Sapphire Technology is well known for their line of AMD/ATi video cards but they are also making motherboards. What can a video card company bring to the table? Name recognition that has been earned over the years by producing quality products.

Packaging

Sapphire has an all business approach with the packaging by pointing out the features. Other than the “Pure Platinum” badge it is a no frills look.

Product Shots

The Mosfets need no cooling and the Bluetooth does not take up a USB port. The design is pretty good; especially having the MINI-PCIe (bottom right) slot on the bottom of the board. Things are a bit less cramped than boards that have the slot located on the top.

Next: Specifications and Software

If extreme overclocking had a name, it’d be k|ngp|n. Vince Lucido (a/k/a “k|ngp|n”) is arguably the man who got such things started in the United States. Back when most people were still gawking at the extreme ventures of a few folks pushing overclocking to new heights with water cooling, this guy started to bring the truly extreme methods of employing liquid nitrogen (LN2) to achieve even more outrageous performance. While Vince was not the first person to use LN2 too cool a computer system, he was one of the very first to experiment with cooling not only the CPU, but also GPUs and motherboards with the cryogenic liquid. Breaking world records and taking overclocking and benchmarking to the extreme is his passion, and he has done it over and over again.

Here is a brief video introduction to k|ngp|n.

When k|ngp|n got started, one of the major hurdles was how to properly cool his components with LN2. Since devices did not exist with which he could accomplish thos, he started designing and building prototype LN2 containers (“pots”) which he could mount to the computer hardware in order to apply the LN2 to effectively cool the components. He started out doing this for his own adventures, but very quickly became overwhelmed by requests from other enthusiasts seeking to buy copies of the containers he was building. Seeing a golden opportunity, in 2006, k|ngp|n founded his business kingpincooling.com (aka “KPC”) and is now mass-producing his pots for enthusiasts all over the world. And R&D has not stopped, so he has continuously reevaluated and improved his designs to perfect his containers according to user demands and the changes in computer hardware. That brings us to the subject of our review today, the new line of KPC’s LN2 containers.

The new KPC LN2 containers

Note: The CPU and GPU container internals have been blocked out at k|ngp|n’s request. The containers shown in our pictures are pre-production components, and look slightly different than the production models; please see the images on the next page for details.

Next: A closer look…

As a benchmarker, the biggest milestone you will come across is your first plunge below -100C. Liquid Nitrogen is -196C by nature, and to utilize this exotic cooling material, you need a fantastic evaporator, or more commonly known as a pot. Much like dry ice, cooling the processor down this cold will decrease impedance that opposes electron flow. This allows for a more efficient circuit, promoting greater stability and overclocking headroom.

After 2 years of research, waiting, gathering hardware, blogging, and toying with dry ice, I have now crossed the line into the “big league” of extreme cooling. Liquid Nitrogen. I was originally inspired after I had the privilege of visiting an extreme overclocking event in Austin, Texas at the AMD Lonestar Campus Headquarters exactly 2 years ago to the day. I got to watch some of the best of the best overclockers such as Kingpin, Chew* and Gomeler work their magic with LN2. I wrote an article about it here.

This event also spawned a video: Xtreme Conditions ( I am in the black v-neck standing next to Chew*)

Without further ado, here comes my first Liquid Nitrogen run: inspired by overclockers, performed by overclockers.

I come equipped bearing:
-one 30L Union Carbide Laboratory Grade Dewar
-one LN2cooling.com Evaporator, one Phenom II X6 1090T BE
-one set of Mushkin Ridgeback 4GB PC3-12800
-one Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5
-one PC Power & Cooling 750 Watt “Silencer”
- two Scythe 120mm Variable CFM Fans
-one Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1GB
-one container of dielectric grease
-one container of “no-leak” plumbing putty
-lots of neoprene bits
-and a roll of paper towel.

Board preparation and insulation was extremely similar to my DICE run preparation, which is why I have taken no pictures of this particular step this time around. However, I will post pictures from my previous prep. The only difference is I added a small amount of neoprene bits in areas where I ran out of putty.

Grease applied around the socket. The last line of defense against moisture and condensation.

Putty around the socket.

