Is it safe to overclock my cpu?

[madman322]

I have an i7 920. I haven't overclocked the CPU just yet. After playing fallout 3 on ultra high 4xAA for about 4 hours, my motherboard clocked my cpu temp at about 55/56C. Is it safe for me to overclock the thing to like 3.2/3.4/3.6ghz? Or will i risk the chance of overheating? I have a cooler master hyper N 520 fan installed and artic silver 5 thermal paste. Any help would be great, thanks.

 

[sirheck]

Yea its safe to get a mild oc on the i7.
They run hot, just keep an eye on the temps.

Anything above say 75c is getting up there depending on your ambients.

Try this utility for temps.
http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/

 

[Conumdrum]

Use Prime 95 small FFTs test for 30 min and Realtemp and/or HWMonitor to monitor temps.

Just stay under 70C on a long load test with your overclock you'll be fine.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Earlier this month I read every Intel Core i7 technical review I could find because I was getting read for a new build. I discovered the Intel Core i7 920 cpu is well suited for overclocking. The sweet spot is 3.3 to 3.6Ghz with sufficient cooling. The cpu has actually been pushed to 4.2Ghz on air cooling and 5.2Ghz on Liquid Nitrogen.

An Intel engineer inadvertantly mentioned the maximum operating temperature of the Intel Core i7 920 is 100C. Intel officially specifies a maximum operating temperature of 80C. It is a safety measure. When overclocking use a temperature monitoring utility like Conumdrum mentioned to keep an eye on temperature during overclocking.

I see that you have a Coolermaster Hyper N520 cpu heatsink and Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound. That's good; however, I have a suggestion. Arctic Silver 5 is an older thermal compound. It's performance has been surpassed by newer compounds. For a few dollars you could probably drop temps a couple of degrees. The problem is trying to decide which one to use. When I did my research I discovered there were over 80 assorted compounds, pastes, liquids, and metal alloys. It gets kind of crazy because of the sheer number and the varying results.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

The sweet spot is 3.3 to 3.6Ghz with sufficient cooling. The cpu has actually been pushed to 4.2Ghz on air cooling and 5.2Ghz on Liquid Nitrogen.

Still playing but this is how far we've gotten the 920 on my son's box....and this from someone who never bothered to push past 25% before....so sure we can do better.....w/ new games in house from holidays ... son's been concentrating more on other things

(Cooling is a Prolimatech Megashadow w/ twin Enermax Magma fans and IC Diamond 7 karat TIM in an Antec 1200 case .... all case fans on lowest setting ....CPU fans at 83%.)

24/365 OC profile = 3.7 GHz @ 1.125 volts (HT and all other BIOS settings on Auto or Default) Core temps 58/54/55/54

Gaming Profile = 4.2 GHz @ 1.300 volts (HT Off) Core temps 74/71/70/70

Testing Profile = 4.4 GHz @ 1.240 volts (HT On, few BIOS features edited) Core temps 72/68/67/66

 

[andy5174]

It is absolutely safe for something less than 3.6GHz.