My first overclock...turbov and bios questions!

[dane718]

Hello all, I am new to the forums and am excited to perform my first overclock. My specs are:

Intel i7 940 bloomfield 2.93 ghz

Asus P6X58D-E motherboard

Antec Kuhler liquid cooling system

12 gb corsair ddr3 ram (im not sure of the speed but cpuz says max bandwith 667mhz, dram freq 534mhz and nb freq 2138mhz )

Nvidia GeForce GTX 660Ti 2gb gpu

750w power supply

Okay so here is where I'm at. When looking at cpu-z it appears im already slightly overclocking somehow, I think its the motherboard. My multiplier is 23 and bus speed 133 so im at 3073.65 core speed. I have TurboV installed that came with my motherboard and I was able to turn up the BCLK freq to 156 to reach about 3.6ghz without any voltage or memory adjustments and no crashes.

My core temps stay around 40-45C and never really go over 50c during hours of gaming (bf3)

I guess my question is what do you guys recommend me doing, I have read through a bunch of guides but they really confuse me. Like can i just use the turbov profile for 3.6ghz and not adjust any voltages? or should i go straight into bios and do it myself. but if that were the case I really wouldnt know what to do. Even after reading the guides. I do have AI tweaker in my bios and am comfortable moving around in there but I honestly dont know what to adjust. I was hoping someone had a similar setup and could maybe tell me what numbers to punch in for a safe, strong overclock. I'm not trying to reach any crazy numbers here. I know its not that easy but Im ready to do this! Thanks in advance. Oh if theres anything i left out that i should of mentioned please let me know.

-Dane

 

[doz]

Sounds like your ram is 1333mhz correct?

If so, Id go with a 2:6 ram divider and shoot for a 200mhz bclk with a 20x multiplier. Would give you a nice 4ghz.

If my memory serves me correctly, the 940 only came in a C0 stepping and had issues overclocking. Alot of them had trouble reaching 4ghz even so youll need to do some testing on your own and see if you can get there.

If you didnt want to run such a high bclk, you could always go with a 167bclk and a 2:8 divider with a 20x multi.

Also, try different multipliers. Some people had better luck with odd multipliers. I never found that to be a problem with my CPU's, but some people did (maybe it was board dependent?).

 

[dane718]

thanks for the input. can i find voltage references to those specs you gave me somewhere? im pretty sure i can handle changing what u mentioned but what else would i have to do. like i said, first timer lol sorry

 

[doz]

Id try the 2 above options with a vcore set to 1.375v in the bios, set your NB voltage to 1.2v, be sure to manually set your ram voltage to whatever is specified (sometimes they dont always default to their rating) and go from there. You can fine tune other voltages later but that should get you started. If you have a decent chip thatll do the 4ghz no problem at 1.375v, you can posssibly lower that voltage.

Also enable LLC in the bios to prevent vdroop.

 

[Mandrake4565]

Welcome Dane, I noticed you said 750w power supply, what brand? It can make a difference in your rig surviving.

 

[dane718]

im not sure what brand it is, ill have to check tonight. im not sure if i was expecting to reach 4ghz maybe 3.6 or 3.8 would be safer for everyday use?

 

[redduc900]

We'll also need to know the EXACT model of RAM. The 667MHz in the SPD tab--> Max Bandwidth field of CPU-Z doesn't tell us anything about your RAM, nor does the current DRAM Frequency of 534MHz. That only tells us that the RAM is currently running at DDR3-1066 (x8 DRAM multiplier at a default BCLK of 133). Check out this guide for overclocking your 940...

3 STEP OVERCLOCKING GUIDE – BLOOMFIELD AND GULFTOWN
http://www.techreaction.net/2010/09/07/3-step-overclocking-guide-bloomfield-and-gulftown/

... and also this one over at overclock.net, which relates to your specific board:

The Asus P6X58D Premium & E Thread
http://www.overclock.net/t/662236/the-asus-p6x58d-premium-e-thread

 

[dane718]

okay ill get those specs tonight when i get home from work and ill read through those guides. thanks!

 

[dane718]

okay the power supply says 750 Watt Power Supply Quad SLI Ready

and the ram is 12gig of corsair ddr3 1333mhz

 

[dane718]

first attempt at overclock..fail. my motherboard bios is confusing, is anyone good at using ai tweaker on an asus board? i tried the 3 step process from that thread u sent me and used the middle profile but when i rebooted bios said overclocking failed.

