Hardware Overclocking Intel's Core 2 Quad Q6600

I'll have a look, but I did have a look into it before (I prefer to use my own benchmarks instead of "pre-configured" benchmarks) and wasn't successful finding anything.

 

Hi there

I'm one of those who had the mythical celeron 366@550MHz

As of today, I'm still using one of those AthlonXP2500+@2.2GHz in my main PC at home

And I know some other people who were using it until very, very recently: they have all changed it in the last few months, for a C3D 4300@3GHz. My patience will pay off, I believe, as I will get a Q6600@3GHz in september-october

My point is... I think we are what you could call a mainstream overclocker: I don't need to be on the bleeding edge, but I want really, really stable operation, and i don't like fiddling with the settings; I believe the possibility of getting top of the line performance with entry level parts by just changing FSB speed is what made celeron366 and AXP2500 so popular: no need for voltage increases of any kind, no FSB Strap options needed, no super-expensive cooling, just increase FSB and you are set to go

Now, it looks like you can't achieve 3GHz with E4300 or Q6600 without slightly increasing voltage, so some additional fiddling is necessary, but I tell you: if you want to appeal to the masses the question to answer is ¿how easy is it to get 333x9=3000 on a Q6600?

I really miss the CPU database at www.overclockers.com...

 

i wonder where my AMD x2 4800 (s939) will be placed in the benches. And how much money it would take me to 'upgrade' to a Qcore intel. And very important, if its all worth it? It will probably cost me a new mobo, expensive memory and a very expensive processor. Or should i wait for the new amd range, wich will also require a new mobo, mem and processor.

I think i just hold on a little bit longer to my curent setup...

 

I have had some good results with the Asus P5N32-E SLI board, so far have tested it with a QX6800 and managed to squezze an extra 600mhz out of it to 3.522ghz while remaining very stable, I think I could get more out of it using some better RAM that im awaiting to turn up any day now.

I am also investing in the Q6600 in about a week from now, again using the Asus P5N32-E SLI board, ill be using water cooling for this system, but if you can hold on for a week, ill let you know how that board clocks with the Q6600 seeing the abilities with a QX6800, its looks promising

 

Hi all, first post so be gentle

I've been looking at upgrading my XP2500 (stock only, couldn't even get 1MHz overclock out of the thing!) to a C2D (and I'm an AMD fan too!), since I saw the performance of the C2D compared to the Athlons. Now a C2Q is just within my reach I was wondering if anyone has managed to pair up a Q6600 with a 650i based mobo and overclock it to a FBS of 333MHz? My funds can stretch to a C2Q, but not a 680i based board as well.

What board would people suggest? I was looking at the Asus P5N-E, but I am open to suggestions. I don't really want to have to go over the £90-100 barrier if I can help it (preferably not over the £75 barrier or I'll have to reduce the spec of some of the other components I want to use).

TIA

Andy

 

What's wrong with P965 and P35?

 

Just orderied a Q6600 £165 inc next day delivery

 

I want to be able to go SLi in the future if I need to. But I'm not against using either Intel chipset.

I just don't htink that the ATi performance is good enough and Crossfire just doesn't seem to work (from what I've read on t'internet anyway).

Andy

 

Hi, well if you plan to go SLI later then the 680i chipset would be advisable.

Here you can see the specs between the nvidia chipsets...
http://www.nvidia.com/page/nforce_600i_tech_specs

Take note that the two SLI PCI-E slots are rated at 8x only for each PCI-E slot, or 16x if only using a single card.
So if you can afford to buy another SLI gfx card, then i would advise looking at the 680i SLI chipset over the 650i SLI chipset.

Not much point in inserting another gfx card then bottle necking it at the PCI-E bus, unless of cause the cards in which you plan to use for the SLI setup, use no more than 8 PCI-E lanes each.

Checking out the nvidia gfx cards, it seams that the vast majority of the GeForce 7 series and above use 16 PCI-E lanes, but will work with 8 PCI-E lanes at a downgraded performance.

Just something for you to take into consideration

 

Lots of questions - I hope I haven't missed any here!

