Intel Core i7 Makes it Past 4.61 GHz with Water-Cooling

[btarunr]

In a move that asserts Intel's undisputed leadership over the PC microprocessor market, Intel senior performance analyst François Piednoel conducted a special exhibition at the CES 2009 event, where he demonstrated the Core i7's overclocking and resulting performance potential employing water cooling. The water-cooled Intel Core i7 reached speeds in excess of 4.60 GHz, proving it has better overclocking potential than AMD's Phenom II X4 when water-cooled.

The setup included an Intel Core i7 sample seated on an Intel "Smackover" DX58SO motherboard. The motherboard was backed by Intel's own desktop control-center software that provides software-level performance management and monitoring. The processor's vCore was set at 1.44V, with the northbridge set at 1.21V. The clock speed of 4.61 GHz was achieved with a bus speed of 144 MHz with a multiplier value of 32x. Temperatures recoded showed the CPU chugging along at 61 °C, with the CPU VRM at 31 °C and the X58 chipset at 41 °C. The feat shows Core i7 to be the better CPU to overclock when water-cooling is used, while an Intel Core i7 is yet to reach 6.2+ GHz speeds, just for the kicks.



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[farlex85]

At $1000 it damn well better.........

 

[ShadowFold]

Er.. Yay? Aren't people at home hitting higher anyway?

 

[btarunr]

Many Thanks to AuDioFreaK39 for sending this in.

 

[kid41212003]

They're trying to say that, no one use LN2 or dry ice at home, or using it to run 24/7.

So, on water, Phenom II vs Core i7, and....

Well, you know what I mean.

 

[PaulieG]

They're trying to say that, no one use LN2 or dry ice at home, or using it to run 24/7.

So, on water, Phenom II vs Core i7, and....

Well, you know what I mean.

It's amazing how often WC gets left out of the mix. I do appreciate that Intel thought of more "practical" cooling here. I still don't think i7 is worth the cost though. It's not really the price of the chips either. It's the price of x58 boards that kills it for me. Only 1 motherboard option under $200? Forget it. I'll be sticking with PII.

 

[MilkyWay]

water cooling and air cooling are the mainstream forms of cooling so all i take into account is the speed with those

LN2, dry ice ect is just for record breaking and that cannot be run 24/7 anyway

i want to see straight i7 vs phenom II on air reviews if anyone knows of any id like to see them

me im waiting for i5 which is supposed to be the mainstream cpu line

 

[farlex85]

i want to see straight i7 vs phenom II on air reviews if anyone knows of any id like to see them

There's tons of them. Search PII reviews here, or simply go to any tech website and find their PII review.

 

[SK-1]

It's amazing how often WC gets left out of the mix. I do appreciate that Intel thought of more "practical" cooling here. I still don't think i7 is worth the cost though. It's not really the price of the chips either. It's the price of x58 boards that kills it for me. Only 1 motherboard option under $200? Forget it. I'll be sticking with PII.

Amen to that brother. I have crunched dollar vs performance increase and I cant even justify it (yet).

 

[PaulieG]

Amen to that brother. I have crunched dollar vs performance increase and I cant even justify it (yet).

I haven't ruled out i5 when released though.

 

[Exavier]

I'm hoping I can clock my quad and get used to the DFI bios enough to warrant not needing a change..lol
also, is that new intel software only i5/7 or will we see a version for 775 chips?

 

[buggalugs]

"The feat shows Core i7 to be the better CPU to overclock when water-cooling is used, while an Intel Core i7 is yet to reach 6.2+ GHz speeds, just for the kicks."

Ummm what the heck does that mean. Seriously some of those guys at fudzilla should take some english classes.

 

[Laurijan]

What CPU-Block do they use in the first pic?

 

[laszlo]

"proving it has better overclocking potential than AMD's Phenom II"

i don't see the point of all this i7 better than p2;p2 is made to be a c2 alternative and has his position there; maybe the next amd cpu will take the fight but honestly i don't see why ...

who don't like amd buy intel and viceversa, but we all must thanks amd for the competition and the fight they have (david vs goliat) and prey they remain in business otherwise bye-bye good prices

 

[Sasqui]

It's amazing how often WC gets left out of the mix. I do appreciate that Intel thought of more "practical" cooling here. I still don't think i7 is worth the cost though. It's not really the price of the chips either. It's the price of x58 boards that kills it for me. Only 1 motherboard option under $200? Forget it. I'll be sticking with PII.

At first I thought you were saying a Pentium II

We all know that prices will drop... eventually. I'm currently putting together a WC setup that will still have my old E6600 in it, and eventually an i7, but who knows when.

 

[Darknova]

It's amazing how often WC gets left out of the mix. I do appreciate that Intel thought of more "practical" cooling here. I still don't think i7 is worth the cost though. It's not really the price of the chips either. It's the price of x58 boards that kills it for me. Only 1 motherboard option under $200? Forget it. I'll be sticking with PII.

Same for me, all the decent boards are in excess of £250 over here, I'm not prepared to pay that much, not when I then have to add at least £100 for RAM, and another £250 for the chip.

Thing about this article though, it says it was using the desktop control centre thing, so overclocking was done within Windows, but could it actually POST at that speed? If not IMO, this is not impressive.

 

[Steevo]

Sure this is great, if you don't mind your $1000 chip running 61C, at 2% load........


What a great idea, now someone run F@H or soemthign on it, and burn it out. Intel doens't have much to be scared of other than the voltage intolerance of their new chip, it is highly possible they are still searching for the perfect chip to get to 6Ghz with. Either way, AMD has made a hell of a chip that overclocks better than the competition for less.

 

[spearman914]

Sad news, i7 tends to run at boiling temps.

 

[Bjorn_Of_Iceland]

Too bad that board sucks anyways as it has no SLI support

 

[AsphyxiA]

why am i not impressed with this? LOL oh yeah cause its not that impressive. I like intel, but im still not really all that impressed with the i7 series.

 

[cdawall]

hmm we will see about this no clock past 4.6ghz on water....

anyone want to see if a ES 945 can break 4.6ghz on H2O?


bet if i get there it runs cooler too

 

[AsphyxiA]

i'd like to see that and i bet it would run cooler. The spokes people who actually overclock seem like that really don't know what they are doing.

 

[cdawall]

no kidding i bet this was an all software clock...

 

[kid41212003]

4.6GHz at 1.44v is really low voltage. The reason why it so hot is because the x32 multiplier.

 

[cdawall]

4.6GHz at 1.44v is really low voltage. The reason why it so hot is because the x32 multiplier.

multiplier makes no difference on heat. that would be voltage and clock


and its really not that low of voltage on this chip maybe on a C2Q but not a i7