Overclocking results for I7-950, Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R MB

[thejoebot23]

Thank you notshy.

 

[notshy]

Thank you notshy.

I meant to type it out but the pics were fine.

Only thing I was was your uncore clock ratio was too high. It should he 2x or 2x + 1 of your spd multiplier. So if you've got 6x on your RAM, you only need 12 or 13 on uncore .

Why did you set it to 18?

Also you could set your qpi to x36.

Also a lot of your voltages were on auto.

Try lowering your overclock to 4ghz and see if OSX is any happier.

 

[thejoebot23]

Thank you notshy.

I meant to type it out but the pics were fine.

Only thing I was was your uncore clock ratio was too high. It should he 2x or 2x + 1 of your spd multiplier. So if you've got 6x on your RAM, you only need 12 or 13 on uncore .

Why did you set it to 18?

Also you could set your qpi to x36.

Also a lot of your voltages were on auto.

Try lowering your overclock to 4ghz and see if OSX is any happier.

Notshy,
I set the uncore ratio to x18 to get the uncore frequency to half of my 6.3ghz qpi link speed (from auto). I was jumping in and forgot spd gives you uncore (2xspd) which gives you qpi. Seams like a good starting point. Hope I understand that right would be cool.

so I'll have a spd of 6.0
giving me a uncore 12
AND
qpi should be 2x uncore so that should be 24?

I'm pretty unsure of what to set the auto freq to.

Thanks, Ill write it out next time.

 

[notshy]

Thank you notshy.

I meant to type it out but the pics were fine.

Only thing I was was your uncore clock ratio was too high. It should he 2x or 2x + 1 of your spd multiplier. So if you've got 6x on your RAM, you only need 12 or 13 on uncore .

Why did you set it to 18?

Also you could set your qpi to x36.

Also a lot of your voltages were on auto.

Try lowering your overclock to 4ghz and see if OSX is any happier.

Notshy,
I set the uncore ratio to x18 to get the uncore frequency to half of my 6.3ghz qpi link speed (from auto). I was jumping in and forgot spd gives you uncore (2xspd) which gives you qpi. Seams like a good starting point. Hope I understand that right would be cool.

so I'll have a spd of 6.0
giving me a uncore 12
AND
qpi should be 2x uncore so that should be 24?

I'm pretty unsure of what to set the auto freq to.

Thanks, Ill write it out next time.

Please check some of my settings here (at the bottom):
viewtopic.php?f=49&t=7029

I think you want qpi to be x36 regardless of your RAM multiplier. I'm on my phone so can read through that coding box but have a look

 

[thejoebot23]

Thanks again notshy. I have been going over your posts reading and learning. I also have your template on my ipad now. Ipad would not allow me to copy or even look at the full template. Hope your still following this thread. I been busy w/ school work.

 

[notshy]

Thanks again notshy. I have been going over your posts reading and learning. I also have your template on my ipad now. Ipad would not allow me to copy or even look at the full template. Hope your still following this thread. I been busy w/ school work.

No worries - why not just copy it into an email as text and edit it in there?

 

[thejoebot23]

Here is the first overclock that I got to work stable in SL.

Idles @ 37c-42c
Prime95 torture test @ 67c-71c

I know some of my auto's should be set to particular values but, I haven't found anyone with a i7 950 to go off of for these values. Auto seams to be running crash free. I have only done 10min stress testings this far. Going to head over to w7 drive (if this system doesn't crash while studying) for more robust stress testing. I am excited about this so far! Been readin and reading and finally getting some nice improvements my geekbench went from 10358 to 11946. Kaa-ching $!

Thanks a lot for your documents, helped a lot.

Advanced CPU Features:
CPU Clock Ratio .............................. x23
Intel(R) Turbo Boost Tech .................... Enabled
CPU Cores Enabled ............................ All
CPU Multi Threading .......................... Enabled
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E) ...................... Enabled
C3/C6/C7 State Support ....................... Enabled
CPU Thermal Monitor .......................... Enabled
CPU EIST Function ............................ Enabled
Virtualization Technology .................... Enabled
Bi-Directional PROCHOT ....................... Enabled


Uncore & QPI Features:
QPI Link Speed ............................... x36 
Uncore Clock Ratio ........................... x12
Isonchronous Frequency ....................... Enabled?


