@qwwwizx

(11. October 2012)

Push the system

Its getting cold outside again, and I can do open window tests (temperature of 8c here in copenhagen). Today was my first time since last winter. I managed to push my GPU to 1476MHz which is my record for now. Further more I did it on as little as 1.37v. P13063

(01. October 2012)

Tweaking memory

These days I am trying to get more understandings of memory tweaking. I am working on 24/7 setup, that I can use to play games and in the same time get a fully stable system that will be within the Intel specs. Later on, when I get a better feeling of memory tuning I will make myself a set of benchmark settings. Link

(29. September 2012)

Gigabyte GTX680SOC @ 1.39v

Had the opportunity to try a better ambient temperature for benching today. Outside was around 11C but raining, so I took my computer outside and pushed the graphics card to 1.471Mhz and got P13009, which is kind of a record for the GTX 680 series on water.

(21. September 2012)

Gigabyte GTX680SOC @ 1.355v

Did a little testing to see when things starts to crash/artifacts etc. It looks like the limit before artifacting kicks in is around 1438Mhz at ambient of 21c. P12801

(21. September 2012)

Voltage hacking Gigabyte GTX680SOC (Super Overclock)

Now with loads of volt to the GPU, without hardmods, without bios change - just software Link.

(15. September 2012)

Water on Gigabyte GTX680SOC (Super Overclock)

I equipped water on my Gigabyte card, to see if it moved anything. The 5x fan cooler is really good, so put it on water arent really a big upgrade. graphics score at 12392 in 3dmark11. BTW, I used on of my old EK VGA blocks to cool the GPU, and a load of small heatsinks on VRM chips, and memory. Link

(11. September 2012)

New Gigabyte GTX680SO (Super Overclock)

Sold my old card and got a Gigabyte GTX680SO in my machine. Still on air, and in an environment with ambient temperature around 25C, the results are pretty clear. Link - Graphics score at 12230 in 3Dmark11, the fastest I have ever seen using a single card. So far I havent been able to hack the "Chil" VRM chip to provide any extra voltage, so I am still running vCore on 1.21v as MAX. Link

(12. June 2012)

Tested 5 different LGA775 CPU's on Tec

From my work I had some really old P4 CPU's. I tested them using my chiller. All of them but one, ran 5 GHz. One of them seemed pretty stable at 5.3 GHz and could be pushed above 5.4 Ghz.

• • Intel P4 930D, 5.11 Ghz

  • Intel P4 930D, 5.33 Ghz

  • Intel Celeron 360, 5.18 Ghz

  • Intel P4 HT 641, 5.4 Ghz

  • Intel P4 530*, 4.46 Ghz

The chiller seemes to hold the water cooling the CPU's around 15-20C, while loading the CPU's with up to 1.7v, which gave me Prime95 Small FFT temps on the CPU around 40-50C - full throttle at max overclock.

*My motherboard did not allow me to adjust that CPU further up, so I could not really reach the limit of the CPU itself.

(19. May 2012)

Water-cooled chiller

Finally I got my tec-chiller to work. My test rig is an old Siemens Fujitsu chassis, where I found an old used Asus P5WD2-E motherboard with 4 old used CPUs to play with. Its fun so far, and seems to work out really well. Read more here.

(11. May 2012)

Air-cooled chiller failed

My Aircooled chiller failed. I couldnt get the hotside cold enough, not even close. A lesson learnt, and now to something better. Watercooled chiller. You can read about the fail here.

(15. March 2012)

TEC Chiller project

It will soon be summer, and its time to push cooling a bit further. This is why I have started a chiller project. The goal is to be able to archive sub-ambient temperatures 24/7, and to archieve sub-zero temperatures when benching. All this in a cheap tower chassis running 24/7 as workstation/gaming/benching rig.

I bought all parts, and will soon make a section dedicated to the build and tests. The main concept freezer is stolen from fridge and Coolit Boreas. I ordered all parts and hope that I get them within the next few weeks, to get the building started. A quick sketch of my system can be seen here at youtube link

(25. February 2012)

Latest benchmarks on ATI Radeon R7970 on watercooling

Asus OC HD7970 bios results:

GPU 1,4v; MEM 1,75v; GPU 1.407Mhz; GPU MEM 1.743Mhz.

P11582 http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2880724

Stock XFX R7970 bios results:

GPU 1,3v; MEM 1,7v; GPU 1.348Mhz; GPU MEM 1.724Mhz.

P11217 http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2811148

I didnt disable tesselation, which makes the results look low compared to hwbot, but these are comparable to Nvidia results.

(25. February 2012)

Computerwash

My computer needs cleaning and I just found out that it can be done with the dishes.

