Overclocking Intel's Core 2 Quad Q6600

Originally Posted by devdevil85
already OCing my old 2500+ at 2.2Ghz. I have a basic Thermaltake air-cooler on it right now. What would be an "Ok" max temperature you guys think I could run it at (it's housed in a tall, deep case that's got 5 main fans cooling it)? I think right now I have it running at 35C at load. Could I push it even more? Right now, I've raised the multiplier to 12x to get it to 2.2 and to run stable, but I see that I could just raise it from the stock 11x166 to 11x200. I'll try it when I get home. Sorry for the noob OC question, but I'm still getting used to this stuff.....

It'll be more than fine at 50 degrees... maybe even higher - I can't remember how high to be honest, as it was so long ago when I used a 2500+ in a system. I have on sitting next to me though... what a super CPU - 2.9GHz on water when I last tested it. B)

With the idea of showing that overclocking is not just for the Xtreme power tweakers, I decided to join in after reading the excellent Q6600 overclocking article, and share my experience.

I have been overclocking since the Celeron ( Celry ) 300 days and even had a couple of Celerons overclocked on an Abit BP6 ..

http://www.2cpu.com/articles/68_1.html

How sweet it was !

I have always done this with the idea of getting the best bang for the buck, while not necessarily squeezing the last mhz I could out of a CPU.

I went with AMD through the P4 days, but when Core2 showed up, I went back to Intel for obvious reasons.

I was eagerly anticipating the July price drops, and a chance to get a Quad at a more reasonable price, but when Fry's ran a 4th of July sale for $299 I couldn't resist ..

I am not a power-tweaker, forever fiddling with RAM timings and water cooling; I just go for the highest stable CPU clock while keeping voltage below rated max, as in the article..

With those limitations in mind, my Q6600 has turned out just great for me ..

I'm at 3.25g and auto volts which shows 1.26 with all 4 cores at 100% load..
It was like getting 2 new computers to render my home videos and participate in the RC5-72 distributed computing project ..

After unsuccessfully trying to get 3.4 and higher by upping the voltage to 1.45, I left the voltage on ' AUTO ' in the BIOS and set the FSB to 361 ..

My voltage shows 1.36 with CPUZ when idle and 1.26 under 100% load. ( see screen shots at the end )

I was using a Zallman 9500 that I had with my E6400, but my CPU temp was close to 60 and at least one core showing 80 or more, when loaded, so I boughta Thermalright Ultra-120, which lowered my CPU IHS to high 30's, and 65 - 71 for my core temps..

I run a distributed computing app 7 x 24, so keeping the temps down seems like a good idea to me..

Here are my primary hardware items ..

GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 ver 1 ( F4 BIOS )
Q6600 @ 3.2g
Crucial Ballistix 2GB PC2-8000 @ 1068
XFX 7600GT
Corsair PSU = CMPSU-620HX
HSF = Thermalright Ultra-120 ( lapped )

Except for using the memory ratio that lets me run the memory as high as possible, I leave my memory timings on auto .. I personally don't see the benefit gained by spending any time fiddling with memorytimings.

I don't know if I lucked onto an exceptional part or not, but I think people can expect to get close to 3g out of just about any Core2 Quad , with minimal tweaking, and without paying the big bucks for a QX part ..

I think a solid 600w PSU is a good idea, and any Quad compatible 775 board with a good reputation for overclockability ..

Sorry if I bored you with my life story, but I thought I would set the stage for the idea that anyone who is into putting together their own PC, should feel comfortable getting the extra value that overclocking provides..

http://www.gatzstuff.com/images/Ultra120/idle.gif

http://www.gatzstuff.com/images/Ultra120/load.gif

Hey Satisfied, thanks for stopping by and sharing your experiences with us - welcome to the forums. It's good to hear that you got a very similar overclock to what I achieved in the article and I'm glad you're happy with your purchase!

;)

Originally Posted by Tim S
It'll be more than fine at 50 degrees... maybe even higher - I can't remember how high to be honest, as it was so long ago when I used a 2500+ in a system. I have on sitting next to me though... what a super CPU - 2.9GHz on water when I last tested it. B)

Whoa! 50C.....that's pretty crazy....and nice to know What is the main reason for instability during OCing? is it heat? is it the mobo (I'm using an Abit NF2 btw)? or is it RAM (I'm using 2 x 256 PC2700 DDR)?

What I would have really liked to have seen is how the Q6600 overclocked, fairs against the E6750 overclocked.

I also really wish Crisis and or Quake Wars would come out so we could see some benches with those games...

Delphium: Thanks for the detailed reply. Thats some great info, and I would be really curios to see what you get outta of it. Either message me or post it here, that would be awesome!

Tim: Thanks for that tidbit. Thats some good knowledge. I'm thinking Asus is looking good with this setup in mind.

Thanks to both ya! I really appreciate the time you guys take to help us noobies get this right!

