My First Overclock

[Ashenfury]

Well, it's actually my second overclock but the first one was done on a Pentium as a child. Things have come a long way since then and this time around I'm using the BIOS instead of software.

Bloomfield Core i7 920 (2.66 Ghz)
Triple Channel DDR3 1600mhz (9-9-9-24)

First thing first: Disable all power saving and turbo modes. Then I dived straight in and bumped my multiplier up. I got to 3.4ghz or so with I think a 20x multiplier. I did a bit more research into actual performance impact of BLCK vs Multiplier and discovered that a higher BLCK improves overall performance by overclocking multiple buses. Before I went any further I did another thorough investigation of my BIOS and manually set my RAM timing.

So I went back and got my BLCK up to 200 which is the highest recommended value by the motherboard manufacturer. Then I played with the multiplier until I could get my RAM and Ghz rated comfortably. I ended up at:

BLCK: 200
CPU Multiplier 16x
Core Speed: 3.2 Ghz

I ran a sensor test with RealTemp which starts with thermal limits. My processor got up to 85C. Yikes! It hovered there during the entire heat up phase. So I went back and did a bit more investigation into my CPU voltage. It was set to auto and CPU-Z showed it bouncing all over the place but being nice and comfy at a whopping 1.35 (highest recommended setting from the mobo manufacturer). I forced the voltage down to v1.23### and ran the same tests with much better results: The processor never went above 73C.

Now we're talking! I rounded out the evening with a stability test using Prime95 for 60 minutes. It just goes to show that buying good hardware is a good idea if you plan to extend the life of your products with overclocking.

NOTE: HyperThreading is ON - Always. RAM speed was kept at 1600 - Always

[Yemana]

Ashenfury, I think you're getting close to deserving your own computer thread much like Kharzak got with all his internet funnies. We could call it...um...Ashenfury's Computer Thread. Until someone comes up with a better name, which shouldn't be difficult at all.