- Jul 27, 2002
- 13,310
- 687
- 126
8/19/06: After some communication with a person in-the-know (easy guess
), it's now quite obvious that there are problems with current motherboards, when dealing with 4MB Conroe chips. Basically if you want to go past 360~370FSB with this board, you will have to run FSB;Memory=1:1 or leave memory at "Auto". After that, the next wall will be either 400FSB (4MB L2 Chips) or 420~430FSB (2MB L2 Chips). The problem I had with the E6600 was its extreme inconsistency, which I have no explanation for.
So at this (still) early stage of Core 2 Duo overclocking:
1. Go with E6400/E6300 with a decent P965 board. This is the best possible scenario, really.
3. Foreget about E6600
4. If you're dying to get 3.6GHz, you can either 1) Get an E6300/E6400 and OC the hell out of it, or 2) Get an E6700. I'm beginning to believe Intel actually bins E6700s from E6600s.
5. For No.4-1) You'll need a P965 board such as DS3, P5B-Deluxe, etc. For No.4-2) I'd say the P5W-DH is still the best bet.
I will try to answer as many questions as possible within my knowledge. I know many people are very frustrated over something that shoulodn't be frustrating.
------------------------------------------------------
8/18/06: I've gotten rid of the E6600. Before I started building this rig my goal was 3.6GHz with an E6600. While the goal was achieved I couldn't stand the high Vcore and accompanying heat/instability. (ASUS board didn't help. Boy, do I miss my DFI!) Now I have an E6700 and it's doing so much better. (3.6GHz @1.47V set in BIOS, drops to 1.45 under load measured via Everest) Intel must be doing a very good job binning these chips (4MB L2 cache chips) at this early stage of production. My sincere apologies for people who requested benches of their interest. Will do the runs as soon as I can.
Currently stable and probably would-be my 24/7 setting (Until ASUS let me choose the God damn multies):
E6700 @3.6GHz (1.47V)
P5W-DH @360FSB (FSB:RAM=4:5) / BIOS 1101
DDR2-900 / 3-4-4-9 (2.2V)
Max Temp 64~66C (read via CoreTemp)
*All voltages are selected values in the BIOS.
---------------------------------------------------------
Max Frequency w/ Stock (Auto) Vcore: 3.06GHz (9x340)
Max Frequency under Air-Cooling: 3.60GHz (9x400, 1.575V set in BIOS)
Vcore is way too high for my liking. Load temp 62~64C.
Test Setup
E6600 (OEM) (3.60GHz)
P5W-DH (BIOS 0801)
Xtreem DDR2-667 1GB x 2 (400MHz / 3-3-3)
Loaner 7950GX2
(550/700)
Thermalright Ultra-120 w/ Panaflo Medium
3DMark06: 10274 (very very close to my Opteron 165 SLI result)
3DMark05: 18435
Cinebench: X CPU 19 secs
PCMark05: 9008
Number Crunching: 32M
More benches to come. While I'm happy for 3.6GHz, the OC'ing capability of these 4MB cache chips is somewhat below the expectation. Especially compared with this.
---------------------------
Below are MY findings that help with overclocking on P5W-DH. Please note that a setting that works on my system doesn't guarrantee the same effect on your system.
- For high FSB, disable HyperPath 3.
- Usually you will have to run memory at 1:1 for high FSB (>360), even though your memory can clock higher itself.
- If you have a power-hungry GPU (i.e. 7950GX2, X1900XTX), try setting "Slot Power" to "Heavy" in the BIOS.
- You can set the chipset/memory voltages to max for testing purposes. Also, it seems like everything screems for more voltages as FSB goes up. For instance, I only needed 2.1V for 800MHz (3-3-3) memory @266FSB, but @400FSB, I had to set the VDIMM @2.3V for the same frequency. Beats me.
- The rectangular'ed areas in this pic get extremely hot while OC'ing. Memsinks/active cooling wouldn't hurt.
- vFSB and vICH does little to nothing for OC'ing
- Enhanced C1 State, Intel SpeedStep, when set to "Auto", will disallow Vcore change.
So at this (still) early stage of Core 2 Duo overclocking:
1. Go with E6400/E6300 with a decent P965 board. This is the best possible scenario, really.
3. Foreget about E6600
4. If you're dying to get 3.6GHz, you can either 1) Get an E6300/E6400 and OC the hell out of it, or 2) Get an E6700. I'm beginning to believe Intel actually bins E6700s from E6600s.
5. For No.4-1) You'll need a P965 board such as DS3, P5B-Deluxe, etc. For No.4-2) I'd say the P5W-DH is still the best bet.
I will try to answer as many questions as possible within my knowledge. I know many people are very frustrated over something that shoulodn't be frustrating.
------------------------------------------------------
8/18/06: I've gotten rid of the E6600. Before I started building this rig my goal was 3.6GHz with an E6600. While the goal was achieved I couldn't stand the high Vcore and accompanying heat/instability. (ASUS board didn't help. Boy, do I miss my DFI!) Now I have an E6700 and it's doing so much better. (3.6GHz @1.47V set in BIOS, drops to 1.45 under load measured via Everest) Intel must be doing a very good job binning these chips (4MB L2 cache chips) at this early stage of production. My sincere apologies for people who requested benches of their interest. Will do the runs as soon as I can.
Currently stable and probably would-be my 24/7 setting (Until ASUS let me choose the God damn multies):
E6700 @3.6GHz (1.47V)
P5W-DH @360FSB (FSB:RAM=4:5) / BIOS 1101
DDR2-900 / 3-4-4-9 (2.2V)
Max Temp 64~66C (read via CoreTemp)
*All voltages are selected values in the BIOS.
---------------------------------------------------------
Max Frequency w/ Stock (Auto) Vcore: 3.06GHz (9x340)
Max Frequency under Air-Cooling: 3.60GHz (9x400, 1.575V set in BIOS)
Vcore is way too high for my liking. Load temp 62~64C.
Test Setup
E6600 (OEM) (3.60GHz)
P5W-DH (BIOS 0801)
Xtreem DDR2-667 1GB x 2 (400MHz / 3-3-3)
Loaner 7950GX2
Thermalright Ultra-120 w/ Panaflo Medium
3DMark06: 10274 (very very close to my Opteron 165 SLI result)
3DMark05: 18435
Cinebench: X CPU 19 secs
PCMark05: 9008
Number Crunching: 32M
More benches to come. While I'm happy for 3.6GHz, the OC'ing capability of these 4MB cache chips is somewhat below the expectation. Especially compared with this.
---------------------------
Below are MY findings that help with overclocking on P5W-DH. Please note that a setting that works on my system doesn't guarrantee the same effect on your system.
- For high FSB, disable HyperPath 3.
- Usually you will have to run memory at 1:1 for high FSB (>360), even though your memory can clock higher itself.
- If you have a power-hungry GPU (i.e. 7950GX2, X1900XTX), try setting "Slot Power" to "Heavy" in the BIOS.
- You can set the chipset/memory voltages to max for testing purposes. Also, it seems like everything screems for more voltages as FSB goes up. For instance, I only needed 2.1V for 800MHz (3-3-3) memory @266FSB, but @400FSB, I had to set the VDIMM @2.3V for the same frequency. Beats me.
- The rectangular'ed areas in this pic get extremely hot while OC'ing. Memsinks/active cooling wouldn't hurt.
- vFSB and vICH does little to nothing for OC'ing
- Enhanced C1 State, Intel SpeedStep, when set to "Auto", will disallow Vcore change.