Standard Clock Control:
Base Clock (BCLK) Control ................... Enabled
BCLK Frequency (MHz) ........................ 170
Extreme Memory Profile ...................... Disabled
Exteme Memory Profile (XMP) ................. Disabled
PCI Express Frequency (MHz) ................. Auto


Advanced Clock Control:
CPU Clock Drive ............................. [700mV]
PCI Express Clock Drive ..................... [700mV]
CPU Clock Skew .............................. [0ps]
IOH Clock Skew .............................. [0ps]


Advanced DRAM Features:
Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P) .............. Disabled
System Memory Multiplier (SPD) .............. x6
Performance Enhance ......................... Turbo
DRAM Timing Selectable (SPD) ................ Quick
Channel Interleaving ........................ [Auto]
Rank Interleaving ........................... [Auto]

Channel A + B + C 
Channel A Timing Settings:
CAS Latency Time ........................... 9
tRCD ....................................... 9
tRP ........................................ 9
tRAS ....................................... 20

tRC ........................................ Auto
tRRD ....................................... Auto
tWTR ....................................... Auto
tWR ........................................ Auto
tWTP ....................................... Auto
tWL ........................................ Auto
tRFC ....................................... 88
tRTP ....................................... Auto
tFAW ....................................... Auto
Command Rate ............................... 2

B2B CASE Delay ............................. [AUTO]
Round Trip Latency ......................... [AUTO]


Advanced Voltage Control:

CPU
Load Line Calibration ........................ Auto
CPU Vcore .............. 1.26875v ............ NORMAL
Dynamic Vcore ................................ +0.13125v     <<< Total = 1.2500v can't change or view
QPI/VTT Voltage ........ 1.1750v ............. Auto
CPU PLL ................ 1.800v .............. Auto

MCH/ICH
PCIE ................... 1.500v .............. [Auto]
QPI PLL ................ 1.100v .............. Auto
IOH Core ............... 1.100v .............. Auto
ICH I/O ................ 1.500v .............. [Auto]
ICH Core ............... 1.1v ................ [Auto]

DRAM
DRAM Voltage ............ 1.500v ............  1.660v
DRAM Termination ........ 0.750v ............. [AUTO]
Ch-A Data VRef.  ........ 0.750v ............. [AUTO]
Ch-B Data VRef.  ........ 0.750v ............. [AUTO]
Ch-C Data VRef.  ........ 0.750v ............. [AUTO]
Ch-A Address VRef.  ..... 0.750v ............. [AUTO]
Ch-B Address VRef.  ..... 0.750v ............. [AUTO]
Ch-C Address VRef.  ..... 0.750v ............. [AUTO]


Miscellaneous Settings:
Isonchronous Support ......................... [Enabled]
Virtualisation Technoloy ..................... [Enabled]

OTHER SETTINGS


Advanced BIOS
Quick Boot ................................... Enabled
HDD SMART Capability ......................... Enabled
No-Execute Memory Protect .................... Enabled     <<< Helps sleep in OSX
Full Screen Logo ............................. Disabled    <<< Can check what is going 
Init Display First ........................... PCIE x16-1  <<< Helps sleep in OSX

SATA Control Mode ............................ AHCI

ACPI Suspend Type ............................ S3 (STR)
HPET Support ................................. Enabled
HPET Mode .................................... 64-bit mode
ErP Support .................................. Enabled

 

[realguy]

Friend of mine has an EVGA board and an i7-920. EVGA actually posted his clock. He chose not to make it a Mac, but he has three of these machines now, all folding, and he clocked them all at 4.31GHz, they all ran stable for 24 hours, folding - so 100%, 4 cores, 8 threads, and then he backed it down to 4.2GHz - and it maintains (for months now), running 24/7, Folding@Home, a temp of 70C.

He's racking up 150,000 points per day - but the point here is, that an i7-920 is capable
of air cooling at 4.3GHz. I think you guys have some room available yet.

I don't know if posting any of his OC info is valid since he's using an EVGA board
but I can get it all if someone wants it.

Here is the first overclock that I got to work stable in SL.

