Extreme Overclocking & Benching
Extreme Overclocking & Benching
| Test Platform: | | Memory: | Mushkin Redline Ascent 3x2GB PC3-12800 6-7-6-18 (998692) | | Motherboard: | EVGA X58 3X SLI Classified | | Processor: | Intel i7 920 D0 (3845B026) | | Processor Cooling: | MMouse Rev 3 CU LN2/Dry Ice Pot
w/Liquid Nitrogen | | Thermal Paste: | Arctic Silver Ceramique | | North Bridge Cooling: | Stock | | South Bridge Cooling: | Stock | | PWM Cooling: | Stock | | Power Supply: | Corsair HX1000W | | Video Card: | Gigabyte 9800GT OC 1GB (NVIDIA GeForce 185.85 WHQL) | | Video Card Cooling: | K|ngp|n Tek9 4.0
w/Liquid Nitrogen | | Additional Fans: | Scythe Ultra Kaze 120MM 3000RPM 133.6CFM (DFS123812H-3000) | | Hard Drives: | Seagate 7200.9 80GB SATAII 8MB cache | | OS: | Windows Vista SP1 / Windows XP Pro SP2 | | Ambient Temperature: | 23C ~ 25C |
We happened to have a Gigabyte 9800GT OC 1GB card laying around and decided we should put it through its paces under sub-zero cooling. What a better way to bench with a kit of memory than to take a rather pedestrian video card and turn them into the monster of the mid-range with the help of a little liquid nitrogen, AKA LN2.
Photos of the setup are above for your browsing, along with a rundown of the complete setup used here. We have a couple substitutions from the standard testing we just finished looking at. You can also see we prefer kneaded rubber eraser for our insulation method. It has worked wonders from day one on both the motherboard and video cards alike. Feel free to ask any questions you have about this type of benching or the setup used in our discussion thread in the forums. For now, let's just let the screen shots do the talking and keep the chatter to a minimum. We start off with the 2D benching first, then onto single card 3D benchmarks...enjoy. SuperPi 1M
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 | SuperPi 32M
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The key component in 32M SPi on the i7 platform is the memory. We saw the effects in the standard benching, and while there are no comparisons here, the Mushkin held up it's end of the bargain in this 32M run. As it turned out, I managed a personal best and improved on my previous i7 920 WR 32M time. The memory plays a vital role in a time like this and the Mushkin Redline Ascent really pushed the limits running a wild 250 base clock and 1000MHz 7-8-7-20 1T rather easily, only requiring 1.77v for vDIMM. This is quite a respectable number, especially for 32M SPi. The 1M isn't too bad either, a little low on efficiency but the clocks are nice. These were the only 2D benchmarks I wanted to run as the primary focus of the benching today is the 3D results with the 9800GT, so let's take one i7 920 WR and have a look at the initial single card runs next.  The memory overclocks for these 3D results aren't quite as impressive as we just saw, but still another very solid showing by the Mushkin Redline Ascents. I wanted to run 6-8-6, which we already know the Ascents are more than capable of, but the motherboard absolutely wouldn't run those tight timings at the high base clock I was running at with the i7 920. It actually seems to be a CPU limit of sorts that I haven't figured out yet, so 7-8-7 timings will have to do. 3DMark 03
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 | 3DMark 05
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 | 3Dmark 06
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 | 3Dmark Vantage
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Some of the above results are tops at HWBot.org, some aren't despite higher clocks. Unfortunately there is a fair bit of cheating going on over there right now. Some 3D tweaks that aren't allowed get used on these mid-range cards because Futuremark ORB links aren't required. Either way, almost 20K for a single 9800GT is mighty impressive in 06, and with an 05 run like that, I think we can call it a good day.
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