nVidia vs EVGA, i7-920 vs 930 overclocking, SATA III at DVinfo.net

Patrick Janka · July 26th, 2010, 02:32 AM

Hey, it might be a little late to ask, but I ordered all the parts for my new build, but now am wondering if I got the right stuff.

First, are nVidia and EVGA considered the same thing? I ask because I may end up getting Adobe CS5, and according to this: Adobe Premiere CS5 Video Cards with CUDA Acceleration Mercury Playback Hack Mod Tip Unlock you can get CS5 to work with any nVidia gfx card. Does that mean my EVGA GTX 470 is included?

I ordered the 930. I noticed some people here suggest the i7 920 over the 930 for overclocking purposes. Why is that? From my understanding the 930 can be overclocked just fine. This leads me to my next question. I don't really know anything about overclocking. How necessary is it that I overclock? How do I go about doing so? Is there a good tutorial you recommend?

Lastly, I ordered the ASUS P6X58D mobo. It has two 6gb/s slots that are RAID configurable. Just how future-proof are these? It would seem to me that I could hook up only two drives, a boot/system and a scratch/render drive. With only two slots RAID 0 is out the door unless I use a 3gb/s mechanical drive for my boot, and two SSD's for the 6gb/s, but perhaps with that sort of throughput RAID is unnecessary? Are the 6gb/s slots simply marketing to sell mobos?

Anyhow, here are all the components I got:

Cooler Master ATCS 840 full tower
Intel i7 930
Win 7 Home 64 bit
ASUS P6X58D mobo
12GB (6x2) XMS3 triple channel Corsair RAM
3TB (1x3) Samsung Spinpoint 7200rpm HDD
EVGA GTX 470 GFX
Corsair 850x 850 watt PSU
Hauppage WinTV capture card
TP-Link Wireless N USB Adapter
Arctic Silver 5
Two Viewsonic VA2223WM 21.5" 1920x1080 LCD Monitors

Should be a good editing system for Vegas/CS5, correct?

I ordered a Cooler Master Hyper 212+ Heat Sink/Fan, but I just found out it's still on backorder after 2 weeks, so I'm going to cancel my order and install the stock fan that came with the i7 and use the Arctic Silver. If I'm not overclocking should I still upgrade the fan? Is the 212 good, or is there something better? Is liquid cooling better? I was looking at the Corsair H50 liquid cooler, but it seems it's a pain to install and whatnot.

Thanks =)

Allan Tabilas · July 26th, 2010, 09:18 AM

From the reports on Adobe Forums, DVInfo, etc, the GTX 470 will work with the "hack" (adding an entry into a text file and enabling a mode on the nvidia driver).

Regarding the 920, I have one myself, and I believe most people have them because it was among the first Core i7s to come in November-December of 2008. So there are more 920s in the wild than 930s, but there's no reason to believe why the 930 won't overclock as well either. Your Asus board, and other similar motherboards from Gigabyte, MSI, EVGA, etc., have manuals that detail the overclocking options in the BIOS where you generally increase the BCLK from its default of 133 (21 x 133 = 2.8Ghz stock) to a higher speed. Here's a quick guide from the Asus forums for overclocking the core i7 series.

ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Forum- Overclocking Intel Core i7 processors

The Asus mobo that you have should have 6 Intel SATA ports (3Gb /sec) that you can use the Intel matrix raid software in the BIOS to create more than a two disk raid array. The 2 SATA ports that are 6GB / sec -- I don't believe you can raid them with the intel sata ports (they are from another manufacturer). It's less likely that you'll really hit the full bandwidth or ceiling of the intel 3Gb sata ports unless you use maybe a 4 disk raid 0 set array, so don't worry about it. At that point, there are dedicated raid card solutions from companies like Areca and Adaptec. For your OS, even buying most SSDs out there from Intel and Sandforce won't exceed 6Gbit, unless maybe you get a Crucial SSD.

For your heatsink solution, there are also other higher-end units besides the CM Hyper 212 Plus out there for reasonable prices, from $50 ish all the way to $90ish. Here's one link to check for HSF reviews (many many other websites out there too). If you aren't overclocking, the stock HSF should be fine. And many of the higher end air units will outperform the Corsair H50.

FrostyTech - Best Heat Sinks & PC Cooling Reviews

Randall Leong · January 3rd, 2011, 08:04 PM

Sorry to be late to this thread, but if someone has paid more than $30-ish for the Hyper 212 Plus, he has been ripped off at least somewhat.

And the only reason why I would have recommended the i7-920 over the i7-930 for overclocking because of its lower stock multiplier (20x/21x non-turbo and turbo, respectively, versus the 21x/22x for the 930) and thus allows you to run memory at even more highly overclocked speeds without having to use an excessively high memory multiplier ratio. A higher memory ratio would almost certainly require higher-than-normal QPI/Uncore voltages (VTT) in order to run stably.

Now that the i7-950 is now the least-expensive LGA 1366 CPU on the market these days, you might find that you could be limited to DDR3-1333 speed without seriously raising voltages (and therefore increasing the likelihood of burning out the CPU due to overheating) unless you artificially limit the maximum CPU/BCLK multiplier to lower than the stock 23x/24x.

