Bios to allow overclocking with i7 920 released

Updated my Area-51 to A03 from A02 with satisfactory results (updated through Win7). Loaded OC Profile 1 and the CPU now (i7 920) runs at 3.2Ghz.
(1) Does this profile do anything special other than up the CPU volt by 20mV and disable Intel Turbo Tech and BCLK adjustment? Seems that everything else has been left on Auto.
(2) Also, how come the Area-51 BIOS does not have an option to adjust the Uncore multiplier?
(3) With this new A03 bios, does this mean that we can fully overclock the i7 920 or is it still locked to only 3.2Ghz? I was hoping to bump up the BCLK  abit further to achieve 3.5Ghz clockspeed.
primetimex

Does this void the warranty if you turn on the overclocking?
KyronamiHax

* No it does not.

Updated my Area-51 to A03 from A02 with satisfactory results (updated through Win7). Loaded OC Profile 1 and the CPU now (i7 920) runs at 3.2Ghz. (1) Does this profile do anything special other than up the CPU volt by 20mV and disable Intel Turbo Tech and BCLK adjustment? Seems that everything else has been left on Auto. (2) Also, how come the Area-51 BIOS does not have an option to adjust the Uncore multiplier? (3) With this new A03 bios, does this mean that we can fully overclock the i7 920 or is it still locked to only 3.2Ghz? I was hoping to bump up the BCLK  abit further to achieve 3.5Ghz clockspeed. primetimex

Did you answer these questions yet? If so I can't see them.

Thank you,

M

I used the level 1 overclocking... only one available.

Alienware Aurora ALX

• Cosmic Black ALX - 875 Watt Power Supply

• Intel® Core™ i7 920 (2.66GHz, 8MB Cache)

• Dual 1GB GDDR5 ATI Radeon™ HD 5870 Crossfire™ Enabled

• 6GB Triple Channel 1600MHz DDR3

• 1TB RAID 0 (2x 500GB SATA-II, 7,200 RPM, 16MB Cache HDDs)

• Single Drive: 24X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability

• Alienware® High-Performance Liquid Cooling

• Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English

Before Overclocking

3D Mark Vantage

3D Mark Score - 20,285

GPU Score - 21,706

CPU Score - 16,956

GPU Test 1 - 63.00 FPS

GPU Test 2 -  64.18 FPS

CPU Test 1 - 2,374.56 PLANS/S

CPU Test 2 - 21.77 STEPS/S

Feature Test 1 - 3,674.36 GTEXELS/S

Feature Test 2 - 15.21 GPIXELS/S

Feature Test 3 -  104.63 FPS

Feature Test 4 - 27.79 FPS

Feature Test 5 -  53.88 FPS

Feature Test 6 -  303.85 FPS

PCMark Vantage x64

PCMarkSuite - 9,024 PCMarks

Memories Suite - 7,489

TV and Movies Suite - 5,865

Gaming Suite - 9,437

Music Suite - 7,065

Communications Suite - 7,367

Productivity Suite - 6,770

HDD Test Suite - 5,356

CPU Speed - 2,673 MHz

After Overclocking

3D Mark Vantage

3D Mark Score - 21,724

GPU Score - 22,468

CPU Score - 19,760

GPU Test 1 - 66.69 FPS

GPU Test 2 -  64.91 FPS

CPU Test 1 - 2,765.14PLANS/S

CPU Test 2 - 25.42 STEPS/S

Feature Test 1 - 3,686.69 GTEXELS/S

Feature Test 2 - 14.291 GPIXELS/S

Feature Test 3 -  101.80 FPS

Feature Test 4 - 27.69 FPS

Feature Test 5 -  52.49 FPS

Feature Test 6 -  303.16 FPS

PCMark Vantage x64

PCMarkSuite - 9,187 PCMarks

Memories Suite - 7,854

TV and Movies Suite - 6, 161

Gaming Suite - 10,235

Music Suite - 8,114

Communications Suite - 7,951

Productivity Suite - 7,314

HDD Test Suite - 5, 257

CPU Speed - 3,212 MHz

Kyron, that's a very nice 3dMark score - expected no less from a Crossfire 5870 - now it's very tempting for me to try a 5970 heheh

Further overclocking: nudged the BCLK bit further to 167 giving me a nice 3.33Ghz CPU Speed and a 1333Mhz DDR3 - all settings based on OC Profile 1.

Seems to be completely stable but runs fairly hot hopefully the Area-51 is up to scratch in the cooling dept.

I believe the Area 51 has the liquid cooling w/ 240mm exhaust fan so you should be good.

Yeah, is it also true that the liquid cooling unit is essentially a Corsair H50 unit?

The Service Manual also does not mention anything on how to remove it when say you are replacing or upgrading a CPU!!!

Any ideas anyone?

I believe the Area 51 has the liquid cooling w/ 240mm exhaust fan so you should be good.

alienwares cooling solution is made by asetek (http://www.asetek.com/). the corsair h50 is also made by asetek and equal to alienwares solution. the difference is only the socket-mounting kit for several cpu types.

Question about the OCing. I turned it on in the BIOS after doing the update, and it reports a 3.2ghz speed now, but windows still shows only 2.67, is that normal?

yes thats normal. Run pcmark and it will tell you what your cpu is clocked at

That is a good question. I am sure it will be answered by someone eventually.

How come it dosent go above 167Mhz? I was even able to boot at 200Mhz but its not even stable at 170Mhz no matter what.

What to do??!!! I had clocked my self built PC i7 920 to 3.5Ghz easily without any voltage adjustment, but on that board there's an extensive / full range of options to overclock and fine tune, and was able to lower the uncore multiplier too which is critical. On Alienware it seems that the uncore is locked.

No such thing on the Alienware BIOS.

I guess we'll have to be content with our Area-51s, at least it can run at 3.33Ghz overclocked at 1333Mhz DDR3 speeds stable!

Removed by Admin.

It's because the Alienware (ie. Dell BIOS), does not allow you to adjust the uncore multiplier, as you crank up the BCLK, so does the rest of the Nehalem's subsystems.

Ideally, on other mobo's you'd set the uncore to as low as possible to make it stable before any voltage adjustments.

I had guessed that at 160 BCLK it must be near the limit since we are not able to adjust uncore - plus many other aspects.