How to verify Turbo Boost working / speed on i920

[dling]

I think you should be able to use program that will allow you to see your clock speed.

While looking at the clock speed of the processor run some sort of stress testing and see if the cpu speed increases.

 

This comes right back to the first post I wrote. Its simple. Glad you got it . :thumbs-up:

[wevsspot]

I did some extensive testing tonight with an i7 920 on an ASRock X58 Extreme board. I'll spare you guys all of the boring numbers........ But I can tell you unequivocally that performance was better practically across the board running the BCLK at 185 with a hard set multiplier at 20 than any combination of turbo enabled/disabled, CState enabled/disabled (strange thing on this board - you only get the 22 multiplier if CState is enabled). All performance tests ran using Everest and 3DVantage.

 

				 172*21 turbo off	  172*auto turbo on	  172*22 cstate on	  172*21 cstate off	  185*20 turbo&cstate off
cpu queen		30207				 30211				  30202				 not tested			 30969

cpu photoworxx   43800				 43829				  43799				 not tested			 42196

cpu zlib		 122672				122503				 122661				not tested			 124136

cpu aes		  28837				 28912		 		 28905				 not tested			 29622

 

 

Now you may be wondering why I didn't run the tests with cstate off - but as I mentioned on this particular board you have to enable cstate in order to get the x22 multiplier. The performance numbers obviously weren't going to get any better by losing the x22 multiplier.

 

Of particular interest would be the performance numbers between the 185*20 hard set (= 3.70Ghz) versus the 172*22 cstate on (=3.78Ghz). All tests were ran with HT enabled, Intel Virtual Technology Enabled, Thermal Throttling Off. Intel Speed Step was enabled for all tests.

 

3DMark Vantage CPU Score @ 185*20 hard set (22943)

3DMark Vantage CPU Score @ 172*22 cstate on (22332)

 

Anyways, based on my testing the rig will run @ 185*20 hard set with Speed Step enabled. P.S. this is at 1.20vcore

 

The one abnormality in the testing was the photoworxx test scores where the performance was worse. I reran the test five times and the results were conclusive......?

Edited April 16, 2010 by wevsspot

[3DCGdesign]

I can tell you unequivocally that performance was better ...running the BCLK at 185 ... multiplier at 20... 185*20 hard set (= 3.70Ghz) ...

Anyways, based on my testing the rig will run @ 1.85*20 hard set with Speed Step enabled. P.S. this is at 1.20vcore

 

The one abnormality in the testing was the photoworxx test scores where the performance was worse. I reran the test five times and the results were conclusive......?

 

wevsspot, thanks for this comparison! This is sort of funny to me as I ended up for now settling at precisely 185*20 myself... (only it ran just a tad hot, so had to back the multi down to 19 until I fix my case ventilation.) I could not, however, on the msi x58 platinum get the voltage to be at base and oc to 185*20... I could swear I tried it... but I thought that I had to go to 1.3vCPU, 1.8vCPUpll, and +.1v on QPI.

 

what are your voltages at? did you have to tweak anything for your memory? what kind of RAM do you have?

 

most importantly what are your temps after prime95 for min. 15mins?

Edited April 15, 2010 by 3DCGdesign

[3DCGdesign]

looks like the sweet spot cause of my slow RAM (1333) is 190x19. (puts my ram at 1140... when I put my machine into sleep mode before it wouldn't restart, so I think I have ram stability issues with previous setting... not sure, will see if this one lasts a couple days in real life.)

 

I was able to back my volts down a bit and get stability and running now about 4*C cooler than before.

I will try to drop them even a bit more and see if I can never pass 70*

 

Thanks again for posting those numbers!

[3DCGdesign]

hmm... when I put my machine to sleep and try to restart, it acts like it's waking up, but the screen never comes on... I have to perform hard shut down. Then it tried to reboot after I turned it back on, but then like restarts itself... then it boots ok. any ideas? obviously still not stable... but why?

[3DCGdesign]

seems like before overclocking I could work on other things and other programs while rendering... open windows media player, open internet, open real temp, whatever.

 

after overclocking, while rendering on 100%, I can't seem to do anything else... opening anything takes 30minutes.

[wevsspot]

It only takes 1.20vcore to run my i7 920 (D0) stepping at 3.70ghz

I'm using G.Skill memory - the 3x2 Gb kit DDR3 1600 with 8-8-8-21 timings and 1.609vdimm (they are the 6GBPI sticks)

 

All of my other voltages except for QPI are on auto.

 

QPI voltage is set at 1.3v (be careful with this one - QPI voltage should be set within .50v of your vdimm voltage) So if your vdimm is set to 1.60v then your QPI voltage should be set at 1.1v - 1.3v

 

I've found that 1.3v is the sweet spot for good overclocking and system stability. The hangs during multi-tasking while overclocking are indicative of some system instability caused by your overclocked settings. When everything is set correctly your machine should actually be a bit quicker when multi-tasking than what it is at stock settings.

[wevsspot]

Here is a fairly comprehensive i7 Overclocking Guide - and is in fact the first one I read while I was preparing to take the socket 1366 plunge.

i7 Overclocking Guide

It is pretty spot on with the exception of their observations concerning Intel Turbo Mode - as my own findings with my particular hardware clearly show that overall performance is better when hard setting the multiplier and BCLK instead of using the Turbo Mode.

 

My max core temperatures after 8 hours of Prime95 multicore stress testing are;

65-63-61-64

 

But keep in mind that I'm watercooling...........

 

Relative to the sleep issue - if you are running Vista or Win7 64-bit the problem coming out of sleep isn't unusual. Several people have the same issue. I have one Win7 64-bit machine that refuses to come out of sleep mode and I haven't ever figured it out. Other machines I have with the same OS sleep and resume just fine. When that one machine refuses to resume from sleep the problem is exactly as you describe.

Edited April 16, 2010 by wevsspot

[3DCGdesign]

I made a mistake... I hadn't set v up from 1.5 on dram to be 1.6

 

because of my ram I have to use a bit diff. settings... think I may have found one... will test more, and post results.... when they are solid.

 

thanks for the link to the oc tutorial... was the 4th I read but was helpful, indeed! wish I had the BIOS they show.

[wevsspot]

YW - Good luck and keep us posted. When you get a chance pick up a kit of that G.Skill ram. You'll be surprised at the performance improvement. It will easily clock up to 1750Mhz giving you a little headroom. My bandwidth, read, write and latency is insane

[3DCGdesign]

OK! Results are in... (sort of... I still can't go to sleep mode w/out crash. grr... )

But - important thing is at full render for 8 hrs on 8 threads I never hit 70* now. 8)

 

I'll post the BIOS screenshot soon. my memory I change from default 8 8 8 21 to 7 7 7 20 and as I mentioned, volts at 1.6 now. :wall: seems much more stable in function and multi tasking... but the stupid thing won't wake up from sleep mode... I loved sleep mode... normally wakes up in 5 secs.

[wevsspot]

Well, if you ever figure out a universal fix for sleep mode and Win7 64-bit you should publish it - because you will become a hero over night. I'm convinced it is an issue with certain hardware combinations and improperly coded BIOS.