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Intel Hardware Hacking Stats Build Technology

Intel Ivy Bridge Processor Hits 7GHz Overclock Record 144

MojoKid writes "Renowned Overclocker HiCookie used a Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H motherboard to achieve a fully validated 7.03GHz clock speed on an Intel Core i7 3770K Ivy Bridge processor. As it stands, that's the highest clockspeed for an Ivy Bridge CPU, and it required a steady dose of liquid nitrogen to get there. HiCookie also broke a record for the highest memory speed on an Ivy Bridge platform, pushing his G.Skill Trident X DDR3-2800 memory kit populated in four DIMM slots to 3,280MHz. Not for the faint of heart, the record breaking CPU overclock required that HiCookie pump 1.956V to the processor, according to his CPU-Z screenshot. The CPU multiplier was set at x63."
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Intel Ivy Bridge Processor Hits 7GHz Overclock Record

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  • So Ivy Bridge can do something after all! :D

    • by smash ( 1351 )
      You mean other than kicking the crap out of AMD?
      • by Anonymous Coward

        http://hothardware.com/News/AMD-Breaks-Frequency-Record-with-Upcoming-FX-Processor/

        Intel makes 7Ghz. Yawn.

        Come back with your snappy come-back when you hit 8.4Ghz.

        • by smash ( 1351 )
          Because they both have the same IPC?
        • Come back when the AMD CPU hits 14Ghz, because as things stand, it'll need to get there to beat the Intel at 7Ghz

  • by ZeroSumHappiness ( 1710320 ) on Thursday May 31, 2012 @04:45PM (#40172401)

    Can someone explain why it's reporting one core, two threads?

    Is this:
    1. Set to one core to get a better heat profile?
    2. Only using one core for the test?
    3. Using all cores for the test but only reporting one core's results?

    Because if it's 1 or 2 I think I see some problems with this benchmark.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31, 2012 @04:49PM (#40172455)

      Generally they disable all cores but one to achieve these clock speeds.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        So... what's the advantage to having one core running at 7GHz versus four at standard clock speeds, assuming that whatever you're running takes full advantage of all the threads?

        • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31, 2012 @04:57PM (#40172587)

          I don't think you really understand the purpose of this. He's not "running" anything, so it doesn't matter how many threads. An overclock like this is only done to say that it can be done and that you did it, it's not practical in any way shape or form. You would never try to run an actual application on this, odds are you couldn't maintain system stability for more than a few minutes, and even if you did the cooling and power requirements are well beyond reasonable.

        • by Jeng ( 926980 ) on Thursday May 31, 2012 @05:00PM (#40172637)

          This is not for practical use, it's just to one-up the last guy.

        • by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 ) on Thursday May 31, 2012 @05:08PM (#40172737)

          So... what's the advantage to having one core running at 7GHz versus four at standard clock speeds, assuming that whatever you're running takes full advantage of all the threads?

          Probably this tiny little inner satisfaction of having one's feeling of insufficient manliness adequately compensated by non-anatomical means.

        • by Anonymous Coward

          It's the same performance as a 1.6Ghz quadcore with just air cooling, what you're seeing is how fast one core can go, given that all 4 running would quadruple the thermal requirements.

          Generally the purpose of doing this is for shits and giggles, you would not be able to actually use the computer configured that way since the cooling solution would run out pretty quickly. The most you can do for a functional system is to immerse in mineral oil, with SSD drives and not submerge the PSU.This is generally a non

          • by LtGordon ( 1421725 ) on Thursday May 31, 2012 @07:32PM (#40174303)

            It's the same performance as a 1.6Ghz quadcore with just air cooling

            Except that it's not. For some theoretical computations that could be made perfectly parallel, this might be nearly true. However, in most cases (presently), the limiting factor in computation speed is the clock speed of an individual core.

            • by jedidiah ( 1196 )

              The main culprit there is Flash and a normal clocked single core is more than adequate for that.

              • Main culprit here is CADCAM software. Some functions can be multithreaded, others can't. I spend hours per day waiting for single threaded operations.
        • So... what's the advantage to having one core running at 7GHz versus four at standard clock speeds, assuming that whatever you're running takes full advantage of all the threads?

          To play Quake at ~9x its rated speed [totl.net], of course.

          Why else would you want to do it?

        • by smash ( 1351 )
          Nothing. but it does prove that with adequate cooling you can get to 7ghz on current generation silicon.
      • Thank you for confirming my suspicion. Obviously I have more interest in using rather than record breaking so I'd have liked to also see what it can do on all four cores under liquid cooling.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      AMD did better with 2 cores, now I would like to see a side by side comparison of actual tasks.

      link [xbitlabs.com]

      • Except that AMD's 2 cores aren't actually 2 cores. They're 1 instruction fetch unit, 1 instruction decode unit, 1 floating point unit, and 2 integer units, so this is a very similar result, it's one CPU core that is able to do a bit of stuff at the same time as it does some other stuff, not really 2 cores.

