I7 920 OC question

[dolshina]

While waiting for my parts to arrive for my first system build, I've been doing a lot of research into the i7 920 as well as the Asus P6T Deluxe board, to familiarize myself as much as possible about this hardware. I have a question that perhaps some one out there can answer for me. I've read on so many sights that a person took his i7 920 from 2.66ghz to 3.34ghz simply by increasing the bus speed from 133 to 166mhz, WITHOUT making any other BIOS system changes. Yet, in other posts I see alot of people making many other changes. Since I'm new to this, I'd like to know if it is true that bumping up the bus to 166mhz alone, is all that is required to reach 3.34ghz safely with no system problems. Thanks for your thoughts on this.

 

[flyin15sec]

Yes, it appears to OC easier with just the bclk increase. But you still have to worry about memory speed just like you do with socket 775.

 

[dolshina]

To flyin 15sec,

Thank you for your response. I guess going to 3.3Ghz is easy enough just by increasing the BCLK to 166mhz. As for the memory, I'll be using the Corsair Dominator 1866mhz ram. Am I correct in assuming that I won't have to touch any of the memory's settings?
Again, thanks for your input as this is rather new to me.

 

[flyin15sec]

Oh, that ram is plenty fast then. I only mention it because I read somewhere that the i7 920 default to 1066mhz RAM (133 * 8), so if you have slow RAM you'll be overclocking the RAM by alot (166 * 8).

 

[dolshina]

To flyin15sec,

Once again, thanks for your response. I'm sure I went overboard with the Ram but I decided that I wanted to get top quality hardware based the research that I did for about a month. My goal is to have a system that is as upgradable as possible to I can keep it for at least 3 or 4 years. I have parts coming today, Monday and Tues. If everything arrives on time and in good condition, I can start building this animal on Tues. evening next week. Here's what I've ordered;

Thermaltake Armor+ MX case
Asus P6T Deluxe motherboard
i7 920
Corsair DDR3-1866 Triple Memory Module Corsair Dominator w/cooling enclosure & fans
Corsair CMPSU-1000HX 1000 watt PSU
2 x 12" cold cathode blue lights
2 x 500GB Western Digital hard drives
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 superclocked
2 x cd/dvd optical drives, one Sony & one Asus
NZXT Sentry LX Aluminum Fan Control, Clock, and Temperature LCD Display
Flash Media Reader/Writer that handles about 40 different memory cards
Apevia Power Supply tester w/lcd voltage readout

Guess that's about it. I'm a little nervous about the project since this is my first time with this kind of a build. Just hope when I push the power button everything works, ha!

 

[flyin15sec]

Looks like a great build. Couple things that gets thumbs up from me.

The NZXT Sentry - this will add "flare" to your system.
Corsair 1000W PSU - Too much is always better than too little.

I won't be able to put together an i7 system until after this month. Good luck with your build.

 

[dolshina]

Thanks....you're right the PSU is a little overkill for now, as is the Ram. But, like I said I'm trying to future proof as much as I can.
Perhaps by the time you're ready to build yours, I'll be able to tell you all the mistakes that I made so you can avoid them, ha!

 

[sharken]

What are you using for CPU Cooler?

 

[dolshina]

Hi Sharken,
Actually I thought I'd use the stock cooler that comes with the CPU. I have read many people are at around 3.3 to 3.4GHZ, using the stock cooler with a good grade of thermal paste like AC5 or OCZ Freeze and they are experiancing temps around 70C under load from Prime95.
I figure I'll try it first and if I'm not happy with the stock cooler I can always go with any number of coolers which I have not yet researched. Right now I'll be happy if I can just build this thing without running into any serious problems, ha!

 

[sharken]

Yeah you probably could, they run warm though, but have a much higher temp threshold too, GL

 

[Liderc]

Stock cooler should be fine for low OC's, but if you're wanting 3.4+ I would suggest a new hsf.

 

[wimcle]

my mild oc with the stock cooler (3.2ghz) was 50 idle 80 p95 load ... a bit to warm for comfort, although gaming doesn't heat things up like prime95.