MSI P55-GD80 review

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The Overclocking Experience (Core i5 750)

 

Actual 'Manual' Overclocking

Real tweakers and overclockers spit on automated overclocking, and with a little time and trial you can certainly achieve very hefty overclocks. For this test run we overclocked both a Core i5 750 and a Core i7 870. The overclocks you'll see are 100% stable, from our test sessions we'll show you the overclocked results in all of our benchmarks.

So with the Front Side Bus officially annihilated, things tend to change a little while overclocking a Nehalem based processor. Only a little though. It's a little weird but the concept remains the same. In the BIOS you'll find a 133 MHz register, the BASE CPU clock... look at that as your 'FSB' to play around with. Of course, with an Extreme Edition processor, things would be much easier; unfortunately this is not the case with today's launched processors.

All three processors released today are multiplier locked, meaning your starting point is to select the highest possible multiplier in the BIOS and then increase that base clock

Don't be afraid to play around with CPU voltages as even on the stock air cooler you can achieve some pretty snazzy results.
 

Core i7 750 overclocking

Overclocking with the i5 750, you multiplier is locked, the MP is 20 meaning we need to  combine that with a higher CPU base frequency and that's where your overclock is to be found.

Well, we got the CPU base frequency up-towards 190.5 MHz without too many issues. The result was an overclock on the processor toward 3.8 GHz, with a Thermalright MUX 120 air cooler. Here's what we did:

  • disable Turbo mode
  • set maximum processor multiplier
  • increase processor voltage a little bit to 1.40v
  • Lower QPI ratio (as close as possible to 4800).
  • Lower memory multiplier to maximum stable memory frequency
  • Increase CPU base frequency

We had to settle at 20x190.5 @ 1.4 Volts. The result was a stable 3810MHz. Not bad for a 2.6 GHz processor air-cooled. Temperatures at this stage where pretty darn good at 69 Degrees C (156F).

Core i5 750 and Core i7 870 review

Mind you and I do say this strongly .. you need proper equipment to overclock. Thus good memory, good power supply, great motherboard. And of course we have to mention that we received engineering samples of the processors. Vanilla samples hand-tested and selected by Intel.

Our overclocking results might differ for you. But from what we' can tell, you'll have an awesome time overclocking the processor as the potential definitely is there.

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