***Added a few more tips to my guide

Very nice guide, very well written :)

Safe VTT would be +250mv and lower. I would not go over +350 for 24/7 use even with liquid cooling.

I remember someone who posted on here about checking his X58 Classified board with a multimeter. He set his vdimm to 1.65 and sure enough E-leet says 1.69-1.7, but when he used the multimeter it was 1.65XXXv. I am not sure about the non-classified boards, these boards probably do have a little voltage gain on the vdimm but I would still think E-Leet is over shooting on the Vdimm and VTT.

from one noob to another, i'd recommend reading the info on page 1 a few times, having a think about it, then reading it again a few times. Then when your ready, change the settings in the "overclock" section of the guide to what would be suitable for your system.. based on the advice given at the start of the guide.

I was going to pay someone to do this *properly*  but it literaly took 5 minutes to get it up 3.6. (and that was because it took me 3 minutes to build up the courage to turn the system back on :P )

Thanks again Chronic :)

kaptainkarl76

okay..i started off at the 173 baseclock and increased to about 180..now here are a couple of things i found odd..maybe someone can shed some light...

my auto vcore was showing up as 1.24 in the bios to start..so i decreased it by 3 notches and followed the guide..when i got to the 180 mark i increased my vcore by 1 notch in the bios..it said 1.25000v when i booted back up eleet was showing 1.31v


i have vdroop off..but when i run linx the vcore drops..which is the opposite of what it should be doing as per your guide

so i started over, reset the cmos..i'm at 173x21 again with vdroop off, vcore auto, vdimm 1.60, vtt +100, everything else on auto..i've stopped there because i'm not sure why the vdroop is doing what its doing as described above..

I would say that you settings are not sticking.. as you know, with Vdroop off your vcore should rise a little under load (.03-.05V) .. what i would try is set Vdroop off in bios and while still on that page of the bios just hit F10... good luck

well..i reset the bios again and set it to vdroop and left everything auto and even did the F10 on the voltage screen..still, the voltages drop with vdroop off..and also does the same with it on...now i'm really confused..i have the latest bios revision (not the new beta 43) for the x58 SLI....i know it has worked before...should i reflash the bios?

Hello.  I recently finished my first build and have been pouring over this and other threads trying to learn about overclocking.  I'm really not trying to do anything that extreme, just wanted to see if I could mildly overclock my system and have it run stable.

Here is my situation:

I have a the EVGA e758-A1 and a core i7 920 with the stock heatsink and fan.  I made some changes in the bios right out of the box based on some forum posts and Newegg reviews that stated I needed to manually adjust some memory settings to make my OCZ gold 1600 memory work correctly.  This involved manually changing the timings to 8-8-8-24, the frequency to 1600mhz (2:12) and adjusting the voltage for CPU VTT (+150mV) and DIMM voltage to 1.65v.  Also it was recommended to change the MEM LOW GAP to 3GB.

With that all done, everything worked great and I really have no practical need to try and overclock right now.  However, my propensity for tinkering has led me here.  At first I didn't want to mess with the overclocking settings because my cpu seemed to be running really hot at no load (about 50C).  After much frustration, I realized that the cpu heatsink had not been properly seated on my first install.  Once I resolved that, it was running much cooler (30C at no load).

So, after reading through Chronic's very helpful guide a few times, I tried a pretty mild overclock to get up to about 3330mhz.  I've been putting it through it's paces with Prime95 and LinX and have had no issues at the current settings.  It's idling at about 34C and runs at about 74C during Prime95.  LinX pushed the temp to a similar level.

Here are my current settings (in conjunction with or superceding those already made to the memory as referenced above):

Memory:
1333 (2:10)
Mem Low Gap 3G
8-8-8-24

Voltage:
Vdroop = On
CPU Vcore = 1.26875
CPU VTT +150mV
CPU PLL VCore = Auto
DIMM voltage = 1.65V
QPI PLL Vcore = Auto

CPU:
CPU Host Freq = 159
Target CPU Freq showing as 3346 Mhz (159x21)
Target Mem Freq = 1593Mhz
CPU Uncore Freq = 3186Mhz (20x)

Everything else is on auto or default.

So, my question is whether there is anything I've forgotten or left out that could cause any damage? Are any of the listed settings problematic for what I'm doing.  Thanks to whomever takes the time to read this long post and let me know if I should post any additional settings or info.

Thank you



My System
Motherboard - EVGA 132-BL-E758-A1 X58
Video Card - EVGA 896-P3-1257-AR GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked Ed.
CPU - Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield (stock cooler)
RAM - OCZ Gold 6GB (3 x 2GB) Model OCZ3G1600LV6GK
Power Supply - Antec TPQ-850 850W Continuous Power 80 PLUS BRONZE
CD/DVD - LITE-ON Black SATA DVD Writer iHAS424-98
HD - Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Case - Antec 300 (Replaced stock 120mm fan with cooler master fan and added 2 of same to front of case)

Thanks for the reply!

Like I said, I'm new to this so I'm trying to understand the steps as best as possible.  Without getting into the functions of the items you mentioned, let me see if I understand the overall theme, at least as it applies to my particular setup.

The goal, at this point, is to lower the vcore and vtt as low as possible to keep the lowest voltage and temp possible but yet still have the system be stable.  Is that correct?

Does that apply to the CPU PLL and IOH PLL that you mentioned as well?  I'm not even sure what those two items are or do, so I apologize if that part goes over my head a bit.


Thank you

^

Sorry to say this but for 4ghz you are probably going to need 1.40625 on the Vcore (Without Vdroop)

Adjust VTT according to the Uncore frequency. I need +150VTT @ 3666 Uncore,  +250VTT @ 3833 Uncore,  and +350VTT @ 4010 Uncore.
You should be about the same.

