Hi, I've had my system for a while now and I'm getting to the point where I have the upgrade itch, but I only have limited funds and don't want to waste it on an upgrade I don't really need, so I've resorted to overclocking to get over the "I need a new CPU" idea that is plaguing my mind.
[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica]First, here is my system spec: [/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica]Asus P6T Motherboard [/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica]Intel Core i7 930[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica]6GB Crucial Ballistix RAM rated 1333Mhz at 7-7-7-24 1.65v (1.64v due to motherboard BIOS limitation of 0.02v increments) [/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica]2x Nvidia GTX 470 SLi [/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica]2x 1TB Samsung 7,200rpm HDD [/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica]1x 1.5TB Samsung 5,400rpm HDD [/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica]1x 3TB Western Digital "Green" HDD [/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica]Corsair Professional Series Gold AX1200 PSU (1,200W) [/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica]I have never aimed for an insanely high overclock, I felt early on when I got this processor it would not be possible as I had heat issues at stock speeds. On the stock cooler that came with the CPU, I hit temperatures over 95 degrees Celsius. I then invested in a new cooler (Coolermaster Hyper212 plus) which dropped temperatures towards 75 degrees, and then dropped further after manually setting my voltage at 1.01v (was able to run nearer 60 degrees under full load.) These numbers still seemed high compared to what I was reading others have achieved on this CPU, but I understand not all are made equal and I just might not have one that overclocks well. Also note, I have reseated this cooler since first installing it & used arctic silver 5 paste. [/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica]My goal was to run the CPU at 3.65Ghz to keep it up with the crazy stock / Turbo Boost speeds of Sandy Bridge CPU's etc. that are out at the moment. I also chose that speed because it allowed me to use a BCLK of 166 which kept my RAM speed close to its "stock" (1331Mhz) meaning I didn't have to worry about tweaking RAM settings. Through testing I have settled at the moment at 1.192v for the Vcore on the CPU - So far it seems stable, however temperatures are climbing to 87 degrees during Prime95 testing. I also intend on testing using "StressCPU2" which simulates a similar workload as Folding@Home which I have run on the CPU in the past (and still run on at least one GPU to date.) What I'm concerned about is, there is a lot of conflicting information out there about the Nehalem CPU's and how much heat they can handle. I've heard many state that 70 degrees Celsius is the maximum safe temperature, while others have said 80-90 is safe so long as voltages aren't exceeding Intel's specification (in other words, I've read from some that they think voltage has more of a detrimental effect on a CPU's life than operating temperatures.) I was just wondering if anyone here could shed any more light on this as the processors have definitely been around for a while so maybe with that maturity comes more accurate information ? [/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica]Thanks for any help & information anyone can provide. Hope I've provided enough information to get some useful feedback.[/font]