Before I post the results I just want to send out a big thanks to my benching partner Addies, as he helped find the great deal to purchase this dewar, as well as helping pitch for liquid nitrogen, helping me film, and helping me reach some great overclocking results. And I would also like to thank Aaron Schradin of LN2cooling.com for lending me this great evaporator.LN2cooling.com Evaporator

Union Carbide LD-30 30L Laboratory Grade Dewar

I was very proud of how my 890FXA-UD5 held up, as it’s already been through 3 DICE runs (Dry Ice Inception, Second Frost, and Deep Freeze). I had no condensation issues, as I used dielectric grease then layered on plumbers putty and neoprene. The LN2cooling.com pot did extremely well.

Addies and I managed to produce some decent results. Nothing special by any means, but for a first run we’re proud of the results.

Click Here For Video –

|Liquid Heaven| – |1090T X6 & 555 X2 Under Liquid

Nitrogen| – |6.6GHz+|

Anyways, enough text, time for some result screenshots. We tested Sandra as part of a competition.

6.625GHz Valid – 14th Place 1090T

Validation

10.578s SuperPi 1M – 8th Place 1090T

11m 19. 282s SuperPi 32M – 6th Place 1090T

Sandra Memory Latency – 46.2ns

Sandra Memory Bandwidth – 22.68GB/s

Thats it for results folks. My next run will include higher valids, Pifast, wPrime, and I will also bench my X4 555 BE which fully unlocks and is a better clocker than my X4 955 and X6 1090T.

Large box at the door.

Unboxing

In the box was an Intel core i7-2600k processor, an Intel DP67BG Extreme Series motherboard and a 4GB (2×2GB) kit of Patriot Viper Xtreme Series, Division 2 Edition PC3-17066, and another box? Hmm…interesting box. Upon closer inspection, we realized it was not just a box, it was a computer case!

Inside box closed

Inside box open

All the goodies

Intel Core i7-2600k

Intel’s second generation Core i7 unlocked processors are a fusion of Intel’s 32-nm process technology and a second-generation high-k metal gate transistor-based micro-architecture creating a processor with Intel HD graphics 3000 built in. These chips offer top-of-the-line speed and Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0, giving you a boost in performance when you need it the most.

Intel Core i7-2600k

Like it’s older brother, the second generation Core i7 k-series chips, k for unlocked, offers simple, flexible tuning and overclocking with unlocked multipliers. Need an adrenaline rush? Overclock and unleash the power of your Core i7-2600k! New to overclocking? No problem! Overclocking has never been this easy, just visit the BIOS on boot and adjust the multiplier.

Still not sure about overclocking? That is OK too; i7-2600k has 4 cores, Hyper Threading and stock, out of the box runs at 3.4Ghz, more than enough speed for the mainstream user.

Intel DP67BG

The Intel DP67BG is the newest addition to the Extreme Series line up boasting the P67 chipset. This board supports both SLI and Crossfire technologies to bring you the best graphics experience possible, as well as SuperSpeed USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0Gb/s to access your data in a flash.

Intel DP67BG

The Case

This case is beautiful to say the least. It is a mid-tower built from bright white acrylic, with six 90mm fan cut outs, 3 5.25” drive bays and an optional drive cage, don’t worry, Intel has included some very Ikea like instructions on how to install the drive cage. It also sports an Intel design cut out, and Intel Core i7 logo on it’s side panel.

Board mounted in case

Hyper 212+ mounted

Everything mounted

Ready to be powered up

Powered up

Inside lit up

Next: System Configuration & 2D Benchmarks

MSI has seen the potential in the new AMD Fusion CPU. The MSI E350IA-E45 is a feature rich micro ITX board with the potential to be the heart of your next HTPC with it’s excellent integrated graphics; an effective home server with its 4x SATAIII ports, or even an adequate daily driver with DDR3 support and low heat output.

The packaging is pretty standard, including two SATA cables. The rear panel has a nice set of external connections. With 8 USB ports (two of which are USB 3.0), PS2 port, Gigabit LAN, Optical audio out, COAX audio out, standard audio jacks, D-Sub and HDMI out, this board is not lacking.

Internal headers and connections include: com port header, 2x USB 2.0 connectors, 1x front panel audio connector and a TMP connector. This little board seems pretty well outfitted.

The HSF is well designed with a decent amount of surface area and is also pleasing to the eye. In addition, the PCIe slot is good for those wanting a little more horse power out of an add-in GPU. Keep in mind that it is only 4x V2 and big cards may not work due to the proximity of the 24 pin connector and the memory slots.

The standard slots and sockets are great compared to some boards that require a non-standard power supply and use laptop memory.