  • Is that a joke? (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Couldn't POWER CPUs do >5 GHz as their normal speed already a loong time ago? (Apart from being a much better architecture to begin with.)
    And didn't many people do 7GHz overclockings, using liquid nitrogen, over five years ago?
    How meaningless is a overclocking speed? It's like saying: Your Smart will go 400km/h... if only we run it as ten bazillion RPM. It's still a Smart!! And you will never get this in real life!
    This is damn close to fraud, to spread such bullshit so people get a false feeling of it be

    • by smelch ( 1988698 )
      The point is that the CPU and the motherboard are all manufactured in such a way that the processor can work at a clock cycle so damn fast. That is precision. Not everything is about work/time. To your analogy, it's more like saying "We can have the engine do ten bazillion RPM! That's a quality engine! However, if you try to drive at that RPM, any flaw in the system can cause a huge amount of damage, so don't expect to drive it at that speed."
    • by Jeng ( 926980 )

      How meaningless is a overclocking speed? It's like saying: Your Smart will go 400km/h... if only we run it as ten bazillion RPM. It's still a Smart!! And you will never get this in real life!
      This is damn close to fraud, to spread such bullshit so people get a false feeling of it being so fast.

      So please, tell me your thoughts in regards to auto-racing.

      • Re:Is that a joke? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by wmbetts ( 1306001 ) on Thursday May 31, 2012 @05:43PM (#40173143)

        They have an irrational fear of right turns?

        • by Jeng ( 926980 )

          Odd, I was going to type NASCAR, but I ended up typing auto-racing.

          How did you respond to my first draft?

          • You said "auto" == you are a Yank == your "auto racers" go: while(!assploded) { go(left); go(straight); }
            • by Jeng ( 926980 )

              I tend to watch F-1 and the Rolex series. The only interesting part of watching NASCAR are the crashes.

            • > you are a Yank
              That makes you a Wank.

            • The part of the country that is into NASCAR would not appreciate being called a Yankee... entirely different connotation down there - something about the invention of "total war" occurring on their land.

              NASCAR started with liquor running during Prohibition, so speed was more important than handling. Given that, I can kind of excuse the initial use of an oval track. But once the speeds got too high, they started restricting the cars and so the oval track was sort of an anachronism... very hard for me to get

              • by amiga3D ( 567632 )

                I lost interest in Nascar when they no longer represented real cars. I'd like to see them go to the showroom, pick out a car and race the thing. Some safety upgrades maybe but it must be "stock" at least the fucking shell should be anyway.

          • NASCAR is fucking retarded. God, what I would give for some real Rally racing here in the States. It's so much more interesting than watching cars do hundreds of laps around a big fucking oval.

            As with realistic overclocking, Rally racing has some relevance to the real world. They're driving on real roads, in varying weather conditions, unlike the stupid NASCAR bullshit.

            • by amiga3D ( 567632 )

              Maybe we could get the Canonball run going again?

              • I agree, that would also be pretty damn cool. I watched the show Bullrun [wikipedia.org] when it was on the Speed Channel a few years ago, but it was annoying with all the added drama nonsense that reality TV does these days, and the challenges were pretty retarded, too.

                Just a bunch of teams, drive whatever you want, Point A to Point B. Good stuff.

          • I hacked the gibson.

  • 7 GHz boot (Score:5, Funny)

    by value ( 2182292 ) on Thursday May 31, 2012 @05:07PM (#40172717) Journal
    7 GHz processor speed and it still takes 10 seconds to load Windows. . .
  • Not too impressive. My 10-year-old Pentium 4 is almost as fast (3.2 GHz).

    • by Henriok ( 6762 )
      Yeah because Hz == Hz? Hmm.. welcome to the MHz Myth. You probably haven't heard of it, but you should. It's like this: Hz a measure of steps per time, like counting number of steps mer minute taken by someone who runs. Imagine a short person and a tall person that take an equal number of steps. Who runs the farthest? The tall man or the short man? Pentium 4 or a Ivy Bridge Core i7? It's not your 10 year old Pentium4.. In case you cot lost in the lesson somewhere.
      • Yes.
        I was being tongue-in-cheek.
        I know my P4 isn't as fast..... I know that every time I try to play an HD-quality movie, and it runs at quarter speed. The CPU is fast in cycles but slow in calculations.

    • Oh wait, no it can't. It also isn't quad core, and does about 20% of the work per clock.