:)

Im thinking of picking up the Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 to overclock with the Q6600, Im just wondering what some of you thought of that board and if any of you have OCed with it, I have read many reviews and it seems pretty promising, I plan to water cool the chipset and use a phase cooler on the cpu.

Thanks guys for your input.

I'm thinking about upgrading my PC to a Q6600 but I'm not too sure if my PSU will be sufficient for a Q6600, 8800GTS/640, 2GB, 3x HDD, 1x DVD-RW. Any chance anybody is in the mood and has the experience/knowledge to answer that question? PSU is a Seasonic S12 500W by the way. (Look at my sig :))

Originally Posted by aon`aTv.gsus666
I'm thinking about upgrading my PC to a Q6600 but I'm not too sure if my PSU will be sufficient for a Q6600, 8800GTS/640, 2GB, 3x HDD, 1x DVD-RW. Any chance anybody is in the mood and has the experience/knowledge to answer that question? PSU is a Seasonic S12 500W by the way. (Look at my sig :))

The 500W PSU you plan to use should be suffcient.
To put into perspective I am using a 650W Akasa PSU with a pc running, QX6800, 8800GTX in SLI, 6x SATA-II hard drives, 4GB DDR2 Ram, 2dvdrw drives, water cooling pump, fans, lighting.
Seams to work fine here on 650W even with the 2nd gfx card, allthough im sure I must be near the PSU's limits heh.

If however you decide to up the PSU spec, then be sure to check out Bit's wikked reviews and tests of some PSU's in different groups...

700-850W PSU tests and review
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/05/10/700w_to_850w_psu_group_test/1

900-1100W PSU tests and review
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/07/09/psu_group_test_july_07/1

:)

As if BT wasn't my home page in FF. ;)

So I think I'll wait a couple of weeks and take the Q6600 route then. Maybe some more RAM and replace those IDE HDDs with SATA2s...

Originally Posted by aon`aTv.gsus666
As if BT wasn't my home page in FF. ;)

lol, wise man ;)

Be sure to try get a Q6600 with the G0 stepping ;)
Im waiting another week or two before I get mine, hoping that the earlyer steppings will have been shipped and paved the way for the better G0's :D

I ordered my q6600 back on the 22nd. Also ordered some ram and a cooler. got the cooler and the ram. but the cpu according to the website has not shipped. When I call in, im told it has been shipped but from a wherehouse that does not intergrate with the webpage so I cant see that it shipped and I cant see a tracking number. So I have no idea when its going to be here. all i can say is that they had better be telling the truth when they say its shipped....

I'm interested to see how well ddr3 turns out once the Micron Z9 modules hit the market

Is there anyway to ensure that you get a Q6600 with G0 stepping?

Call your dealer and ask for it. :)
Or better e-mail them so you have something you can show them later if they didn't deliver a G0.

Originally Posted by francisl1420
Is there anyway to ensure that you get a Q6600 with G0 stepping?

Try this link for the G0 stepping - but you pay a small premium fro not trying the G0 stepping lottery :D
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-161-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=

Argh... I was just about to order an E6850 when I read this. Now I don't know :/

quad core and over clocking or dual core and stock... decisions, decisions :( Advice pls?

CPU-Z Validator Database

I was using the abit IP35-E on Air
http://forums.pcapex.com/images/smilies/evil.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v629/THRASHER2/New%20Case%20Projects/Q66003645mhz.png

Originally Posted by DarkJedi
Argh... I was just about to order an E6850 when I read this. Now I don't know :/

quad core and over clocking or dual core and stock... decisions, decisions :( Advice pls?

Well Seeing as the Q6600 appears to be very clockable, achieving speeds greater than that of the dua core at stock, then id say go for Quad ;)
Prime example above from THRASHER2 :D

Originally Posted by THRASHER2
CPU-Z Validator Database

I was using the abit IP35-E on Air
http://forums.pcapex.com/images/smilies/evil.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v629/THRASHER2/New%20Case%20Projects/Q66003645mhz.png

Very nice!!
I would be interested to know what voltages you used ;)

And temps. :)

Me too :)

I'm pretty sure I'll be going quad core now. Does XP Pro support 4 cores or only two? Don't particularly like Vista yet (seemed a bit lethargic, but that may be my current hardware's fault slightly) and would prefer to keep XP as my main OS until Crysis comes out at least.

you can run four cores under XP just fine - I did for around six months before I plucked up the courage to move to Vista. :)

I've made my choice then.

Four cores here I come :D

Originally Posted by aon`aTv.gsus666
And temps. :)

Originally Posted by DarkJedi
Me too :)

I'm pretty sure I'll be going quad core now. Does XP Pro support 4 cores or only two? Don't particularly like Vista yet (seemed a bit lethargic, but that may be my current hardware's fault slightly) and would prefer to keep XP as my main OS until Crysis comes out at least.

I will get the Info later tonight (When its cooler)

XP pro limits you to 2 physical proccesors - I think most of the vista packages do too

So that means you can have 16 cores on XP when they get octo cores out :D