Question Watts/Amps for Overclocking W3680/i7 980X

[Cidona]

I have a desktop computer that I’ve had since 2009. Until a few days ago I had a i7 940 in there, however I recently purchased a 6 core W3680 for it. From what I’ve read these are VERY similar to i7 980X. I installed it and it is working fine. However it seems that these can be overclocked so I was looking at edging it up a bit without getting too extreme with it.

There is this article that discusses overclocking the i7 980X on the same motherboard as I have (Intel DX58SO). Tom's Hardware Overclocking article LINK

I (at least initially), just want to overclock without increasing the voltage as discussed in the article above which seems according to that article to be over doable and worthwhile. The article gives most settings needed to try for various overclocks so I was going to try those. However on page two of that article it states:

“TDC Override: Thermal Design Current Override
Be sure you allow the processor to run higher currents when overclocking.
TDP Override: Thermal Design Power Override
You may recall that the Core i7-980X has a TDP of 130W. This won’t suffice once you start to overclock, especially if you’re also increasing voltage.”

On the second page it shows a screen shot of the BIOS where the TDC Current Limit Override (Amps) is set to 180. This by default is set to 110. In that same screen shot TDP Power Limit Override (Watts) is set to 250. By default that is at 130. So it seems that these need to be adjusted.

While the screen shot of the BIOS in that article shows the 180 Amps and 250 Watts settings I don’t believe those are meant to apply for all the various overclocks that they do in the article. On page 8 of that article it is showing a table with settings for various overclocks. The peak power shown in that page 8 table of the various overclocks is in excess of the 250 watts from the BIOS screen shot (which leads me to believe that the 250 Watts setting shown in the screen shot on page two was just a sample and not a final setting to be used for all overclocks). There is no mention of Amps in that table so I’m at a bit of a loss as to what to use for setting the Watts and Amps.

Anyone have recommendations as to what to use for Watts & Amps settings in my BIOS? I am initially looking to try the 3,866MHz overclock in the article (3rd column from the right in the table o page 8 of the article).
Please see below pictures of my current BIOS "Performace" settings.

https://imgur.com/YKO25vG

View: https://i.imgur.com/YKO25vG.jpg

https://imgur.com/R6X4SVm

View: https://i.imgur.com/R6X4SVm.jpg


Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

 

[crystalcity]

I have a system running the quad version of this @ 29x on all cores, stock cooler, stock voltage. Curious to see what you end up with, please post results.

 

[Cidona]

Hi crystalcity.

Thank you very much for your response.

Not the most scientific overclock as trail and error due to my lack of knowledge but I ended up using 180 for the TDC Current Limit Override (Amps), 250 for the TDP Power Limit Override (Watts) as per the screen shot on page 2 of the article I linked in my original post.

I then used 73mV Dynamic CPU Voltage Offset. I set all cores to 33 multiplier and Host Clock Frequency to 133MHz. This is giving me a clock of 4.40 GHz.

I have only tested via a half hour of stressing via CPU-Z with all cores on 100% load. See screen shot for temps, etc. just before I ended that stress test. Will test further but seems pretty good so far.

Screen shots/pictures below. Will let you know if it goes squirrelly on further testing or such.

Best Regards.

 

[crystalcity]

Thats is nice! You wanted 3.8ghz and you got so much more... What is the machine going to be used for? Love seeing these old geezers still puttin in work!

 

[Cidona]

Hi crystalcity.

With further testing the computer crashed approx. 1½ hours into full load on all cores. Not sure exactly why. Temperatures seemed fine. Might have needed to increase the TDC (Amps) or TDP (Watts), but without knowing what is and isn’t safe numbers for those I have now changed the Core Ratio Limits to 33, 32, 32, 32, 32, 32 instead of the 33 across all cores. It's still giving me a 4.25 GHz clock on all cores which I'm very happy with. I ran with Prime95 for six and half hours with no problem at these settings so am going to go with these for now anyway.

I originally had the i7 940 in there and from 2009 to 2015 it was my main computer. The last 4 years I hadn’t been using it much as I had a laptop that was my primary computer due to my need to be mobile. Some months back I had anticipated a workflow that would have made better use of multi-cores but would only be needed at times rather than something I'd be doing daily, which was what lead me looking into the W3680. The idea being that I could have the desktop doing that particular workflow while I could still be doing other work on my laptop.

I bought the W3680 for $110 on Ebay.

The workflow I had originally anticipated making use of the multiple core on the W3680 was to have a Navisworks model brought into Revit (for projects that were using various non Revit files for modelling), then have a Dynamo script run to configure 100’s of views at various cut depths and elevation and print them all out to PDF on A0 size sheets. These sheets would then be used as backgrounds that would be swapped around as needed in the software I was using for design (Autosprink VR).

I now am no longer using Autosprink for design and am instead using Revit for my design work. However, this brings about another use for the desktop. I have two different add ins for Revit that don’t allow each other to both work on the same computer. I’m therefore figuring that I’ll have Revit installed on both laptop and desktop with different add ins on each. I’ll use the laptop for parts of the design that utilize one of the add-ons, and the desktop for the design phases that make use of the other add-on.

I was anticipating upgrading my laptop and still will in the not too distant future, but for now until I get more familiar with Revit as a design tool and with these various add-ons it will suit me well to have both computers.

BTW, meant to mention, the desktop has a Thermaltake heatsink. I’m unsure of the exact model as it was back in 2011 when I got it (was using stock cooler before that). However it looks fairly similar to this HEAT SINK LINK

Thanks again for your input!

 

[crystalcity]

There is mixed info for multi lock on these. For the record I've had no luck with slower clocked ones, so I would spend a little more $ for one of the speediest two clocked W36xx or W35xx for those out there who want to play with clocks. I'm not sure why there are reports of the slower ones being unlocked, may be preproduction.

Thanks for sharing the info, in these throw-away times always nice to see older machines get some attention, whether its computers or otherwise.