I have finally arrived at way I want to run this rig now. Although it's quite capable of more, here's the way I'm going to run it. I am OC'ing it permanently in manaul mode in the BIOs at a multiplier of 27, giving me a speed ( no speedstep switching of speeds or Turbo junk ) of 3.608Ghz. I decided to leave the base clock at 133Mhz and the PCI at 100Mhz.

I originally allowed my RAM to run at 1066Mhz because that's what the default speed for memory is for i7 processors set ups. But my Corsair RAM is rated at 1333Mhz and easily OCs to that speed as long as I double the uncore speed. I could get this ram to 1600 easy but I like it here because I can leave it stock 1.5v DRAM voltage and the original timings of 9-9-9-24 and pass Prime95 stress for memory. So 1333Mhz will be good enough for me.

And with my decent ( not great ) Coolermaster V8 cooler without upping any voltages at all, not even CPU, I can pass the Prime95 with small FFs testing all eight threads. And the temps stay in the 60 to 65 centigrade range with a room temp of 71F/22C. Running any game I've tried, none of the cores get to much over 55C anyway.

The way I figure it I'll still be sitting pretty as I can get this speed without the PC breaking a sweat and no voltage tweaks. And what 920/940 user can leave his/her BCLK on 133Mhz and OC at all?? I'm very happy to not have to go for the max OC like a lot of people, as I'm not into impressing people and have nothing to prove.

quote:

Originally posted by mortoma:
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And what 920/940 user can leave his/her BCLK on 133Mhz and OC at all?? I'm very happy to not have to go for the max OC like a lot of people, as I'm not into impressing people and have nothing to prove.

None, but it hardly matters if they get to the speed they want anyway.

Aren't you trying to prove that those smug 920 owners are actually envious, and that you were right in paying extra for an unlocked multiplier?

quote:

Originally posted by mortoma:
Surely you had to have changed your ram timings too??

Nope. When I first started it up, I set the RAM frequency in the BIOS manually to 1600mhz and when I decided to OC, I forgot to turn it back down to 1066mhz and on my first attempt it tried to boot with the RAM scaling up over 1900mhz...which obviously it wouldn't do.

Once I set the frq back down and rebooted, the RAM went straight to 1523mhz (effectively leaving only 77mgz on the table for my 1600mhz RAM). My timings are 8,8,8,24...out of the box. Supposedly, I could try to tweak them down a bit to see how low of a latency I can safely run and remain stable, but, like I stated before, things are running so smoothly right now, I'm just not inclined to try.

OC.com has some very helpful members. It also has more than its fair share of snotty thirteen year olds. It's up to you to sort the wheat from the chaff.

quote:

Originally posted by julian265:

quote:

Originally posted by mortoma:
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And what 920/940 user can leave his/her BCLK on 133Mhz and OC at all?? I'm very happy to not have to go for the max OC like a lot of people, as I'm not into impressing people and have nothing to prove.

None, but it hardly matters if they get to the speed they want anyway.

Aren't you trying to prove that those smug 920 owners are actually envious, and that you were right in paying extra for an unlocked multiplier?

Not really, only trying to prove that I'm not stupid like they imply just because I could afford a more versatile and easier to OC processor. And also trying to prove that it's great if you can OC from 3.2Ghz to 3.6Ghz with no increase of ANY voltage, thus keeping my processor cooler than theirs probably is. And all without increasing the BCLK at all, which can never be a bad thing. I got my memory up to 1333Mhz from 1056Mhz too without increasing the DRAM voltage and no timing changes either. But really the modules are pre-stressed for 1333Mhz by Corsair and they say 1333 on the side of the modules so this should be no shock. It's just that i7's run memory at 1056 by default.

I can pass Prime95 stressed towards CPU and core #0 ( the hottest one ) never gets above 64C even after hours. And I don't even have the best cooler, I got a CoolerMaster V8, could get away with more with a better cooler. My RAM is passing the RAM intensive part of Prime95 too.

So in essence I should never have been subject to the "Why did you get a 965 when you could have saved money and got a 920?" question. Which I found insulting, some people even called me "crazy" for doing such a thing. Doesn't seem to matter to them that I can run at speeds which would stress their 920's far more, so my 965 might last longer than their 920's.

I seem to have found that OC'ing by a multiplier increase is less stressful on everything than increasing by BCLK frequency.

Bill : The problem with overclocking a laptop is that you are usually stuck with the stock cooler, or modding it yourself.

Mortyama : Hope you are geting Arma2 with a rig like that!. should play awesome..

Forget those dips over there clating your Core I7.

I always stick iwth last years tech and see what sort of PC I can make on a low buget.

Just putting together a E6750/P31 Neo/2Gb DDR2 system to replace my Athlon 64 X2 4200+ DDR1 etc. I am sure I would get slated by 'da kids' too for being a dinosaur.

Truth is I cannot afford brand new tech. Plus my own personal goal is to make a fast PC on a low budget. (Around £150 for the main compaonents like the board,CPU, Gfx card and RAM)