ARMA II now wonderful...after an HD5870 and i7-920!

[kondor999 10]

For anyone debating whether to upgrade their highly oc'ed Core2Duo to an i7, let me tell you that it *doubled* my frame rates, even accounting for the new 5870. Please note the need to overclock, however. If you get the ASUS P6T Deluxe v2, a D0 stepping i7-920 and a very good cooler - it's dirt simple. 3 settings in the bios and you're done.

My settings: Everything on high, except Post-process, which is on Very High. Vis on 1800.

Tri-SLI system: e8600@4.5ghz, GTX280 Tri-SLI, FPS: high 10's worst-case

Single GTX280: e8600@4.5ghz, GTX280 non-SLI, FPS: Mid 20's worst-case

HD5870 system: e8600@4.5ghz, Radeon HD5870, FPS: high 20's worst-case

Current system: i7-920@4.2ghz, Radeon HD5870, FPS: low 40's worst-case

That pretty much settles it for me.

Hey, it only set me back $1200 or so to play this one game (the old system was just fine for anything else). What a deal!

PS - I edited this post to reflect the fact that I was able to see some low-40's FPS in an extremely stressful situation: looking back over the entire city from the hilltop during the "Counterattack" scenario mission while a full battle is going on. That same situation with the e8600@4.5ghz got me down to the *single digits* IIRC. I don't consider it to be particularly representative, but I did say worst-case. Just to be nice, I didn't adjust the others downward :-)

Edited October 21, 2009 by kondor999

[yanquis 10]

high 40s worst case, wow. i am hoping for high 20s worst case when i upgrade to a 5870 and i have a quad 3ghz.

i am thinking about building my first computer, whenever i decide on a new one (wont need to for awhile yet hopefully). i may as well ask here, do you know of the best (simple but throrough) online guides for beginners?

i opened up a computer for pretty much the first time 2 swap out gfx cards and it got me thinking, why not build my own, it might be quite rewarding and that way i could have whatever i wanted and save money as well. i mean i might have to replace the PSU of my HP 2 upgrade 2 a 5870 and from there its pretty much a matter of installing the CPU and slotting in the RAM as far as building a computer isnt it?

[Herbal Influence 10]

It did cost me a 100 Euros for a new graphic card and 60 Euros for a new CPU to get this game running (see spoiler below) - just in case someone thinks you really need to invest 1200 bucks.

CPU was faster inserted than new graphic card (below 3 minutes each) and I still have the option to get a quadcore with even an higher frequency.

Sure I don't get that fraps you get with i7 and a 5870 - but I wouldn't hesitate to have a fast CTF or a jet fight ... whatever .... ;-)

Edited October 21, 2009 by Herbal Influence

[trunkz jr 0]

I'm thinking of picking one up

[reilar 10]

... Please note the need to overclock, however. If you get the ASUS P6T Deluxe v2, a D0 stepping i7-920 and a very good cooler - it's dirt simple. 3 settings in the bios and you're done.

Hi Kondor,

I have the same mobo and CPU as you have. I'm not very confident in OC my CPU. What 3 settings are you refering to and what have you set them to?

What CPU cooler do you use? I'm using a Noctua NH-U12P which I think will give me some headroom to OC the CPU.

[icebreakr 3157]

Thanks for the tip, time for upgrade is slowly approaching ;)

[maddogx 13]

I'm using a Noctua NH-U12P which I think will give me some headroom to OC the CPU.

That fan will be more than enough for some overclocking. :)

Can't help you with the BIOS settings for overclocking on that board but you might want to check out the overclock.net website. They have tutorials for overclocking pretty much everything.

[kondor999 10]

Hi - happy to help.

