Help overclocking Q6600 on P5Q-E

[moogle]

nopes, I've got mine running at 1.1v which is the lowest for my board so I might see how far I can go with that right now. When winter comes though boy am I gonna go crazy

[Hunkulus]

Just clocked mine at 3.4 ghz... No problems.. fsb is at 385, v-core 1.25 and ram is at 1066mhz. Should be plenty more headroom...

[360bhp]

In what situation would you notice an incrase on a q6600 from 2.4ghz to 3.0ghz? Mine seems fast enough at 2.4ghz for me, cant see how it would improve so noticably with another 600mhz/.

Would boot up be faster? Obviously gaming will gain an advantage Im guessing?

[Hunkulus]

Mainly gaming and benchmarking for me at the moment... But overall performnace when neccessary.
The stepping features on the newer intel chips (such as your own) allow the sytem to slow down the speed (via the multplier and hence the front side bus) as neccessary, so you're not constantly at full throttle...For instance my processor is running at 2.4ghz while I am just browsing but if I booted a game up it would jump to 3.4Ghz by increasing the multiplier to 8.5...
The P5q has options for controlling the multiplier and if you set it to auto it will control this as neccessary.

Of course if 2.4 is fine for you then...don't worry. I am a bit of a game junkie.....

[inonefly]

In what situation would you notice an incrase on a q6600 from 2.4ghz to 3.0ghz? Mine seems fast enough at 2.4ghz for me, cant see how it would improve so noticably with another 600mhz/.

Would boot up be faster? Obviously gaming will gain an advantage Im guessing?

fps gaming and video encoding i guess?

[Hunkulus]

It's not going to hurt if you use programes like adobe photoshop either

[jallsey]

OK, I'm now running at 3Ghz, left CPU voltage on AUTO in BIOS and fans are set to turbo
I just ran the blend stress test in Prime95 (to test 6), are these results alright if I want to run at 3Ghz for daily use? (monitored with CoreTemp & CPU-Z)

Idle temps up to 45c, Core voltage 1.376v
Load temps up to 66c, Core voltage 1.392v

[McstylisT]

Just clocked mine at 3.4 ghz... No problems.. fsb is at 385, v-core 1.25 and ram is at 1066mhz. Should be plenty more headroom...

You will be able to reach 4ghz with that board just fine. I am expecting your using a good after market cooler to achieve this.

I got 4.1ghz but it became unstable. So back to 3.4ghz where it seems to sit sweet.

McT

[McstylisT]

OK, I'm now running at 3Ghz, left CPU voltage on AUTO in BIOS and fans are set to turbo
I just ran the blend stress test in Prime95 (to test 6), are these results alright if I want to run at 3Ghz for daily use? (monitored with CoreTemp & CPU-Z)

Idle temps up to 45c, Core voltage 1.376v
Load temps up to 66c, Core voltage 1.392v

Great stuff. The temps seem a little high if i am honest. Have you updated to the latest bios with your motherboard. ?? Some times it helps with the temps.

When i used the Q6600 with the same cooler and similar board , I had an idle temp of 28degs and workload of 38degs. My Q9550 is slightly higher than that , but its @ 3.4ghz nowdays ,, 34degs idle and 40degs workload.

McT

[moogle]

OK, I'm now running at 3Ghz, left CPU voltage on AUTO in BIOS and fans are set to turbo
I just ran the blend stress test in Prime95 (to test 6), are these results alright if I want to run at 3Ghz for daily use? (monitored with CoreTemp & CPU-Z)

Idle temps up to 45c, Core voltage 1.376v
Load temps up to 66c, Core voltage 1.392v

Set the CPU voltage manually, at those voltages I would be running 3.6+ GHz. You should set it to 1.25 in the bios and try booting then priming it. Jumping to 3GHz on a Q6600 is easy and most of the time doesn't require an increase in voltage.

[jallsey]

Reduced CPU voltage manually to 1.25v, ran the first 4 tests on Prime95 and max temp 57/58c, obviously the room is a lot cooler now though than it was this afternoon.

Did a couple of laps on GRID & left HWmonitor running in the background, max temp 50c, will do the same with Crysis and if I get similar results will probably run 3GHz for everyday use.

Has anyone else got the same set-up as me (Q6600/P5Q-E)?, I would be interested to hear what your temps are if you are running a similar OC.

(I am a little worried as I was building to a budget so went for an AC7Pro, I also have some concerns as to whether it is mounted properly due to the heat sinks on the mobo getting in the way).

[moogle]

that seems normal temps to me. Keep lowering the voltage 1 notch or 2 and priming until you find the limit where it goes unstable, then you'll get your lowest stable voltage for your OC and you'll be saving power and getting lower temps.

[jallsey]

Thanks everyone for your advise & comments