Overclocking guide shows what Intel's Core i7 is / isn't capable of

Oh sure, we've seen just how far Intel's most potent Core i7 chip can be pushed under the most extreme conditions, but honestly, how's that helping you? In short, it's not. To that end, HotHardware has whipped up a useful, easy-to-digest guide on overclocking the Core i7 920, complete with benchmarks, recommendations and tips for dealing with excess heat without hooking up a liquid nitrogen tank. Interested to see how to crank a stock 920 to a level that outpaces the pricey 3.2GHz Core i7 Extreme Edition? The read link, friends -- hit it.

[iLack @ Dec 30th 2008 1:40AM]

Not Impressed, drop the price, and maybe :D

[nerdtalker @ Dec 30th 2008 3:27AM]

"Not Impressed"

@iLack, I almost thought you were Mr. Professional there for a second. ::phew::

[chansthename @ Dec 30th 2008 5:11AM]

nah can't be fuzo, he (or she) has't said the word fugly in that post.

[Game_playa @ Dec 30th 2008 1:39AM]

My Q6600 @ 3.4Ghz bows its head in shame...

[Mobius_1 @ Dec 30th 2008 7:54AM]

My Q6600 stock won't let me open the read link :P

[Knee to the Groin @ Dec 30th 2008 5:03PM]

My AMD Quad core dropped down to a tripple core when it saw this article...

Oh wait... AMD did that...

[gahahha @ Dec 30th 2008 1:41AM]

meh. i'd rather take an overclocked Q66 or Q93 with 4GB+ of nice cheap DDR2-1066 on Vista x64 SP1 tri-booted with Leopard and XP SP3. it'll do the same thing. render times should be similar. for far far cheaper.

[Game_playa @ Dec 30th 2008 2:01AM]

Not really..... From Benchmarks it looks like a 3Ghz i7 beats a 4Ghz C2Q

[ZenStyleJunglist @ Dec 30th 2008 3:57AM]

Um... Where have you been? Oh that's right, hiding under a rock.

[shawnmos @ Dec 30th 2008 1:43AM]

i'm not thrilled about replacing my motherboard AGAIN.

[hexoDAT64 @ Dec 30th 2008 1:45AM]

Does the guide include making it affordable?

[ZenStyleJunglist @ Dec 30th 2008 3:59AM]

$295 for the 920 i7 isn't really that unreasonable. Remember you pay the premium to be an early adopter. The stupid QX9770 are still $1300.

[Wwhat @ Dec 30th 2008 6:45AM]

You forgot to add the 300 for the motherboard you need, and the 300 for the triple channel 1.64v RAM, so that's 900+ right there.

[Mike @ Dec 30th 2008 9:38AM]

q9550 is still going for $320 on newegg. so let me get this straight...pay $25 less for much higher performance. sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

[ZenStyleJunglist @ Dec 30th 2008 11:25AM]

@ Wwhat. You can get DDR3 RRAM from new egg for 70 bucks & they sell sub $300 motherboards for the i7 now. What are you talking about? The GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard is only $209 Crucial 3GB (3 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory is only $73. That's less then $300 for something you said cost $600.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128375

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148244

These are NOT on sale btw.

[Wack @ Dec 30th 2008 1:34PM]

@Zenstyle

yeah, but you're only as good as your weakest component, sure you can build a cheaper machine with those parts, but if your spending the money anyway, you might as well invest in some really decent parts. don't bring a knife to a gunfight.

[Jinx @ Dec 30th 2008 1:52AM]

Do the i7s use less energy than the C2Ds and C2Qs?

[Wwhat @ Dec 30th 2008 6:45AM]

No

[waiownsyou @ Dec 30th 2008 1:57AM]

Hey, I'm not your friend, buddy.

[jasonm_h @ Dec 30th 2008 2:17AM]

I'm not your buddy, guy

[claude @ Dec 30th 2008 2:25AM]

i'm not your guy pal!!

[DavidEckmier @ Dec 30th 2008 2:27AM]

I'm not your guy, friend.

[SugarySnack @ Dec 30th 2008 2:34AM]

I'm not a guy, man.

[David @ Dec 30th 2008 2:38AM]

I'm not your friend, guy.

[ethana2 @ Dec 30th 2008 3:04AM]

Not only am I not 12, not female, and not horny, I work for the CIA.

You're my guy, dude.

[Wwhat @ Dec 30th 2008 6:46AM]

Easy now fellah

[Mobius_1 @ Dec 30th 2008 7:56AM]

How 'bout we sing, 'Kyle's Mom is a stupid bitch' in D Minor.

[Alex K @ Dec 30th 2008 2:01AM]

I can overclocking my Q9550@4000mhz this is more than enough power.

[ZenStyleJunglist @ Dec 30th 2008 4:02AM]

I can haz cheezburgerz? Btw I have a Q9550 & it's nice, but the i7 runs circles around it.

[Patriks7 @ Dec 30th 2008 4:58AM]

You guys still into the stuff that more Mhz = better? Lal

[ZenStyleJunglist @ Dec 30th 2008 5:21AM]

Yes, what don't you understand? Faster = Better. Again, what do you not understand? Unless there is a serious flaw with the chip then faster will always = better when it comes to computing.

