Core i7 940 and 1333MHz RAM - is it possible?

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eponymous

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Jan 18, 2009
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Hi,

I am going to be buying:

* Core i7 940 CPU
* ASUS P6T Deluxe motherboard

and was wondering if 1333 Mhz DDR3 RAM will work with this processor, and will acutally run at 1333MHz.

Do you have to overclock the CPU in order to use 1333 MHz DDR3 RAM? If so, how is this done?

I've heard there are certain limitations on the overclocking for the processor (as well as the 920) and so I wasn't actually sure if you could use anything higher than 1066 MHz DDR3 RAM.

I know the 965 is the only "unlocked" processor and that 1333MHz and 1600MHz DDR3 RAM will work with this CPU. After searching around for ages I still cannot find any answers as to what "unlocked" actually means in this context.

I'd really appreciate any help in this and if possible, some links to documentation that can clearly explain which RAM speeds will work with the 940.

Thanks. :)
 
So what exactly is this "locked/unlocked" stuff I've been hearing about? Doesn't the overspeed limit cause problems on the 940 and 920 for high speed RAM?

Thanks.
 
The locked/unlocked may be refering to the CPU clock multiplier, it only come unlocked with the i7 extreme.

If you get the Asus P6T you should have no trouble using any ram you wish.
 


Agreed, the 940 is terrible value for money in comparison with the 920. Only 10% faster, but 77% more expensive!!
 
exectly and if you want a 3GHz chip just overclock the 920 to 2.93GHz. All the 940 is an overclocked 920. Same with the 965 extreme. That is why when it comes to CPU's I will not buy anything over $500. Why when you can overclock it and get the same performance. Save that extra money on somthing else like a New monitor or a nice Graphic's card.
 
Hmm after reading that article, it seems that they got it to run at 3.8 GHz but at the cost of a temp of 85 degrees C. Has anyone overclocked a 920 to about 3.0 - 3.2 GHz? If so, what were the temperatures?
 
About temperatures on this i7 965. Using motherboard "stock" Vcore and a TRUE120 with single stock fan and ambient ~22C:

i7 3.34GHz HT-on 1.24V (Cpu-z) Prime95 58C
i7 3.6GHz HT-on 1.26V (Cpu-z) Prime95 68C, Linpack (2x LinX) 72C

Also, using Intel stock cooler and the same BIOS settings:
i7 3.34GHz 1.24V (Cpu-z) Prime95 69C

The way you overclock a 920 is by increasing the Bclk (base clock). Since it's easier on the CPU to have a lower multiplier, you may get better temperatures than I did. There should be no issues reaching 3-3.2 GHz on stock cooling if you install the cooler right and don't apply much more voltage than necessary.

As for roadrunner, I don't remember him mentioning how he tests stability. I suspect he's at least SPi 1-8m stable at 4GHz, but I have some doubts it would hold up under Prime, let alone Linpack, which is mainly used for those who can't have a crash every week under load.
 
Cheers.

So are there any problems with functional correctness that would occur when overclocking the 920 to 940 speeds that would be avoided by simply buying a 940?

Thanks.
 
Cont....

Also, what about the life expectancy of the 920 when it is overclocked to 940 speeds? Does that decrease significantly?

 
i set my ram in the bios of my p6t to 1333 (stock) and when i go into cpuz it only shows up as 667 mhz. Why is this -its 6gb ddr3 1333 GSkill 9-9-9-27
 
we could... we could keep buying the best of the best now... but with new technologies and with westmere coming out this year, i predict we should wait. nehalem is only a one year product. besides, nehalem is not efficient.
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I've had my 965 up to 4.13GHz (133*31)rock solid stable, including Linpack, but it took a lot of volts to get there (1.39). It'll do 4.26 (133*32) at that voltage as well for most tasks, but crash in Linpack. I've settled on 3.73GHz (133*28) as a good daily use speed, which it only takes 1.23 volts at. It also runs quite a bit cooler at 3.73 - it only hits around 66C in Prime, and about 69-70 in Linpack (it'd be up around 78-80 at 4.13 in linpack).
 


