Voltage questions for i7-950 OC @ 3.72ghz (new OCer!)

[Yang Wong]

Hi guys, I'm a new overclocker and recently OC'd my 950 to 3.72 ghz.

I'm using a core multiplier of 24x155 and the rest of my stats can be seen here: http://imgur.com/wpxIlwu

I kept all voltages at auto as it was said that at this OC it is fine.

However I noticed my Vcore is around 1.31 V which seems high for my OC when compared to others.

Should I go in and reduce the voltages, and if so does anyone have recommendations?

Furthermore do you think it would be possible to increase my BCLK and get more core speed, and if so how should I tackle the voltages?

Thanks!

 

[Yang Wong]

I should also mentioned that I ran intel burn test on maximum for 10 runs, and got peak temp of 53C only, and the OC is completely stable as expected. However it is winter and does get rather hot during the summer!

 

[faalin]

Don't run an even multiplier, back it down to 23. On a full custom waterloop in the middle of winter I was able to do 23x212 with my 950. Max on it was a 214 block. For some reason the first gen cpus don't like even multipliers, they always become unstable after a while.

 

[Vitric9]

That is not to high at all. Voltage i mean. In theory you should get roughly 200Mhz BCLK with a good x58 motherboard.

 

[Yang Wong]

Don't run an even multiplier, back it down to 23. On a full custom waterloop in the middle of winter I was able to do 23x212 with my 950. Max on it was a 214 block. For some reason the first gen cpus don't like even multipliers, they always become unstable after a while.

thanks, I currently run a coolermaster 212, so I should reduce the multiplier to 23 and increase the block.

At which stage on the overclock would you recommend I start modifying voltages? Could I push my core speed to 3.9 or 4 ghz using auto on voltage?

Thank you!

 

[Yang Wong]

That is not to high at all. Voltage i mean. In theory you should get roughly 200Mhz BCLK with a good x58 motherboard.

Thanks, I'm running a X58A-UD3R, is that a decent motherboard?

In regards to the voltage, I've seen some people run 1.2V vcore @ 4 ghz? So I thought I'm running a bit high

 

[faalin]

its not good practice to use the auto volt when overclocking. Set you computer to 23x161 with 1.31v, boot it up and make sure everything runs fine, only reason Im saying that is you've already tested at that speed to be ok. Once you are happy go in and start lowing the voltage by .02 or the closest to that that you can. do that till it becomes unstable and bump the volts back up by .02volts. That will give you the lowest volts possible at 3.7ghz for the cpu. If you want to go faster on the cpu start bumping the block by 2-5 point, run a test to see where everything is at and continue on. at some point things will start to fail. you will ether have to up the voltage or run out of temp at max load.

 

[Yang Wong]

its not good practice to use the auto volt when overclocking. Set you computer to 23x161 with 1.31v, boot it up and make sure everything runs fine, only reason Im saying that is you've already tested at that speed to be ok. Once you are happy go in and start lowing the voltage by .02 or the closest to that that you can. do that till it becomes unstable and bump the volts back up by .02volts. That will give you the lowest volts possible at 3.7ghz for the cpu. If you want to go faster on the cpu start bumping the block by 2-5 point, run a test to see where everything is at and continue on. at some point things will start to fail. you will ether have to up the voltage or run out of temp at max load.

thanks for the advice, is the only voltage i need to be concerned with is vcore? what about QPI voltage or something like that?

 

[Yang Wong]

Managed to overclock @ 4.00 ghz! Ran an hour of IBT and so far about 2 hours of prime95, max temps 68C. Vcore 1.264, QPI 1.3. Wonder if I should keep lowering the Vcore, but I think it's okay since my temps are low??