I7 920 with dummy oc / turbo mode question

[alan342]

I recently received all the parts in the mail and assembled my new i7 920 rig, and also took my first step into some light (hopefully) idiot proof overclocking.

I just wanted to confirm with somebody that knew better than me, the steps I took are the correct steps:

Going into the bios, I enabled the dummy oc feature, as well as turbo mode.. taking the cpu from 2.67 to 3.35 ghz.

Then, I adjusted the ram settings.. first switching to xmp profile 1, and then going back into the bios and changing the speed from 1033 to 1600 after noticing the frequency hadn't made the jump from 533 to 800. It's now at 800mhz.

Now, I made no adjustments to voltage or anything else.. and my main question is simply- is that all I need to do? I would hate to think I made these changes without making other necessary changes to keep things running smoothly and safely. I would hope that with a dummy oc / turbo mode feature.. and xmp profiles for the ocz ram, it would make the necessary changes for me.

Idle temperature hovered around the mid 30s at stock settings, and now is fairly consistent at 40c. While playing a game it can easily push to 60c and higher at times. Everything seems very stable and I've had no issues, but with this being my first attempt at altering ANYTHING in the bios, I would feel more comfortable asking the pros.

i7 920
evga x58
6gb ocz xmp ddr3 1600
dark knight cooler w/arctic silver 5
gtx 275
coolermaster haf 922

If any other info is needed, ask and I'll be happy to report. Thanks everyone.

 

[ewood]

run 4 instances of prime 95 for an hour if youre worried about it. if theres no errors id say you have a stable (and pretty nice) OC. if you do things more important than gaming you may want to run prime for longer, but imo an hour should give you a heads up if you have any serious stability issues.

 

[alan342]

Thank you for the point in the right direction.

I downloaded prime95 64 bit and within 3 minutes, 4 of the 8 tests had failed. Going back into bios I turned the ram back down from 1600 to 1067. My suspicion is that for some reason the pre set profiles (xmp) for the ram aren't supported, and my bumping it up to 1600 didn't automatically make the necessary adjustments to voltage and such.

I'm not celebrating yet, but have been running it now for 20 minutes without issue. Temps are around 80c, is this normal?

If the ram settings are the culprit, what is the proper way to get it to 1600mhz?

Thanks for the help, I really am a dummy when it comes to this stuff. Everybody has to start somewhere.

 

[alan342]

I just realized, my apologies, that this thread would be better suited to the overclocking section of the forum. I'm new here and had used this section of the forum before to talk about building a system at home, and didn't realize there was a section for overclocking.

Is there a way to request this thread be moved?

 

[sailer]

Thank you for the point in the right direction.

I downloaded prime95 64 bit and within 3 minutes, 4 of the 8 tests had failed. Going back into bios I turned the ram back down from 1600 to 1067. My suspicion is that for some reason the pre set profiles (xmp) for the ram aren't supported, and my bumping it up to 1600 didn't automatically make the necessary adjustments to voltage and such.

I'm not celebrating yet, but have been running it now for 20 minutes without issue. Temps are around 80c, is this normal?

If the ram settings are the culprit, what is the proper way to get it to 1600mhz?

Thanks for the help, I really am a dummy when it comes to this stuff. Everybody has to start somewhere.

I have found that temps in the area of 80c are normal with my i7 920, even with a TRUE and two fans. These are hot running chips that need all the cooling they can get. The Noctua and Coolermaster V8 heatsinks are said to cool better, though the current champ seems to be the Coolermaster V10, if it will fit into you case and budget. The Dark Knight that you presently have should be good for your overclock to 3.35ghz, but as you already know, its hot. I have my 920 overclocked to 3600mhz, so it demands a bit more cooling than your 3.35ghz.

I have Corsair ram rated at 1600mhz and can't get that high while retaining stability. I've got it a little over 1400mhz at the moment, and it runs there 24/7. I put the ram voltage up to 1.65v at the moment. Can't say if this would be best for your machine, but something to think about. You might check the OCZ website for specific tuning tips. That's what I did with my Corsair ram, checking the Corsair website, of course. Make sure you download and install the latest BIOS from EVGA. Some of their early BIOSs were not very good. Same with ASUS, Gigabyte, etc. If I remember correctly, the normal default of the ram on X58 boards should be 1333mhz, by the way. The automatic adjustments in the BIOS may or may not work correctly, some companies having a better BIOS in this regard than others. That's another reason to update the BIOS to the latest one. I use a ASUS board myself and I first let the board automatically adjust everything, wrote down the readings, and then manually adjusted as needed. I think there's still a lot of development needed concerning ram on the X58 boards, but that's just my opinion.