Upgrading computer, need your views/opinions

[MrGreen 0]

Kevin: Sounds interesting, i opened up my computer and found out that i cant put my second graphics card in the 8x PCI-E port so the PCI sound card is out of the picture. I do have a pci-e 1x port though so pci-e soundcards should work, but im a little worried that the pci-e 1x port is too close to my northbridge, dont know how that would affect thermal performance. So maybe the USB- soundcard is the best for me, i looked up some and they were pretty cheap (about 50-70USD) X-fi Go looked nice, but they are all 16bit which is worse than my 24bit PCI-card, do you know how much of a difference that would make? Is it an improvement over a integrated realtek chip?Luckyman: Thanks for the reply, i am still a little confused however. Are timings important to change if you want to overclock? Also with my current ram to cpu ratio, the DRAM freq would be at almost 2000 Mhz if i overclocked my 950 to 4Ghz with a 24 multiplier, i have heard that odd numbers are more stable, is this true, and if so i would have to up the fsb even more, would my rams take it?Lastly, OC seems a bit out of reach at the moment because i keep having problems with my CPU temps. Even with the 2 fan NH-D14 and its NT-H1 thermal paste i have idle temps at 35 (highest core) 31 (lowest core). This is a bit of a dissapointment. When blend testing with prime95 realtemp reads the maximum of 74c after only 10 minutes, that can't be right? All this were with the NT-H1 paste applied in a 5mm dot in the center of the CPU and then with the heatsink rotated a bit to spread it out. I have a tube of Arctic Silver Alumina, maybe i should try that? And maybe the line method is better :)Anyway these themps were at stock clock (or actually realtemp read 3.2ghz, 24 multiplier i presume) I would really appreciate it if people with the 950 could share their stock temps at idle and load.Thanks

[bushpilotwannabe 0]

Don't get too hung up on your idle temps, as programs like RealTemp are designed to read temps much more accurately under load than at idle. Besides, the i7s run hotter than most CPUs. Mine sits in the low 30s when idle at 3.8GHz with HT on, which is a little lower, but yours aren't exceedingly high. I reseated the heat sink this weekend, and before my idle temps were in the mid 30s, so it helped a little. You may want to google applying thermal paste for your particular cooler and reseat it if you're disappointed after you've tried overclocking.Having said that, your load temps are kind of high for that low of a clock. Lowering your VCore will lower your temps, so I'd suggest looking for a lower one that maintains stability and seeing what kind of temps you get. I'm not 100% sure, but I think mine runs somewhere in the 60s when Prime testing at 3.2 GHz. Also, there's a setting that goes by various names (Vdroop, Load Line Calibration, etc.) that controls voltage spikes, but on mine I was able to get much higher stable overclocks with it off. Be careful doing that, though, since voltages can spike by .1V or more. Based on info I've read from Intel, I gather that the i7 900 series is rated to take VCore up to 1.375V (but many users go above that) and spikes of up to 1.55V, but don't quote me on that. I have mine set in the neighborhood of 1.225V, so I'm not worried about spikes going over 1.55V and I don't mind leaving Vdroop off. There's a lot more information (and misinformation) out there about it and I'm certainly not the expert on this sort of thing, so do some more research if you plan to leave it off, but it's something to consider if you run into stability issues when OCing. If you do choose to leave it off long-term, definitely test using OCCT and look at the VCore graphs it provides to be sure it doesn't fluctuate outside the chip's functional range.If you like, I can do a quick-and-dirty 3.2 GHz OC on my 930 when I get home and tell you the load and idle temps as a data point. They probably wouldn't be exactly the same as I'd get on a 950, but should be close.

[luckyman 0]

Kevin: Sounds interesting, i opened up my computer and found out that i cant put my second graphics card in the 8x PCI-E port so the PCI sound card is out of the picture. I do have a pci-e 1x port though so pci-e soundcards should work, but im a little worried that the pci-e 1x port is too close to my northbridge, dont know how that would affect thermal performance. So maybe the USB- soundcard is the best for me, i looked up some and they were pretty cheap (about 50-70USD) X-fi Go looked nice, but they are all 16bit which is worse than my 24bit PCI-card, do you know how much of a difference that would make? Is it an improvement over a integrated realtek chip?Luckyman: Thanks for the reply, i am still a little confused however. Are timings important to change if you want to overclock? Also with my current ram to cpu ratio, the DRAM freq would be at almost 2000 Mhz if i overclocked my 950 to 4Ghz with a 24 multiplier, i have heard that odd numbers are more stable, is this true, and if so i would have to up the fsb even more, would my rams take it?Lastly, OC seems a bit out of reach at the moment because i keep having problems with my CPU temps. Even with the 2 fan NH-D14 and its NT-H1 thermal paste i have idle temps at 35 (highest core) 31 (lowest core). This is a bit of a dissapointment. When blend testing with prime95 realtemp reads the maximum of 74c after only 10 minutes, that can't be right? All this were with the NT-H1 paste applied in a 5mm dot in the center of the CPU and then with the heatsink rotated a bit to spread it out. I have a tube of Arctic Silver Alumina, maybe i should try that? And maybe the line method is better :)Anyway these themps were at stock clock (or actually realtemp read 3.2ghz, 24 multiplier i presume) I would really appreciate it if people with the 950 could share their stock temps at idle and load.Thanks

But no look, if you use CPU multiplier of 22 to get to 4GHz that means BCLK of 182 so your ram multipier would be 1600MHz / 182 = 8.8 but the closest multipier is 8 not 24So your RAM would beUNERCLOCKED at 1452Mhz which isn't a big deal.