 

[SF101]

if your going to oc this unit oc through the bios. turbov is more of a tweaking tool.

 

[redduc900]

first attempt at overclock..fail. my motherboard bios is confusing, is anyone good at using ai tweaker on an asus board? i tried the 3 step process from that thread u sent me and used the middle profile but when i rebooted bios said overclocking failed.

You should also read through that thread at overclock.net I linked you to, as there are a slew of overclocking profiles / BIOS templates for that board. The first link is more of a general guide for your series of chip, the second being specific to your particular board. Just in the first page of that thread alone, there are links to six BIOS templates w/ settings ranging from 3.6-4.5GHz clocks related to the 920 and 930 chips. You can apply the same settings to your 940, only modifying if necessary the DRAM voltage and four primary DRAM timings, or enabling XMP / SPD Profile #1 if the option is available.

 

[dane718]

Okay I'll check those templates out tonight and see what happens, thanks!

 

[dane718]

i chose the 3.8 overclock w hyperthreading and replicated this guys specs but windows went into some repair mode and wouldnt load. so i had to go back to default.... starting to get frustrated. i saw u mention dram timings and xmp profile, but i have no idea how to mess with that stuff. im pretty close to giving up lol

Ai Overclock Tuner.....................[Manual]
CPU Ratio Setting......................[21.0]
Intel(r) SpeedStep(tm) Tech............[Disabled]
Xtreme Phase Full Power Mode...........[Enabled]
BCLK Frequency.........................[181]
PCIE Frequency.........................[100]
DRAM Frequency.........................[DDR3-1451MHz]
UCLK Frequency.........................[2903MHz]
QPI Link Data Rate.....................[Auto]

CPU Voltage Control....................[Manual]
CPU Voltage............................[1.16875]
CPU PLL Voltage........................[1.80]
QPI/DRAM Core Voltage..................[1.20000]
IOH Voltage............................[1.14]
IOH PCIE Voltage.......................[1.50]
ICH Voltage............................[1.20]
ICH PCIE Voltage.......................[1.50]
DRAM Bus Voltage.......................[1.64]
DRAM DATA REF Voltage on CHA...........[Auto]
DRAM CTRL REF Voltage on CHA...........[Auto]
DRAM DATA REF Voltage on CHB...........[Auto]
DRAM CTRL REF Voltage on CHB...........[Auto]
DRAM DATA REF Voltage on CHC...........[Auto]
DRAM CTRL REF Voltage on CHC...........[Auto]

Load-Line Calibration..................[Enabled]
CPU Differential Amplitude.............[800mV]
CPU Clock Skew.........................[Delay 300ps]
CPU Spread Spectrum....................[Disabled]
IOH Clock Skew.........................[Auto]
PCIE Spread Spectrum...................[Disabled]

C1E Support............................[Disabled]
Hardware Prefetcher....................[Enabled]
Adjacent Cache Line Prefetch...........[Enabled]
Intel(r) Virtualization Tech...........[Disabled]
CPU TM Function........................[Enabled]
Execute Disable Bit....................[Enabled]
Intel(r) HT Technology.................[Enabled]
Active Processor Cores.................[All]
A20M...................................[Disabled]
Intel(r) SpeedStep(tm) Tech............[Disabled]
Intel(r) C-STATE Tech..................[Disabled]

==================================================
!!! UPDATE !!! - Users running Intel i7 930 Chips
==================================================
Follow the guides above and substitute with these settings below.

**************************************
Running 3.80GHz w/o HyperThreading (Stable)
**************************************

Code:

CPU Voltage............................[unavailable]
QPI/DRAM Core Voltage..................[unavailable]

**************************************
Running 3.80GHz w/ HyperThreading (Stable)
**************************************

Code:

CPU Voltage............................[1.18125]
QPI/DRAM Core Voltage..................[1.22500]

 

[Mandrake4565]

dane, Overclocking is not cookie cutter, there are so many variables in each system. Even if they had the same exact components, they may overclock differently. You will have a very difficult time overclocking, if you don't start out slow and test. If you just put in settings and roll the dice, it makes it a lot more difficult to pin point a reason for instability. If you do not understand how or what something means, just ask, I'm sure someone will be happy to help you. If you could download Cpuid-cpuz and use the windows snipping tool to post a picture of the following tabs in it, cpu, spd and memory. I will to the best of my limited knowledge try to explain to you about your ram timings.

 

[dane718]