The only potential issues with the design of the board were the single fan header and the battery location. The other limitation is the 4x PCIe slot, but that is more related to the CPU/Chipset than the actual board design itself.

Next: Background

UPDATE Jan 17th ***I’m seeing a lot of the same questions/rumors around the forums right now, and I just want to address a couple briefly*** UPDATE Jan 17th

• The motherboard was sent to me in unsealed box, it appears to have been used.
• The socket manufacturer is Foxconn.
• Only one motherboard in my lab has any “burn”, the P67A-UD4….the other two boards are fine.
• I’m still waiting for more answers from Gigabyte about the previous usage of this unit. And I’ll provide an update ASAP
• I know the details here are sparse, I’m only reporting what I know.




UPDATE Jan 18th ***Gigabyte is not making any official statements at this time*** UPDATE Jan 18th

• My contact at Gigabyte believes this is an isolated incident.
• I’m sending the board back to their HQ for further testing.

I received two motherboards from Gigabyte recently for testing, one P67A-UD4 and one P67A-UD7. Upon arrival, I did a thorough visual inspection, and found the UD4 had obvious signs of “socket burn”….a phenomenon discovered last year with the LAG1156 socket area. After notifying my contact with Gigabyte about the issue 8 days ago, I’ve yet to get any word back. Hopefully this issue is not widespread.

With the last generation, it appeared that socket burn was most likely to occur under extreme conditions. But with Sandy Bridge, “extreme conditions” and 24/7 use are very close together. Will this problem be a major issue for a large number of users? Time will tell.

Feel free to join the discussion in our forums.

On January 2nd, NDA was lifted for the new “Sandy Bridge” architecture from Intel.  TechREACTION was ready with a hands-on look at the new Republic of Gamers motherboard from Asus, the Maximus IV Extreme.  With minimal time for testing, we were only able to bring you a portion of the review in Part 1, but we promised a follow up article to answer the remaining questions about the Maximus IV Extreme, and real world use with Sandy Bridge.  Well, to quote the movie “The Cable Guy”…”The Future Is Now!” and today is that day!

Asus Maximus IV Extreme

In this review, we’ve dug much deeper into the Maximus IV Extreme and exploited its full potential with single, dual, and triple SLI configurations.  We’ve included a much more thorough testing regime to better gauge the real world performance potential in this platform, and drawn full conclusions to better help you with your buying decisions.  So is Sandy Bridge right for you?  Do you need a Maximus IV Extreme?  These are all good questions, read on for the answers.

Test Setup:

Testing this new platform without any comparisons would be a bit pointless.  When determining exactly how we should conduct the testing, we decided on two scenarios which will hopefully help me represent the largest number of you.  For each of these four scenarios, we tested with all three graphics card configurations; single, dual, and triple-SLI.

***Spoiler! — If you are on an older platform, you can skip to the end. Sandy Bridge is worth it for you!***

Average Enthusiast Overclock:

• Intel Xeon W3520 (identical to the i7 920) @ 4GHz with 3×2GB DDR3-1600 9-9-9-27 1T
• Intel Core i7 2600K @ 4.5GHz with 2×2GB DDR3-1675 8-8-8-24 1T

“Best Case Scenario” Overclock:

• Intel Xeon W3520 @ 4.5GHz with 3×2GB DDR3-1720 8-8-8-24 1T
• Intel Core i7 2600K @ 5GHz with DDR3-2133 8-8-8-24 1T

Since the two configurations meet in the middle for a clock-for-clock comparison at 4.5GHz, we thought it a good opportunity to bring in two other major contenders. The AMD Phenom II X6 1090T and the budget variety Sandy Bridge, the Core i7 2500K.

Clock-For-Clock at 4.5GHz:

• Intel Xeon W3520 @ 4.5GHz with 3×2GB DDR3-1720 8-8-8-24 1T
• Intel Core i7 2600K @ 4.5GHz with 2×2GB DDR3-1675 8-8-8-24 1T
• Intel Core i7 2500K @ 4.5GHz with 2×2GB DDR3-1638 8-8-8-24 1T
• AMD Phenom II X6 1090T @ 4.5GHz with 2×2GB DDR3-1666 8-8-8-24 1T

Common Configuration:

• LGA1366 – Gigabyte X58A-UD9
• LGA1155 – ASUS Maximus IV Extreme
• AM3+ – Gigabyte 890FX-UD5
• Memory – Corsair Dominator GTX2 DDR3-2250 8-8-8-24 1T
• Graphics – ASUS GeForce GTX 570 (x3)
• HDD – 74GB Western Digital Raptor
• PSU – Corsair AX1200 80+ Gold
• Windows 7 x64 Ultimate SP1 RC
• nVidia Forceware 266.35 beta

The Sandy Bridge CPUs were air cooled, the Bloomfield CPU was water cooled but probably could have managed on air cooling (this is a particularly good chip), and the AMD Phenom II X6 CPU needed cold water to complete testing at 4.5GHz.  Obviously, an AMD X6 running at 4.5GHz is highly unlikely, but we wanted to be able to show you its capabilities if it were possible.  When we asked for your opinions about what to test, “clock-for-clock” comparisons were in high demand.

Next: Test Systems Pictured

Girl: "It's so tiny!" *giggles*

Check out that image above (Don’t laugh!).  That is a Zacate APU, featuring 2x Bobcat cores and the equivalent of a Radeon HD5450 DX11 graphics processing unit, with a TDP of 19 watts, all in a package no larger than your thumbprint!  Now, to call such a chip ‘impressive’ simply doesn’t give AMD enough credit.  Scale down the clock speeds on both the Bobcat cores and the GPU and you have yourself an Ontario with a TDP of just 9 watts!  Also important to mention is that the GPU in Zacate/Ontario is not all HD5XXX generation, but in fact contains the video processing engine from the HD6XXX series of cards.

So what products will these chips be fitting into you ask?  Primarily netbooks and low-end ultra-portable notebooks.  On the netbook side, users will be gaining substantially in the CPU/GPU performance department, while hopefully maintaining, if not improving on existing battery life numbers.  With that however, users should expect prices to be between $50/$100 higher than current ATOM-based netbooks of similar size/spec.  On the notebook side, you’ll likely take a hit in CPU power when compared to ULV Core 2’s, and especially Core i3’s/Sandy Bridge.  However graphically, Zacate will offer an improvement over current ION/Optimus graphics solutions and should maintain excellent battery life.

What about tablets, slates, or even smart phones?  Are they in the cards?  Yes, for 2012.  AMD says that in order to accommodate the tablet market, ideally they’d like to get these chips under the 3-5w mark, depending on application.  For that, they expect to be able to tune the silicon as it is and have a solution by the end of the year that should be ideal for these markets.  And smart phones?  Well, again, John tells me that AMD has a plan for this and Zacate/Ontario is ideally the first step toward having a solution for those products.  Will there be a Zacate/Ontario based smartphone this year?  Absolutely not, with their be a derivation at some point in 2012?  Probably not, but 13 may be the lucky number for AMD in our opinion.

In the gallery above you can see the current road map for AMD’s APU line up.  You will notice that in 2012, Krishna and Wichita bring along several improvements.  The most noticeable being a die-shrink from 40nm all the way down to 28nm, as well as adding 2 more Bobcat cores, for a total of up to 4 cores per APU!  The Bobcat cores will also be further “enhanced”, most likely adding in further TDP improvements per core.

Overall, we are looking at a very impressive, very interesting year for AMD in the ultra-portable mobile sector.

Many users are searching around the net these days looking for advice on how to overclock their new systems, but aren’t sure where to start.  To help everyone out, I decided a how-to guide was in order.  Searching around forums can be confusing and intimidating.  There are so many people willing to give advice, but who can you trust?  It’s hard to know, and I have seen many users sent on wild goose chases because they follow advice that doesn’t solve or even address their specific problem.  I have also seen too much trial and error overclocking, and unless you get lucky, it tends to be far too time consuming and frustrating. What I have attempted to do is create a very simple three step guide for overclocking Sandy Bridge based CPUs.  If you want to continue searching out other opinions, please consider each suggestion with caution.  Some will undoubtedly be great, while some will not.

***Note*** We are still planning to create a BIOS terminology cross-reference chart (like in the other guides), but I need your help! Thanks, and happy overclocking! ***

Disclaimer

I am not responsible for any bad things that happen to you or your computer as a result of you following this guide, nor is TechREACTION.net.  My goal is for this guide to be a safe overclocking guideline, however the burden for damaged hardware always lies on the user performing the overclock!  Overclocking can damage hardware and in most cases will void your warranties.