I run my Core i7 920 @ 3.2 ghz all day every day, not adjustments with my gigabyte x58 extreme mobo all i adjust is the base clock to 160 i leave everything else at auto and turn off the eist function.i kno the questions that are being asked because i had alof of them myself before buying, but dont go for the 940 its the same exact thing as the 920 but the 965 is a littel different physically, i have 6 gigs of kingston ddr3 stock is 1066 its automatically clocked up to 1296 or somthing @ 1.62v all the higher spped ram is almost all the same its stock 1066 running at 1.5v clocked and volted up to 1333 and 1.65v save yourself the $$ and go stock do your own overclocking and get the same performance with much less cha ching. but my system with my 2 terabyte 4 way raid 0 and gtx285 it tears a$$ and chews up everyhting including crysis. never blue screened and never crashed. have had it up higher but keep it at what i think is more than enough,. the cpu runs at about 45-50c at load with stock fan and full tower chassis with 2 250mm fans xclio a380,, the life expectancy thing>> if you overclock it but keep it cool if wont affect anyhting. its all about heat and voltage. keep them relatively low and youll be perfectly fine. the biggest setback to chips is heat almost everything revolves around it,
 
i just want to add i have a 940 and am currently messing around with the clock speed but i have yet to see a 920 (which i had and burnd out) hit 4Ghz (4.070Ghz) stable, all day with a 40 degrees (C) idle and 67 degrees(C) max. i just ran prime 95 24hrs. without crashing at 4Ghz and it had no problem the 3D Mark Vantage cpu score is around 51,000 give or take a couple hundred but no more. i'm very impressed with that and i could not get past 3.85 stable and the temps were well above 76 degrees(C). So i'll say for now the price difference is not really worth it, but if you want a little bit more than you can go a head and feel just fine about getting a 940, however everything that i have read about a 4.1Ghz clock on a 965 running stable the double in price just doesn't justfy the little gain, but then again they would run on lower voltage so i guess that's where the trade off is. here are my settings incase anyone wants to try it out cpu clock is at 177Mhz i have the turbo turned on therefore my multiplyer is X23. and my ram is on auto but the QPI voltage is set at 1.5V and my CPU voltage is at 1.5V aswell, that was the only way i could keep it stable but i will try to go for the 4.1Ghz and up the 177 to 178, and increase the voltage to 1.52+ see if I can stablize the overclock hopefully it works and then if i can run that stable there is no reason why i should bother with a 965. by the way you could theoretically overclock a 940 to 4.6Ghz again something you can't do with a 920. but you can do 5Ghz+ with a 965 again at that speed neither is stable so again i don't take that into account.
for first time buyers just take eerything with a grain of salt and whatever you choose don't be afraid to overclock it is easier than it sounds there are alot of great sites you can learn how to do it, good luck.

update:
I've been running prime95 at 4.114Ghz for the past 2.5 hrs and it has been stable! Usually with my experiance if you can run prime95 for over 1hr. your overclock pretty good but anything after that is great my core temp. is around 67-70 degrees celcius (C), which is just fine. So i believe i just managed to overclock my cpu to 4.1Ghz stable, i will let it run for 24hrs. but if i don't edit this quote than that means it is stable andi have acheaved my goal of 4.1Ghz on a core i7 940! which i am very very pleased with. incase anyone wants to replicate this i'm running at 179Mhz and 1.55V, my QPI is raised slightly to 1.525V and my Pll is raised slightly to 1.9V from the original 1.8V a maz recommended limit of 2.0V so again i am within all the recommended lmits of my motherboard and the processor. by the way i am water cooled. my new 3D Mark Vantage score in total with cpu and gpu is 34,114!!!
 
1.5V? Damn...

(As an update to my post above, it turns out my CPU is unhappy with multipliers above 30x, so I now have my 965 at 4.2GHz stable with a 200 bclk and a 21x mult. at 1.384V as measured in CPUz)
 
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