E6550 Overclocking and Safe Temps

[dmw16]

I have an E6550 that I got for a build that started as a more basic system and grew into a gaming rig. Now I am worried that the CPU will hold me back (4870, 4GB DDR2, etc). I am going to try and overclock.

What kind of gains can I expect? Should I not even bother? I have a Zalman 9500 is that makes any difference.

Thanks.

 

[myocardia]

The CPU will definitely be holding you back, unless you overclock it pretty seriously. As far as gains, you can expect to get it as high as ~3.2 Ghz, as long as you buy a good motherboard-- you'll definitely be wanting a P45-based board. And your Zalman 9500 is plenty for an E6550. Your motherboard will run out of headroom before the Zalman does, because of the 6550's 7x multiplier.

 

[dmw16]

Thanks. That's what I was afraid of. Maybe I'll try to live with the CPU for a while. I got the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L board, which I've heard is a good overclocker.

 

[DSF]

Shouldn't be too bad. That chip will likely overclock to 2.8GHz without a whole lot of trouble if your motherboard is up to the task, which is pretty fast. It depends on how graphically intense your games are going to be and what resolution you're playing at. The more processing the picture requires (including number of pixels, texture quality, shadows, anti-aliasing, filtering, etc.) the more the game will depend on the GPU rather than the CPU.

 

[Gillbot]

My E6550 hit 3.5GHz but it takes good hardware to get there due to 500fsb.

 

[dmw16]

Im not expecting to get to 3.5Ghz, but 3.0 would be nice. I ran Prime95 overnight without issue @ 2.8Ghz. Going to try for 3.0 now.