920 core temps, am I safe?

GeneO said:

Lordbob75 said:

75C is a tad high, but for that much of an OC that is pretty good temperatures. What voltage is it running at (that will make a big difference as well)? I am assuming this is an i7-920K CPU.

I would also make sure you have adequate cooling for that much of an OC.
I forget what the stock voltage of that CPU is, but you don't want to bump it up past about .2 volts over the stock setting as that could blow the CPU. I would guess that you are way high on voltage.

When you stress test, all you need to do is run Prime95 for over 24hours. No need to do ALL the stress tests, Prime95 for a full day will pretty much guarantee stability.

~Lordbob

Overclocking can shorten the lifetime of a processor through the process of electromigration which destroys traces and other features on a chip. Temperature has more of an affect on electromigration than voltage (it depends exponentially on temperature and only quadratically on voltage).

Electromigration - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is because the temperature loosens the ions in the lattice so that they can be more easily dislodged by the electron current.

You also have to monitor the stability over time. In just over about a year I have had to bump up my VCore a click to remain stable. And that is with a 1 GHz overclock at 65-66c on custom (heavy duty) Prime95 load.

I should have clarified. I meant that after a certain point, you have to CRANK the voltage up to get even a 50Mhz increase in speed, and that will cause temperatures to skyrocket very quickly. So you want to find the point with the highest speed at the lowest voltage.

~Lordbob

An Intel i7 920 overclocked to 4.61 with a max tjmax of 75c on air actually sounds pretty normal to me. These processors run quite hot to begin with.
You're reaching near max limits there so do want to be aware of it at least. We're also talking about full load here, so unless The OP's running maxed out loads all the time all day long, personally wouldn't worry too much about it.

Albeit, that is a quite high overclock for that processor on just air. Would be nice with water cooling.

Myself have mine to just 4Ghz on air with an aftermarket cooling tower, with tolerable temps. Not comfortable going any much higher without temps reaching beyond what is comfortable.

I would suggest considering going down on the overclock a little bit for that particular processor at least with air cooling.

karlsnooks said:

Do Not Overclock!

If you want a faster processor, get one.

Overclocking is just asking for problems.

If you want to fight all odds, then at least get yourself a monster-sized cooler for the processor to get the temps down some.

The only thing that is saving you right now is that modern processor will throttle themselves to keep the temps from getting astronomical.

Should probably stop giving out advice that you think is correct, rather than proven viable when done right by countless others.

We need to help users by stating proven methods rather than scaring them all the time with overly cautious Don't overclock!! Don't disable any services!! Don't disable this or that!! warnings.

GINTER said:

right next to me is sitting the EE-975 (retail boxed, never used).

You should have the 920 in the box, not the 975

4.0ghz+HT is the sweet spot for the 920


4.6Ghz is extreme for that chip and generally requires top shelf cooling. If you used AUTO for the voltages, I shudder to think what it was running at

Memory controllers are integrated into the CPU.
If you do indeed have 24GB RAM, thats alot more stress on the CPU, so yours very well may run a bit warmer than other at the same speed.
It has more to keep up with.


I wouldn't worry to much about idle temps. Load temps are all that even matters.

Those temps are quite a bit better, and about average for that CPU.
I would also see how far you can lower the voltage and keep it stable.

MAKE SURE you stress test it with Prime95 for 24h!

~Lordbob

GINTER said:

Apologies for not specifying that it's Intel - 920. I took your (collective) advice and clocked it down 1 GHz. I do have a massive cooler, but I guess not for 4.6 GHz. 3.6 seems snappy enough and right next to me is sitting the EE-975 (retail boxed, never used). I was going to sell that one to get the 6-core EE. Thus, if the 920 burns out, I have a backup CPU.

BTW, at full load, the 920 @ 3.6 is now around 58-60 °C. Much happier. Idle, still around 45.

I built the system on the first-gen i7 (not Sandy Bridge) because of the memory limitation. In this system I was able to stick in 24 GB - and it's proven useful. Video transcoding and Photoshop work eats both, the RAM and CPU cycles. Never mind the browsers, which are memory-hogs themselves.

Thanks to everyone that participated in this thread. And as a finale, I do agree that overclocking is the way to go. It wouldn't have been built into the CPU's and MB's if they chose to do so. Remember older configurations? Almost everything was locked out.. Not any more! Free overclocking it is.

smarteyeball said:

GINTER said:

right next to me is sitting the EE-975 (retail boxed, never used).

You should have the 920 in the box, not the 975

4.0ghz+HT is the sweet spot for the 920


4.6Ghz is extreme for that chip and generally requires top shelf cooling. If you used AUTO for the voltages, I shudder to think what it was running at

It's true, a 4ghz overclock is pretty average for this CPU, and can be quite stable with temps well within tolerances. While 3.6 is a nice overclock, you could get it to 4 and keep it there without any problems. Up to you though.
I'd agree with SE and use the 975 over the 920 though. If you have it, might as well use it, and through the 920 on the backup shelf.

seekermeister said:

GINTER.

In this system I was able to stick in 24 GB - and it's proven useful. Video transcoding and Photoshop work eats both, the RAM and CPU cycles. Never mind the browsers, which are memory-hogs themselves.

By transcoding, I assume that you are referring to the encoding done when ripping videos. If so, I'm curious what program(s) that you use that uses so much memory, etc. because with the programs that I use, I have never seen it use more than 50% of my 4GBs of memory, even when my browser has remained open for a prolonged period of time?

Premiere CS5 sucked up all of my ram when I was doing a test encode.,