Idles @ 37c-42c
Prime95 torture test @ 67c-71c

I know some of my auto's should be set to particular values but, I haven't found anyone with a i7 950 to go off of for these values. Auto seams to be running crash free. I have only done 10min stress testings this far. Going to head over to w7 drive (if this system doesn't crash while studying) for more robust stress testing. I am excited about this so far! Been readin and reading and finally getting some nice improvements my geekbench went from 10358 to 11946. Kaa-ching $!

Thanks a lot for your documents, helped a lot.

Advanced CPU Features:
CPU Clock Ratio .............................. x23
Intel(R) Turbo Boost Tech .................... Enabled
CPU Cores Enabled ............................ All
CPU Multi Threading .......................... Enabled
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E) ...................... Enabled
C3/C6/C7 State Support ....................... Enabled
CPU Thermal Monitor .......................... Enabled
CPU EIST Function ............................ Enabled
Virtualization Technology .................... Enabled
Bi-Directional PROCHOT ....................... Enabled


Uncore & QPI Features:
QPI Link Speed ............................... x36 
Uncore Clock Ratio ........................... x12
Isonchronous Frequency ....................... Enabled?


Standard Clock Control:
Base Clock (BCLK) Control ................... Enabled
BCLK Frequency (MHz) ........................ 170
Extreme Memory Profile ...................... Disabled
Exteme Memory Profile (XMP) ................. Disabled
PCI Express Frequency (MHz) ................. Auto


Advanced Clock Control:
CPU Clock Drive ............................. [700mV]
PCI Express Clock Drive ..................... [700mV]
CPU Clock Skew .............................. [0ps]
IOH Clock Skew .............................. [0ps]


Advanced DRAM Features:
Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P) .............. Disabled
System Memory Multiplier (SPD) .............. x6
Performance Enhance ......................... Turbo
DRAM Timing Selectable (SPD) ................ Quick
Channel Interleaving ........................ [Auto]
Rank Interleaving ........................... [Auto]

Channel A + B + C 
Channel A Timing Settings:
CAS Latency Time ........................... 9
tRCD ....................................... 9
tRP ........................................ 9
tRAS ....................................... 20

tRC ........................................ Auto
tRRD ....................................... Auto
tWTR ....................................... Auto
tWR ........................................ Auto
tWTP ....................................... Auto
tWL ........................................ Auto
tRFC ....................................... 88
tRTP ....................................... Auto
tFAW ....................................... Auto
Command Rate ............................... 2

B2B CASE Delay ............................. [AUTO]
Round Trip Latency ......................... [AUTO]


Advanced Voltage Control:

CPU
Load Line Calibration ........................ Auto
CPU Vcore .............. 1.26875v ............ NORMAL
Dynamic Vcore ................................ +0.13125v     <<< Total = 1.2500v can't change or view
QPI/VTT Voltage ........ 1.1750v ............. Auto
CPU PLL ................ 1.800v .............. Auto

MCH/ICH
PCIE ................... 1.500v .............. [Auto]
QPI PLL ................ 1.100v .............. Auto
IOH Core ............... 1.100v .............. Auto
ICH I/O ................ 1.500v .............. [Auto]
ICH Core ............... 1.1v ................ [Auto]

DRAM
DRAM Voltage ............ 1.500v ............  1.660v
DRAM Termination ........ 0.750v ............. [AUTO]
Ch-A Data VRef.  ........ 0.750v ............. [AUTO]
Ch-B Data VRef.  ........ 0.750v ............. [AUTO]
Ch-C Data VRef.  ........ 0.750v ............. [AUTO]
Ch-A Address VRef.  ..... 0.750v ............. [AUTO]
Ch-B Address VRef.  ..... 0.750v ............. [AUTO]
Ch-C Address VRef.  ..... 0.750v ............. [AUTO]


Miscellaneous Settings:
Isonchronous Support ......................... [Enabled]
Virtualisation Technoloy ..................... [Enabled]

OTHER SETTINGS


Advanced BIOS
Quick Boot ................................... Enabled
HDD SMART Capability ......................... Enabled
No-Execute Memory Protect .................... Enabled     <<< Helps sleep in OSX
Full Screen Logo ............................. Disabled    <<< Can check what is going 
Init Display First ........................... PCIE x16-1  <<< Helps sleep in OSX

SATA Control Mode ............................ AHCI

ACPI Suspend Type ............................ S3 (STR)
HPET Support ................................. Enabled
HPET Mode .................................... 64-bit mode
ErP Support .................................. Enabled

 

[thejoebot23]

I was thinking the same thing. One thing I have heard around, multiple times is that those 920's were basically the same as the 950's in many cases. I couldnt find a place that sold 920's for a good price. I only paid 200 for my 950 at Microcemters tho. It would be awesome to get 4.5 on air!