[dazz 69]

Isn't the multi calculated with the real RAM clock? I mean double data rate at 1600 and 200 FSB, the multi is: (1600 / 2) / 200 = 4. Or is it just the way those boards handle the multiplier?It's not like it really matters all that much anyway

[MrGreen 0]

Hi again, i reseated the heatsink (probably the third time in two days) and rotated it all so that the Noctua fans are blowing up. I had it blowing back before because i had mistakenly thought that the 200mm fan on the top of the case was an intake fan (where is the facepalm smiley?). Now the noctua fans are blowing up and the air is then blown out of the case through the 200mm fan instead of the 120mm back fan. I have tried to set up all the cables as good as i can, with a semi modular PSU and two graphics card it is not perfect but i think that it could've been a lot worse. With the new setup my tcase temp is at 25c idle* (haven't been bothered to wait for 10 minutes to get a real idle) and in prime94 small fft's the temps doesn't go over 64c. This is with Vcore set at auto so i presume that i will get lower temps if/when i set it to manual.Speaking of that, i read a thread with examples of bios settings for stable 4Ghz OC's on the same motherboard i have but with a 920. Now i know that no two mobo's/cpu's are the same but if i tried replicate it but with a 24 multiplier (so a lower BCLK) would that mean i could have a lower Vcore? Also how dangerous is it to just copy bios settings straight off (eventhough they are stable at other computers) instead of working yourself up to these settings? If i use a 920/930 guide for overclocking, which differences should i keep in mind?

[luckyman 0]

Isn't the multi calculated with the real RAM clock? I mean double data rate at 1600 and 200 FSB, the multi is: (1600 / 2) / 200 = 4. Or is it just the way those boards handle the multiplier?It's not like it really matters all that much anyway

Yeah I don't know about the i5 but the i7 doesn't work like like that anymore it's a lot more complicated there's no such thing as FSB etc. Anyway i'm sure what I wrote is right.

[luckyman 0]

Hi again, i reseated the heatsink (probably the third time in two days) and rotated it all so that the Noctua fans are blowing up. I had it blowing back before because i had mistakenly thought that the 200mm fan on the top of the case was an intake fan (where is the facepalm smiley?). Now the noctua fans are blowing up and the air is then blown out of the case through the 200mm fan instead of the 120mm back fan. I have tried to set up all the cables as good as i can, with a semi modular PSU and two graphics card it is not perfect but i think that it could've been a lot worse. With the new setup my tcase temp is at 25c idle* (haven't been bothered to wait for 10 minutes to get a real idle) and in prime94 small fft's the temps doesn't go over 64c. This is with Vcore set at auto so i presume that i will get lower temps if/when i set it to manual.Speaking of that, i read a thread with examples of bios settings for stable 4Ghz OC's on the same motherboard i have but with a 920. Now i know that no two mobo's/cpu's are the same but if i tried replicate it but with a 24 multiplier (so a lower BCLK) would that mean i could have a lower Vcore? Also how dangerous is it to just copy bios settings straight off (eventhough they are stable at other computers) instead of working yourself up to these settings? If i use a 920/930 guide for overclocking, which differences should i keep in mind?

I think it's pretty safe to copy settings.... EXCEPT voltages which can vary a lot depeding on chip and motherboard. Make sure the guide uses the same brand motherboard as you. And I don't think the multiplier really affects the Vcore, it's just the final frequency that it has to produce that effects how much Vcore you need. Proceed with caution when ajusting the voltage.this is a great guide even though it's for the i7-920 http://www.clunk.org...-beginners.html The differnces would be the multiplier and some freqencies but just use the principles in the guide so you know your voltages.

[MrGreen 0]

Thanks luckyman, i actually have that one bookmarked :) What i meant with the multiplier was that as i have a higher multiplier i don't have to have as high BCLK compared to the example, wouldn't that mean i can have a lower vcore?With the examples of other people having stable 4Ghz the motherboard was the same type as mine, P6x58D, but i guess that the voltages would still be different because of the 920 being different to the 950?Also in the guide you posted it states that i should set my memory timings, my DDR3 has 9-9-9-24 i think, would i need to change that if i were to overclock? Also i read from someone that had changed his timings to 8-8-8-24, why would you do that? Is it lower is better?Lastly isn't it only the voltages that can have a damaging effect on hardware, i.e. if i were to keep the Vcore under 1.3 but up the BCLK too much, wouldn't the computer just be unable to boot without it taking any damage?

[luckyman 0]

Thanks luckyman, i actually have that one bookmarked :) What i meant with the multiplier was that as i have a higher multiplier i don't have to have as high BCLK compared to the example, wouldn't that mean i can have a lower vcore?With the examples of other people having stable 4Ghz the motherboard was the same type as mine, P6x58D, but i guess that the voltages would still be different because of the 920 being different to the 950?Also in the guide you posted it states that i should set my memory timings, my DDR3 has 9-9-9-24 i think, would i need to change that if i were to overclock? Also i read from someone that had changed his timings to 8-8-8-24, why would you do that? Is it lower is better?Lastly isn't it only the voltages that can have a damaging effect on hardware, i.e. if i were to keep the Vcore under 1.3 but up the BCLK too much, wouldn't the computer just be unable to boot without it taking any damage?

Okay so here we gofirst off I'm pretty sure that the Vcore is only affected by the final fequency it doesn't matter what your BCLK is and generaly becasue you'll have the same voltage at the end as someone with a ex. i7-930 the voltage would proably be around the same but it differs a bit depending on the board and your specific hardware.Next, Set your timmings to the default timmings on the memory, what it's rated to run at basicly. It can differ depending on the specific memory. The lower the timming the faster but it won't make a big differnce barely noticable.And finally no. A frequency that's too high can also damage the chip but as long as your not being rediculous like setting it to 6Ghz it won't be a factor, It's all about Vcore.