Whats the furthest you'd push a 960?

[jonnyfgm]

Ok so I've had an i7 960 for about a year now, that has been running for quite some time at a stable 4ghz over clock at around 1.26 volts.

Now i've got my custom water loop in I feel i can push things a bit further, thermally speaking at least. I'm experimenting as I type to see whats the lowest volts I can get 4.2 GHz to be stable at, so far it's looking like it's 1 notch under 1.35v.

Now i know 1.35v is the max stated voltage that intel says is ok, but how much further would you guys say is safe? I may not even be able to go much further than 1.35v as at that voltage i was hitting temps in the low 80s

anyways this is worth an experiment so all input is welcome

 

[Damien c]

What radiator are you using and block?

My old I7 950 which my dad is using, has a 360mm rad with a Heatkiller block and his temp's at 4.2ghz using 1.35v for the cores never go above 72c.

I generally won't let my core temp's go above 75c, which is why I have not pushed the I7 950 any further.

I would say really you have hit the limit potentially at 4.0ghz as 80c and upwards is to hot really for every day use in my oppinion.

When I was running my spare I7 920 with a Corsair H80 I could only take it to 3.8ghz (1.25v 69c) because anything higher and the temp's went above 75c and that was with 2 Scythe Kazi Jyuni 1900rpm fans in push pull.

That 920 would do 4.0ghz @ 1.275v and 4.2ghz at 1.325v, but I could never keep it cool on the H80 like I could on my old custom loop and would still have that running, if it were not for faulty motherboard's.

 

[jonnyfgm]

I'm using the phobyia 1080 rad and an XSPC rasa block. To be honest I think i've just got a hot chip. Perhaps i should tension the block a bit more?

When I say its hitting the 80s I mean under prime95 not every day use

 

[Damien c]

I'm using the phobyia 1080 rad and an XSPC rasa block. To be honest I think i've just got a hot chip. Perhaps i should tension the block a bit more?

When I say its hitting the 80s I mean under prime95 not every day use

Those temp's are still high though for that radiator I think because I would have expected the temp's using that rad to be in the low 60's, not the low 80's unless you are not using any fans on the rad.

 

[jonnyfgm]

I mainly run the rad passively but while doing this testing i had 4 180mm fans running at full over it, they dont shift a massive amount of air but its not incosiderable.

Im not too sure if tightening the water block further is ok or not, it has a main set of thumb screws which have a well defined maximum but then there is a secondary set which works against the screws and i dont know how far to tension them :s

 

[Damien c]

I always get my dad to do the heatsink's and waterblocks as I cracked 2 boards in the past with over tightening

What I did notice though was after I changed from a XSPC block to the Heatkiller block the temp's on my 950 went down by around 5c per core, not a great deal but still made a difference.