Motherboard wash: Link

Boot after drying: Link

(11. February 2012)

XFX R7970 Open window benching

Today I agreed with my wife that I could use an hour benching my rig, with open windows. Its fun, but cold, and one hour isnt much to put the rig up, cool it down and bench. I did as much as possible, not using too much time writing etc. but didnt really feel that I reached the barrier/limits, so I hope for a new bench in the near future. See results here.

(8. February 2012)

XFX Radeon HD7970 Stock/Water

Tired of bencing my good old GTX 580 SO, I bought a new XFX Radeon HD7970. New to Radeon cards I did a little newbie testing that can be seen on this link. I tested with the stock cooler and with an EK FC7970 fullcover waterblock that I will use in the future.

(15. January 2012)

Benching GTX580 SO, OpenAir (P9200).

Just did a little open-air testing today. Outside temperature is approximately 2C, so I opened window and put the computer there. Clocked everything up and benched. Had P9200 and a graphics score at 8713 i 3dmark11. You can investigate the details here link.

(12. January 2012)

Benching GTX580 SO, 3Dmark11 Calculation.

When benching default (855/2050) I get approx in 3dmark11 graphics score ~6900, in performance mode. When I tune the GFX up to (1000/2400) I get ~8150 in graphics score. When pushing it further to (1052/2511) I get 8575 in graphics scores....

So what I found out is, take GPU frequency and multiply it by 8.15. Then you have the 3dmark11 Graphics score.

(10. January 2012)

Battlefield 3

I have used most of my time lately on Battlefield 3. Its fun and it gives my computer some sense. I havent tried how far I can push it with BF3, but found it fun to just benchmark it with the setup I use for BF3. I have been playing BF3 for 78 hours now, so it is stable. You can see the results of benchmarking here (link). Today I also updated my gallery of water cooling, since a lot has happened lately (link).

(13. october 2011)

Sleeved, Paint and Carbonfiber.

Next week I will be tearing my rig totally apart. I will then try to mod it. Wires will be cut and sleeved, chassis will be painted and I might even put carbonfiber on my old and ugly screen. I am not that handy, so it is very exciting how things will end out. Now I got the materials, but still need a heater for the carbon fiber. Time to clean up the mess inside.

(2. october 2011)

Almost P9100 in 3dmark 11

Low ambient is the key to get good results. My best for now is P9092 with an ambient temp of 23c.

I have updated my watercooling pictures to show how things looks at the moment. I am going to use a little time modding the case and wires now.

(14. september 2011)

Broke 9000 in 3dmark 11

It has been tough over the last weeks. I have found several bugs in bios's, and I have learnt the benefits of tweaking memory timings and speed. I reached P9084 on my single GTX 580.

Memory timings now 7-10-7-24 1T @ 2200MHz.

(6. september 2011)

Memory improvement

I am new to overclocking memory but my lesson so far is that 4 dimms at stock speed in my ASUS board is unstable. Eigther I run 2 dimms at the time or 4 dimms at a reduced speed like 1866Mhz. I noticed this problem running prime95 and superpi. Running 2 dimms works fine and let me adjust (9-10-9-24-2T) to (9-10-9-24-1T). Now that I found this problem I have to try to get timings even better over the next time.

(29 . august 2011)

Improving the scores:

Later MSI bios versions and ASUS P8Z68-V Pro has been killing my spirit with low benchmark results for some time. I investigated the problem and found the problem - "c-states". I have no idea why, but disabling C-states make these boards come back to life again. In 3Dmark11 I gain a raw score increase about 3% just by disabling these c-states.

Next to that I bought some 2133MHz memory to upgrade my 1600MHz. First results here.

(20. august 2011)

Asus P8Z68-V Pro.

I decided not to go for a Gene-Z again. It was running hot when benching, so I guess its just a fast mediacenter board. In the same time I exchange my waterpump and upgraded my cooling to push/pull which should give me a couple of C more to work with.

(16. august 2011)

Asus Gene-Z dead.

Worked fine for some days, but after running some 5.3GHz benchmarks, at BCLK 106 it crashed and never came back to life again!

It can also be my CPU that is toasted. Unluckily my MCP35x died which gave me some CPU overheated issues. If possible, I will get another motherbard, the ASUS Gene-Z looks like a fine little mini-atx board, but I have the feeling that it is not for extreme clocking.

So what will be next: MSI, Gigabyte, ASUS, Evga, ASrock?

(11. august 2011)

Asus Gene-Z and Enermax MaxRevo 1500W

I had the oppertunity to exchange my motherboard, "an old B2 sandy bug board" to a brand new ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z. Its a good board, to what I see almost as good as the MSI. I will try find some good profiles for everyday and for benching over the next days.

I had a really nice time with the MSI board and CM PSU. Nothing to complain about, just needed something new to mess with.