1. Your cooler is fantastic - one of the best air coolers and as good as my H50 "baby" water cooler.

2. It's technically 5 settings - but 2 are so obvious that...you'll see what I mean. Here's what you do. And I promise not to kill your board :-). I'm going by memory, so hopefully I get the whole sequence right.

a. Go into BIOS by hitting DEL at bootup

b. Go to "Advanced AI"

c. Change to "Manual"

d. Settings:

Setting 1: BCLK 200 (may want to try 180 just to start - this is the equivalent of the old FSB setting. Multiply this number times your multiplier (20-21 in the case of the i7-920) to get your CPU speed. 200x21 = 4.2Ghz.

Setting 2: CPU multiplier: I set this to 21 and turn off both "Turbo" (which dynamically changes from 20x to 21x multiplier - yay) and Hyperthreading (HTT - which generates a tremendous amount of heat for little gain).

Adjustment: You need to adjust your memory speed to less than or equal to its rated speed. If you're running 1600 ram, then just hit the + or - key until you see a value that fulfills this requirement. IIRC, with BCLCK@200, you can choose 1603 which is pretty much perfect.

Setting 3: Core voltage (Vcore): set to 1.30v in my case (D0 stepping). If you have a C0 stepping, you'll need a lot more voltage - and probably exotic cooling. I'd say a C0 is realistically limited to about 3.8 Ghz on air due to it's relatively high voltage requirements. Maybe.

Setting 4: Uncore voltage (I think it's called QPI voltage or something like that in the BIOS): also set to 1.30v.

Setting 5: DRAM bus voltage: set to 1.66v. Now, everyone hopefully knows you shouldn't set this above 1.65v (it'll fry the i7) - but the BIOS only allows 1.64 or 1.66. Apparently 1.66 is "really 1.65v". On this board. Yes, it made me nervous too. But it's fine.

You're done! Hit F10. Easiest massive overclock ever. Leave all the other myriad settings on AUTO.

Now, this may look a little complex, but it isn't. Only 3 of those steps is, in any way, esoteric (the voltage adjustments). The others are just common sense - well, to me anyway.

Tip 1: When you first do this, go conservative on the BCLK and the memory speed (which has very little effect on performance with the i7, which is rated for 1066 mem anyway). This will allow you to isolate the variable you care most about - actual CPU speed. In other words - only push one setting at a time. That way you know what's breaking (if it does).

Tip 2: I'd advise simplifying the CPU as much as possible, and then turn features back on one at a time. Go to the CPU menu and turn off HTT, Turbo, Speedstep, etc. If it won't boot, you don't want to be wondering if it's because "Turbo" is on, etc.

Tip 3: Really, really consider dumping HTT (Hyperthreading). This is a big heat producer. We're talking 15C for basically nothing. Only if you're running massively multithreaded rendering/transcoding apps are you going to benefit from 8 threads. 4 is more than enough for any game yet made. And hopefully we'll soon be using our GPU's (with 1600 threads) for this crap anyway.

OK, hopefully I didn't forget anything. Suffice to say, proceed with caution and some common sense. Actual clockspeed will never kill a CPU (it just won't POST), but things like voltage can. So just double-check those three voltage settings and I can assure you that nothing will die. Then again, don't sue me. If you want to OC, you always take a small risk.

Lastly, you may be able to get away with less voltage than 1.30v. Since my temps are quite low, I didn't feel the need to lower it - but if your temps are on the high side (70's under load) - think about lowering the voltage to 1.25v to see if you can get away with it. Always lower voltage as your first step in reducing heat. BTW, the i7 begins to produce heat disproportionately around 1.35v (D0 stepping) and then goes totally nuts at 1.4v. You'll need some LN2 for that realm.

Good Luck!

Hi Kondor,

I have the same mobo and CPU as you have. I'm not very confident in OC my CPU. What 3 settings are you refering to and what have you set them to?

What CPU cooler do you use? I'm using a Noctua NH-U12P which I think will give me some headroom to OC the CPU.

[liquidpinky 11]

Have you tried the tri sli in the rig instead of the ati, just thinking the increase is more down to that nicely overclocked CPU?