July 26th, 2010, 02:32 AM	#1
Patrick Janka Major Player Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Orlando, FL Posts: 623	nVidia vs EVGA, i7-920 vs 930 overclocking, SATA III Hey, it might be a little late to ask, but I ordered all the parts for my new build, but now am wondering if I got the right stuff. First, are nVidia and EVGA considered the same thing? I ask because I may end up getting Adobe CS5, and according to this: Adobe Premiere CS5 Video Cards with CUDA Acceleration Mercury Playback Hack Mod Tip Unlock you can get CS5 to work with any nVidia gfx card. Does that mean my EVGA GTX 470 is included? I ordered the 930. I noticed some people here suggest the i7 920 over the 930 for overclocking purposes. Why is that? From my understanding the 930 can be overclocked just fine. This leads me to my next question. I don't really know anything about overclocking. How necessary is it that I overclock? How do I go about doing so? Is there a good tutorial you recommend? Lastly, I ordered the ASUS P6X58D mobo. It has two 6gb/s slots that are RAID configurable. Just how future-proof are these? It would seem to me that I could hook up only two drives, a boot/system and a scratch/render drive. With only two slots RAID 0 is out the door unless I use a 3gb/s mechanical drive for my boot, and two SSD's for the 6gb/s, but perhaps with that sort of throughput RAID is unnecessary? Are the 6gb/s slots simply marketing to sell mobos? Anyhow, here are all the components I got: Cooler Master ATCS 840 full tower Intel i7 930 Win 7 Home 64 bit ASUS P6X58D mobo 12GB (6x2) XMS3 triple channel Corsair RAM 3TB (1x3) Samsung Spinpoint 7200rpm HDD EVGA GTX 470 GFX Corsair 850x 850 watt PSU Hauppage WinTV capture card TP-Link Wireless N USB Adapter Arctic Silver 5 Two Viewsonic VA2223WM 21.5" 1920x1080 LCD Monitors Should be a good editing system for Vegas/CS5, correct? I ordered a Cooler Master Hyper 212+ Heat Sink/Fan, but I just found out it's still on backorder after 2 weeks, so I'm going to cancel my order and install the stock fan that came with the i7 and use the Arctic Silver. If I'm not overclocking should I still upgrade the fan? Is the 212 good, or is there something better? Is liquid cooling better? I was looking at the Corsair H50 liquid cooler, but it seems it's a pain to install and whatnot. Thanks =)

July 26th, 2010, 09:18 AM	#2
Allan Tabilas Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 81	From the reports on Adobe Forums, DVInfo, etc, the GTX 470 will work with the "hack" (adding an entry into a text file and enabling a mode on the nvidia driver). Regarding the 920, I have one myself, and I believe most people have them because it was among the first Core i7s to come in November-December of 2008. So there are more 920s in the wild than 930s, but there's no reason to believe why the 930 won't overclock as well either. Your Asus board, and other similar motherboards from Gigabyte, MSI, EVGA, etc., have manuals that detail the overclocking options in the BIOS where you generally increase the BCLK from its default of 133 (21 x 133 = 2.8Ghz stock) to a higher speed. Here's a quick guide from the Asus forums for overclocking the core i7 series. ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Forum- Overclocking Intel Core i7 processors The Asus mobo that you have should have 6 Intel SATA ports (3Gb /sec) that you can use the Intel matrix raid software in the BIOS to create more than a two disk raid array. The 2 SATA ports that are 6GB / sec -- I don't believe you can raid them with the intel sata ports (they are from another manufacturer). It's less likely that you'll really hit the full bandwidth or ceiling of the intel 3Gb sata ports unless you use maybe a 4 disk raid 0 set array, so don't worry about it. At that point, there are dedicated raid card solutions from companies like Areca and Adaptec. For your OS, even buying most SSDs out there from Intel and Sandforce won't exceed 6Gbit, unless maybe you get a Crucial SSD. For your heatsink solution, there are also other higher-end units besides the CM Hyper 212 Plus out there for reasonable prices, from $50 ish all the way to $90ish. Here's one link to check for HSF reviews (many many other websites out there too). If you aren't overclocking, the stock HSF should be fine. And many of the higher end air units will outperform the Corsair H50. FrostyTech - Best Heat Sinks & PC Cooling Reviews

January 3rd, 2011, 08:04 PM	#3
Randall Leong Major Player Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Melrose Park, Illinois, USA Posts: 936	Sorry to be late to this thread, but if someone has paid more than $30-ish for the Hyper 212 Plus, he has been ripped off at least somewhat. And the only reason why I would have recommended the i7-920 over the i7-930 for overclocking because of its lower stock multiplier (20x/21x non-turbo and turbo, respectively, versus the 21x/22x for the 930) and thus allows you to run memory at even more highly overclocked speeds without having to use an excessively high memory multiplier ratio. A higher memory ratio would almost certainly require higher-than-normal QPI/Uncore voltages (VTT) in order to run stably. Now that the i7-950 is now the least-expensive LGA 1366 CPU on the market these days, you might find that you could be limited to DDR3-1333 speed without seriously raising voltages (and therefore increasing the likelihood of burning out the CPU due to overheating) unless you artificially limit the maximum CPU/BCLK multiplier to lower than the stock 23x/24x.