i7 860 overclocking

Hi all,

Until yesterday I had an i5 750 overclocked @ 4.0Ghz, very stable and efficient. But I got a deal on a i7 860 in exchange for my i5. It was a great opportunity to move to an i7 without having to change my platform since the i7 860 is approximately the equivalent of an i7 920 but in 1156 instead of 1366. In fact the 860 is a bit faster than a 920. Anyway, I almost thought that the stock i7 860 would be equivalent to my overclocked i5 750, I was a bit optimistic...

The fact is that to achieve the speed of my i5 750 @ 4GHz I have to overclock the i7 860 to at least 3.5GHz, over it, my new i7 start to outpace my overclocked i5.

My problem is that I'm stuck at 3.8GHz with the 860, I not able to get stability @ 4Ghz or 4.2Ghz. I am a bit disappointed I did not feel that I get enough for my money. I hoped to obtain a more significant performance gain by moving from an i5 to an i7!

Is overclocking capability of the 860 are known to be less than the i5 750?

My old i5 was stock @ 2.66Ghz and I had no difficulty to get stability @ 4.0Ghz. I am a bit surprised that I'm not able to reach more than 3.8Ghz with this new i7 860.

By the way, I'm not running on the stock heatsink, I have a Coolermaster Hyper N620.

Is there somebody here who has reached more than 4.0Ghz with his 860?

Thks for your help!

edit: sorry, my English is probably not perfect...it's not my first language!

Hello, I to am new to overclocking and this 860 was my first real overclocking I had done.

I am stable at 4.013. I can boot at 4.214, but I can't run any stress tests.





Here is where I booted to 4.2. OCCT kicked out an error 1min30 secs in, though. I had the VCORE fairly high (1.40v) when I did that run.




In order to reach the 4ghz mark I had to turn off HT (Hyper Threading).

I'm hoping I can get it to 4.2 or even 4.4, and I think I can, but time will tell.

I just noticed you are on air cooling. I have read that air coolers have a much harder time breaking 4, but I know it can be done.

I'm using the Corsair H50, which I bought out of pure ignorance, and it gets testy at times.

as far as I know the only difference between the I5 750 and the I7 860 is HT, and it makes it harder to OC when it's on as stated above. I guess it's a trade off, either high OC or HT on

Yaaay

HT is the only difference I know of. Every chip is different. I've seen some I5 750 hit 4.2ghz at 1.33v or so, where as mine takes 1.376 =/

Might just need to up the voltage. I'd suggest to turn off HT if temps are your problem. Although, then you're basically running an I5 750 at that point.

Daemonkin said:

I am stable at 4.013. I can boot at 4.214, but I can't run any stress tests.

Click to expand...

What do you consider stable? I can also boot without problem at 4.0Ghz but I fail any stress test and I can't play a game for more than two minutes without crashing.

What temps do you have at 4.0Ghz?

nEvErLoOz said:

What do you consider stable? I can also boot without problem at 4.0Ghz but I fail any stress test and I can't play a game for more than two minutes without crashing.

What temps do you have at 4.0Ghz?

Click to expand...

Stable is running OCCT for 1 hr without crashing. I can game fine at 4.0, as well.

Temps I can show you.

This is sitting idle: 33-40 degrees Celsius. (89.6 - 104 degrees Fahrenheit.)



This is a 1 hr run on OCCT. You can see that I never get above 75 degrees Celsius. (167 Fahrenheit). Each image is a core.

I finally be able to get stability at 4.0Ghz with HT using the settings below:

BCLK: 200
Multi: 20
vCore: 1.3750
VTT: 1.40
Ram: 1.60
PCH: 1.05
PLL: 1.80
HT: On

If I down my VTT to 1.35 it's not stable.

Your temps are really low, what do you use as cooler? My Hyper N620 can't give me 35 degrees...I'm at 45 degrees idle!

Hey guys... to OCFOrums

Make sure you check out our OCing guide if you haven't seen it already (linked in my sig)

Hey i wanna buy this procesor and overclokc it to about 4GHz, but if i need to turn off hyperthreadding to doo that, dosent it make it like a i5 750-760 procesor?

yes, simple as that

Grief said:

Hey i wanna buy this procesor and overclokc it to about 4GHz, but if i need to turn off multithreading to doo that, dosent it make it like a i5 750-760 procesor?

Click to expand...

So then i wont waste my money, ill just buy the i5 760 instead

why 760 and not 750?

Cuz i can buy from a friend, that orderd 1366 mobo and i5 760, he will sell me the procesor for like 150 euros

the I5 760 is a 1156 socket CPU!

EDIT: oh, that's why he's selling it to you right?

Yes that's why, what's the diffrence between the 750 and 760, besides the 15 euros? And well if i buy i7 860 and get it to about 3.8GHz with HT wont that be better than 4GHz without HT?

2.66 vs 2.8 stock speed and slightly higher turbo (who cares anyway)

Grief said:

Hey i wanna buy this procesor and overclokc it to about 4GHz, but if i need to turn off hyperthreadding to doo that, dosent it make it like a i5 750-760 procesor?

Click to expand...

You dont need to turn off HT to do that in most cases...

In fact, I can rock and roll to 4.2Ghz+ with HT on. I would imagine on air you would be temperature limited to do that, but 4Ghz with a good aftermarket air cooler should be relatively easy to do.

(but we are threadjacking)

Grief said:

Yes that's why, what's the diffrence between the 750 and 760, besides the 15 euros? And well if i buy i7 860 and get it to about 3.8GHz with HT wont that be better than 4GHz without HT?

Click to expand...

Good choice in the 760. The 760 has one extra multiplier. This helps with overclocking, because you won't have to go as high on the bclk to achieve the same overclock. More than likely it'll end up overclocking the same as a 750, but having that extra multiplier gives you another option when overclocking.

3.8ghz with HT will be better than 4ghz without HT, but it all depends what you are going to do with it. I think there are only a few things that HT really helps with, other than that the 4ghz will be better in games and day to day stuff. Now if you can do 4ghz with HT, obviously that would be best.

DumpALump said:

Good choice in the 760. The 760 has one extra multiplier. This helps with overclocking, because you won't have to go as high on the bclk to achieve the same overclock. More than likely it'll end up overclocking the same as a 750, but having that extra multiplier gives you another option when overclocking.

3.8ghz with HT will be better than 4ghz without HT, but it all depends what you are going to do with it. I think there are only a few things that HT really helps with, other than that the 4ghz will be better in games and day to day stuff. Now if you can do 4ghz with HT, obviously that would be best.

Click to expand...

I would need the HT, since for school and stuff, i usualy run a Linux virtual machine and an XP. And yeah loads of ram.