[m0nkm0nk 0]

I'm running ArmA2 with this specs:

Intel Core i7 860 @ 3,8 (HT on)

OCZ Dominator 2000 mhz memory (dual chan)

Ati 5870

2x Intel x25-m SSD @ raid 0

I CANT run everything on HIGH without uhh lag.. fps 10/20 or something

Btw with HIGH you mean fillrate 200% ? Cause i need massive AA :P

[kondor999 10]

Tri-SLI was horrible. Made it slower than 1 card. Come to think of it, that was true of most games. SLI is better, but still too flaky for me.

I love my HD5870. Oh, I'm sure I'll try Crossfire at some point, but I'm really hoping that by the time it's necessary we'll have an HD6870 on the near horizon. After doing SLI since the Voodoo2 days, I can say with some confidence that it's almost never worth it. Well, except Crysis. It loved Tri-SLI.

Just my .02, but a hard-won .02 it has been.

---------- Post added at 09:39 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:22 AM ----------

I'm running ArmA2 with this specs:

Intel Core i7 860 @ 3,8 (HT on)

OCZ Dominator 2000 mhz memory (dual chan)

Ati 5870

2x Intel x25-m SSD @ raid 0

I CANT run everything on HIGH without uhh lag.. fps 10/20 or something

Btw with HIGH you mean fillrate 200% ? Cause i need massive AA :P

If you still have Fillrate as an option, you really need to update! Didn't that go away back at 1.02?

[cole 0]

If you still have Fillrate as an option, you really need to update! Didn't that go away back at 1.02?

Fillrate was only renamed to 3D Resolution in the video settings. Now ArmA2 features both AA (which doesn't work on shadows and smoke makes units have a white border around them) and 3D Resolution, which used to be Fillrate (Graphically flawless compared to ingame AA, but eats lots of frames for breakfast).

[yanquis 10]

so idea is up 'fillrate', but disable AA?

it is a real shame it doesnt work on shadows but i rarely notice the white border.

[[frl]myke 14]

Let me throw in some words about overclocking.

*Be aware that you'll lose any warranty on overclocked parts!*

Also never ever raise your CPU speed too much at a time. Even if 2 has 100% identical Hardware, there is no guarantee that both may reach same settings.

Most safe way to bring your CPU to it's max possible stable clockrate:

1. Raise Clock by 50-100MHz (not more). If the multiplier is unlocked, favorise OC by multi than FSB (or equivalent name for todays HW).

2. Start Windows and do a stress test for about at least 1hr! Keep an eye on CPU temps. If stress test is running well, go back to point 1.

3. If your PC won't boot or the stress test fails, raise CPU Voltage by one notch (steps may vary depending on Motherboard).

4. Read through some decent OC-Forums to get an idea how much Vcore (CPU Voltage) your particular CPU can handle.

5. If you hit Vcore limit and it doesn't run stable, reduce CPU clock to the latest known stable setting.

6. You may finetune now by slowly increasing FSB. Also here do seriously stress-test every step you make.

Golden rule:

Although it's a pain in the a$$ to reboot every time to get into the BIOS, always change only one setting at once. So if somethings hangs, you know what caused it.

@Kondor999

Be careful advertising things like:

Multiply this number times your multiplier (20-21 in the case of the i7-920) to get your CPU speed. 200x21 = 4.2Ghz

It's never a good idea to start with high settings (as people surely would try after reading this line). I'm sure enough you didn't started straight with highest setting but testing step by step what your CPU can handle.

[kklownboy 43]

...

thats all good and well, But the easiest way and the BEST way is to look for Bios templets for your MB and CPU. If you cant get 3.8 on a stock cooler for 24/7 for any i7 or most Wolfdales then your not doing it right. Google is your friend, http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=59

is the best place to start your education, then there's Coolar forums and many more.

[christud 0]

Monkmonk - turn HT OFF on your chip mate.

It's one of the biggest performance killers out there. I know as I have the same(ish) chip i920@4ghz and when Ht is off the game runs waaaaay better!

