Overclocking a P35 with a 6600?

[Misklin]

Ok this is a dumb question I know, but I've not really been into overclocking before and am looking for a dummies guide to overclocking this kit:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad LGA775 Q6600 2.40GHz
Motherboard: Abit IP35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2
Memory: Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (4x1GB) 4-4-4-12 @ 2.1V

As this is pretty standard kit I would guess that someone out ther has this and could let me know in simple terms what I need to change in the bios to bump it up a bit.

Oh and I have looked through some MASSIVE overclocking threads but none of them seemed to help much as the details people put down are the details that don't work and need changing. No one ever seems to put write the settings that do work well?

Cheers

[BUFF]

http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...s-p5k-add.html it's not an IP35 but a lot of it is relevant.

How far do you want to go?
I would start with dropping the CPU:RAM ratio to 1:1 to take the RAM out of the equation.
Then start increasing the CPU fsb - I imagine that you'll probably get past 300 before you need to add some more vcore (it will depend upon how good a CPU that you have to a certain extent).

Every system is different though - there are no 1 size fits all settings.

[Misklin]

Just been playing with the overclocking thingy and realised I'd done something wrong so wasn't getting very far. I forgot to set the memory multiplyer, so it was going up and up and soon stoped everything from working.

Now I've worked that out and am trying to keep it as close to 800mhz as possible with each jump I've made it up to 3.4Ghz

In fact it even sorted out my 5.6 score on the memory, now everything is 5.9 for the Vista experience thingy.

Although I am surprised that overclocking even a whole 1 Ghz extra doesn't give the machine a particularly massive lift.

Here are my 3D Marks:
3dMark 06 scores

Running Stock with original bios version - 42'C
11548

Overclock at 2665 - 42'C
12319

Overclock at 3000
12889
13159

Overclock at 3420 - 44'C
13474
13442
13600

[Misklin]

I managed to get it up to 3600 but it either became too unstable unless I bumped the voltage up to 1.4 or at this point it got too hot at about 65'C. But it got me this score:

3D Mark06 - 13717
CPU1 - Red Valley 1.701 FPS
CPU2 - Red Valley 2.477 FPS

Which I thought was pretty good. And I could play Cysis with everything on at 1900x1200!

Shame now I've turned it down to 3400 it's that bit too slow to play at the res with everything on Very High

[BUFF]

3DM06 is heavily dependent on gfx cards, if you run tests that are more CPU orientated then you would see larger changes due to your CPU overclock.

What cooling are you using?

[Misklin]

Yeah I spotted you could check out the CPU score separately which was pretty handy. The other thing was checking out the slowest FPS on the Proxycon demo, at 2.4 it got down to 20ish, at 3.6 it got down to 27. Which is quite a boost for just the CPU doing overtime asn the 8800GT staying stock.

I'm using a Zalman CNPS9700-LED CPU Cooler which is pretty good for aircooling, so I'm happy with that.

I did get the system to run stable at 3.6Ghz but it was just a little too hot for my liking. It needed 1.4V core to run stable which I think was the cause of the heat as at 3.5Ghz it only need about 1.35.

To be honest when stock (2.4Ghz) the only game that runs to slow on my machine at 1900x1200 is Crysis with everything turned to "Very High". Running it with the chip at 3.6Ghz with everything on "Very High" it was just playable at 1900x1200. This showed a HUGE improvement that I really wasn't expecting. At 2.4Ghz it runs fine at 1200x800, so i thought the bottleneck would be the grafix card, why bumping the CPU up give it such a massive boost is anyones guess?

So I think I'll leave my mahine at stock 2.4Ghz until I really need it. It's not really worth overclocking until things start to run slow. Oh and at 2.4 every other DX10 game runs smooth as whippy cream (UT3, COD4, GOW, Bioshock, etc...).

Thanks for the help