Quad Core Thread: Overclocking, Cooling, Motherboards, Troubleshooting & General Info

[Spector]

Anyway, does the ram matter when overclocking? and what do u recomend im getting, im buying a q6600 g0 and im going with a p5k deluxe which seems to be a good motherboard but im stuck with ram, i was thinking of OCZ

[fat jez]

Anyway, does the ram matter when overclocking? and what do u recomend im getting, im buying a q6600 g0 and im going with a p5k deluxe which seems to be a good motherboard but im stuck with ram, i was thinking of OCZ

you are looking for two things, low latency and RAM that will do at least PC6400. my RAM has reasonable latency at 4-4-4-12, but you can do better.

Hope that helps. If you've spotted something that takes your fancy, then post a link and we can comment.

Cheers,
Stephen

[Spector]

well im ordering to aria so depending on stock and the latency thing i found http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...roductId=27053 , http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...roductId=26722 (ocz doesnt seem to excell latency wise) and two reapers, http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/...roductId=26597 http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...roductId=27011 (altho ive just realised the last one is for chipset 680i only)

[Clunk]

None of those, go for Crucial Ballistix, the RMA service is excellent. I returned a set last tuesday and on thursday a brand new set arrived back to me.

All of the above will need shipping out of the UK for RMA if you go direct to the manufacturer for warranty, which you should because Aria are horrendous.

[fat jez]

Well, anything much beyond PC6400 is probably overkill unless you are seriously planning on seriously increasing your FSB speed. My machine is running at 3.42GHz and I'm still running within my RAM's PC6400 specs.

The 2GB DIMMs tend to have lower latencies, so do you really need 4GB of RAM?

Cheers,
Stephen

[Spector]

are they that bad?:/ i wanted to go with scan but they are out of stock for most of what i want, i dont really need 4gb im just trying to plan ahead since i wont be buying anything for 9 months lol, i guess ill go with corsair, it was just another option since ocz seems to have 5-5-5-15 on most of their memory on aria

[D-BEAR]

Well the sweety spot for mine is 3.4ghz 1.375v in bios primed it for 6hrs with round error checking enabled....did try it first @ 3.5ghz 1.45ghz in bios.....failed after 2 and a half hours guess it needs a bit more vcore....but @ 3.4ghz with the board vdroop it is within intel's max and i am happy with my o/c atm.... low vore, great temps and air cooled what more can you ask for and all on my old Gigabyte GA-965P-DS4 (rev. 1.0)...so no need to buy a new board which i thought i would have been buying.

[Fraz]

Hi, I'm a complete overclocking n00b, especially with respect to the Core 2 CPUs and mobos. So, a few questions you might be able to help with

Firstly, my system is:

Mobo: IP35 Pro
CPU: Q6600 G0
CPU cooler: Thermaltake Big Typhoon 120VX
RAM: OCZ PC8500 1066MHz 5-5-5-15 (@2.3 Volts)
GFX: Inno3d 8800 GTS 640MB (factory OC'd)

First off, I'm not looking for an extreme overclock... just around the 3GHz mark, so my CPU cooler isn't too noisy as I'm gonna be running grid jobs 24/7 on all 4 cores. I've currently got all this running at 2.7 GHz by just bumping the FSB up from 266 to 300 (x9 multiplier), and the RAM is on the 1:1.66 ratio, so the ram is running at about ~1000 MHz.

Now when I bump up the FSB to 320MHz so the CPU will be at 2.88 GHz and the RAM at it's rated frequency of ~1066MHz, the computer won't boot. However, if I put the RAM back to it's 1:1 ratio, it'll boot fine. Why is this?

By the way, temps are all ok so far... Max core temp (using latest CoreTemp with correct Tjunction) with all cores fully loaded is about 50C, with the fan only at 1000 RPM.

[shaithis]

I've never tried to run at non 1:1 speeds since the days of Durons

You might want to try moving your MCH voltage up a few notches but thats a pure guess, although it wouldn't hurt anything to try

[Fraz]

Yes... I remember getting screwed over by my last AMD chip not liking non 1:1 ratios. Took me a long time to work out why it was unstable...doh!

Surely that's not the case with Core2s right?!

Will give the MCH voltage a try and let you know

[Clunk]

Hi, I'm a complete overclocking n00b, especially with respect to the Core 2 CPUs and mobos. So, a few questions you might be able to help with

Firstly, my system is:

Mobo: IP35 Pro
CPU: Q6600 G0
CPU cooler: Thermaltake Big Typhoon 120VX
RAM: OCZ PC8500 1066MHz 5-5-5-15 (@2.3 Volts)
GFX: Inno3d 8800 GTS 640MB (factory OC'd)

First off, I'm not looking for an extreme overclock... just around the 3GHz mark, so my CPU cooler isn't too noisy as I'm gonna be running grid jobs 24/7 on all 4 cores. I've currently got all this running at 2.7 GHz by just bumping the FSB up from 266 to 300 (x9 multiplier), and the RAM is on the 1:1.66 ratio, so the ram is running at about ~1000 MHz.

Now when I bump up the FSB to 320MHz so the CPU will be at 2.88 GHz and the RAM at it's rated frequency of ~1066MHz, the computer won't boot. However, if I put the RAM back to it's 1:1 ratio, it'll boot fine. Why is this?

By the way, temps are all ok so far... Max core temp (using latest CoreTemp with correct Tjunction) with all cores fully loaded is about 50C, with the fan only at 1000 RPM.

At a guess, I would say that its just an unstable divider. That is assuming that your RAM is properly set to the correct voltage and timings.

Will it run at 1066Mhz with the CPU at 266?

Read the RAM part of the overclocking guide, theres info about this

[Fraz]

At a guess, I would say that its just an unstable divider. That is assuming that your RAM is properly set to the correct voltage and timings.

Will it run at 1066Mhz with the CPU at 266?

Read the RAM part of the overclocking guide, theres info about this

Yup - works fine with the CPU at 266*9 and the RAM at 1066MHz. That's basically my "Not Overclocked" setup, and it works fine.

Will try turning up the MCH voltage when I get home, and see if that works.

[mroz]

Good luck, don't go to far

Cheers. Not had much time in the last couple of days, so half the parts are still on the living room floor. Hopefully will get it sorted now the weekend's here.

[Phil_P]

At a guess, I would say that its just an unstable divider. That is assuming that your RAM is properly set to the correct voltage and timings.

Whilst we're on the topic of dividers, for info...

Gigabyte P35-DS4 with Crucial Ballistic DDR2-800, memtest86 bandwidth figures:

400fsb, 2:1 (800fsb), 4-4-4-12: 4539MB/s
400fsb, 2.5:1 or 5:4 divider (1000fsb), 5-5-5-15: 5028MB/s

Gigabyte calls the divider 2.5:1, which is the same as 5:4, and it's 100% stable on this board for me. Running in sync is obviously also stable too, just slightly less bandwidth.

This Gigabyte P35-DS4 is looking really good at £30 less than the Asus P5K Deluxe.

[Fraz]

You might want to try moving your MCH voltage up a few notches but thats a pure guess, although it wouldn't hurt anything to try

Yup - that worked like a charm. Thanks for the help

I would thank you properly if only I could find the button...

[mroz]

I would thank you properly if only I could find the button...

OT: You're not old enough. Maybe 25 posts is the critical number iirc - it's not very high in any case.