Suggestions on OC and

[chris13002]

I am a newbie at overclocking and therefore have not attempted it yet... but definitely have plans...
Here is my setup...

Antec Twelve Hundred Case...
Asus P6X58D-E MB
i7 970 Processor
Corsair XMS3 1600 6GB (7-8-7-20 timings)
EVGA GTX 580
Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium
2x OCZ Vertex 30GB RAID 0 SSD + 2TB Seagate Barracuda XT (SATA 6GB)
Corsair 750 Watt PSU

I just built everything... put it together, and ran into the issue on the ASUS MB when the front USB's are plugged in, I get (usb over current status detected with front port), so I re-screwed all MB screws, checked all pins, and this seems to be stemming from the Case itself... Only does it while the 5 pins from the front USB connectors are plugged in...(tried both USB ports on the motherboard) This isn't a big deal and am looking into this... Any suggestions...???

Anyways, my main question is how should I overclock this? EVERYTHING is currently stock and I have been reading here and there about overclocking but have a few questions...

To my knowledge, shouldn't the RAM should be running stock at 1066MHZ??? I left everything on the ASUS MB auto/stock... To change it or make it correct, I am reading that XMP (extreme memory profiler) with manual timing settings should set this right without overclocking the CPU. Shall I do this or set the XMP to auto and let it do it's own thing? From what I believe the RAM is XMP certified... Or should I start this with overclocking the CPU and set the RAM timings based on the CPU overclock at the same time???
Any suggestions or experience with the same setup? I read a few differences with higher BCLK + low multiplier vs higher multipler + lower BCLK.... Lower BCLK seems better as it will require less voltage mods...

My main goal for the i7 970 is 4GHZ... I know the stock coolers aren't great, but this stock cooler actually looks fairly useful as it's the same as the i7-980x... From experience, should I even attempt this? The case seems to have very good airflow so I was maybe going to attempt 4GHZ... Or should I just stick with the RAM only OC with XMP and wait to overclock with a better cooler (checking out H70)...

Any suggestions will be appreciated... I game and want to put the full use of my system(especially RAM since I am certain it's only running at the auto 1066MHZ)...

 

[Motopsychojdn]

Your ram should be marked as 800Mhz or thereabouts, double that is your 1600Mhz (double data rate)
auto will usually set you quite low of the mark
Most on here would recommend a H212,Noctua 14 or similar over your stock cooler if your going for 4GHz
not sure on your other points though sorry
Moto

 

[chris13002]

You are right...
I just went ahead and set the XMP on and it automatically set the memory settings/and CPU cores to the optimal settings. 3.2 GHZ for CPU and 1600 MHZ RAM. Like you mentioned, CPU-Z memory shows DRAM as 801 MHZ and timings are all correct... on Stock it was at 600 MHZ...
I also did a "winsat mem" in the command prompt (as administrator) and it jumped from ~13GB/sec to 17334.58MB/sec so this sounds about right... Not much tweakage...
For a newbie i'm liking XMP with my setup... I will hold off overclocking the CPU for now... 3.2 GHZ is fast enough for gaming and I am thinking of just getting another GTX 580 in SLI for a significant upgrade... I am still noticing slow-downs (around 10 FPS minimums) on Metro 2033 with everything on... and am disappointed... which you definitely notice on highly lighted scenes....

 

[JackNaylorPE]

For a cooler, pick from the "Top performers" here:

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=447&Itemid=62

I just went ahead and set the XMP on and it automatically set the memory settings/and CPU cores to the optimal settings

Good starting point but you CPU is prolly running 10C or so hotter than it needs to....at least that's my experience with Asus XMP or CPU Level Up features. Using those features na 920, at 3.33 GHz my son was at 72C ... doing it manually at 3.78, he's at 55-58C on the 4 cores.

Follow the instructions here, particularly the sections on voltage optimization.

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20081220191040237&board_id=1&model=P6T+Deluxe&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

Voltage optimization

At least CPU Voltage and QPI/DRAM Core Voltage should be set manually.

When you are satisfied with your overclock, I recommend optimizing CPU Voltage and QPI/DRAM Core Voltage, which means finding the lowest possible voltage where 100% Prime95 stability is maintained for at least overnight.

Start with optimizing the CPU Voltage by lowering the CPU Voltage by 1-2 notch(es) at a time, until Prime95 stops the execution within 10 minutes – then increase the voltage by 1 notch at a time and test again. In the end, Prime95 should be able to run for at least overnight.

Use Prime95, the same way as described for the CPU Voltage, to find the lowest possible QPI/DRAM Core Voltage that allows the PC to run error free under stress for at least overnight.

Finally, run Memtest86+ (version 4.20, or later) to verify that Memtest86+ runs totally error free for at least overnight. If any error, try with increasing QPI/DRAM Core Voltage by 1 notch at a time until Memtest86+ runs error free

.

The guide is set up for the 950/960 but it's generic enough for you to figure it out