[Project] NB Core Voltage how high?

[StealthTools]

Motherboard 790iFTW with a 750W power supply.
GPU: GTX280FTW
CPU: QX9770
RAM: OCZ Reapers
300GB 10,000Rpm Hard Drive
---------------------------
Don't have but am looking at:
Bigwater 760i - water cooling

That's some of my specs. I have to do a project and I have these parts free of charge and the company(s) that gave them to me will get a refund in their taxes because they donated them to my school...

I have to build a computer and Overclock it. I am going to try and go for 5GHz stable.

How would you figure out what setting to set the NB Core voltage? Like.. how much juice are all my parts and the overclock going to need? and how do I know when I have to increase the voltage?

I know this would depend on how I configure my Bus Speed and CPU multiplier and such.. but.. how do I really know when it needs more power.. I mena can you just set it at max so it can use as much as it wants but you would just have a high power bill? but it probably doesn't work as simple as that..

As far as the water cooling solution goes for this project. Hopefully it won't cost more than 300$.. but does anyone have and specific one that they know would work well for this? I briefly looked at the Bigwater 760i and the pump seems powerful enough, it is easy to install, seems to cool well...

And.. yea... this is the exact same project I have had for.. 6 months or something? Because of my funds being too low I couldn't continue in my last build. Because of this school project I actually found a way to pay for it at no cost to me. ;P

[veedubfreak]

For the love of god, whatever you do, DO NOT BUY a thermaltake water cooling kit.

I highly doubt you will get 5ghz stable on water. You would need a phase unit or ln2 to get that much over an overclock.

Also, if yer interested i have a Swiftech GT waterblock i'll sell you cheap. I replaced it with a GTZ hoping for better temps, but well...it didnt happen.

[StealthTools]

Lol alright then that water cooling problem solved. I have been readin reviews on the 790i overclocks and they seem to get really high clock speeds. I overclocked my junky system stock everything.. a compaq computer to over 27% of it's 2200MHz OEM settings... (not at home for exact) and it runs games fine. If that's everything stock parts on a crappy AMD CPU... then I think 5GHz shouldn't be hard on my new build?

WHOO look at the time fly.. I will get back to this thread at home..(3:30Eastern) Thanks for tha posts. Latas

[Peter.Cort]

the thing is the amount of voltage you have to put into the cpu to get it to run at 5ghz stable is immense. In the beginning you can add voltage and get huge increases in clock speed, but once you get to like 1.4v/1.5v you have to add voltage for each clock speed increase. It turns into instead of a little voltage for a lot of clock speed, its a lot of voltage for a little clock speed increase.

[StealthTools]

VERY Interesting... This is going to be a fun ride.

As for my previous post I was able to get my AMD Athlon running from 2.2GHz to 3GHz by using the 'pencil trick' or Connecting the L1 bridges on my CPU with a pencil which allows me to change the clock multiplier.

I know for this new build that I could probably get to 4GHz with my intel CPU by just increasing the FSB alone.. easy peasy it seems.. But with all of my high-grade parts, water cooling, and a good airflow case shouldn't I be able to get it to 5GHz stable by increasing the Multiplier, Bus Speed, and various Motherboard settings.. Maybe Veedubfreak and Peter.Cort know alot more than me that this is alot harder than I think it is, lol

Originally Posted by Peter.Cort

but once you get to like 1.4v/1.5v you have to add voltage for each clock speed increase.

How you just use that as a Rule Of Thumb? I've never needed to increase my voltage for anything.. soo.. if it is set too low and you try to boot up your system, what will happen?

And as for 5GHz being my goal.. I have to really push this thing to it's limits while being as stable as possible.. Thats the whole reason I am getting parts for free.. Nearly the latest parts on the market.. with some unknown hopefully 400$ or less water cooling system.. I want to see what it can do.

[Peter.Cort]

i just used that as an example and its different for each board and each chip. but the thing is you can increase it quite a bit on stock voltage, its just you need to increase the voltage to increase the stability. its like running your computer on a 350w psu, then upgrading the board cpu and gpu to new stuff and not changing the psu. it won't boot up cause you don't have enough power running to all your components. same thing with the cpu. the cpu is drawing more power, and you need to increase the voltage going straight to the cpu to make it stable.

and if you set it too low and boot it just won't post.

[StealthTools]

How do you know how high you can set it? Just to make sure that everything is getting all the power it needs.. that's kinda where I am atm..

Do you increase it as much as you can while keeping the FSB from melting?

[veedubfreak]

Well i'll put it to you this way, to get 4ghz out of my q6600 which is essentially the same chip you are getting only with a locked multiplier, it took 1.6v to get stable. On water, i was hitting as high as 69C. The 65nm chips are only rated up to 1.5v, anything more than that and you are pushing your luck. Honestly your best option to hit 5ghz is an e8600.

[StealthTools]

It's Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 Yorkfield 3.2GHz 12MB L2 Cache LGA 775 136W Quad-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops 45nm

I already have the quad core processor..

Gota go.. be back at around 3:30pm.. thanks ;P

[veedubfreak]

Ah, you said 6770 in the original post. Which is the 65nm chip.