Ok so I got a new toy last week, i7-980x. I’m always loving to fidget around with my PCs and get every last bit of performance out of it while still maintaining proper thermals and not actually going overboard on the heat. So I’ve got this sucker to 4ghz - 65c under full load and figure that’s decent enough because going up higher ups the temps way too drastically for my liking.
Now there’s this fancy shmancy turbo mode feature and I kind of want to mess around with it to see what it’s like / get it enabled but I cannot, for the life of me, find any kind of TDP/TDC information or tutorial on what this chip will be drawing for max wattage, so I currently have speedstep turned off.
Does anyone know of a tutorial that talks about it or what not? My google-fu is failing me at finding something so any help would be appreciated on understanding this aspect of things.
I understand a lot of people just turn that stuff off and don’t worry about it all that much, and even if I can’t get it to work at safe temps I’d still like to understand more about how you set it up.
Well, you can muck around with Turbo settings, but Intel’s Turbo Mode is mostly automatic. It kicks in when you’re running a heavy load that doesn’t require all the cores, and juices up the clock speed to something higher. The default frequency for the 980x is 3.3GHz, while the maximum default Turbo frequency is 3.6GHz.
If you fool around with the bus clock (BCLK) settings, you can push both default and turbo higher, but there’s always a risk in overclocking. You can also just push the maximum turbo frequency a little higher.
Yeah my question isn’t what it does, but what are the calcs to determine the values to put in for TDC/TDP to push the higher clock speeds. I currently have the rig @ 4ghz (30x133) with Turbo turned off. I’m wanting to turn it on but I need to set in new values for TDP/TDC and I’m unsure as to what to put for the TDC to be honest. TDP Is something like 300w, but TDC I have no clue how to calc it.
Turbo doesn’t increase the TDP per-se. It’s clocking up parts of the CPU when other parts are not being used. It means that on average its power usage will be closer to the TDP, however.
Unfortunately LGA1366 doesn’t support the full monitoring of tools like AIDA64 which allow you to find this information. Your motherboard may also disable Turbo if you overclock, second gen+ of the iCPU’s solved that, but…
I have the option to enable or disable the speedstep. Using the Asus P6X58D-Premium for the motherboard. Is it possible just to set a max potential variable and leave it at that for the TDC? Like I said, I believe the TDP is 298/300w area for the turbo engaged for OCing. If you guys know any sites that kind of go in to detail regarding calculating / figuring out TDC for it that would be great.
The system I’m running right now is as follows (and I should have stated it from the get go to give more info about the setup):
i7-980x @ 4ghz (30x133) (offset of +.03mV)
Asus P6X58D-Premium
18gb triple channel ddr3-1600
Corsair Force GT 240gb SSD
2x1TB WD Black (Raid 0)
2x580GTX 3GB SLI’d
Corsair 1000w PSU
Noctua NH-C12P SE14 cooler
You’ve gone beyond the basics of overclocking and are getting into a level that needs specialized information and experience… I’ve OC’d plenty before but never with that chip or mobo so don’t feel comfortable giving specific advice.
I suggest checking a site like http://www.overclock.net/f/ and find how-to guide/advice threads. The Intel subforums on overclock.net will probably have them for your type of chip and/or your motherboard. If you don’t find what you need then ask them for advice; somebody will have used that combination before.
