New i7-920 and my current overclock

[Nagisan]

Hello, just received my socket 1336 water block today so I was able to install my 920 I got in Wednesday.....figured I would post a few figures here to see what you guys think.

First, I am using a ASRock X58 Extreme motherboard, I originally attempted a manual overclock but being new to the i7 chipset, that failed (would not boot, assuming I did not have enough voltage on the QPI or something. I decided to just to an automatic overclock to 3.6Ghz, which is a setting in the BIOS which sets the CPU frequency, QPI frequency, DRAM frequency, and all the voltages automatically. Booted right up without a problem. I finished installing Windows (still installing software, wanted to get this posted so I can get some replies by the time I am done with the software) and did a quick 10 minute test with OCCT.

Linked is the image of the results, showing CPU-Z, CoreTemp and OCCT as of the 10 minute mark.

Just curious, never used OCCT so what is a good stresstest time? How long does it take to get the cores up to the max temp they will reach?

Now, as far as temperatures go, I assume that 100C is the absolute max before the CPU throttles/shuts down? I am on water cooling and I am already hitting 63C (max after 10 minutes), its a little high IMO but there are a few things I could do to lower it.

When I installed the water block I stupidly put the thermal paste the wrong way, horizontally instead of vertically (my case is in a server cabinet so the board itself is horizontal, it confused me >.< ). Beyond that, the automatic overclock to 3.6Ghz did not raise the CPU voltage at all, can the CPU really handle 3.6Ghz on stock voltage? I was unsure so I bumped it up to 1.25v (in the bios) from 1.21 or whatever the default setting is. Both of which I am sure are leading to my temps, but the temp is not dangerously high that I am too worried about it just yet.

Any thoughts on my temps (compared to other temps and what not) or figures on how long a good OCCT test should run, as well as how long OCCT takes to get your CPU to its max temp are all welcome.

[the big dill]

63C with Liquid cooling at only 3.6Ghz is alot to me as well, even though i am new at overclocking. i have my P4 sitting at 3.83Ghz on air cooling and i am stressing it as i type this... max it goes is 55C...

[Nagisan]

63C with Liquid cooling at only 3.6Ghz is alot to me as well, even though i am new at overclocking. i have my P4 sitting at 3.83Ghz on air cooling and i am stressing it as i type this... max it goes is 55C...

Just finished reapplying the thermal paste (the right direction this time) and I did see a drop in temps, my hottest core now (under the same test) only heats up to 61C (only down 2C) but my coolest core (core #3) dropped from 59C max down to 54C max.

I also tried a linpack test (via OCCT) and after 10 minutes of that my hottest core was only at 61C, yesterday running a linpack test my hottest core went up to 65C, so that saw a 4C drop (other cores had similar drops in heat).

Still much warmer than I feel it should be on water cooling.....weird thing is my Q6700 at 3.6Ghz and nearly 1.6v idled around 35C, I have speedstep on so I idle at ~2.2Ghz on 0.94v and I have an idle temp of (hottest core) 38C.

Another interesting thing, I use to measure/monitor the CPU base temp (as well as the individual cores) which is where I had the 35C idle on my Q6700, for some reason this CPU either does not have that temp sensor or Everest does not know how to read it (only CPU base temp it shows says 127C). I know that temp generally is lower than the cores but it would be nice if I could find that temp so I can compare it better to my Q6700.

[Phemo]

That is hot for water cooling. What watercooling setup do you have? My i7 920 is at 4GHz on air cooling at 1.2v with a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme and hits around 65 degrees C under full Prime95 small FFT load so with water you should be seeing quite a lot less at only 3.6GHz. What voltage is your CPU at also?

Edit: Ah yes, I see from the screenshot it's 1.232v. That's still a fairly low voltage though, those temps don't sound right unless you have really crappy watercooling.

And yes, 3.6GHz at stock voltage isn't as crazy as you'd think. Give it a go without raising it :)

[Vice]

I'm also using a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme and it also hits around 65c under full load at 4GHz - This is an Air cooler btw

[deactivated_]

That does seem a bit warm for water cooling as well. I have the Asus P6T / i7 920 OC'd to 3.6 on air cooling (Thermaltake v8) and I don't go above 55c even under long full loads. I've never used water cooling, but I'm assuming it should be able to beat my results with just air though.

[stevember]

mine is running at 45? at load 3.8Ghz on water, so yes that is running too hot in my opinion.

I can run mine at 4.1 GHz very comfortably but it goes to 55? at load so I prefer to have it slightly colder, I just feel 3.8 is plenty.

To be quite honest looking at it again, because you are talking about core temperatures it is not that bad, and you are talking about maximum load as well.

[the big dill]

If you want to check if it is the hardware, overclock it a little more to see how big of a difference it does to the temps...

