy]

Here´s a good read http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/240001-11-howto-overclock-quads-duals-guide for basic knowledge.

Thanks, a good article. Here is one more related to the i7 chips and especially in combo with the P6T Deluxe V2: http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?board_id=1&model=P6T+Deluxe&id=20081220191040237&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

Cheers,

Siggy

[TenBlade]

Here´s a good read http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/240001-11-howto-overclock-quads-duals-guide for basic knowledge.

Thanks, a good article. Here is one more related to the i7 chips and especially in combo with the P6T Deluxe V2: http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?board_id=1&model=P6T+Deluxe&id=20081220191040237&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

Cheers,

Siggy

That´s a great website, I used it a lot myselft when building my rig. Any Asus user should sign up, you can easily find your product and the related forum.

[brianos007]

For the new to overclokking a very simple guide 

http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/overclocking/22106-core-i7-overclocking-guide-beginners.html

Grtz