Maximum PC

Hey guys, so I came back home from Basic (Fort Benning - Sand Hill baby!) to find that my BIOS profiles had somehow been cleared in four months which got me to overclocking my desktop rig again.

Right now I would just like you guys to tell me if any of these voltages/settings are too high or not and want to make sure I'm not going to burn anything out on a 24-hour Prime95 run (wish I had saved the full template I used to have, and I'll work on reducing each one appropriately, of course). This was pretty much just a quick and dirty 3.8GHz tweak.

For the record, temps are more than fine and I'll be doing Prime burns when I get responses.

Turbo is off.
Hyperthreading is off.
Virtualization is off.
Load-Line Calibration is on.

Without further delay:




Thanks for taking a look at it with me, guys.

On a side note, I hate my RAM. Fact.

Not much of an attention span now, but use those Profile Saves. They're in the Boot Section.

Ah Sand Hill.... I'd like to say that I have fond memories of Charlie 1-50, but I don't. Road marching in sand is not natural, and neither was infantry basic...funny how I actually miss it. Anyway, reminiscing is not helping, so here you go. First of all, do you actually need the voltage bumps to run stable? I've seen plenty of proper OC's running @ 3.8Ghz with this CPU that required no extra voltage. If you are unstable, might I suggest that you revert to stock voltages and address some small issues that I see here.

First off, your QPI is too high. If there is an x32 setting available in the BIOS use it. If you were unstable in your initial overclock before adding juice, this is the likely cause.

Turn Load-Line Calibration off so you're running at Intel spec.

Check the suggested voltage of your RAM. It is likely 1.65V even though most BIOSes default to 1.5V for DDR3, and if you are OC'ing your RAM past spec those volts are important. If this is the case go ahead and bump it to 1.66V since that is likely the next available setting.

Leave everything else on Auto for now and stress the machine. Hit me back and let me know how it goes. Nothing wrong with overclocking if you can keep your gear cool, but over-volting when not necessary will shorten the lifespan of your components.

Make sure you look out for the brown recluse, and don't bother the endangered red-headed cocksucking woodpecker. Yeah you know what I'm talking about.

Found out all my troubles have never been the CPU as she's clipping along at 3.66 now with reduced voltage and proper suggested settings. My RAM has been the issue. It's OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600MHz RAM, and now I'm greatly regretting it. I have it under-clocked as far as it will go and running with 1.64v and finally the system seems stable (Hell, it will boot with the OC now instead of refusing to cold-boot).

Seems time to invest in new memory. Any suggestions? I actually want to see if I can get this C-step up to 4GHz.

Thanks all!

1st of all, I believe I suggested adding voltage to the RAM. In fact, I think you should take it up to 1.66V, probably the next setting in your BIOS, no?

If you want to push your CPU, buy any RAM from a reputable vendor that is rated for a higher speed than your motherboard calls for.

The RAM will clock down to a lower latency at slower speeds if that's how you choose to run it, and that in itself can improve performance.

My immediate suggestion would be to look for a good deal on something middle of the road i.e. Corsair XMS, Kingston HyperX, Gskill Ripjaws, etc.

Check the motherboards QVL, but RAM is dirt cheap right now and anything from an established mfg. with a speed rated a bit higher than your motherboard should suffice.