You can buy me a beer for that one later, if no-one else has beaten me to the advice first.

Chris

[kondor999 10]

No offense, but your advice is not, well, very good. It's full of the sort of misconceptions that people have when they first start out, and isn't even applicable to the i7/i5 processors.

And yeah, I started out right at 4.2Ghz. Why? Because I did my homework.

0. It is effectively impossible to damage a modern CPU via clockspeed alone. If your CPU overheats, it will simply throttle back. This has been demonstrated many times. But voltage can and will destroy a CPU, ESPECIALLY THE DRAM BUS (for God's sake). Therefore you want to be cautious with voltage - not clockspeed. Too much clockspeed and you simply don't POST, or you overheat and the chip throttles. Too much voltage, and you never POST again.

1. Your stress test needs to be overnight and should include a 4 hour run of Orthos, Prime95 or some other test that exercise all 4 cores at 100%. I see a lot of noobs do these 1 hour tests and not notice that only core is being stressed. Proves nothing.

2. Your point about raising Voltage if it won't POST is incredibly dangerous. What if it's not POSting because your voltage is already too high, along with clockspeed? There's no substitute for knowing what you're doing. Find out what stepping of CPU you have, the voltage people are using and go from there. This sort of trial and error is best left to experts. Don't be the first person to ever try a voltage(!).

3. Your point about researching proper voltage is absolutely correct. In addition, modern BIOSes will warn you if you're pushing too hard.

4. Modern Intel boards do not have FSB, my friend. We now have BCLK. The memory controller is on the CPU, just as AMD has done for a while now. FSB = Stone Age (OK, in Internet time LOL).

5. Your advice to change only one thing at a time is correct, although it simply repeats what I already said.

6. Lastly, your method would take forever and while perhaps of some utility back in the Core2Duo days, is no longer optimal. I'm able to accomplish a stellar overclock in only 1-2 iterations of rebooting/testing. Here's how it should be done with a modern (i5/i7) CPU:

a. Research what's reasonable to expect in terms of voltage, clockspeed and temps on your CPU/MOBO/RAM combo (if you get lucky, you'll find someone who has already done it with the same 3 components). Better yet, do the research BEFORE you buy anything. Find a popular combo that gets good results and just get the same thing. Unless you're into exploring uncharted territory. Me, I'm into gaming. The i7-920 D0/ASUS P6T/Corsair Dominator 1600 has achieved 4.2ghz over and over.

b. Set BCLK a little below what you want: say 166 or 180 rather than the 200 you're shooting for. Me, I just went for 200 right out of the gate. But that's because I was already 99% sure it would work (see point a. above). Set your multiplier to whatever is appropriate for the speed you want (21 for an i7-920 * 200 = 4.2Ghz). BCLK*MULT = Clock.

c. Set your DRAM speed to 1066 (i7 standard). If it's good DRAM with XMP, it will auto-adjust all the mem timings from 1066 all the way to its rated max. Later, once you've proven CPU stability, you can go back and set it to 1600 or whatever speed DRAM you got. And don't be surprised when you find out it only makes about 5% difference between 1066 and 1600.

d. Set your voltage to whatever people out there have shown to be safe. Not max - but safe. IIRC, the i7 is OK all the way up to 1.6v - and no one is doing that except the hardcore LN2 guys. 1.25v is probably the place to start for an i7, but 1.3v is perfectly safe and will hold higher clocks. I would never go above 1.4v personally. At that point, you're flogging a dead horse and likely generating boatloads of heat.

e. Set your Uncore Voltage to match the core voltage.

f. Set your DRAM bus voltage to the Intel standard of 1.65v (1.66v if you have the P6T as I do). ** DO NOT EXCEED 1.65v/1.66v UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PERIOD**. This WILL burn out your chip - much more readily than core voltage or clockspeed. Don't believe me? Google it.

