Finally Broke the 4 Ghz Barrier, w00t

[m3t4lh34d]

On a Q6600 on Air, at that. lol

Gotta love this mobo, and I'm only using PC6400 5-5-5-12 rated RAM :-O

Btw, how do I set that as my signature... I cant find it anywhere in the user cp... thanks guys.

 

[Idontcare]

You need a min number of posts before you can have sigs here at AnandTech Forums...its a necessity because of spammers. I think the min post-count is 10, but that is not my dept so don't take my word for it.

 

[Diogenes2]

1.53v ? Wow !
What Heatsink do you have ?

What do your temps look like ?

What kind of stability tests have you run ?

 

[aigomorla]

Woot congrats welcome to the 4ghz club.

 

[toyota]

enjoy that cpu for the few more days it will last...

 

[soccerballtux]

enjoy that cpu for the few more days it will last...

1.5v looks like it'll last pretty long to me!

 

[Idontcare]

enjoy that cpu for the few more days it will last...

That's a 65nm Kentsfield, they are built like tanks, I ran my QX6700 at 1.6-1.65V for over a year. They destroyed mobos and chipsets at the FSB's required, but the chip itself would keep on trucken provided you kept buying new motherboards.

But I do wonder just how stable the chip is at those clocks on air. I doubt it is 4hr Prime95 smallFFT stable. And enjoy the mobo for the few more days it will last

 

[toyota]

so why were most of the overclocks only 3.2-3.6? was it just because of mobo limitations? I don't recall anybody having a Q6600 at 4.0 on air before but then again I dont keep up with this kind of stuff too closely. if he could do it then why weren't more enthusiasts getting those kind of clocks though?

 

[Idontcare]

so why were most of the overclocks only 3.2-3.6? was it just because of mobo limitations? I don't recall anybody having a Q6600 at 4.0 on air before but then again I dont keep up with this kind of stuff too closely. if he could do it then why weren't more enthusiasts getting those kind of clocks though?

Are you asking me?

If you are then my response would be that 4GHz is indeed rare, which is why I'm curious to know if this is a "4GHz 24/7 prime95 stable" OC or if it is a more of a "4GHz long enough to validate" kind of OC.

 

[Krynj]

I ran my Q6600 @ 3GHz for about 2 years, and barely had to touch the voltage. I do a lot of overnight 3D rendering, so, I couldn't just go and burn it up in a couple years. Wanted to keep a nice mild OC.

I did go through one motherboard though, heh. To be expected, as the first board I used on that build was a budget GIGABYTE board just to get it off the ground. It died about a year later. Replaced it with one the EP45 UD3s and it never bluescreened again.

Nice OC, OP. Hope your chip has a long life ahead of it.

 

[toyota]

Are you asking me?

If you are then my response would be that 4GHz is indeed rare, which is why I'm curious to know if this is a "4GHz 24/7 prime95 stable" OC or if it is a more of a "4GHz long enough to validate" kind of OC.

yeah I was asking you or anybody else that wanted to chime in on this. personally I don't like to push things to the edge but it is interesting to see what others can achieve.

 

[Idontcare]

yeah I was asking you or anybody else that wanted to chime in on this. personally I don't like to push things to the edge but it is interesting to see what others can achieve.

I did 4GHz on the QX6700 for quite a while, but that was under phase not air.

My five Q6600 rigs were all clocked at 3.3GHz with stock voltage, but they were lapped and on lapped tuniqs (air cooled). Like you, I was not interested in pushing these to the edge for both power-consumption and noise reasons.

 

[Ackmed]

I was at 4gig over 4 years ago...

Good job though.

 

[m3t4lh34d]

1.53v ? Wow !
What Heatsink do you have ?

What do your temps look like ?

What kind of stability tests have you run ?

Heatsink: Zalman 9700 LED (Yeah *vomit*) But it gets the job done just not at those extremes

Temps: About 55-58C idle, Load 77C+ * I didnt push it too long, because I'm not that stupid *

Other than that, I did run a quick 3dmark vantage session which it made it through just fine. The ONLY reason it wouldnt remain stable was because of the memory, I'm running a DFI Lanparty DK PLUS+ mobo and for some reason the ratios are all whack in the BIOS, I was using PC6400 XMS2 Corsair 2GBx2GB mem for the OC, and the memory just couldnt hold up at the 890 Mhz the motherboard wanted it to stay at without increasing the voltage quite a bit. The memory recommends 1.8v, I had it at 2.0-2.1 to keep it stable...

I do have some Corsair DHX PC6400 lying around that is rated at 4-4-4-12 instead of the 5-5-5-12 that this RAM is rated at, along with it having the big heatspreaders, it may fare alot better than this RAM did since I've had the DHX sticks up to 1100 mhz before.




I've been doing some research on some better cpu coolers as of late, and I'm wondering if any of you can recommend a badass LGA 775 compatible cooler that can at least keep my load temps under 70C. (After vdroop I'm not really even putting TOO much voltage to the cpu, its more of a temperature factor, and as I've been told by many others, the Zalmans are mainly only suited for overclocking dual cores and only MILD OC's on Quads. Any ideas?)

This is my typical 24/7 Overclock with the Zalman... Today I just wanted to see if I could break the 4ghz barrier on air, and I did, but quite honestly I'm not sure if I want to invest into a water cooling setup just for an extra 220 Mhz



With this OC I posted above, I get Idle temps of 48-52C and load temps up to 72 (SOMETIMES 73-74C)



Thanks a ton guys

 

[m3t4lh34d]

yeah I was asking you or anybody else that wanted to chime in on this. personally I don't like to push things to the edge but it is interesting to see what others can achieve.