Wow. bumped it all the way up to 195 and still with a 1.3 vcore. Very Nice!  I only said bump it to 1.4 because I thought your 3.85ghz overclock was at its lowest vcore. Since you can do 1.3 vcore at 4.1ghz you could probably get away with 1.2 vcore @ 3.85ghz.
Vtt can remain lower than I mentioned because you are not using the 2:10 divider (which overclocks the Uncore Frequency)   When you post your settings it is a good idea to put the Uncore Frequency up there as well. So I can determine if your VTT can be lowered even further.

Thanks. Good idea.

XXChronicXX

Wow. bumped it all the way up to 195 and still with a 1.3 vcore. Very Nice!  I only said bump it to 1.4 because I thought your 3.85ghz overclock was at its lowest vcore. Since you can do 1.3 vcore at 4.1ghz you could probably get away with 1.2 vcore @ 3.85ghz.
Vtt can remain lower than I mentioned because you are not using the 2:10 divider (which overclocks the Uncore Frequency)   When you post your settings it is a good idea to put the Uncore Frequency up there as well. So I can determine if your VTT can be lowered even further.

yeah I kinda of skipped the step about finding the lowest vcore at first. Just went off your examples. Im in the process of lowering it now using your guide. Its at 1.2973v atm and nearly done 16/20 passes in linx.

I was just checking something though.. in E-leet its reporting my ram as 11-11-11-28-88-1T
so i had a look in the bios and i actualy had all the values set to auto (using standard, not XMP) so i changed them to 7-7-7-20-88-1T but the PC wouldnt boot.  It got to the C1 just before it does the ram checks with 25/26. Anyways so i reset bios and set it all back up again.  Its running fine as 11 11 11 stability wise.... but is that alright?.. or should it realy be running at 7 7 7 20 as thats what my ram is ?? Oh yeah E-leet reports the ram at 792 (half of my 1586) so thats alright i think.

Also.. My ram is now running at 1586 (1600 max), so how do i go about overclocking further (assuming the above 11 11 11 thing isnt a concern) ?? Cooling and everything is all still good.

Ive listed my template below aswell
- thanks heaps again :)

Mother Board ( EVGA X58 Classified SLI 760 )                                                      
Bios ( the one that ends in B )                                                                                                    
 CPU ( 920D0 )                    
CPU Cooler ( TRUE 120 )
Memory ( Corsair Dominator GT 1600 7 7 7 20 )
PSU ( Corsair HX1000W )
GPU ( GTX285 )
Drivers ( 196.21 )                                                                                                 
Operating System ( Windows 7 64 Ultimate )


Frequency Control
CPU Clock Ratio ( 20X )                                                                                        
CPU Host Frequency (Mhz) ( 198 )                                                                     
MCH Strap ( Auto )
CPU speed..... 4164
RAM speed..... 1586
CPU Uncore Frequency (Mhz) ( 3176Mhz { 16X } )                                               
CPU Clock Skew ( 0 ps )
Spread Spectrum ( Disabled )
PCIE Frequency (Mhz) ( 100 )

Memory Feature       
Memory Speed ( standard )
Memory Control Setting ( Enabled )
Memory Frequency ( 1067Mhz / 2:8 )                                                               
Channel Interleave Setting ( 6 Way )
Rank Interleave Setting ( 4 Way )
Memory Low Gap ( Auto )

Voltage Control
EVGA VDroop Control ( Without VDroop )
CPU VCore ( 1.3000 )                                                                                               
CPU VTT Voltage ( +175 )
CPU PLL VCore ( auto )
**IOH PLL VCore ( auto )
DIMM Voltage ( 1.65 )
DIMM DQ Vref ( +0mV )
QPI PLL VCore ( 1.125 )
IOH VCore ( Auto )
IOH/ICH I/O Voltage ( Auto )

**VTT PWM Frequency ( 250 KHZ )
**CPU PWM Frequency ( 800 KHZ )
**CPU Impedance ( auto )
**QPI Signal Compensation ( auto )
ICH VCore ( Auto )

CPU Feature
Intel SpeedStep ( Disabled )
Turbo Mode Function ( Enabled )
CxE Function ( Disabled )
Execute Disable Bit ( Disabled )
Virtualization Technology ( Disabled )
Intel HT Technology ( Disabled )
Active Processor Cores ( All )
QPI Control Settings ( Enabled )
QPI Link Fast Mode ( Enabled )
QPI Frequency Selection ( 4.800 GT/s )
 

oh yip cool thanks for that. 8-8-8 worked, wierd though FSX had the occasional stutter (exact same fps though) I rebooted/loaded fsx 6 times and changed it from 8-8-8 back to 11-11-11 each time and would always only do it on 8-8-8. If FSX is happy with 11 then i'm happy :)

How would you go about overclocking once you reach the max speed of the ram ?

kalen37

XXChronicXX

Your VTT seems a little high for only 3200mhz on Uncore. I would try 150 or 125 and get that stable first. Then you can try setting the timings to 8-8-8-24 and see if you can still post. Don't forget, vdimm too high will cause instability too. If your ram is underclocked, the 1.65 spec will probably be too much vdimm.

OK. So CPU clock is 20X. Set CPU host frequency to 200 and Uncore frequency to 16X (double 2:8)
 
reboots gets to the Windows 7 loading screen and freezes.
 
Increased Vcore to 1.35 and same thing.
 
Suggestions?
 
I7 920 on a classified 759

I need more info on your settings. Please post a bios template so I can have a look. It is most likely a ram issue since you are freezing and not BSODing.