g. Disable everything optional on the CPU - HTT, Turbo, etc etc. Keep it simple. You can always play with adding it back in later if you just have to.

h. Save and reboot. If you've been smart and gotten the right components and done your research, you're now in the position of not having to reinvent the wheel. If it boots and goes into Windows, rather than doing any stress testing just yet - I'd go ahead and go back into the BIOS and do your max overclock (4.2Ghz in my case). Of course, mine was at 4.2Ghz to start with.

i. Revise settings and reboot at your max OC. Now if it POSTs and goes into Windows, you do your stress testing. Easiest to use is probably Prime 95 as it maxes all 4 cores by default. Be sure you've got some kind of temp monitoring program (Coretemp or Realtemp are both good) so you can see if you're on the ragged edge. Again, you can't really hurt the CPU. That isn't what you should be worried about. But if it's throttling due to running at 90c (max for i7/i5), your overclock has suddenly been rendered pointless. You want to run Prime95 for about 4 hours and look for any errors. Most errors will occur within the 1st 30 secs, if they're going to occur at all. The 4 hours is all about keeping temps in check.

j. If you fail Prime95, but temps are good, then up the voltage if you can. If you fail and temps are high (or temps are just plain high), then don't touch voltage. You need either a better cooler or you must now reduce speed. **Never just keep upping the voltage until it "works". That kind of advice WILL kill your CPU**. Just stay calm, keep an eye on temps, and be rational.

Lastly, the warranty thing. Unless you do something incredibly stupid with voltage, overclocking in and of itself is not going to void anything - especially if it's still the retailer you're dealing with - as will generally be the case if you're overclocking within the return period. As a practical matter, Newegg et al. cannot test or even look at every CPU/MOB/DRAM they get returned. Even if they did, there's no way to tell why a component failed unless you simply fried it with voltage (see the recent Anandtech article about the i5's re: this). In those cases, you can literally see with the naked eye the damage caused. *Even then*, it's highly unlikely you won't get RMA credit. In general, CPU's/Mobo's/DRAM are exchange only for this very reason. They just make sure it's in the box, and move on. Volume, volume.

If dealing with the manufacturer, I've never heard of anyone being denied a warranty claim just because of overclocking. There's simply no way to prove it. Unless there's tell-tale damage from overvoltage (like burnt caps/VRM's), your warranty is good. And if you're pushing that hard on voltage - well, you're probably a benchmarking pro running an LN2 pot anyway. In which case, you already know all this and aren't even reading my post for God's sake. I hope.

- Erich

Let me throw in some words about overclocking.

*Be aware that you'll lose any warranty on overclocked parts!*

Also never ever raise your CPU speed too much at a time. Even if 2 has 100% identical Hardware, there is no guarantee that both may reach same settings.

Most safe way to bring your CPU to it's max possible stable clockrate:

1. Raise Clock by 50-100MHz (not more). If the multiplier is unlocked, favorise OC by multi than FSB (or equivalent name for todays HW).

2. Start Windows and do a stress test for about at least 1hr! Keep an eye on CPU temps. If stress test is running well, go back to point 1.

3. If your PC won't boot or the stress test fails, raise CPU Voltage by one notch (steps may vary depending on Motherboard).

4. Read through some decent OC-Forums to get an idea how much Vcore (CPU Voltage) your particular CPU can handle.

5. If you hit Vcore limit and it doesn't run stable, reduce CPU clock to the latest known stable setting.

6. You may finetune now by slowly increasing FSB. Also here do seriously stress-test every step you make.

Golden rule:

Although it's a pain in the a$$ to reboot every time to get into the BIOS, always change only one setting at once. So if somethings hangs, you know what caused it.

@Kondor999

Be careful advertising things like:

It's never a good idea to start with high settings (as people surely would try after reading this line). I'm sure enough you didn't started straight with highest setting but testing step by step what your CPU can handle.

---------- Post added at 01:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:43 PM ----------

Monkmonk - turn HT OFF on your chip mate.

