Intel Core i7 overclocking guide with Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 Intel X58 Mainboard

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Intel Core i7 overclocking guide with Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 Intel X58 Mainboard
Bluetooth 4 Nov 2008

Overclocking Concepts of Core i7

The screen shots are taken with board installed with a Intel Core i7 940 (2.93GHz).

When it comes to Core i7, overclocking it becomes a total different ball game as compared to the Core 2 Duo. Some old concepts do apply e.g. memory multiplier.

Firstly, Core i7 uses a concept call BCLK, we can call it Base Clk. A lot of parameters are affected by this BCLK, they include your memory speed (base on multiplier), your QPI Link Speed,

BCLK is the clock (def 133Mhz) that determines the final overclock speed. Take note that what ever that is increase will affect the memory freq, QPI link speed as they all operate based on a ratio to it. For example, the QPI link speed for the processors : 133Mhz x36 (model 920,940) or 133x48 (model 965). In another word, if you use a model 920 or 940, chances of overclocking it to a higher BCLK will be quite limited as the QPI is already set as 4.8GT/s X36. So if you exceed 4.8GT/S (X36), chances are that you won't have a stable system when you increase the BCLK beyond 133. If you use a model 965, you can choose in the BIOS to use a X36 multiplier instead of the default X48. In this case, you can increase the BCLK higher as there is more room before it reaches 6.4GT/s. For example, a model 965 has a BCLK of 133MHz and uses a QPI link multiplier of 48X. So if you lower the QPI ilnk multiplier to 36X, you can effectively move the BCLK to 177MHz or beyond.

System Memory Multiplier is to set whether the memory should run at DDR3-800 (6X) or DDR3-1066 (8x) in the case of the Intel Core i7 940 processor. e.g. BCLK is 133MHz. So memory is 133x6 or 133x8. Again, if you want to increase BCLK, you should choose a lower multiplier of 6X instead of 8X.

BIOS 1



CPU Clock ratio aka CPU multiplier. The Frequency or Overclock is determined by CPU Clk Ratio multiply BCLK	QPI link speed specify the speed connecting IOH to the processor. The lowest is 36x on both model 920 and 940. If you use a model 965, the default is 48X. It can be lowered to 36X to get a high BCLK

BCLK is the clock (def 133Mhz) that determines the final overclock speed. Take note that what ever that is increase will affect the memory freq, QPI link speed as they all operate based on a ratio to it. e.g 133Mhz x36 (mode 920,940) or 133x48 (model 965)	System Memory Multiplier is to set whether the memory should run at DDR3-800 (6X) or DDR3-1066 (8x) in the case of the Intel Core i7 940 processor. e.g. BCLK is 133MHz. So memory is 133x6 or 133x8.

Memory timing adjustments of the 3 channels of DDR3.	CPU Vcore can be set to run up to 1.90v.

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