First Time Overclocking

[wtwhizz]

So I've been running an old ass BattleAxe mobo that was one of the versions where you couldn't even overclock the damn thing. I never really felt like I needed to overclock anyway.

Well, I've done a semi-upgrade to my system by installing a new power supply, mobo, hard drive, memory, etc., but I've kept my E6600 processor. I lapped it and my heatsink and booted up a fresh copy of XP and I've been attempting to overclock it since I'm running the Nforce 780i mobo that's designed for exactly that.

I started off just using the Dummy O.C. in the BIOS to see what it could do. I maxed it to 25% and it got me to 3.0 GHz. I was running 24C on my CPU and 34/35C on my cores under Prime95 stress testing. Pretty great I thought, since before I upgraded my system and fixed cable management, lapped the processor, etc. I'd been running 35-38C idling and not being overclocked a bit!

So, I was feeling all swell w/ just the Dummy O.C. until I checked CPU-Z and saw that the Vcore was 1.52.....

That's silly high so I went in and started jacking around with it manually to see where I could get. I finally got it to post and run completely stable in P95 with no errors at 3.2 GHz and w/ a Vcore of 1.376 volts. The CPU is running 20C on idle, 30-32C on load. I thought this was a vast improvement until I started checking here and seeing folks saying they're hitting 3.4 GHz while only running 1.4v on the core or whatever.

How in the world is that possible?

On a side note, I haven't tried jacking with the memory timings. I'm running 1066 DDR2 and the FSBRAM is 2:3 w/ the timings at 5,7,7,17.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Originally posted by: wtwhizz
So I've been running an old ass BattleAxe mobo that was one of the versions where you couldn't even overclock the damn thing. I never really felt like I needed to overclock anyway.

Well, I've done a semi-upgrade to my system by installing a new power supply, mobo, hard drive, memory, etc., but I've kept my E6600 processor. I lapped it and my heatsink and booted up a fresh copy of XP and I've been attempting to overclock it since I'm running the Nforce 780i mobo that's designed for exactly that.

I started off just using the Dummy O.C. in the BIOS to see what it could do. I maxed it to 25% and it got me to 3.0 GHz. I was running 24C on my CPU and 34/35C on my cores under Prime95 stress testing. Pretty great I thought, since before I upgraded my system and fixed cable management, lapped the processor, etc. I'd been running 35-38C idling and not being overclocked a bit!

So, I was feeling all swell w/ just the Dummy O.C. until I checked CPU-Z and saw that the Vcore was 1.52.....

That's silly high so I went in and started jacking around with it manually to see where I could get. I finally got it to post and run completely stable in P95 with no errors at 3.2 GHz and w/ a Vcore of 1.376 volts. The CPU is running 20C on idle, 30-32C on load. I thought this was a vast improvement until I started checking here and seeing folks saying they're hitting 3.4 GHz while only running 1.4v on the core or whatever.

How in the world is that possible?

On a side note, I haven't tried jacking with the memory timings. I'm running 1066 DDR2 and the FSBRAM is 2:3 w/ the timings at 5,7,7,17.

Your thread seems lonesomely without response. Hopefully, I can give you some help here.

I think you can get the E6600 at least to to 3.3+ Ghz with a voltage setting below 1.44V. Keep in mind, this is only in my recollections of experimenting with the processor in early summer, 2007, using a 680i motherboard. If you want to play it safe, set the VCORE to whatever value gives you a CPU_Z idle reading below the maximum in the linked spec (below 1.3625V), and limit your stable over-clock to settings attainable with that voltage setting.

Intel E6600 spec-sheet

I don't think anyone here recommends the "dummy-OC" or automatic OC features of the motherboard -- you're better off with manual settings.

The 780i board can be a pretty good over-clocker. I'd try under-clocking the RAM to run at 1:1 and see how far you get.

And I'd also recommend reading Graysky's over-clocking guide -- maybe a couple times. Then develop a method for incrementally reaching a reasonable OC for the E6600.