i7 950 GA-X58A-UD3R stability at 4ghz

[Juganort]

Hi All,

First post here at OC and first foray into overclocking.

My problem is that I cannot get a 4ghz overclock to run a prime95 test for any longer than around 30 minutes before a BSOD, maximum temps I'm seeing after 30 minutes are 70 degrees. I've been at it for about a week now, updated the BIOS to the latest version and tinkered with some settings but just cant get it stable, so any help would be appreciated.

Here are my specs and OC settings, I hope I've included all the neccessary info.

i7 950

Gigabye GA-X58A-UD3R rev 2.0

Thermaltake Toughpower 750w psu

Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme CPU cooler

Corsair CMZ6GX3M3A2000C10 6GB 2000Mhz Triple Channel 10 10 10 27

OCZ Vertex 2 120GB SSD

WD 500GB HDD

Asus Direct cuII ENGTX570

Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro



CPU Clock Ratio............................:20
CPU Frequency .....(Ghz)...................:4.0
Intel(R) Turbo Boost Tech..................:[Disabled]
CPU Cores Enabled..........................:[All]
CPU Multi Threading........................:[Enabled]
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E)....................:[Disabled]
C3/C6/C7 State Support.....................:[Disabled]
CPU Thermal Monitor........................:[Enabled]
CPU EIST Function..........................:[Disabled]
Bi-Directional PROCHOT.....................:[Enabled]
Virtualization Technology..................:[Enabled]

Uncore & QPI Features [Press Enter]
QPI Clock Ratio*...........................:36
QPI Link Speed* ......................(Ghz):7.20
Uncore Clock Ratio.........................:x17
Uncore Frequency......................(Mhz):3,4
Isochronous Support........................:[Enabled]

Base Clock (BCLK) Control*.................:[Enabled]
BCLK Frequency (Mhz)*......................:200
PCI Exxpress Frequency (Mhz)...............:103


CPU Clock Drive (mV).......................:700
PCI Express Clock Drive (mV)..............:700
CPU Clock Skew (ps)........................:0
IOH Clock Skew (ps)........................:0

Performance Enhance........................:[Standard]
Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P.)............:[Disabled]
System Memory Multiplier (SPD).............:x8
Memory Frequency (Mhz).....................:1,600
DRAM Timing Selectable (sPD) ..............:[Quick]

Channel A, B, and C Standard Timing Control
Cas Latency Time.............................:10
tRCD.........................................:10
tRP..........................................:10
tRAS.........................................:27
(All sub-timings on Auto for all 3 channels)

LoadLine Calibration.........................:[Level 2]
CPU Vcore....................................:1.325v
QPI/VTT Voltage..............................:1.275v
CPU PLL......................................: 1.80v

PCIE.........................................:1.50v
QPI PLL......................................:1.10v
IOH Core.....................................:1.10v
ICH I/O......................................:1.50v
ICH Core.....................................:1.10v

DRAM Voltage.................................:1.64v
DRAM Termination.............................:[Auto]
Ch-A Data Vref...............................:[Auto]
Ch-B Data Vref...............................:[Auto]
Ch-C Data VRef...............................:[Auto]
Ch-A Address Vref............................:[Auto]
Ch-B Address Vref............................:[Auto]
Ch-C Address VRef............................:[Auto]

Cheers

Jug

 

[Juganort]

Any suggestions at all?

 

[onefstsnake]

Try a slight bump in vcore 1.33v or so and qpi/vtt to 1.3v and also try 191x21
Odd number multi's seem to help sometimes.

You could probably tighen your memory timings since your not running them at 2000mhz but I would worry about that later.

 

[Juganort]

Thanks, I've bumped up both of those voltages one notch and its run stable during a prime95 test for 2 hours at max temp 75 degrees.

The RAM I have is capable of 2000mhz, is it safe to increase the multiplier and increase it to run at 2000mhz?

Once the OC is stable, can anyone suggest faster timing settings for this RAM or am I better of leaving things how they are if its stable, ie - if its not broken dont fix it?

 

[onefstsnake]

You could run it at 2000mhz but with the cas10 timings Im not sure it will "feel" much faster than running it at 1600mhz and tighter timings, possibly cas7.

Normaly when I want to run a certain chip at lets say 4ghz, Ill start off high on the voltages then work my way down till it crashes, then bump it up a bit and run p95 for 6 hours or so. (for 24/7 OC)

Temps seem a bit high for that cooler, are you running 1 or 2 fans on it?
Could just be that your ambient temps are high.

 

[Juganort]

You could run it at 2000mhz but with the cas10 timings Im not sure it will "feel" much faster than running it at 1600mhz and tighter timings, possibly cas7.

Normaly when I want to run a certain chip at lets say 4ghz, Ill start off high on the voltages then work my way down till it crashes, then bump it up a bit and run p95 for 6 hours or so. (for 24/7 OC)

Temps seem a bit high for that cooler, are you running 1 or 2 fans on it?
Could just be that your ambient temps are high.

If I decided to give it a try, is bumping up the multiplier to 10 and uncore clock ratio to 20 or 21 the correct way to go about it?

I've changed the CPU vcore to 1.34375 and the QPI/VTT to 1.325 and its now able to run a prime95 test for 2.5 hours without any errors. It may have run longer but I manually stopped it.

Its running 1 fan in a pull configuration. I tried it last night pushing and temps went upto 81. The case is an Antec 1200 which is clean and all of the cables are tidy so I dont feel like airflow is an issue. Ambient temps during most of these tests would have been aprox 20 - 25 degrees.

 

[EarthDog]

I would take a quick step back and read the guide in my signature...

With that said, voltages were the answer. In order to run 2k memory, which is pointless outside of benchmarking, you will need to jack up Vtt... Post CPUz screenshot of memory and SPD tabs please.

Temps seem ok to me with that setup..Its single fan air at 4Ghz...

 

[Juganort]

 

[kuntryboi1977]

Hello All

Im new to the site and saw the same combo I have, so i was wondering if yall could answer some questions. I read the guide also. This is my set-up.

GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R
Intel Core i7-950
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS 1.5TB
(Changing Tuesday, to Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2CCA 2.5" 128GB SATA III )
XFX HD-567X-ZNF3 Radeon HD 5670 1GB 128-bit DDR5
ZEROtherm CORE92 Socket 1156/1366 HDT Cooler
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Thermaltake - 850-Watt TR2 RX Power Supply
Multiple Fans and (4) DVD-RW

My question is should I wait until I install my SSD, or does it matter. And looking at what i'm working with, do you see any problems? Thanks in advance for any help!!!