Hey there, welcome to the forums - I will have a go this weekend if I get the chance. I don't think I'm going to have the time to run a full gamut of benchmarks, but I will at least see if I can get some overclocking action going. I'll report back but I have a feeling it'll be a fairly similar story to the P5K.

The memory was running at 446MHz (892MHz DDR) on the P5K Deluxe and 399Mhz (798MHz DDR) on the nForce 680i SLI board. The memory is rated for 1000MHz, but we were running it down near 800MHz as that's the memory that most people are going to buy. I was also fairly liberal when it came to memory timings too - I didn't tweak things on that front as that was really beyond the scope of what was ultimately a "see how far we can realistically push a Q6600 on reasonable air cooling" article.

The P5N32-E SLI should overclock similarly to the XFX board we've used here. We were really working on "examples" of chipsets, rather than specifically picking boards out of the hat.

If I'd taken the article another step further, there would have been a 975X board, a P965 board and a 650i SLI board too... along with watercooling and maybe some phase change cooling too. Unfortunately though, I have a growing pile of mid-range graphics cards that I really need to start publishing and I only had a week of time to allocate to this particular article.

Welcome to the forums Norman.

I totally agree with what you're saying, there is a cult in the world of hardware enthusiasts that buy a component because they can get flagship performance (or features) at a mainstream price point. I used to be a part of the "overclock it as far as you can while remaining stable" club, but I've gone to the extremes of phase change cooling too when I was into the whole 3DMark craze back in 2004. I would say that I'm now in the mainstream overclocking cult (at least when it comes to my home system) - I just want that little bit more performance, but I honestly don't need anymore for blagging rights.

I still enjoy pushing things to the limit, but I rarely have the time that it takes absolutely max something out. I remember how long it took me to get to almost 800MHz core on a 9600 XT... weeks of watching 3DMark crash just short of the end.

Anyway, to answer your question - I think that considering we stayed within Intel's own recommended voltage range, it's incredibly easy to overclock these chips to 333x9. Based on what I've seen in the past from Intel processors, I would be very surprised if most Q6600s didn't get to 3GHz.

Hey Andy - another welcome.

We haven't published any testing, but I seem to remember the 650i boards pushing quad-core chips about as far as the 680i boards. Hope this helps.

 

already OCing my old 2500+ at 2.2Ghz. I have a basic Thermaltake air-cooler on it right now. What would be an "Ok" max temperature you guys think I could run it at (it's housed in a tall, deep case that's got 5 main fans cooling it)? I think right now I have it running at 35C at load. Could I push it even more? Right now, I've raised the multiplier to 12x to get it to 2.2 and to run stable, but I see that I could just raise it from the stock 11x166 to 11x200. I'll try it when I get home. Sorry for the noob OC question, but I'm still getting used to this stuff.....

 

It'll be more than fine at 50 degrees... maybe even higher - I can't remember how high to be honest, as it was so long ago when I used a 2500+ in a system. I have on sitting next to me though... what a super CPU - 2.9GHz on water when I last tested it.

 

With the idea of showing that overclocking is not just for the Xtreme power tweakers, I decided to join in after reading the excellent Q6600 overclocking article, and share my experience.

I have been overclocking since the Celeron ( Celry ) 300 days and even had a couple of Celerons overclocked on an Abit BP6 ..

http://www.2cpu.com/articles/68_1.html

How sweet it was !

I have always done this with the idea of getting the best bang for the buck, while not necessarily squeezing the last mhz I could out of a CPU.

I went with AMD through the P4 days, but when Core2 showed up, I went back to Intel for obvious reasons.

I was eagerly anticipating the July price drops, and a chance to get a Quad at a more reasonable price, but when Fry's ran a 4th of July sale for $299 I couldn't resist ..

I am not a power-tweaker, forever fiddling with RAM timings and water cooling; I just go for the highest stable CPU clock while keeping voltage below rated max, as in the article..

With those limitations in mind, my Q6600 has turned out just great for me ..