Because idle temps only went up by 2C after my overclock on the P4 (3.83Ghz) and full prime95 was 50-52 before and now it's no more than 55 on AIR.

Also check what temps you reach with your CPU at stock speed (under load).

[Nagisan]

That is hot for water cooling. What watercooling setup do you have? My i7 920 is at 4GHz on air cooling at 1.2v with a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme and hits around 65 degrees C under full Prime95 small FFT load so with water you should be seeing quite a lot less at only 3.6GHz. What voltage is your CPU at also?

I run a decent DangerDen block with a custom reservoir and radiator setup. I am running 2x of the long radiators from DangerDen (the ones that hold 3x 120mm fans) with a large reservoir. The block is the same type as my old Q6700 block was, running on the exact same reservoir and radiators, only difference is the mounting provisions.

My Q6700 seemed to run much cooler than my 920 despite the Q6700 running at nearly 1.6v (from 1.3v or something). I also turned my voltage down a bit (down to automatic which according to CPU-Z is 1.2v) and it rans slightly cooler, but only a few degrees (this is also after re-mounting my waterblock and apply the thermal paste in the proper direction).

If you want to check if it is the hardware, overclock it a little more to see how big of a difference it does to the temps...

Because idle temps only went up by 2C after my overclock on the P4 (3.83Ghz) and full prime95 was 50-52 before and now it's no more than 55 on AIR.

Also check what temps you reach with your CPU at stock speed (under load).

I overclocked it to 3.8Ghz and my hottest core went from 63C (under linpack testing) to 72C, quite a large jump for only 200Mhz higher and a small voltage jump (still lower voltage than my original screenshot from yesterday). I have not checked stock speed temps but I will ASAP.....

Sadly, my motherboard for whatever reason decided to die on me, ran fine all day yesterday playing games and stress testing. Then all of a sudden today, while nearly idle, it decided to die....is it possible that the motherboard was faulty and reporting false CPU temps or do programs like CoreTemp get temps directly from the censors and not through the motherboard? Either way I suspect the motherboard was somewhat faulty as I had a few issues installing Windows when I first installed it (had to re-burn the DVD but the one I was using has only been used once and worked without an issue when I originally used it).

In short, the motherboard is boxed up and will be shipping back tomorrow for a replacement, I inspected the board and it does not look like anything fried but it refused to power on after it shut off on me. Powersupply works fine if I jumper the 24-pin plug to start it.

EDIT: As reference, my Q6700 overclocked to 3.6Ghz on 1.5875v (from 1.35 or something) ran a max of maybe 55C load (been awhile since I stress-tested it, but it idled much cooler than my 920) under the exact same cooling conditions. Is it possible for a faulty motherboard to show higher than usual temps?

[John Freeman]

Sadly, my motherboard for whatever reason decided to die on me, ran fine all day yesterday playing games and stress testing. Then all of a sudden today, while nearly idle, it decided to die....

ASRock. Thers your problem. Kill it with fire! Seriously, id never touch anything made by them ever again.

[Nagisan]

ASRock. Thers your problem. Kill it with fire! Seriously, id never touch anything made by them ever again.

From what I have read this particular motherboard is actually a very decent product....they are afterall owned by Asus.

[DDStriker]

That is hot for water cooling. What watercooling setup do you have? My i7 920 is at 4GHz on air cooling at 1.2v with a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme and hits around 65 degrees C under full Prime95 small FFT load so with water you should be seeing quite a lot less at only 3.6GHz. What voltage is your CPU at also?

Edit: Ah yes, I see from the screenshot it's 1.232v. That's still a fairly low voltage though, those temps don't sound right unless you have really crappy watercooling.

And yes, 3.6GHz at stock voltage isn't as crazy as you'd think. Give it a go without raising it :)

Yeah i tried 3.6GHz without increasing cpu voltage worked great only issue was temperature (currently still on stocked cooling don't worry i never let the temperature gauge out of my sight :p)

can't wait to get better cooling for this so i can run it at 3.6GHz nonstop (shaved 69 seconds off my video encoding thats a good 54% speed increase)

[John Freeman]

Well, maybe. Dont know about that exact mb, and maybe smth has changed over the years, but still id be eeeeextra cautious buying anything from them.

[the big dill]

My friends motherboard was the culprit in my recent investigation of BSOD that gave different reasons every time o_O

it was ASROCK, and i do not like it.

Have you perhaps checked to make sure that you installed the Liquid cooling kit properly?

why dont you try air cooling solution and see if you get different temps.

Sorry to hear your motherboard died :( my 790i died once, replaced it, 2nd 790i had a whole bunch of issues, replaced it... now i have my 3rd replacement coming in before the long weekend :D

Good luck to you!

