** Water cooling System Upgrade - Sub zero here I come **

** Adventures of an Overclocker **

Adventures of an Overclocker

OK here we go. I have been messing around with overclocks. Up until now I've managed this ...

CPU: Intel Core i5 760 (Quad Core (Lynnfield))

Stock: 2.800Ghz
Overclock: 3.717Ghz (BCLK: 206.51Mhz, RAM:1652Mhz, plus no voltage mods)
​

I'm happy with that. It'll go further but will require more voltage and a lot of time to tweak it.

I haven't really touched the graphics card until today.

GPU: eVGA GTX560Ti

Stock:
GPU Core: 850Mhz
Shader : 1701Mhz
RAM : 2052Mhz (4104Mhz QDR)

Stock Air Cooler Overclock:
GPU Core: 935Mhz
Shader : 1870Mhz
RAM : 2100Mhz (4200Mhz QDR)

The overclock obtained under air was appalling really.

Water Overclock:
GPU Core: 981Mhz
Shader : 1962Mhz
RAM : 2351Mhz (4702Mhz QDR)


Now that's what I call a great OC The RAM clock is just crazy. It is showing up as a 160fps increase in the eVGA overclock testing tool (377fps (stock) to 537fps (OC))


Temps at idle, during full overclock (4x fans @ 1800rpm on the Rad). 25C degrees




Temps during full load testing (fans @ 1800 rpm (max)), not overly CPU intensive but it is on the GPU, 40C-43C



As an aside with the GPU clock at 850Mhz (stock), I overcooked the Gfx RAM all the way to 2462Mhz (4924Mhz QDR), that's all the way to the end of the Overclocking Tool's scale ... it couldn't go any further never seen that in my life. Sadly it’s just not stable with the GPU overclocked too





I might re-jig the water loop a little and take the Southbridge / PCH out of the loop to simplify things a little, as it only kicks out 4.7W TDP.

 

Have to say I'm impressed with those figures Ezy. Awesome system! Whats next?

 

BF3, thats whats next!

 

A new bigger SSD for sure Got a hankering for a 240Gb Vertex 3. Plus re-plumb it and streamline the loop a little. Otherwise I guess that'll be it for 6-9 months, perhaps slip another 560Ti in there for a SLi setup ,or swap out for a GTX680 next summer But we shall see. I'm sure it is good for another year at least.

Ohhh yeah

[YOUTUBE]AGbo50Ar420&feature=player_embedded#![/YOUTUBE] I spy Commando & Green Beret.

[YOUTUBE]NDDfPxF3EFE[/YOUTUBE]

 

Speaking of which

http://www.geforce.com/GamesandApps/games/battlefield-3/GPUAnalyzer

 

Well seeing as my PC nearly calved on even trying to run that tool I shall mostly be playing BF3 on PS3

 

Your PC's NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 does not meet the game's recommended requirements.
The recommended GPU for Battlefield 3 is a GeForce GTX 560 or higher. Check below to see some upgrade options. To see other system requirements for Battlefield 3, please click here.

OH ****!

 

Hmm, my ATI 5770 512mb might struggle then, shame because that trailer look hammmazin!

 

Woah, Mahoosive rad there Ezy.

But what happen to the car rad idea?

 

Ha! Now that would be cool! (Literally)

 

Hello matey Hmm car rad, well things have moved on a bit. It would be great to have a car rad in due to the volume of water and surface area, plus a VR6 rad is 45-ish. My new rad was 75 plus the bracket equals ~90. So it is much cheaper for a car rad. But the real problem is sorting the pipe attachments to and from the rad, plus attaching fans to the thing It can be done, but it looks amateurish and I'm trying to get a more professional finish Still not got it Also I've got an eye on my next upgrade already a nice Chiller to put into the system, get the system running at 4C under load, here's a review. I've not really got any room in my music/games room at the moment for it though I can't really say I want to sit right next to a fridge heat exchanger all the time. But that might be a little project, build & fabricate a nice case to put it in rather than the plastic grey mess it is housed it.

I would love a phase change cooler but it gets very messy with the dielectric grease everywhere. Plus it I'll need two, one for the CPU and one for the GPU, that's how much ? But that really is subzero cooling. At least with the chiller you can live with it day to day. Hmmm pipe dreams eh ?

 

** Results of the Swedish Overclocking Jury **

After an afternoon's benchmarking and tweaking I have some rather good results to show

What started as a 10 minute exercise accidentally lasted about 4 hours

** Results of the Swedish Overclocking Jury **

So .... CPU overclocked as before ....