It's one of the biggest performance killers out there. I know as I have the same(ish) chip i920@4ghz and when Ht is off the game runs waaaaay better!

You can buy me a beer for that one later, if no-one else has beaten me to the advice first.

Chris

Sorry Dude. See my (very long) post above you. HTT is definitely a heat-generator. About 15c per most people's experience. Good advice though and I'm glad you repeated it.

So not worth it!

Edited October 21, 2009 by kondor999

[AndresCL 10]

Well, AMD just dropped the price of their Phenom II and Athlon II so it may be a good chance to upgrade

[wasserkool 1]

I think we should leave detailed overclocking discussion out from here and go to sites and forums dedicated to that topic. It is simply impossible to cover in one thread especially with the different user config and user technical levels.

I am wondering, does the game still slowdown during major firefights with an i7? I mean if have have a massive infantry battle with 12 squad vs 12 squad? My system with Phenom II at 3.6Ghz slows down :(

[reilar 10]

...

a. Research what's reasonable to expect in terms of voltage, clockspeed and temps on your CPU/MOBO/RAM combo (if you get lucky, you'll find someone who has already done it with the same 3 components).

...

Thank you so very much. You really gave me a good headstart in OC'ing my rig.

I aimed for BCLK = 180 with multiplier = 21 => 3.88 GHz.

Your advice for voltages was very helpful. I havn't done any particular stress testing yet but have instead run Harvest Red for a couple of hours. So far so good! Max core temps according to CPUID Hardware monitor are around 60 deg C.

Also ArmA2Mark showed a big boost.

This OC together with a RAM Disk of 9 GB (see http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=88388)

has made my ArmA 2 to an even greater experience.

Thanks once more!

This thread has definitely gotten into ArmA2 tweaking bookmark folder:yay:

Edited October 21, 2009 by ReiLar

[Sniperdoc 0]

Tri-SLI was horrible. Made it slower than 1 card. Come to think of it, that was true of most games. SLI is better, but still too flaky for me.

I love my HD5870. Oh, I'm sure I'll try Crossfire at some point, but I'm really hoping that by the time it's necessary we'll have an HD6870 on the near horizon. After doing SLI since the Voodoo2 days, I can say with some confidence that it's almost never worth it. Well, except Crysis. It loved Tri-SLI.

TRI-SLI is only useful for resolutions on a 30" monitor. PC Gamer and MaxPC had articles about that.

[ofpfreak 0]

I went from a E6400 @ 3.2Ghz to an i7 920 @ 4.0ghz with no noticable FPS difference, guess it's time to upgrade my old 8800GTS.

[LRK89 10]

I over clocked my x3 720. just buy upping the mutiplier to 16x giving me a 400mhz increase inspeed on stock voltage. Im too scared to up the voltage and try higher as my Dram dont have heat sinks and i dont want to fry them as my pc is on 24/7.

but i can play arma 2 with everything on very high except Post processing and it runs great. no need for a core i-7 thats including AA and AF on higest settings and the average fps is 25 thats pretty playable to me.

[m0nkm0nk 0]

Well at the moment you are pretty right about the fps.

I clocked my 860 to 4.2 ghz and i see improvements. But still massive drops on fillrate 200%.. and yes i play 1.4 i just call it fillrate ;p

(not stable yet sometimes the screen turns complete gray, any idea?)

That was not the only thing, i had a second gpu installed (Nvidia 6800) for s-video output (cause i dont have hdmi/displayport on my tv) but because of this my PCI-E slots were running at 8x speed! DUMPDUMP i know. So now that card is out :P

Screen : http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/6327/clockje42.png

Inside my pc, just for fun (;

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/7168/p1000064e.jpg

Edited October 22, 2009 by m0nkm0nk

[Leon86 13]

Hi - happy to help.

