Overclocking advice on e6600 please

[mathewdbarlow]

Morning campers

Just need some advice on the best way to go about cranking up my new gaming rig.
Went with the e6600 for the extra cache memory and paired it up with the Gigabyte DS3 965p for its overclocking features. I am using 2Ggb Corsair 667mhz ram. I am only using the stock cooler at the moment.

I am a bit confused with how the correlation between ram speed and cpu speed works. Is there a point where any increasing in fsb will be pointless because the ram will bottleneck? Is it worth attempting to overclock the ram and what speed is safe?

Finally, all of the Gigabyte utilities that came with this board do not run with Vista. Can anyone suggest a utility that I can use to monitor temps in Windows (I am a bit wary of this as I am still using the stock cooler) I have tried Motherboard Monitor but it is showing all my temps as about -60 degrees...I'm not 100% sure but I think this may be wrong.

Thanks in advance

[shaithis]

Basically, you should have bought DDR800 RAM (PC6400) or an E4300 CPU.

Your RAM will only run to 333FSB before its being overclocked (no guarantees past this point) which gives you a 3GHz CPU clock (E6600 has a 9x multiplier).

The RAM will probably push further but you will almost certainly have to start slackening the timings and it might not go much further anyway.

Seeing as you have the stock cooler and 667 RAM, I would try upping the CPU vcore a little and setting FSB to 333, 3GHz is still nice, its just nicer when you do it with a £100 CPU

[mathewdbarlow]

The 667 ram was a cost cutting exercise, I already had 1 gb from my old machine and I chose to save myself a few £££ and buy another gig of this rather than splash out on 2gb of 800mhz. As for the e4300, I know that is is highly overclockable but I was prepared to spend the extra money for the extra cache, which I think will maker this a better choice for newer games.

Anyway.
Its now running at 3.15ghz with no change in voltage and is stable. I will try tweeking the ram settings so that it is running at about 740?? Does this seem about right? That would give me a maximum cpu clock speed of 3.33ghz, right???

When you say slacken the timings, do you mean make the values higher, say 5 5 5 15 or so??

[shaithis]

Running the RAM at DDR740 will give you a 3.33GHz clock speed....and yes, slackening the timings means increasing those values

Make sure you run SuperPi, 3DMark or Orthos for at least a few hours before you declare any overclock as stable.

[mathewdbarlow]

Thanks for the help Shaithis.

Just one more question if you don't mind me picking your brain once more.

I am desperate to find a windows utility (Vista compatible) that will allow me to monitor temps. I have tried Motherboard Monitor 3 and Gigabyte Easytune but Vista seems to have problems with these. Can you recommend anything???

Thanks for your input!

[shaithis]

Everest. It even comes with a vista widget for the sidebar