CPU: Intel Core i5 760 (Quad Core (Lynnfield))

Stock: 2.800Ghz
Overclock: 3.717Ghz (BCLK: 206.51Mhz, RAM:1652Mhz, no voltage mods)

GPU: eVGA GTX560Ti

Stock:
GPU Core: 850Mhz
Shader : 1701Mhz
RAM : 2052Mhz (4104Mhz QDR)
Voltage: 1.0

Water Overclock:
GPU Core: 1035Mhz
Shader : 2070Mhz
RAM : 2420Mhz (4840Mhz QDR)
Voltage: 1.15

A stratospheric overclock on the RAM

So some real world tests on Total War: Shogun 2, benchmarked on the 'Dx11 1080p graphics High' setting, results are thus:

Clock'	'Shader'	'Memory'	'Voltage'	'Shogun 2 Dx11 fps'
850	1701	2052	1	41.6875
970	1940	2052	1	47.0625
1000	2000	2052	1.075	48.1375
1000	2000	2100	1.075	48.175
1000	2000	2300	1.1	48.7
1005	2010	2400	1.1	48.9

I then went for it and pushed maximum voltage through it

Clock'	'Shader'	'Memory'	'Voltage'	'Shogun 2 Dx11 fps'
1030	2060	2430	1.15	50.125
1035	2070	2420	1.15	50.4375

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/v54uh/



Then ran 3DMARK 11 http://3dmark.com/3dm11/1977452

P5326, a pretty good score I'd say. Not seen a memory overclock anywhere near as high as mine For some reason I had to drop the overclock for 3DMARK, perhaps full system load ?



Temps on the video card are a bit scary. At v1.10, it rises to 47-48C on the GPU core under load (up 5C on stock), at v1.15 it jumps to 57C under load. That's a big increase. Needless to say i think I'm happy to settle for a v1.10 adjustment with a 1005 GPU / 2400 Memory overclock !


Next up, tweak the CPU with some extra voltage

 

Nice

I've just ordered a GTX 560Ti myself, this one in fact. It won't be a massive leap over my current 470, but I want to ditch my soundcard and output audio through the gfx card for various reasons.

I would have like a bigger performance leap but nvidia have massively dropped the ball by not including HD audio bitstreaming in their most powerful cards.

 

Nice card that matey It should be good, plus the cooling set up is excellent too. I'm guessing it is for an HTPC

 

Gaming HTPC

It seems on par with my old card in benchmarks, I need to throw some texture heavy games at it see what difference the 2Gb gfx ram makes.

 

Well I finally got round to finishing my case mod off. It has been something in the pipeline for ages, but I just could not be bothered to take it by the teeth as it were I bought a spare CoolerMaster window panel 3 years ago, but it was for a WaveMaster case, which has a slightly different panel shape to my 210b CM case. The plan was to transfer the perspex window section to my case panel, so it was just a question of modding the panel for the window. I started this back in April and hey presto we’ve arrived

Breakdown:

• Carefully chop out centre of panel: 1 hour
• File straight the edges: 2 hours
• Drill & Tap Holes: 1 hour

I used the other window as a template which helped. Actually I’m totally happy with the result The edges are more than 97% straight, the corners are perfect and the tapping was 100% successful. The adding of the window was faultless. Oh for a computer controlled laser cutter & spot driller But where would the fun be then eh ?











M3 drill & tap



Window on and all together Finally there after 3 years of thinking, I must do that case mod every other month



Voila, the obligatory 'Ezy D' blue light shot

Also I spent a bit of time reaching that magic 4Ghz overclock number on my CPU. That’s a 1.2Ghz OC, but it does get warm somewhat (i.e. 40C), mind you I'm used to cold to the touch components when running




Core i5 760 (Lynnfield) Stock = 2.8Ghz, Overclock= 4.028 Ghz

• Asus P7P55D-E Pro
• 8Gb Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600Mhz (CAS 7-8-7-20-5)
• EVGA GTX560Ti

I can feel upgrades on the way, so there will be some more drastic changes / updates on the way soon

 

Bloody nice system that bud, very neat!!

 

Howdy all,

A little bit of an update. I've upgraded a few things over the past year or so lol

New SSD



Sound card upgrade too





Added some extra special cables to link to my amplifier



Also finally got round to properly overclocking the CPU lol Topped out at a very respectable ~4.2Ghz, things get a bit toasty though with that much extra voltage, even at idle.



I also got a new monitor as my Samsung 22" packed up. So a nice LG 27" IPS display has taken its place Straight out of the box .....



A full rebuild is on the cards this summer when I've got some spare time, Haswell + Lynx Point + GTX 780 is the plan lol

 

Hmmm what's this I spy ? A new Samsung 840 Pro 256Gb SSD ?



lol New CPU, Haswell has officially arrived ....



New motherboard:



Time for a new power supply, the last one lasted me at least 6 years I think more:



Ohhhh and something else turned up too



So on with the dismantling and rebuild Poor old thing being ripped apart lol

 

Nice

I'm glad you've covered up the GTX780 though, I'm trying to save money and am not buying one just yet.