 

[realguy]

My understanding about CPU grading has always been that it's pretty basic. They will test a lot - because the lithography varies slightly on each lot, and if the lot appeared to look excellent vs good via microscope (on the wafer) and then when mfg'd, had a good range of speeds, it would be stamped a certain way based on the buyer's needs.

My best example is the IBM/Motorola PowerPCs that were put in the Macs of the mid-90s
until the Intel switch in ~2005.

I have G3's that are marked by Motorola at 233MHz and also 266MHz and 300MHz. But there is no such thing in motorola's catalog (nor IBM's for the PPC-750) for a G3 at those
speeds. They all start at 300MHz.

So Apple started entry level Beige towers and the first run of the iMac at 233. Then 266 and then 300. All with the 300MHz chip. Even the 300's could be easily upclocked to 350, and most of the time 400, so it probably wasn't until the 400MHz benchmark that they went for a slightly new design, an effort to reduce the size of the core, etc.

I have a G4 (which is the same as a G3 except it has the Altivec code, which is the same as the SSE4 that kept the PowerPC ahead of Intel for so long until the Pentium 4 hit.
The P4 3.06 with threading and a "64 bit MMX" was the first that finally dealt the death blow to the PowerPC by Motorola. They never could deliver at 90nm scale, a lower power or a dual core CPU - so Apple went to IBM for the G5 (actually a Power3 processor that was faster than the Power3 in some areas because the lines were thinner, and so the gates switched faster than the industrial strength Power3 (they are at 8 Core Power7s now - 1 CPU so powerful, that a single one is 3x the speed of the Big Blue chess player from 1998 that weighed 2 tons!) and is probably a few steps about the fastest 8 core Xeon). Anyway... I could get the G4 to clock easily with a few dip switches on the Mac just to change the bus speed of the board and the multiplier. The range was within 200MHz that you could work - which just went to show, again, that they were all probably 400 or 450MHz chips, just underclocked and overclocked until the next one came along.

It finally topped out at 1.6GHz for a single unit (in a laptop of all places --- and it was hot), and there was no G5 laptop - that took 9 fans and liquid cooling in the tower to keep it cool. That was the IBM 970 (the G5)-- which went from 1.8 to roughly 2.6GHz
and that allowed performance to catch up until Intel finally unveiled the Core line.

It was perfect for everyone, PC & Mac. And Steve was the first to get those chips for Apple, and slap CoreSolos into the mini (which was about 2x the fastest G4 Apple used in the mini - 1.5GHz G4 vs a 1.83 CoreSolo).

I'll bet all those CoreSolo and core duos from 1.83 to 2.2GHz were all the same processor design, just batch variations, until they finally got SSE4 (128bit like the Altivec of the G4) and then even better at SSE4.2, for the 256bit SIMD instruction set - which THANKFULLY people actually program for - and uses it for extra power, even though it, like MMX before it, was primarily meant for scaling vector graphics or numbers crunched in that fashion. Photoshop and a few other apps were the only ones that used Altivec on the Mac, and parts of OS X, but other than that and some music/video applications, not enough was written using that SIMD - and today, whether Windows or OS X, there is quite a bit, and it is growing. Geez... add in the SLI / GPU capabilities that exist within some machines and the software running (I always look to Folding@Home and other distributed projects for being the furthest ahead in making use of parallel processors), we're going to see some killer products coming out - in both handset (next iPhone is to have twin ARMs) and iPad (rumored to be a twin and quad option in version 2.0).

If only we could flip a few dip switches on all the new stuff to upclock it all... and see where the batch performance levels are...

I was thinking the same thing. One thing I have heard around, multiple times is that those 920's were basically the same as the 950's in many cases. I couldnt find a place that sold 920's for a good price. I only paid 200 for my 950 at Microcemters tho. It would be awesome to get 4.5 on air!