some help overclocking my Q6600 please

[polly69]

Ive been running my quad for a couple of months at 3.2 but its as though its not breaking a sweat idle temps are 31C and fully loaded using prime95 usually 47c all running at 1.225v. Ive now decided i want to crank it open some more i tried 3.4 at 1.275 and it failed prime95 after around 5 minutes ive now upped the voltage to 1.3 and it has already been running 30 minutes max temps are 51-55c 55c is where its reached and is now stable its not getting any hotter so this is the max its going to get when all 4 cores are stressed.

These are my issues that i would need some help on

1. what is the exceptable highest temp that you would feel happy running at foe normal everyday use i know its thermal limit is about 72c
2. whats the highest voltage you would give it
3. when would you say benchmarking and stress testing is enough to say that its stable
4. would i benefit from running my board with voltage set to auto

My board is a Asus P5K-premium

[Will404]

My Q6600 is at 45'C on the stock cooler, at about 30% load, fan on 37%, load it goes to about 50'C then the fan speeds up a bit. (I will probs overclock in a couple of years, and go to water - hence no custom cooler).Your temps sound fine, but I would begin to get concerned if it goes over 60'C

I would probs not go over 1.35 or 1.34 volts.

I think that 3 hours of stress testing is enough

Mine is on auto, and I think when its idling (ASUS P5Q PRO) it reduces the voltage, and throttles it back, but I am not sure if it will overvolt while on auto.

[Zhaoman]

I would be happy to run my CPUs at 60 - 65 on full load. Wouldn't go over 65 though.

1.45 seems to work very stable for most, but that depends on your particular chip. 1.35 would definitely be fine.

I usually stress test for as long as I think the computer is going to be on for, so around 8 hours throughout the day. If it doesn't crash under a stress test then it shouldn't crash in everyday use.

If you're doing serious overclocks then setting voltage on auto is a bad idea, as they generally overvolt it quite a bit. For light overclocking then it should be fine but, like any job, tuning it yourself is generally better.

[polly69]

Thats what i thought about auto voltage i know it throttles back the voltage when its not at full load but tends to overvolt it when you have full load or overclock to keep it stable. I ran it for a couple of hours without fault at 3.4 at 1.3volts this chip seems to be a good clocker at the right voltage i think you may get to 3.8 or 4.0ghz but im happy at 3.4-3.5ghz it beats most out there at that and on air thats a pretty big clock thanx for your help you have basically said what i had imagined to be about right.

[lockeh]

65nm chip can take 1.45v easy enough, Try and keep the temps under 65oc

Also what VID is the chip as lower VID chips run hotter but do clock better and use lower volts.