i7-950

[bwm]

Hi gang. The new rig I'm going to build for my wife and folding will have a i7-950 processor on a gigabyte board running Solaris unix with 24 gigs of memory. Does anyone have any experience with overclocking this beast on this board?? OR, even just experience with the cpu itself in terms of general overclocking abilities. I must admit to be spoiled rotten by my little Q6600's that run flawlessly 24/7 at 3.5 Ghz so id like to be prepared for what I suspect will be some disappointment. TIA.

[_dangtx_]

what board? :)

post specs ya ole fool!!! :D


from what ive munched you go up till you need voltage then you take it easy.

[bwm]

GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

24 gigs of raam
two GTX275 factory overclocked
i7-950
Velociraptors.
LG do everything CD
Agilent MIO.

[bwm]

Note the edit to add the vid cards.

[SugarJ]

I'd save the cash on the 950 and OC a 920 with a Megahalems HSF. Should be easy to hit 3.6 - 3.8 on air. If you already own the velociraptors, go ahead and use them. But don't buy new ones. The Caviar Black 640's are almost as fast and 1/3 the price.

[ayah]

Originally Posted by SugarJ

I'd save the cash on the 950 and OC a 920 with a Megahalems HSF. Should be easy to hit 3.6 - 3.8 on air. If you already own the velociraptors, go ahead and use them. But don't buy new ones. The Caviar Black 640's are almost as fast and 1/3 the price.

I agree with the above. The 920 (if it's a DO) will clock to 4.0GHz easily (usually) on air. The 950 isn't worth the extra 200+ish dollars for a pretty similar overclock. If you want to spend more, get an W3520, Rubycon @ Anandtech has her little puppy clocking at 4.4GHz on air at less than 1.3v

The W3520 on average is rumored to overclock better than an average 920. There are of course the exceptions, as always with overclocking.

[bwm]

Originally Posted by ayah

I agree with the above. The 920 (if it's a DO) will clock to 4.0GHz easily (usually) on air. The 950 isn't worth the extra 200+ish dollars for a pretty similar overclock. If you want to spend more, get an W3520, Rubycon @ Anandtech has her little puppy clocking at 4.4GHz on air at less than 1.3v

The W3520 on average is rumored to overclock better than an average 920. There are of course the exceptions, as always with overclocking.

That's the kind of info I need. Thanks a million mate.

[bwm]

Originally Posted by SugarJ

I'd save the cash on the 950 and OC a 920 with a Megahalems HSF. Should be easy to hit 3.6 - 3.8 on air. If you already own the velociraptors, go ahead and use them. But don't buy new ones. The Caviar Black 640's are almost as fast and 1/3 the price.

I'm sorry on this one mate but I have to disagree. I like the caviar blacks, they are very nice drives indeed. Very high STR and fast access time that reminds me of the IBM deathstar days, 12.5 ms area. But much much slower than a velociRaptors in access, time. The later doing 7.x millisec or better. I've had the pleasure of comparing them side by side and there is no comparison at all. Boot time, huge compressed file creation times, you name it, V-Rappys always win by more than a little bit. The blacks would be my first choice as a media storage drive though, preferebly a pair in RAID-1. Make no mistake about that. There have no peers in that role in my book.

[AkG]

Wait to you see the NEW WD 2TB blacks in action.....(and yes this is a review hint), they smoke the VRaptors in real world tests....like boot up and adobe cs3 load times. Same price as a vraptor.....but with more space and better speed ;)

[3.0charlie]

But when you add the price in the equation, this is where the Blacks win hands down. And if you really wish to buy new drives a la Vraptor, then SSDs are the way to go.