      There are limits to GHz scaling. It isn't a situation of "Oh just make it faster," particularly if you want to hit a power budget. What has happened is that CPUs have gotten much more parallel, much more efficient per clock, and have gotten much better at vector math. My Sandy Bridge processor pulls like 80 Gflops on Linpack using AVX. Try that on a P4, let me know how it goes.

      CPU companies aren't interested in optimizin

    • by geekoid ( 135745 )

      Half = almost now.

      Good to know.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31, 2012 @05:33PM (#40173041)

    AMD hit their record with all cores enabled.... intel requires one core disabled or else you will brick the CPU regardless if it's LN2 cooling.

    Also, Gigabyte gave them this "special" motherboard.

    • Actually AMD had only 2 cores out of 8 running [hothardware.com] to hit their record speeds.

      That said I fail to see the excitement for this news. This is only a record for Ivy Bridge chips and AMD's attempt managed to beat it by more than 1GHz.

      • by shaunbr ( 563633 ) *
        Now if AMD could just get their processors to be competitive with Intel at normal speeds. By the time AMD gets to Ivy Bridge level performance, Intel will be 2 or 3 generations further ahead.
    • Also, Gigabyte gave them this "special" motherboard.

      So it was like winning in "special" olympics.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I remember when modding was interesting and expensive.
    I now find it pointless. I just want my computer to work, I don't care how fast it is anymore. Sorry :(

    • Maybe you simply don't need more speed and thus don't get excited about tuning performance? I haven't lately found much of use for anything improved than a basic Core 2 Duo.
  • by game kid ( 805301 ) on Thursday May 31, 2012 @09:43PM (#40175531) Homepage

    I own the mentioned UD5H motherboard used for the record memory speed; I bought it to replace a very old P5B Deluxe. I am in no way jealous or unappreciative of HiCookie's feat, and the board definitely looks like something that can handle such a thing, but my experience with the board has been middling.

    I haven't had the freezes that people have mentioned on its Newegg page [newegg.com] (thank the gods!) and things generally work, but Windows 7 64-bit simply refuses to hybrid sleep or hibernate, and after a non-hybrid standby to RAM, things subtly fuck up (no audio, and other devices I forget at the moment mess up), which means I have to fully reboot (really fun when waiting for big programs like Catalyst) or leave the rig on at FULL POWAH through the night or whatever. Arch Linux was working well at first (RAM standby and even disk hibernate if properly configured and I choose to boot from the Linux drive after the suspend), but updates seem to have made it less compatible with my audio (audio out works except through the standard green line-out...odd) and TV tuner (not detected), for whatever reason. (I left a few more details on a review on the Newegg page, minus the less-compatible part.) The P5B had no such problems: its audio had lots of RF interference through headphones (the UD5H has beautifully clear onboard audio when it works) but it suspended, automatically resumed from the suspended drive, and otherwise worked nicely.

    For me, a "middling" board is worse than a "horrible" one, because at least a horrible would be bad enough for me to undo all the cable connections and screw placements and attachments and all that to trade for something better (a very old backup PC I had started getting POST errors as I built the new one so combined with other factors it made referring to the internet kinda impossible...that was fun). With a middling one I simply tolerate the few problems because it mostly works. *shrugs*

    Sorry if that came off as a dumb ramble; just my experience with it.

  • I don't have any liquid nitrogen, but I really, really like french toast. On a MacBook Air with an Ivy Ridge CPU, how many slices would I need to cook simultaneously to match the effects of using LN2?

    • For maintaining proper cooling, I'd only recommend thawing pre-frozen french toast on your macbook. Do the actual frying on an Itanium2 or something.

  • You people are embarrassing. A guy manages to overclock a processor to 7GHz and all you can do is bitch about how you can't do anything with it. Do you make fun of people who climb mountains or build with legos because there's no practical purpose to them?

    Nobody is saying this is useful. It's just some guy saying, "Hey look, I got my processor all the way up to 7GHz!", stop taking things so seriously.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Except 7Ghz isn't that fast...

      Others are at 9Ghz.

      http://flyingsuicide.net/news/9-ghz-barrier-falls-hard-amd-hits-milestone-with-9062-mhz-validated/

      Still 7Ghz is fastish..

    • Well, actually I find this rather boring and unimpressive.

      I can remember the days when every Mhz made a difference and you had to turn off Turbo for some programmes.

      Back then, reaching 100Mhz was a huge milestone; But then the GigaHertz wars began.

      It was actually interesting to see how well someone overclocked their Celeron 300A or their Athlons. As the Mhz crept up to 500Mhz, 600Mhz, 700Mhz, we were all getting excited, waiting for the day that one of the x86 giants would hit the Holy Grail of 1,0
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Pretty impressive, although IBM has been shipping 5GHz POWER6's for years, and it has been verified at up to 6GHz.

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