Prerequisites

In the prior version of this guide, I requested that you have some basic knowledge of your motherboards BIOS.  While I have not addressed every motherboard on the market, I have included details for the top enthusiast brands.  But as before, please do not be afraid to get into your BIOS and have a look around, if you are ever concerned that you may have changed a setting erroneously, you can always load defaults, and start over.  Most boards have a CMOS reset button on them now-a-days, if not check your user manual for the location of the CMOS reset jumper…please ensure you know the location before getting started.

This guide is independent of your cooling system.  Whether you are using the stock Intel cooler or if you’re pushing to the extreme with phase change cooling, the basic steps remain the same.  One thing that is far too common are mistakes mounting your cooling system, specifically the application of the thermal interface material (TIM).  If you don’t have much experience mounting cooling apparatus, please refer to this excellent guide from Arctic Silver.

Methodology

Determining methods for finding a stable overclock are highly controversial, everyone has their own definition of a stable system, but when I refer to “stable” in this guide, I am referring to the stability of your selected “stability test.”  So for a power user or gamer who wants a reliable system that won’t ever crash due to an overclock pushed too far, you’d need to test with a program that will load all of the cores and threads applicable to your CPU, OCCT and IntelBurnTest are two popular choices.  OCCT uses the same algorithm as Prime95 but has a friendlier interface.  IntelBurnTest uses the Intel linpack binaries to stress the system and also has an easy to use interface.  In this guide I may use testing that is insufficient in your opinion.  It is only a guideline and if you feel more testing is necessary for your system, by all means feel free.

So with that in mind, we will attempt to isolate each portion of the system and overclock one step at a time.  This may seem time consuming at first glance, but rest assured this will potentially save you hours of troubleshooting and frustration. So go slow, and follow each step very carefully.

BIOS familiarization

If you’ve found my guide online, my guess is you’re looking for more than a basic overclock.  If you’re not, and all you’d like is something simple, please redirect your attention to your motherboard manufacturer’s website and download the latest overclocking utility.  For basic 10-20% overclocking, they work pretty well.  There is “Gigabyte EasyTune6“, “Asus TurboV EVO“, “MSI Control Center“, and “eVGA eleet“.  This guide is written to take it to the next level, for THAT we need to do the overclocking from the BIOS.

Speaking of which, before we begin, please check your motherboard manufacturer’s website for the latest version of your BIOS.  Usually enthusiast level boards will have BIOS engineers tweaking them for months or years to improve overclocking support.  Unless you have a reason to stay with your current BIOS, I’d suggest updating to the newest version.

If you don’t know how to access the BIOS, please refer to your motherboard’s owner’s manual for instruction.  While you’re there, find out how to “clear CMOS”.  As I mentioned in the introduction to this guide, it’s important you know how to properly “clear CMOS” before we begin.

Secondly, the first thing to do after powering up the new system is to enter the BIOS and find the “hardware monitor” area and verify the CPU temperature is reasonable based on your cooling.  If not, please power down the system and verify the mounting of your cooling apparatus (refer to the guide linked in the “prerequisites” section.

Goals

The variety of users reading this guide is vast, and each user’s goal will be unique and specific to his/her needs.  It would be impossible for me to address every user’s specific needs.  But I’ve attempted to be as broad, yet specific as possible.  My goal is to assist the maximum number of users as possible, despite your specific needs.

Based on user feedback from the previous version of this guide, I decided to better address overclocking with power features enabled.  The easy answer was to follow the old guide and then attempt to enable your power features afterward, but that rarely worked when approaching the limits of a given system.

Just as before, if you want to maximize your overclock, you should disable all the power saving features in the BIOS as detailed in step 1.  However, if you’re after a more moderate overclock, and you’d like to save power (especially while your system sits idle) you can leave those setting enabled.  Just follow the guide as written (I’ve added tips for you along the way) to find your best settings.  While your potential overclock will be more limited, the benefit will likely be worth it to many of you.

Terminology

I’d like to start off by writing briefly about the BIOS and more specifically, differences in terminology between the different manufacturers.  Obviously there are too many motherboards on the market to show you every single one in this guide.  But looking at boards from the four top manufactures, we should be able to better identify specific terminologies used by each.

Understanding “total system performance”

Before we go into how we overclock these CPU’s let us look at what determines how fast your whole system will run.  CPU frequency is very important.  However, there are many other factors that play into your total system performance.  All of your primary BIOS overclocking revolves around the Base Clock or “bclock” and clock ratios.  The base clock’s default speed for all H67/P67/Z68 based systems is 100MHz.  overclocking methodology changes a lot with this new platform.  We are no longer focused on bclock changes because Intel has buried the clock generator into the CPU itself, and has locked it down so only minor changes are possible.

