Some Q6600 & RAM overclock queries

[Crossbow]

Hi all,

Would greatly appreciate some overclocking advice. I have some OC experiencing, but still consider myself an OC newbie.

Anyway, these OC questions are related primarily to a Q6600 & RAM.

What I have at present (got some of them only yesterday) - only willing to increase RAM amount for the time being:

CPU: Q6600 2.4Ghz GO stepping OEM
CPU cooler: Xigmatek HDT-S1283
Motherboard: Asus P5KC P35
RAM: Crucial Ballistix Tracer 2Gb (2x1Gb) PC6400
PSU: Enermax 701 Noisetaker 600W
OS: WinXP Pro 32-bit

So for the best Q6600 OC with the above:

1. Remain at 2Gb, or get 2Gb more? What about 3Gb in all?

2. Can I mix my 2x1Gb Crucial Ballistix modules with say 1/2Gb of Corsair XMS2 PC6400 4-4-4-12 modules? Ideally, I just need to match the spec, speed, timings & voltage, right?

3. What if I get additional PC8500 CL5 RAM to go with the CL4 PC6400 modules I have? Will this be better/worse/negligible change compared to if I upgraded with CL4 PC6400 modules?

I don't want to know about 32-bit OSes recognising only 3.5Gb of RAM, or similar.

I only need to know what the above RAM upgrades will do for the OC - thanks

P.S. I've seen a few other Q6600 OC threads on the forum, so will have a look there too to get some tips - & also Clunk's C2D OC guide

[CooperXS]

May I ask what you think are the reasons to increase memory amount ? What are the tasks you perform on yr PC ?
As for the overclock seeing what mboard is in use I'd say you are very safe on using yr Q6600 on 333MHz FSB giving you 3.0GHz and keeping memory on 400MHz which is within the specs. Anything else on top of it may require additional changes to chipset/CPU/RAM voltages. So now you would probably need to ask yrself a question - is it necassary to go over ?
As for memory combining - RAM would need to have similar SPDs which is a BIOS for memory storing clock/voltage/latencies settings. It would be very hard to say if particular memory modules will work together since different revisions of RAM may store different SPDs or even have different memory chips.
Saying that WIndows will "see" certain amount of memory is not quite correct.Any 32bit OS is capable of addressing 4GB of system memory which consists of actually installed RAM, video memory and other reswoursec consumed by motherboard. So in real life you may see anything from 3.7GB till 3GB. Should you have more RAM in the system you would need to move towards 64bit OS which depending on the version (Windows wise) can address up to 128GB if my numbers are correct.