So I am having trouble overclocking this 940 of mine...I haven't overclocked this chipset before. I have an EVGA x58 board with a C0/C1 940. Anyone have similar with settings that I can try? Or a guide to overclocking this guy? I am on air by the way.
For starters, turn hyperthreading off, it's not necessary. You can probably top 3.8 GHz with your chip/stepping. Up voltage to 1.3, set RAM at 1066 MHz, 9-9-9-24 and slowly up the BCLOCK at 5 MHz intervals, stress testing with intelburntest (10 passes on max) and prime 95 (blend for a few hours), until it starts BSODing or coming up with errors. This might help: http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108526
Its needed if you do a lot of video encoding, but games wont really use more than 4 cores at the moment. I have tested BF3 with it on and off and I get no difference in fps at all. That game is pretty heavily threaded as well. It just adds more heat as its stresses the cores more having to run two threads each. You should be able to overclock more with it OFF. I have it ON because I am getting more into video editing as it helps when encoding.
I have also heard to bump the multi down to 21x since they work better on odd multipliers. Is this true?
Yes it is true, i have tested this theory with a 920 and a 930 and its fact. Dont know why but thats just the way it is.
No leave vdroop on as it is the same as load line calibration and can provide stability by just adding a small boost in voltage when it needs it. If i turn LLC/vdroop off on my board im unstable at 4.4. Overclocking is all about trial and error, you need to try everything.
True that. So I am going to try this tonight. Also, just as an update, I have ordered an Antec Kuhler 920 to replace my stock fans. Just one last question, I should keep the 23 multi if possible right? Or should I just drop down to the 21?
Haha this part made me laugh. Nice call on the Kuhler by the way, very nice cooler. But nobody has answered my question trying to spare this guy his chip...is 1.3V a safe voltage for that chip?
Look at the quote that i made alittle closer. He asked wether he should use a multiplier of 19 or 21 so i quoted myself in a previous post with the same answer that i would have given. Overclocking is all about trial and error, you need to try everything. Hence the bit in bold which answers his question if read correctly. Next time ill make it nice and basic like A, B, C, 1, 2, 3 etc lol. Also if we all listened to Nvidia about safe volts etc none of use would ever oc. The fact is if you want more power you have to push more energy into it, in this case its volts. Just use some common sense and dont use a silly amount. My cpu has been running at 4.4 on the same loop since April 2010 and it still flys. The person who has my old 920 c0 still has it running at 3.8 rock solid in all stability tests. If i followed Intels recommended guide then i would not have an oc on the 920 or 930. Some people are just scared and do not understand how overclocking works so they keep volts to a minimum which is ok but i like to go a little further.