I'm at 3.25g and auto volts which shows 1.26 with all 4 cores at 100% load..
It was like getting 2 new computers to render my home videos and participate in the RC5-72 distributed computing project ..

After unsuccessfully trying to get 3.4 and higher by upping the voltage to 1.45, I left the voltage on ' AUTO ' in the BIOS and set the FSB to 361 ..

My voltage shows 1.36 with CPUZ when idle and 1.26 under 100% load. ( see screen shots at the end )

I was using a Zallman 9500 that I had with my E6400, but my CPU temp was close to 60 and at least one core showing 80 or more, when loaded, so I boughta Thermalright Ultra-120, which lowered my CPU IHS to high 30's, and 65 - 71 for my core temps..

I run a distributed computing app 7 x 24, so keeping the temps down seems like a good idea to me..

Here are my primary hardware items ..

GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 ver 1 ( F4 BIOS )
Q6600 @ 3.2g
Crucial Ballistix 2GB PC2-8000 @ 1068
XFX 7600GT
Corsair PSU = CMPSU-620HX
HSF = Thermalright Ultra-120 ( lapped )

Except for using the memory ratio that lets me run the memory as high as possible, I leave my memory timings on auto .. I personally don't see the benefit gained by spending any time fiddling with memorytimings.

I don't know if I lucked onto an exceptional part or not, but I think people can expect to get close to 3g out of just about any Core2 Quad , with minimal tweaking, and without paying the big bucks for a QX part ..

I think a solid 600w PSU is a good idea, and any Quad compatible 775 board with a good reputation for overclockability ..

Sorry if I bored you with my life story, but I thought I would set the stage for the idea that anyone who is into putting together their own PC, should feel comfortable getting the extra value that overclocking provides..

http://www.gatzstuff.com/images/Ultra120/idle.gif

http://www.gatzstuff.com/images/Ultra120/load.gif

 

Hey Satisfied, thanks for stopping by and sharing your experiences with us - welcome to the forums. It's good to hear that you got a very similar overclock to what I achieved in the article and I'm glad you're happy with your purchase!

 

Whoa! 50C.....that's pretty crazy....and nice to know What is the main reason for instability during OCing? is it heat? is it the mobo (I'm using an Abit NF2 btw)? or is it RAM (I'm using 2 x 256 PC2700 DDR)?

 

What I would have really liked to have seen is how the Q6600 overclocked, fairs against the E6750 overclocked.

I also really wish Crisis and or Quake Wars would come out so we could see some benches with those games...

 

Delphium: Thanks for the detailed reply. Thats some great info, and I would be really curios to see what you get outta of it. Either message me or post it here, that would be awesome!

Tim: Thanks for that tidbit. Thats some good knowledge. I'm thinking Asus is looking good with this setup in mind.

Thanks to both ya! I really appreciate the time you guys take to help us noobies get this right!

 

Im thinking of picking up the Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 to overclock with the Q6600, Im just wondering what some of you thought of that board and if any of you have OCed with it, I have read many reviews and it seems pretty promising, I plan to water cool the chipset and use a phase cooler on the cpu.

Thanks guys for your input.

 

I'm thinking about upgrading my PC to a Q6600 but I'm not too sure if my PSU will be sufficient for a Q6600, 8800GTS/640, 2GB, 3x HDD, 1x DVD-RW. Any chance anybody is in the mood and has the experience/knowledge to answer that question? PSU is a Seasonic S12 500W by the way. (Look at my sig )

 

The 500W PSU you plan to use should be suffcient.
To put into perspective I am using a 650W Akasa PSU with a pc running, QX6800, 8800GTX in SLI, 6x SATA-II hard drives, 4GB DDR2 Ram, 2dvdrw drives, water cooling pump, fans, lighting.
Seams to work fine here on 650W even with the 2nd gfx card, allthough im sure I must be near the PSU's limits heh.

If however you decide to up the PSU spec, then be sure to check out Bit's wikked reviews and tests of some PSU's in different groups...

700-850W PSU tests and review
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/05/10/700w_to_850w_psu_group_test/1

900-1100W PSU tests and review
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/07/09/psu_group_test_july_07/1