1. Your cooler is fantastic - one of the best air coolers and as good as my H50 "baby" water cooler.

2. It's technically 5 settings - but 2 are so obvious that...you'll see what I mean. Here's what you do. And I promise not to kill your board :-). I'm going by memory, so hopefully I get the whole sequence right.

a. Go into BIOS by hitting DEL at bootup

b. Go to "Advanced AI"

c. Change to "Manual"

d. Settings:

Setting 1: BCLK 200 (may want to try 180 just to start - this is the equivalent of the old FSB setting. Multiply this number times your multiplier (20-21 in the case of the i7-920) to get your CPU speed. 200x21 = 4.2Ghz.

Setting 2: CPU multiplier: I set this to 21 and turn off both "Turbo" (which dynamically changes from 20x to 21x multiplier - yay) and Hyperthreading (HTT - which generates a tremendous amount of heat for little gain).

Adjustment: You need to adjust your memory speed to less than or equal to its rated speed. If you're running 1600 ram, then just hit the + or - key until you see a value that fulfills this requirement. IIRC, with BCLCK@200, you can choose 1603 which is pretty much perfect.

Setting 3: Core voltage (Vcore): set to 1.30v in my case (D0 stepping). If you have a C0 stepping, you'll need a lot more voltage - and probably exotic cooling. I'd say a C0 is realistically limited to about 3.8 Ghz on air due to it's relatively high voltage requirements. Maybe.

Setting 4: Uncore voltage (I think it's called QPI voltage or something like that in the BIOS): also set to 1.30v.

Setting 5: DRAM bus voltage: set to 1.66v. Now, everyone hopefully knows you shouldn't set this above 1.65v (it'll fry the i7) - but the BIOS only allows 1.64 or 1.66. Apparently 1.66 is "really 1.65v". On this board. Yes, it made me nervous too. But it's fine.

You're done! Hit F10. Easiest massive overclock ever. Leave all the other myriad settings on AUTO.

Now, this may look a little complex, but it isn't. Only 3 of those steps is, in any way, esoteric (the voltage adjustments). The others are just common sense - well, to me anyway.

Tip 1: When you first do this, go conservative on the BCLK and the memory speed (which has very little effect on performance with the i7, which is rated for 1066 mem anyway). This will allow you to isolate the variable you care most about - actual CPU speed. In other words - only push one setting at a time. That way you know what's breaking (if it does).

Tip 2: I'd advise simplifying the CPU as much as possible, and then turn features back on one at a time. Go to the CPU menu and turn off HTT, Turbo, Speedstep, etc. If it won't boot, you don't want to be wondering if it's because "Turbo" is on, etc.

Tip 3: Really, really consider dumping HTT (Hyperthreading). This is a big heat producer. We're talking 15C for basically nothing. Only if you're running massively multithreaded rendering/transcoding apps are you going to benefit from 8 threads. 4 is more than enough for any game yet made. And hopefully we'll soon be using our GPU's (with 1600 threads) for this crap anyway.

OK, hopefully I didn't forget anything. Suffice to say, proceed with caution and some common sense. Actual clockspeed will never kill a CPU (it just won't POST), but things like voltage can. So just double-check those three voltage settings and I can assure you that nothing will die. Then again, don't sue me. If you want to OC, you always take a small risk.

Lastly, you may be able to get away with less voltage than 1.30v. Since my temps are quite low, I didn't feel the need to lower it - but if your temps are on the high side (70's under load) - think about lowering the voltage to 1.25v to see if you can get away with it. Always lower voltage as your first step in reducing heat. BTW, the i7 begins to produce heat disproportionately around 1.35v (D0 stepping) and then goes totally nuts at 1.4v. You'll need some LN2 for that realm.

Good Luck!

You might want to add running a stability test program like occt. http://www.ocbase.com/perestroika_en/index.php?Download or prime 95 or orthos.

It will also let you monitor the core temperature of your cpu (a good cooler can be badly mounted or be useless because there is too little fresh air going into the case. What kills your cpu is a combination of heat and high voltage.