P.S

The trouble with hardware is that the culprit can be anything (Yes, anything)...

my friend had problems with his comp freezing up whenever he had his comp under load. it took us weeks to figure it out, he was almost ready to send out his gtx260 black for replacement, then the last place we would ever look was the problem... The Ultra X3 1000Watt PSU was not supplying enough power o_O. ofcourse this is a problem with buying garbage (Ultra is bad for PSU), but he got a replacement and everything is WONDERFUL :D

BTW i OCed my P4 to 4.2Ghz and it reaches a max of 58C on Air cooling with Prime95 for 1 and a half hours

[Nagisan]

Have you perhaps checked to make sure that you installed the Liquid cooling kit properly?

I installed it the same way my Q6700 was set up, its also installed the same way my fathers computer is set up, which is in the same server cabinet (above mine) using the same cooling solution and even the exact same water block.

His idle temps are (at the moment) 36C for the hotest core and 34C for the coolest. He is running his i7 950 @ stock though so I would expect it to have slightly lower temps.

The thing though is he has speedstep disabled so he is running at his 3Ghz on whatever the stock voltage is.....I had speedstep enabled so when idling I am running at only 2.2Ghz at 0.9v. Both computers use the same waterblock, same radiators, same pumps, same reservoir with his CPU being the next model up from mine so (roughly) the same processor. Yet with mine running at lower volts with a lower clock speed, it is running slightly hotter at idle.

The trouble with hardware is that the culprit can be anything (Yes, anything)...

my friend had problems with his comp freezing up whenever he had his comp under load. it took us weeks to figure it out, he was almost ready to send out his gtx260 black for replacement, then the last place we would ever look was the problem... The Ultra X3 1000Watt PSU was not supplying enough power o_O. ofcourse this is a problem with buying garbage (Ultra is bad for PSU), but he got a replacement and everything is WONDERFUL :D

Thats my 2nd guess as my PSU is rather old (going on 5 years I think), its a 650w but it has decent amps on the +12v (45 or so if I recall correctly). I plan on replacing it @ christmas with an 850w w/ 60 amps on the +12v rail but thats a ways away.

Almost positive the motherboard is the issue though, I can jumper the PSU to power it on and it runs until I pull off the jumper....if I hook it up to the motherboard though I cant even get it to power on at all......fan jumps then it instantly shuts off. That was with just the CPU and a single stick of ram installed too, so my PSU either can no longer output 50-100w after running fine yesterday outputting 400+ watts and working fine for years before, or the motherboard died on me.

Pretty sure its the latter, but theres always the possibility the PSU is shot and can power itself on but cannot hold any load on it at all.

Freezing while under load though would have made me guess it was the PSU as soon as I eliminated the ram and CPU. :p

And yes, Ultra is horrid for PSUs, my first PSU ever was Ultra and it lasted a few months before it stopped working....that on top of how badly everyone else speaks of Ultra for PSUs will lead me to never buy another Ultra PSU.

[the big dill]

i know this is a lot of trouble, but you should finally try taking the ones you confirmed were working and try it on your setup

this is a headache to do, but is the last thing you can do to confirm it indeed is not the liquid cooling setup.

try another PSU, or this psu on another comp. (also, what brand of PSU do you have?)

and i would agree that it is most likely the MB, but what if it isn't? it's best to through around some ideas for future testing in case it isn't the motherboard.

Cheers

[Nagisan]

i know this is a lot of trouble, but you should finally try taking the ones you confirmed were working and try it on your setup

this is a headache to do, but is the last thing you can do to confirm it indeed is not the liquid cooling setup.

try another PSU, or this psu on another comp. (also, what brand of PSU do you have?)

and i would agree that it is most likely the MB, but what if it isn't? it's best to through around some ideas for future testing in case it isn't the motherboard.

Cheers

Its a Silverstone Zeus PSU.

What exactly do you mean I should try the confirmed ones in my setup? You mean the watercooling parts? The only thing in my current watercooling setup I have not used before is the waterblock. Its a dangerden block w/ an acrylic top (you can see into the block itself), as far as waterblocks go it either works or its broken, its the exact same as the other one (running on my dads) and visually it looks the exact same (so its not physically broken). It should cool roughly the same.

[the big dill]

Its a Silverstone Zeus PSU.

What exactly do you mean I should try the confirmed ones in my setup? You mean the watercooling parts? The only thing in my current watercooling setup I have not used before is the waterblock. Its a dangerden block w/ an acrylic top (you can see into the block itself), as far as waterblocks go it either works or its broken, its the exact same as the other one (running on my dads) and visually it looks the exact same (so its not physically broken). It should cool roughly the same.

i have always trusted SS PSU's, and i mean trying your dads liquid cooling kit instead.