(3. august 2011)

GPU-Z, Nibitor and Nvflash to raise GPU voltage limit

Today I felt it was time to modify my GFX a little to be able to raise my benchmark scores. It is my first time to overclock a GFX like that, and I am still on an generic EK GPU block, which leaves memory and vregs under air cooling. I wont like to ruin anything so I carefully tested the stuff by raising things slowly. At my first day I archieved P8486 in 3Dmark11. Thats pretty good of a single GPU system. See it here. Get my GFX bios here (use it at your own risk).

(22. juli 2011)

Intel 2600K and Gigabyte GTX 580SO

I used a little more time messing with my GTX 580SO, I replaced the heatsink with a EK-VGA block and added it to my watercooling loop. It Seems that the limit on the GTX 580SO without bios-modifications for more voltage is 1029MHz@GPU, and 2.400MHz on memory. I adjusted my 2600K settings to use lower corelimits <50, but increased the BCLK to 103,8 and 105,9 which seemed reliable. Results here.

(18. june 2011)

Back to single GPU - Gigabyte GTX 580 OC

Had an accident when modding one of my GTX 470s so exchange all of it to an Gigabyte 580 OC. My initial tests shows that 2 x GTX 470 is a lot faster than I thought. I love the GTX 580 SO though and could withing hours, on stock bios settings and stock cooling reach around 1GHz on the GPU. See it here.

(21. may 2011)

Rebuild for Watercooling

Annoyed by the sounds of high RPM fans! I exchanged every single FAN with a Black Ice SR-1 420 Radiator, 3 x Cooler Master 140mm fans, EK Water Blocks Supreme HF, 2 x EK Water Blocks VGA Supreme HF, EK Water Blocks EK-DCP 4.0 Pump, tubes etc. I even had to do some minor mods of my Cooler Master Stacker 830 chassis. See it here.

(6. february 2011)

2 pcs. Corsair Force 60GB SSD in Raid 0

Boot Windows 7 x64 Ultimate in ~ 8 seconds. Completely finished DHCP, Skype login, Pidgin, Logitech G15 driver, displays etc. in ~ 14. sec. "Low budget speed-booter."

(7. March 2011)

Prolimatech Megahalem rev. 2

5.7 GHz, can boot, but is very unstable in Windows. Bios 1.9 and I got BSOD x50 error, related to my memory. I guess it is time to mess a little with the memory.

(26. march 2011)

5.4 GHz,

Works fine. Does 3dmark06 and 3dmark11 without issues. See first screendump in (here)

5.3 GHz, Does 3dmark06. Now with an extra fan on the cooler - max temp around 80c.

The system is VERY noisy, and I am doing my experiments in the living room. Only late nights, when family is sleeping, is OC time for me :-) I hope to reach 5.4 GHz on air next week.

(21. january 2011)

Intel stock cooler

4.8 GHz, No crash at all, but hot. All cores was between 96-98c under the CPU test. This CPU can really handle some heat :-)

All tests are done with the free version of 3dmark06 (1.20). It can be downloaded from Guru3d.com.

Build

1x CoolerMaster Stacker 830 chassis

1x Intel Haswell 4770K

1x MSI MPower Max Z87

4x 2GB Corsair Dominator GT 2133 MHz

2x 8GB Corsair Platinum CL10 2400

2x 4GB TeamGroup LV 2400

2x Avexir Cores Series 2800

1x Gigabyte GTX680SO

1x OCZ MaxIOPS 120GB SSD disk

1x Corsair Force 60GB SSD disk

2x Samsung SSD 830 Series 128GB

1x Silverstone SST-ST75F-G 750 Watt

1x Nvidia Ti560

1x MSI Z87 Gaming

1x Asus Maximus IV Extreme

1x Intel Ivy-Bridge 3770K

1x Intel Sandy Bridge 2600K CPU Batch: L040B225

1x Enermax MaxRevo 1500W (in chiller now)

1x XFX R7970 Black Edition (sold)

1x Gigabyte GTX580SO(sold)

1x CoolerMaster Silent Pro Gold 700W (sold)

4x Corsair 2GB PC3-12800 (1.6Ghz)(sold)

1x Asus P8Z68-V Pro (sold)

1x Asus Maximus IV Gene-Z (dead)

1x MSI P67A-GD65 (B2).

1x HWlabs Black-Ice SR-1 420 Radiator

1x EK Water Blocks Nichel-Acetal Supr. HF CPU

1x EK Water Blocks VGA

1x Swifttech MCP35x + reservoir

1x Denger Den fillport reservoir

2m ½" tube

3x Silverstone SST-FHP141 140mm (push)

3x Silverstone 141AP Fans (pull)

3x Packs of Enzotech heatsinks

3x Prolimatech 140mm Silent Fans (push)

1x EK Water Blocks FC7970

3x Silverstone 121FM Fans (gfx)

1x EK Water Blocks Copper-Plexi Supr. HF VGA

Windows 7 64bit Ultimate