Sandy Bridge die map

CPU frequency = bclock x CPU clock ratio

This is a biggest change from the last generation (H55/H57/P55/X58) is that most overclocking will come from changes in the CPU multiplier, not the bclock.  But the formula doesn’t change; the bclock multiplied by the CPU clock ratio will still determine your overall CPU frequency.

• Core i3 & i5 2100 series = fully locked
  • These CPUs are “fully locked”, the multiplier cannot be increase beyond the factory setting.
• Core i5 & i7  non-K series = partially unlocked
  • These CPUs are “partially unlocked”, the multiplier can be adjusted up to +4 the factory setting.
• Core i5 2500K & i7 2600K = fully unlocked
  • These CPUs multipliers can be freely adjusted; in effect, they are “fully unlocked”.

H67/P67/Z68….what’s the difference?

There will be three “chipsets” supporting LGA1155 Sandy Bridge, from an overclockers perspective, here is the difference.

• H67 will not allow CPU multiplier overclocking, only base clock, which as I’ve already mentioned is very limited.  If you intend to overclock your CPU, please do not choose H67.  Memory overclocking is still possible with, and the GPU integrated in Sandy Bridge is enabled with H67.  Please don’t bother buying a “K” series CPU with H67, it will be a waste of your money unless you really need a stronger iGPU.
• P67 will be the enthusiast choice for Sandy Bridge, it will allow CPU and memory multiplier adjustments for overclocking.  P67 does not support the integrated GPU, if you plan to use the integrated GPU, please do not buy a P67 based motherboard.
• Z68 Is now available and supports fully unlocked overclocking for the K series and is iGPU enabled.  You will be able to adjust the CPU, memory, and GPU multipliers with Z68, a great choice if you plan to overclock and use the GPU.  Also keep in mind, this would be a good choice for someone who’d like to run multiple monitors, but dedicate their discrete graphics card to the primary monitor.

Memory frequency = bclock x System Memory Multiplier (SPD)

Depending on the motherboard, memory overclocking is fairly straightforward with Sandy Bridge.  Bclock multiplied by memory ratio will determine the memory frequency.

DDR – The other part that can be quite confusing for users who are not familiar with DDR technology is the difference between the memory clock speed and the memory’s DDR speed.  For instance, DDR3-1600 actually runs at 800MHz, it’s just that DDR (or dual data rate) technology allows the memory to process twice per clock cycle.  Back when we switched technologies from SDRAM to DDR for the first time, the manufacturers started saying DDR-400 when it ran at 200MHz because it was better marketing to sell their memory over the older SDRAM technology.  This is why CPU-Z shows 800MHz for your DDR3-1600, or 1000MHz for your DDR3-2000.

Memory speed and bandwidth can have a huge effect in some applications, and negligible impact on others.  But overall, top shelf memory is one of the worse items you can spend your money on from a value perspective.  Faster CPUs and GPUs will give you much more performance for your hard earned cash.

Important Voltages when Overclocking

There a few important voltages which you will need to manipulate while overclocking; below are the primary ones.  Not every motherboard BIOS is identical, but all enthusiast level motherboards should provide control of the voltages as shown below.

CPU Vcore – Directly related to the CPU frequency. As you increase the CPU frequency you would need incrementally increase the v-core as well.  Sandy Bridge is very new, and a “safe” voltage range for long term reliability is not yet known.  As we spend more time and learn more about this platform, I will update this guide with a more educated estimate.  For now, I’d suggest staying below 1.45V or 80C load temperatures.  I feel those are both fairly conservative settings.  Another big change from previous architectures is that the L3 is now tied directly to the CPU for both power and clock speed.  So, from an overclocking perspective, L3 is now part of the core, where it was previously part of the uncore.

For now, my recommendation is that while you are stress testing, monitor your CPU core temperatures with Real Temp and if the temperature is under 80C, you can increase the voltage up to 1.45V max.  If you don’t mind the risk, feel free to push further and make sure to publish your results for the community to learn from, whether positive or negative.

Nothing I’ve ever used my computer for come close to generating heat like LinX.  Because it generates so much heat, it has become my favorite stress testing application.  As long as I can keep my CPU cores below 80C while running LinX, then for me that’s safe.  If you are more conservative/cautious than me that’s perfectly OK.
*** NOTE *** Please ensure you’re running Windows 7 with SP1 for LinX testing, it enables AVX which increases temps a fair amount.

