SAFE Overclocking! 7/24 i7930 + GA-X58A-UD3R & Testing Utilities

[jaquith]

I am new to all this and so far this is a great forum community. So Thanks for Help!

I want to OC my new i7 930 [*AND*] NOT WORRY about burning-out the components, and I get that everyone wants the "magic 4+ GHz" but if your system is useless after 6 months to a year to "me" that's crazy.

I have the following components and it's not a stellar system, but it's all I can afford.

CPU: i7 930 (2.8 MHz)
MOBO: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R
RAM: 6GB (2GBx3) DDR3/1600MHz (Corsair Dominator)
FAN: Asetek 510LC Liquid Cooling System 120MM Radiator & Single Fan (same as Corsair H50)
FAN2: (x2) 120MM Case Cooling Fans (side)
HDD1: 128 GB Kingston 2.5 inch SATA Gaming MLC SSD
HDD2-3: (1TBx2) RAID 1 SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD
VIDEO: (x2 Crossfire) ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB - [just added the second]
PSU: Corsair 750 Watts CMPSU-750TX
CASE: CoolerMaster 690 II Advanced
DVD: LG 22X DVD±/±RW + CD-R/RW Dual Layer
OS: Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)

From another post I did read a good guide, with the "How To" but I am interested in "Longterm" affects.
Guide - http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20081220191040237&board_id=1&model=P6T+Deluxe&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

I looked at the Chart [Overclockings for Core i7 930 / Core i7 960] and noticed everything beyond the 3.52 GHz yielded a "RED" values??!!

So far the following OC settings seems to interest me, and just because I parrot them doesn't mean I understand them completely.
Base Clock (BCLK) MHz =160
Memory Multiplier DRAM Freq. MHz = 10 <=> DDR3-1600
Uncore Multiplier UCLK Freq. MHz = 20 <=> 3200
QPI Multiplier QPI Freq. MT/s = 18 (36) <=> 5760
CPU i7 930 Multiplier Freq. GHz = 22 <=> 3.52

Math:

CPU Frequency = BCLK x CPU Multiplier
CPU Frequency = 160 MHz X 22 = 3520 or 3.52 GHz
Stock:
CPU Frequency = 133.33 MHz X 21 = 2800 or 2.8 GHz

Testing & Benchmark Tools: Prime95, CPU-Z, CoreTemp 0.99.6, Memtest86+, & 3DMarkVantage

1. Prime 95 as a "Stress Test" [overnight.]
link - http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft/

2. CPU-Z for Settings Summary
link - http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

3. CoreTemp 0.99.6
http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

4. Memtest86+ to check memory corruption
link - http://www.memtest.org/

5. 3DMark (I'm a little fuzzy which version, I assume 3DMarkVantage since it's current)
link - http://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/3dmarkvantage/introduction/

************
* Questions: *
************

1. What are safe & longterm stable OC speeds for an i7 930 with a "Basic" water cooling?
2. What, if any, Benchmarking or Testing tools should I use?
3. What are the safe & longterm stable OC speeds for the Corsair Dominator DDR3/1600 MHz?

 

[jaquith]

Moved from General -> Intel
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum-29-347.html

 

[JackNaylorPE]

I answered this yesterday......please stick to one thread per subject.

 

[jaquith]

Best answer selected by jaquith.
n
nNewcomers try to post in the best place, and sometimes make innocent errors.