i7 970 - The Search for 5GHZ Review
The Search for 5GHZ
Published: 14th September 2010 | Source: OC3D | Price: £680 |
The search for 5GHZ on air!
Back in August OC3D we lucky enough to review the new i7 970, the first of the non extreme branded hex cores from Intel. It became apparent very quickly that this was not a CPU that wanted to be left at stock clocks twiddling its thumbs. Oh no far from it my good friend this was a CPU very much into the dark side of life, my mind is immediately thinking of abuse and bondage but I think that's just a hint at what goes on in my mind rather than what the CPU actually is capable of.
4ghz at 200x20 with 2000MHz RAM clock was 100% stable at just 1.225v, now this is far from abusive, some would say that's hardly stretching the old girls legs! So on we plodded looking to see how far we could push the CPU, keeping the main settings the same and just playing with the multiplier and Vcore brought us 4.8GHz 24x200 with 2000MHz RAM very easily.
Sometimes the amount of time we can get to spend on a review can be very limited, the 970 did leave us feeling that with a little extra time it had more to offer. 4GHz is all too easy with Intel CPU's its practically expected, 4.5GHz isn't that hard for the more extreme CPU's either. So with this in mind and knowing we had already achieved 4.8GHz there was a glimmer of hope that we might, just might be able to crack the 5GHz barrier!
Well with a few tweaks based around a 1.525 Vcore and the clock set to 200x25 we cracked it all on air cooling. Many of the regular readers know the Noctua NH-D14 is my weapon of choice and just so happens to be the air cooler that stopped me fussing around with water cooling all the time, I think this quite easily demonstrates why!
Asus Rampage 3 Extreme
Intel i7 970
Corsair Dominator GT
Noctua NH-D14
(stock fans no extra fans used for the CPU heat sink)
Corsair AX1200w
We need to clarify that these clocks were not stable for 24 hour use, neither would we suggest any of you intend on pushing your volts this high. But it was something we felt we had to do to see how far we could push the old girl without breaking her! Now we feel its time to wrap this up, we did consider hiring a complete brass band but Im quite happy to leave it here with us just blowing our own trumpet! Subzero session next maybe....? Discuss your thoughts in our forums.
Most Recent Comments
Nicely done Tom 
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Originally Posted by El Gappo
SOoooooo when you joining the 6ghz club? Nicely done Tom |
Nicely done Tom.|
Originally Posted by silenthill
I just like to know if you could play any new game for around two hours without blue screens or freezing screens because I’m sure you haven’t tried it, forget about benchmarks and prime 95 that’s all a load of bullshit and if you can get crysis to run for two hours without any problems then my friend your system is as stable as can be. Prime 95 is software that stresses the cpu 100% which in real life never happens because most new game these days rely mostly on the gpu, so if you are a gamer like me and not interested in HD encoding then your 5GHz is fine and stable. |
But hey, lets save the benches for next time eh
Let me know if you hit the danger levels Tom, I'll hide in the fridge
Long story short, can I have your exact settings for a stable 4.8, so I can go out and buy that setup?
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Originally Posted by Robert Mathias
Great article! 1 month later, is this still the fastest setup for the money? I am new to overclocking, but I understand cooling, and have one of those 3 foot tall floor rolling super cold AC units with a flex duct going out to the window pointed inside my tower. Just ordered the Tuniq 120 Extreme, same as the Noctua there. Long story short, can I have your exact settings for a stable 4.8, so I can go out and buy that setup? |
B even if I gave you the settings the CPU you get might not get anywhere near it as its all part of the silicone lottery
C You need to understand how bad that aircon is really, you could end up killing your pc because of it.
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Originally Posted by tinytomlogan
C You need to understand how bad that aircon is really, you could end up killing your pc because of it. |
Took the aircon out of the tower. I had water outside dripping bad. But inside i thought was safe. Good call. Calling newegg tomorrow and switching for the Noctua. I had an overnight and a rush on it. Much needed advice!
The broken blade is rattling my cpu cooler, I guess it cant hurt anything really for a couple days. 85C few hours at a time for a few days shouldnt hurt either.
Im debating ddr2 1200 ram or just buy a new system soon.
You need to skip phase and start hitting LN2 ... Ive all ways wanted to do LN2 .....
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((((
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