Once I order some PC8500 RAM and spend $100+ on a cpu cooler, I'm sure I can tweak it to be Prime 95 stable. As I said though it did make it through Vantage just fine, however that is by no means Prime 95. I'll Post some screenshots once I feel it is safe enough on my components to stress them to that magnitude. I just need to acquire proper cooling, and off I go

It's a shame though that even with the 3.8 Ghz OC that I run 24/7, it still feels like I'm on mid range PC because of the i7's and i7 SB's that have been released lately... the only thing that the old 65nm quads can really compete with are the AMD Phenoms that arent OC'd through the roof.

I merely built this rig because I had an extra q6600 laying around and I was running my Gigabyte Super Overclock Edition 950 core HD5870 on a 2.4 Ghz q6600 and it just seemed stupid to me, so I overclocked the hell out of it once I purchased the Lanparty mobo and it has given me quite a few more frames, but I'm still not satisfied compared to the results people are getting with the i7's these days, or perhaps its just that I'm not satisfied with my 5870, because I cant seem to figure out how a 5870 could be bottlenecked by a 3.8 Ghz Q6600...

I'm thinking about trying to get my hands on a Q9450 with the 12MB Cache and OC'ing the crap out of that thing, and squeezing at least another 12-18 months out of this rig, since I'm planning on crossfiring the 5870s (slim chance), or upgrading to a GTX 580 and SLI'ing that down the road.

Thanks for your input guys.

 

[james1701]

How much are you going to put into upgrading to the 580 or another 5870? By the time you put the money in a cpu cooler, plus pc8500 ram, and the video card, you can almost get into a 2600K system with DDR3 being so cheap right now. Trade off you old parts for an SSD, you would feel like you had lightning in a bottle compared to messing with that oc.

What is slowing you down, or are not able to run?

 

[Dadofamunky]

Honestly, I don't know why Zalman even bothers with their HSFs. They look pretty, but their performance is usually terrible. I've finally sworn off them after making three mistake purchases of them. They charge just as much as the consensus favorites but don't perform nearly as well.

If you can run all your apps at your best workloads and game without it crashing, I'd consider that a good OC. However, IDC is right - that mobo may be pushed beyond its limits long-term. Also consider swapping out that RAM. 66% OC on a 6600 is rare and hard to do reliably. Expect to have to throttle it back at some point.

 

[pjkenned]

This is my typical 24/7 Overclock with the Zalman... Today I just wanted to see if I could break the 4ghz barrier on air, and I did, but quite honestly I'm not sure if I want to invest into a water cooling setup just for an extra 220 Mhz

Don't do water cooling for 65nm LGA 775 and 220MHz at this point. Save money for retail fan on a Sandy Bridge CPU.

 

[Lightflash]

Welcome to the 4GHz club. I would use the money you would put into water cooling into a Sandy Bridge as well. You would see a large gain and it easily can overclock to 4.4 with stock cooler and a multi change.

 

[m3t4lh34d]

Does anyone know if there are any P67 boards out there that dont have the bug? Or would I be better off just buying a buggy board for a cheaper price and just using the SATA 3.0 ports instead? I dont use over 2 SATA ports anyways...

 

[m3t4lh34d]

Another question... on the anandtech.com bench section, it seems as if the Q9450 and above LGA775 chips still hold their own against the i5/i7 at higher clockspeeds due to their 12MB cache... I've been considering dropping a Q9450 in my rig for about $150 to help ease the bottleneck on the soon to be GTX 580 I'll be dropping in here very soon.

I know it may be sort of a mismatch for my current Q6600 @ 3.8 Ghz, BUT I believe a 45nm Q9450 12MB cache @ 3.8-4.0Ghz would be able to sustain a GTX 580. What do you guys think?

I bought a Super Overclock Edition 5870 a few months ago with a factory overclocked 950 Mhz core/5000 Memory, and its pretty quick, however its tesselation performance sucks, and I can only imagine that tesselation will become a huge factor in future games to come and I dont want to be dipping into the teens and 20s FPS due to the shitty tesselation performance of the 5870.

Therefore I've found a GTX 580 on ebay for ~400 and I'm snagging it and considering just dropping in a Q9450 and OCing the hell out of it until its time to SLI and then make the move to Sandy Bridge.

I've done benchmark assessments and yes there is alot of FPS to gain by switching to and OC'd i5/i7/2600K rig, but I'm looking to get more bang for my buck and not end up dropping over a grand just to gain 25-35 more FPS out of the GTX 580.

What do you guys think?

 

[Dadofamunky]

Does anyone know if there are any P67 boards out there that dont have the bug? Or would I be better off just buying a buggy board for a cheaper price and just using the SATA 3.0 ports instead? I dont use over 2 SATA ports anyways...

Just wait a week or two - they're just about to be released. And yeah, SB will run rings around even the redoubtable Q6600, which really is one of the great chips of all time.

 

[james1701]

The new boards are on the boat now, and will be in stores in a just a couple of weeks or less. They are processing RMA's now.

Tesselation is still pretty new. I don't think it is going to have a big impact in games for the next year or two. By then, the 580 will be very outdated.

You can pick up a SB chip, board, and memory for about 650.00 or so depending on what you buy. You are going to have 550 just in the 580 and 9450.

I just think in the long run, you would be better off with a new board, chip than dumping money in a cpu thats several generations old.