Overclocking Intel i7 950 problems

Reefsmoka

Reefsmoka

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Hey all, this questions probably aimed at the likes of V_R but any help would be welcome ^^

I bought the latest edition of Custom PC (Issue 91, April 2011) and it has a pretty in-depth article on overclocking and has a "how to" for quite a number of processors, including mine. So I followed all the instructions/guide to get mine clocked up from 3.2Ghz to 3.8Ghz but in the prime 95 small ftt's test, within 5 minutes the processor is soon upto 85c which is too damn hot really, when I run the same test at standard clock speeds to processor cruises at 64c. I was wondering if the guide is abit bad and could be tweaked abit better to lower the temps. The settings I used are as follows:

CPU Multi: 20
QPI/BCLK Frequency: 190
DRAM Frequency: 1523Mhz
CPU Voltage: 1.275v
CPU PLL Voltage: 1.9v
DRAM Bus Voltage: 1.65v
CPU Spread Spectrum: Disabled
PCI E Spread Spectrum: Disabled

My cooler is a Xigmatek Dark Knight with a 120mm fan attached, i have an intake fan (120mm) at the front of my case and an exhaust fan (120mm) at the rear, so i would imagine this is more than adequate for the job.
 
Hard to get a real temprature, as i opened 3 different temprature monitors and they all give different readings! (Coretemp, speed fan and speccy)
3differenttempratures.png
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What cooler are you using for the CPU?

If you want to overclock you'll need something better than the stock Intel cooler.

The fact it's staying stable at 3.8Ghz is a good sign though.

I wouldn't imagine using different settings to achieve 3.8Ghz would lower the temps, a frequncy is a frequency no matter how it's arrived at.

Having said that voltage adjustment may make a difference but I suspect it would be minimal.
 
Its a Xigmatek dark knight cooler with a 120mm fan attched.

Just played crysis at max settings for around an hour and the processor didnt go above 60c according to Core temp, which gave the highest reading out of all the temprature monitoring software I have. Seeing as my comp will 90% be used for gaming i think its a safe overclock.
 
Sounds ok to me.

Prime 95 is a very severe test.

Even if the CPU hits 85C I reckon it would be worthwhile to let Prime 95 have an extended run, just to satisfy yourself of the OC's stability.
 
Same stress test with no overclock sits at 69c-70c, with the overclock your looking at around 90c-95c. I think i'll leave the overclock for now, maybe get a better cooler in the future. Overclockers sold this system to me with a 4ghz overclock, how the hell would it be stable? No wonder it crashed like mad when i first go t it!
 
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