Need to OC my i7 950

[Crimson Ghost]

Hi everybody!

Im new here, but thats because Ive never had to overclock my own computer before. I game and record music, and I just bought my first Alienware which is going to come with an i7 950. Im interested in OCing it to 3.8.

It is liquid cooled so I wont be too worried about overheating it, but Alienware wont factory overclock it. I searched the "stickies" here and couldnt find one for the steps to OC an i7 so I apologise if I missed one and in that case a redirect would be appreciated.

Otherwise, if someone was willing to help a noob out in understanding the process for the first time Id really appreciate that.

Thanks, guys and girls,
Christian

 

[mgoode]

Since you have 950 I would start by setting my CPU multi to 16 and slowly upping the bclk watch your mem freq\divider in the bios and keep it under your rated ram speed. See how high you can get your bclk,then adjust multi to get to 3.8(ie 18 x200) you may need to add a little juice to your NB(IOH). I would shoot for as close to 200 as you can get it. A 950 should do 3.8 at close to stock voltages.

Also it helps to post you system specs: Motherboard, ram etc....



PM me if you want some Core i7 Basic overclocking links.

 

[antipesto93]

it would help if you could post your motherboared as different ones have different overclocking potential
also you may have watercooling but this does not mean you temps are not a problem...not all watercooling beats air ...
I am new to overclocking i7's and what is new over normaly overclocking is as well as overvolting your processor when you cannot boot, you also increase your qpi voltage ( dont go to high )
and you also have to add a few increments to the northbridge voltage.
it takes qute a bit of time as overclocking an i7 is alot diffferent and takes alot more time

 

[Crimson Ghost]

Thanks guys for posting back already.

I have included my system specs in my signature.

I chose 3.8 as the target cause I felt it wouldnt put too much pressure on my equipment, but still give me a nice boost for gameplay. I mostly do MMO's and RTS games. `And of course music editing needs a nice speed too.

How would I add more juice to it? Is that a BIOS thing as well. Or is any part of this going to be a "open the tower up" kind of thing?

Thank you again

 

[Daddyjaxx]

Can you overclock an Alienware like this? It is high end, but it is still a Dell. (I think my opinion of Dell is obvious) The higher end Dell XPS's let you overclock by setting three choices I believe, but there is no tweaking the settings like FSB/BCLK or voltages manually.

Very nice system BTW. I bet you could have bought a small compact car for the price it must have cost you. The only thing missing is SSD it looks like.

 

[Crimson Ghost]

Daddyjaxx- thanks for the question. Its something I now will have to ask a support tech. I was told that Alienwares could be OC'ed, but perhaps they meant only with the controls you mentioned. What is the right question to ask you think?

Yeah, I know I am paying about 400 dollars more than most custom PC companies to have it built Alienware (and probably more than that to not build it myself) but I recieved a monetary bonus and decided to go with them after reading as many reviews as I could concerning reliability with other custom PC places.

Have you guys heard anything negative (beside price point) in regards to Alienware?

Thanks again for everyones thought and input.

 

[Daddyjaxx]

Just ask them if you can change motherboard and CPU voltages, BCLK, and other tweaks manually or if you select something like an option that automatically overclocks to a certain speed.

I have no experience with Alienware. The good thing about full systems is only one warranty and not a warranty for the mobo, CPU, memory etc and the plug and play as well as the tech support. Take it out of the box and fire it up. Building your own you get the benefit of choosing each individual part usually cheaper and the quality of parts you choose.

 

[doz]

I priced the computer you have at Alienware and you could save about $1000 over that computer by building yourself. Id suggest giving it a try. Also, you could spend $300 of that savings on different harddrives w/ a SSD and a storage drive (WDBlack).