[Patriks7 @ Dec 30th 2008 10:47AM]

Wow you are one funny guy.. First you say that the i7 runs circles around the Q9550, but then you say that the Q9550 should be better as it has a .2 ghz higher clock speed..

[elliiot @ Dec 30th 2008 11:15AM]

Surely you are a moron. Without changing the architecture, you should always see an improvement when increasing processor speed. The reason Core I7 is faster with a lower speed is because it has a better architecture. I am not the best with computers, but neither are you so please stop acting like you know everything.

[ZenStyleJunglist @ Dec 30th 2008 11:35AM]

Oh I'm sorry I assumed you guys knew more about the architecture of the processor. i7's use the good ol Hyper Threading technology too. So 4 cores, 8 threads. Even @ stock speeds these things are faster then anything that came before it. These things can also hit 4GHz easy. @ Patriks sorry didn't comprehend there, it was really late.

[Brett Bailey @ Dec 30th 2008 11:08PM]

@ZenStyleJunglist & @elliiot,

wow, i could create a few Mhz just between the flaming of guys.

-Brett

[THEHAWKs @ Dec 30th 2008 2:09AM]

come on guys the price on DDr3 has gone way down Patriot Viper 3GB DDr3 1333 70$ the chepest X58 motherboard is about 200& with a i7 920 you can upgrade for about 570$ and dont for get about the Intel Core i5 and P55 chipset, after Q1 the pirce of intel X58 will be more mainstream.

[Wwhat @ Dec 30th 2008 6:50AM]

If you buy the cheapest RAM and the cheapest mobo then what is the point of 'upgrading'? you can pay less and buy good RAM and a good old q9550 or something CPU and at least OC it, with the result of a faster system than your unstable slow i7-on-a-budget-stock-speed system.

[ZenStyleJunglist @ Dec 30th 2008 11:36AM]

@ Wwhat. O.k. I'm now convinced you have no idea what you are talking about.

[TechWorship @ Dec 30th 2008 8:38PM]

@Wwhat: The cheapest X58 motherboard ($200 Gigabyte) has triple channel DDR3. Even the cheapest DDR3 modules with triple channel enabled will surpass the typical enthusiast Q9550 dual channel setup. So yeah, for less than $600 (MB+i7CPU+RAM), you've got yourself a Q9550 killer.

[ProfessorKaos @ Jan 2nd 2009 9:28PM]

@Techworship


You have no idea what you are talking about. It has long been proven DDR2 is still a top contender and DDR3 does add much to the table.

[Brian @ Dec 30th 2008 2:23AM]

im not your guy buddy! and im not replacing my motherboard a fourth time!

[Wwhat @ Dec 30th 2008 6:52AM]

Due to the tiny pins it takes minimal force to push an i7 in an old socket I bet, make sure you first install vista so you aren't too disappointed by the results :x

[eggothewaffle @ Dec 30th 2008 2:41AM]

I love how this is being covered over a month after [H]ardOCP already covered this.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTU4MSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

[ZenStyleJunglist @ Dec 30th 2008 4:05AM]

We had a review/benchmark ready over at Guru3D the day Intel officially announced the damn things. It always takes engadget a while to catch up.

[Wwhat @ Dec 30th 2008 6:55AM]

Guru3d is nice and handy and all, but it's not exactly a place of hardcore OC enthusiasts in my view, the reviews are 'OK' but not 'That was a good, I'm going to bookmark it for reference'

[Gad Get @ Dec 30th 2008 7:58AM]

@ ZenStyleJunglist

That may have something to do with the fact that ninety percent of Engadget's stories are submitted by a small handful of people, and half of them by our friend, Darren Murph. It takes awhile to get around to every story. But, hey, if you think you could do better, you could always apply to write for Engadget!

[Alexei @ Dec 30th 2008 3:03AM]

Here is hoping that AMD can deliver enough punch to make Intel lower prices.

[ethana2 @ Dec 30th 2008 3:06AM]

Summary:

Buy the cheapest Core i7 they sell.
Get a good mainboard.
Go for 3.5 GHz with third party air cooling.
Lower your RAM multipliers, up your mainboard reference clock.

[Estrelo @ Dec 30th 2008 3:18AM]

Now there's a useful comment!

I'm flirting with the idea of building one of those but the price and the fact that I would be leaving my gaming laptop and that is a big change for me. GTA IV kicked my Clevo's ass and I didn't like it though... My fault for going cheap on the processor... :(

(SHUT UP! It does run most games on high at 1680X1050 and it's not a dumb buy! Just anwser this: Can you game with your fancy quad core rig IN BED??? And lounging on the sofa? Didn't think so :P)

[_man1c_ @ Dec 30th 2008 3:43AM]

kewl. my next rig is going to either have LGA 1366, or LGA 775. not sure yet. waiting for DFi's Junior mobo to launch for the ci7. itll be a sff computer with watercooling. im not totally sold on ci7 (1366) just yet though.