Overclocking with a P6T 920

[thatsnasty2]

Hey everyone, I've done my research a little bit and overclocked successfully to 3.5ghz on air.

My specs are:

Asus p6t deluxe
G.Skill 1333mhz 9-9-9-24 6gb ddr3
True-120 with 1366 mounting bracket
260gtx
Corsair tx-750

Basically I have some questions about my overclock and temperatures. I'm not the most knowledgeable person when it comes to overclocking so all the settings are at auto in my motherboard. The only ones I changed are voltage at 1.25v, Dram voltage at 1.5 (minimum for my memory), bclock to 175, turned off turbo mode, but left speed step on.

My ram is also running at just over 1400mhz with this overclock at 8-8-8-20 timings stable.

My questions are:

If I plan to overclock a little more, do I need to increase Northbridge voltage and qpi voltage? If I leave them at auto (like I do now) will they stay at stock voltages?

I left speedstep on, so my processor throttles down to 2100mhz and back to 3500mhz when it's needed to save power. I had to change my voltage to 1.25 from auto though because if I don't, the processor will overvolt it when speeding back up. My question is anyone overclocking with speedstep with a set voltage as well? Is it safe for long term use to have it speed up and slow down constantly?

What temperature monitoring programs does everyone use? What are your temps at load? I'm getting about 74 celsius at load with Coretemp, but Realtemp is reading about 69-70 max, and Speedfan is reading even less then both of them (65ish). This is all at 3500mhz. Does anyone have a similar setup, or has overclocked to 3.5ghz as well? Share your stories and temps and information if possible.

Thanks for reading.

 

[thatsnasty2]

bump, no one?

 

[Zero82z]

If I plan to overclock a little more, do I need to increase Northbridge voltage and qpi voltage? If I leave them at auto (like I do now) will they stay at stock voltages?

You might need to raise them. The only way to know is to try things out and see if it's stable without raising them. If it isn't, then try raising them a bit at a time and do some more stability testing. As for the motherboard's Auto setting, it does not mean the voltages will be kept at stock. The motherboard will raise the voltages automatically to compensate for any changes you make. However, the BIOS will often overcompensate, so it's a good idea to do all your voltage tweaking manually, and any voltages you want to keep at stock should be set manually as well.

I left speedstep on, so my processor throttles down to 2100mhz and back to 3500mhz when it's needed to save power. I had to change my voltage to 1.25 from auto though because if I don't, the processor will overvolt it when speeding back up. My question is anyone overclocking with speedstep with a set voltage as well? Is it safe for long term use to have it speed up and slow down constantly?

Speedstep is perfectly safe to leave enabled at all times. It has no effect on overclocking, so you may as well just leave it on since it'll end up saving you power.

What temperature monitoring programs does everyone use? What are your temps at load? I'm getting about 74 celsius at load with Coretemp, but Realtemp is reading about 69-70 max, and Speedfan is reading even less then both of them (65ish). This is all at 3500mhz. Does anyone have a similar setup, or has overclocked to 3.5ghz as well? Share your stories and temps and information if possible.

I prefer Real Temp, but make sure you're using the latest beta version since previous ones don't properly support Core i7 CPUs, and have incorrect Tjmax values for certain CPUs. You can get the latest beta here: http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/3/3/1794507/RealTempBeta.zip
Real Temp and Core Temp should both read your temperatures correctly, but I wouldn't really trust Speedfan unless it gives you the same values.

 

[thatsnasty2]

Thanks, I got that version of RealTemp and it's reading the exact same as core temp, looks like I'm good to go. I actually just messed around with speed fan to see what it would read for the hell of it, I don't like it for temperatures personally. Coretemp is cool though because it shows up on my G15 screen while gaming

Is there a way to check the stock settings of QPI and NB? I totally forgot what they were supposed to be at. The only thing I remember is CPU at 1.25v.

I also got my CPU voltage to throttle. Now it goes up to 1.248 and down to 1.23 as the core speeds up and goes down. I don't know why it's doing it, but since I messed with voltage and lowered it to 1.24 in bios it seems to be.

It still doesn't make sense why it's going above what I set though, it's fluctuating between 1.24 and 1.248 in CPUZ at load, weird. As long as its stable though I guess? It never did it before though and I didn't change ANYTHING but voltage.

Edit: I read somewhere that this is load line calibration raising it. I haven't touched that feature at all though. Maybe I'll just game tomorrow to see if it crashes. It seems stable at 3.5 now, but hopefully it's fine when going up or down constantly.

 

[Zero82z]

Edit: I read somewhere that this is load line calibration raising it. I haven't touched that feature at all though. Maybe I'll just game tomorrow to see if it crashes. It seems stable at 3.5 now, but hopefully it's fine when going up or down constantly.

Yes, it is fine. That's supposed to happen.