Lynnfield Overclocking
For our overclocking testing I used the same configuration of hardware for our benchmarks, etc:
- ASUS Maximum III Formula P55 motherboard
- Intel Core i7-870 CPU
- Corsair DDR3 memory rated at 1800 MHz
- Thermaltake SpinQ “heatsink o’ death”
Overclocking a Lynnfield CPU is nearly identical to overclocking a Nehalem CPU but with the added complexity of integrated PCI Express (which we are already learning has some negative draw backs to overclocking).
We will dive into this tool later in the week – it’s part of the ASUS ROG Connect that lets you overclock your system using a laptop connected with a USB cable.
Let’s see what overclocks I was able to get on this CPU by just adjusting the voltage and base clock some…
Let’s see what overclocks I was able to get on this CPU by just adjusting the voltage and base clock some…
I was able to reach 3.8 GHz pretty easily with just a model voltage bump.
Getting to 4.0 GHz and above required me to set the voltage to 1.40v.
The highest I was able to reach on this configuration was 4.17 GHz on a 190 MHz base clock.
Overclocking on the Lynnfield platform was pretty painless and straight to the point. If you have experience with any other processors then this will be nothing new and it looks like there is some significant headroom on the parts if you fiddle just a little bit. But then again, maybe the Turbo Mode feature will provide you with enough extra speed (it reaches as high as 3.6 GHz on this CPU) without needing to manually overclock.
