4.5Ghz : i7 950 or 920 ?

[Kanzen]

Hi everyone, thanks in advance for your help in choosing my next rig components.

I wanted to upgrade, CPU, Mobo, Ram & GPU my money allows me to go for :

- i7 950
- Rampage II Extreme
- OCZ 3x2Go Platinum 1600Mhz
- Asus GeForce GTX 285

Obviously overclocking would be involved, cooling (that I already have from my actual "thunder fried" rig) would be waterchilling (Swiftech MCP655 + Enzotech Luna + Innovatek WB for GTX 285 + of course a R22 chiller). I wanted to get to a mere 4.5 Ghz almost 24/7, does the 950 achieve that easily ? What about the 920 ?

I was on a E8400 (early rev) with a Striker II Extreme and I had much trouble to get stable there, even though I had some nice temps (~5°C idle, ~20°C load).

Thanx again for your help, it might sound ridiculous that I ask all these even though I'm waterchilling but as I heard QPI makes i7 a different deal to overclock, and besides I'm not a crazy overclocker that tries to pull the highest Ghz I can, I only OC to get the best performance within reasonable temps so that I can run it 24/7 without slowly frying my hardware.

 

[baditude_df]

4.5GHz places alot of stress on an i7 system, if you can achieve it. You won't find many people, if any, who run that kind of frequency 24/7. It's more of a benching frequency, and not for daily operations.
On a 920 it's doable, but rather hard to achieve with HT enabled. I max out at 4.2GHz if I want to stay stable, but have been a bit higher for benching. 4.0GHz is the ideal speed for this chip for just about anything, and thats where I keep it. With a higher multi or an EE chip, 4.5GHz is definitely doable, but I still don't think I'd want to do anything other than bench with it that high.

Do what you want though.

 

[Kanzen]

Thanx for your answer, I think i'm gonna go for the 920, can you tell me more about it ? Like temps, voltages etc ? Thank you.

 

[Alien432]

A 950 gets you a 23x multiplier and 3.07 stock. I got mine easily to 4.32 on air on a Rampage Extreme II in just a few minutes. I'm sure there's more in it but waiting till I get a water setup before pushing it further.

 

[baditude_df]

Yes, it's not necessarily hard to get there. Staying there for any amount of time, may prove a challenge. The extra multi on the 950 will definitely be the biggest factor, and will likely allow for a bit less total system stress.

 

[custom90gt]

well it doesn't seem like money is much of an issue with the parts you are building. A 950 may help with the multi, but you never know. Tech9 runs his DO 920 at 4.4ghz 24/7 with a non-chilled water setup, not typical, but doable. I would keep my eye on the classifieds for any proven clockers that would help you reach your number. If it was me, I'd buy a 920 and if it didn't work I would sell it and buy another (until I was happy).

 

[RGE]

There are several people running i920's and i950's with HT on 4.4ghz for 24/7 without issue. Mine is 13hrs prime stable, and has not crashed on me yet in 6-7 weeks it has been there. Temps were an issue even at 4.4, maxed at 84C after 13hrs prime, so upgraded pump/pump top/fans/reversed fan intakes to cooler external case vs pushing out hot air through them/changed wb and now temps max at 74C.
http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/4544/i950440013hrsprime.jpg

But 4.5 w/HT is where scaling and corresponding temps gets crazy on many including mine. To get 4.5 even 4 hrs prime stable, need 1.4 vcore at load and 1.40 qpi/vtt, but temps too high to run longer runs in my 26C ambients...with chiller probably be ok, and may need less volts, and have better chance of running 4.5 24/7.

For 4.4 or 4.5 for 920 DO or 950 need luck with both vcore and qpi/vtt requirements. With 950 you wont need quite as much luck in qpi/vtt requirement since you can run with 23 multi and lower bclk, and hence lower qpi/vtt. And like others mentioned probably easier to do 4.5 for sure with 950, as bckl 215 on 920 is getting difficult to run 24/7 w/ that mhz, but for 4.4 many 920's are without issue...but dont see many 950's at 4.5ghz prime stable either.

I wanted the higher multi for benching in cold...for 24/7 there are DO 920's both better and worse than mine in vcore, qpi/vtt requirements for 4.4.

 

[Damir Poljak]

Hi everyone, thanks in advance for your help in choosing my next rig components.

I wanted to upgrade, CPU, Mobo, Ram & GPU my money allows me to go for :

- i7 950
- Rampage II Extreme
- OCZ 3x2Go Platinum 1600Mhz
- Asus GeForce GTX 285

Hi, I am about to by the similar rig, so if you have already have it give some comment.
My post about rig is: http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=617841
Thanx a lot!