Overclocking core i5

[cbooty]

Fantastic article on overclocking the Core i5 proc entitled "Efficiency Explored: What's The Perfect Clock Rate For Your Core i5?"
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i5-750-efficiency,2500.html#
Quote: "It actually makes so much sense to overclock the Core i5 from its 133 MHz base clock to a little more, that we recommend this to every user who is interested in getting more risk-free performance at zero cost. Moving from a 133 MHz BCLK to 150 or 160 MHz, which was the maximum setting in our tests that didn’t require a voltage increase, does not increase your total system idle power."
Definitely worth a read for anyone considering overclocking and judging from the included charts it looks as though 3.2ghz with turbo enabled is the sweet spot!

 

[flatfoot]

Definitely a nice article which I will follow once I have my components and everything set up.

But I don't get why they say on page 3 that 160MHz BCLK with Turbo Boost is the best option without raising Vcore although the table (also on page 3!) says that the Turbo Boost frequency isn't stable for this frequency.
In order to get minimum power consumption vs. maximum speed I want to have Turbo Boost and Speed Step enabled at the highest possible frequency without raising Vcore. So, 150MHz BCLK or 160MHz BCLK?

Has anyone of you made experience in this direction yet?

 

[MacMan]

Definitely a nice article which I will follow once I have my components and everything set up.

But I don't get why they say on page 3 that 160MHz BCLK with Turbo Boost is the best option without raising Vcore although the table (also on page 3!) says that the Turbo Boost frequency isn't stable for this frequency.
In order to get minimum power consumption vs. maximum speed I want to have Turbo Boost and Speed Step enabled at the highest possible frequency without raising Vcore. So, 150MHz BCLK or 160MHz BCLK?

Has anyone of you made experience in this direction yet?

I'm running a 160 MHz BCLK with Turbo Boot with no problems.

 

[flatfoot]

Definitely a nice article which I will follow once I have my components and everything set up.

But I don't get why they say on page 3 that 160MHz BCLK with Turbo Boost is the best option without raising Vcore although the table (also on page 3!) says that the Turbo Boost frequency isn't stable for this frequency.
In order to get minimum power consumption vs. maximum speed I want to have Turbo Boost and Speed Step enabled at the highest possible frequency without raising Vcore. So, 150MHz BCLK or 160MHz BCLK?

Has anyone of you made experience in this direction yet?

I'm running a 160 MHz BCLK with Turbo Boot with no problems.

Without increased Vcore?

 

[MacMan]

Without increased Vcore?

Yep, all voltages are running stock.

 

[flatfoot]

Thanks a lot for this confirmation.
Still itching to actually build this machine...

 

[wfj]

I think I'm on the same page as jwalkermed with regard to overclocking. I run a very modest overclock to get the most out of my equipment while still utilizing speedstep (throttling) for energy savings and turbo for that speed bump when you need it. Also I don't want my fan running like crazy or my processor near its thermal limit. The settings I use of the top of my head (currently at work) are 18X clock, 160 BCLK, with RAM set to manufacturer recommended settings of 8 8 8 24, 10x with extreme and a voltage of 1.64 volts. These settings should result in a final clock speed of 2.88ghz and your ram at 1600mhz. Again, a very modest overclock that pulls in Geekbench scores of around 8,000 with 4gb of ram. If I get a chance tonight I'll double check my bios settings and provide more info if anyone is interested....

If you're using an aftermarket cooler you should be able to easily hit 3.2GHz with turbo boost enabled while keeping temps very reasonable. My CPU temps never get above 70C under full load and the fan on the 9900ALED is very reasonable and near silent at idle speeds. There is no need to be afraid of a little bump in Vcore as long as temps are reasonable...I currently use 1.25v. For stability testing, I recommend a program called LinX under windows. It will quickly sort out any CPU instability. Here is a link:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... p?t=201670