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Intel Core i7 Build & Architecture Changes
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The BIOS
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First things first, every new motherboard has a new BIOS to learn.
This one is no exception, but there's some interesting things we should talk about, and we'll go through them one at a time.
This is the main BIOS screen, it's pretty self-explanatory and common. Nothing too different here, if you're familiar with Asus boards. It's a typical AMI Bios.
But here's where it gets interesting. The AI Tweaker section is where we'd go to overclock anything, and there are some new things on this list we should look at.
For example, you can see "CPU Ratio Setting" is highlighted. This allows us to modify the multiplier of the processor should we need to. Since Nehalem doesn't have a FSB, it uses a host clock, and thus Nehalem processors have much higher multipliers.
The processor we're using, a Core i7 965, has a 24x multiplier for a host clock of 133 MHz. 133 x 24 = 3.2GHz clock speed.
And of course, the QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) speed.
This should be as high as possible - the fast this runs, the more your CPU can do. However, this is going to be dependent on how fast the processor is running, so in order to get a great overclock, you might have to drop this down just a bit. Keep that in mind as you go through your settings.
On to overclocking....
The first thing we have to do is turn the Overclock Tuner to Manual
This allows us to change the other settings. For example, the host clock.
The Host Clock is the soul of your overclocking attempt. If you are trying to get a good overclock, start here.
Say you have a Nehalem processor at 2.66 GHz. This would be a 20x multiplier and a 133 MHz Host Clock.
Remember before, the FSB in older systems? Same concept here.
Host Clock * Multiplier = Frequency
133 MHz * 20 = 2660 MHz or 2.66 GHz.
If we were to raise that host clock to 150 MHz....
150 MHz * 20 = 3000 MHz or 3.00 GHZ
So anytime you're going to overclock a Core i7, keep the Host Clock in mind, it's where you'll start.
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