Load Line Calibration - This actually goes by a few different names, but they are all meant as a means to reduce or prevent v-droop.  It does typically ease the overclocking process at the cost of violating Intel’s design specs.  However, overclocking in its essence violates Intel’s design specs, so you’re not breaking any new ground with this feature.  This feature was very useful for increasing the overclocking potential of the last few generations of Intel CPUs, and it’s already being effectively used with Sandy Bridge as well.  For more insight on the theory of LLC, refer to this excellent explanation at anandtech.com.  There was also some real world testing recently; feel free to check out Bobnova’s LLC investigation here.

VccSA – This is the voltage with controls the “System Agent” (new “uncore”).  Since the L3 cache has been moved to the core, the only thing left on the System Agent that concerns us as overclockers is the integrated memory controller (IMC).  It’s already been discovered that the IMC on Sandy Bridge is quite robust, and usually won’t need any additional voltage for speeds up to DDR3-2000 and possibly even higher.  I found I needed about 1.15V for maximum potential when running very fast memory speeds.  This may also be important with very high density DIMMs or when fully populating the DIMM slots on your motherboard.  At this time, I would caution using any more than 1.2V on the VccSA.

VccIO – This is the voltage which controls the SA’s IO. Many users and manufacturers are taking issue with my claims of the SA voltage being most important for IMC overclocking. While I cannot explain my personal results, they definitely go against the majority. With that being said, the motherboard manufacturers and many uses will tell you to only adjust the VccIO, and leave the VccSA alone…I’m recommending you try both, and see which works better for your CPU. My testing was difinitively VccSA reliant. At this time, I would caution using any more than 1.2V on the VccIO.

DRAM voltage – This is directly related to your RAM modules and increases will allow increase in MEM speeds.  There has been a lot of debate as to the limitation 1.65V limitation Intel has published.  With the older platforms, the rules no longer apply.  With a few months past now, it seems safe to say that this platform is robust enought to handle running memory at higher voltages, at least for the short term. Many overclockers still want to push the limits, but since all the current memory seems to scale less with voltage than older stuff, this is becoming a moot point. I’d still suggest staying at 1.65V or below for a regular daily system, but I’ve pushed up to 1.85V for short benching sessions without any adverse effects.

Sample overclocking goals to use as a reference

I decided not to use “sample systems” as in the last few guides.  Because of the vastly different methodology used in this overclocking process, I don’t believe they’ll be helpful this time.

Next: 3 Step Overclocking Guide Continued…

Introduction

Today we’re facing the launch of a brand new architecture from Intel dubbed “Sandy Bridge”.  If you haven’t seen the leaks around the net over the past few months, you haven’t been paying attention.  Everyone is excited about the potential of this new architecture, and it’s no wonder.  The rumors of nearly 5GHz with air cooling coupled with a healthy dose of architectural efficiency improvements will create a lot of happy enthusiasts.  The manufacturers in this game have not been sitting idle either, with each one cleverly seeding tons of samples to add to the pre-launch hype.

Maximus IV Extreme

My subject today is the new Asus Maximus IV Extreme, a Republic of Gamers (“ROG”) branded model which represents the top-end of the P67 offerings from Asus.  As always, they’ve managed to pack an overwhelming number of technologies and features into this product and it’s my goal to give you honest feedback based on my experience.

Asus Maximus IV Extreme

The Maximus IV Extreme motherboard represents the top-end of the Asus lineup for the P67 launch.  As such, it is a full-featured product, and unfortunately, does not conform to the standard ATX form factor as it is slightly wider at 10.6″ as opposed to the standard 9.6″ of the ATX specification.  This is fairly common among top-range boards these days and is unlikely to be an issue with any large modern case.

Maximus IV Extreme 1

The new socket, LGA1155, is the same size as the LGA1156 socket for the H55/H57/P55 platform, so all of your LGA1156 coolers should work fine for the new socket as well.

Maximus IV Extreme 2

The board layout is fairly conventional, but the socket area is a little tight (more details on that in a bit).

Maximus IV Extreme 3

The underside of the board reveals more about the quality design, with additional heat spreaders on the rear of the VRM section (with proper screws no less!).

Maximus IV Extreme 4

Next: The ASUS Maximus IV Extreme Continued…