Could I safely overclock Intel Core i7 920....?

TrumandrummerTrumandrummer Taylor Michigan Icrontian
edited August 2009 in Hardware
Hello,
I am just curious. Could you safely OC an Intel Core i7 920 (2.67 ghz) to at least 3 ghz without adding a CPU cooler?

I have never Overclocked before, I do not know much about it. I have seen the i7 920 OC'ed to 4ghz online. Obviously with some good CPU cooler. But I just want to be able to say that mine is 3ghz.

Thanks a lot in advance,
Sorry if this is a dumb question.

Comments

  • GnomeWizarddGnomeWizardd Member 4 Life Akron, PA Icrontian
    edited August 2009
    Most CPU's can be overclocked, Personally I have never done a Core i7 But I am sure it can be done, BUT Oc'ing is NEVER safe ( yes I oc lol )
  • QuadyTheTurnipQuadyTheTurnip Icrontian
    edited August 2009
    My question is whether I can overclock the 286 my Grandpa gave my family years ago and that's still lying in my parent's basement.
  • lordbeanlordbean Ontario, Canada
    edited August 2009
    Push the Turbo button.

    Wait. Is that unique to 486's?
  • Cliff_ForsterCliff_Forster Icrontian
    edited August 2009
    The i7 920 has been shown to have good headroom. Trouble is, its not unlocked, so your results will partly be dependent on the quality of motherboard and RAM you are using, and tweaking your timings and voltages will take a little more finesse than an unlocked CPU would. Good thing is that you can find plenty of guides online for overclocking that platform. All indications are that hitting 3.0 even on a modest air cooler should not be too difficult.

    Of course, you could always thumb your nose at the corporate evil that is Intel and equip your system with an AMD Black Edition CPU for the best frequency performance like I do, but I am just strange that way.
  • lordbeanlordbean Ontario, Canada
    edited August 2009
    Of course, you could always thumb your nose at the corporate evil that is Intel and equip your system with an AMD Black Edition CPU for the best frequency performance like I do, but I am just strange that way.

    Old territory. AMD = bang for buck, Intel = maximum bang. His i7 @ 3GHz will teach just about any AMD CPU a thing or two, unless you get that black edition over 4GHz.

    Edit - as for the overclock, odds are good you can hit 3GHz without entering "dangerous" overclocking. By my own definition, overclocking does not become dangerous until you start increasing the voltages to pieces of the system. Any overclock you can obtain while retaining stock voltages is icing on the cake.
  • TrumandrummerTrumandrummer Taylor Michigan Icrontian
    edited August 2009
    Ok thanks for the replies guys.
    Well I took a look at my bios and There is settings in there for OC I think. But they are greyed out. I got excited when I saw that there was OC settings for the CPU, but then I realized they were grey. Is this a bad thing?

    img00054200908081443.th.jpgimg00055200908081443.th.jpg

    EDIT: Actually, looking at this picture. I think that if I change the CPU ratio setting to manual instead of auto, it will probably let me use the OC settings that were greyed out.

    EDIT AGAIN: It turns out, I guess my computer came with software to overclock. It has 2 settings "original" and "2.93Ghz" I am going to try that and see what happens.
  • TrumandrummerTrumandrummer Taylor Michigan Icrontian
    edited August 2009
    It worked. I have it overclocked to 2.93ghz. wcpu is reading a constant 2918.59 mhz. For some reason my computer like spazed out at first. I started getting voltage and over heating warnings. I restarted the computer and its fine now. Voltage is good, and temperature is good and its still running at 2.93ghz.

    In my bios it says to manually set it, then set cpu level up to "manual" I did this, and it brings up a bunch of options....
    There are so many options, I get confused just looking at it. Can anyone tell me what option(s) I need to look for to change it from 2.93 to 3ghz???
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