How to get a Q6600 @ 3.6gig stable?

[lanmonkey]

I would like an air-cooled Q6600 to run at 3.6gig 1333mhz (9x400 = 3600mhz) with a 1:1 ratio and ddr2-800 ram running at 400mhz .

The board I am looking at is an ASUS P5Q Pro. I am also looking at Geil black dragon 4-4-4-12 ram and a Scythe Zipang cooler.

Is it likely that I will achieve this? Any help woudl be appreciated

Thanks

 

[imported_TimBob]

Based on my experience, I would say it's not likely. My goal was also 3.6, but I couldn't get anywhere near stable at 3.6 on an ASUS Rampage Formula. And that was with a DTEK Fuzioin. But, it seems like many people have been successful so I guess it would be luck of the draw.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Unfortunately, the board is a factor only if it is limiting your overclock in that the board refuses to run with the fsb you choose. However, beyond that and maybe the chipset/memory, the overclock is all in the chip, some chips go above and beyond while others may barely overclock at all.
It is luck of the draw in that sense since there's no way to discern exactly how a chip will overclock until you actually pop it in, up the fsb, and boot it up. As for my Q6600, I was able to get 3.6 stable, I think a bit higher but the voltage didn't look comfortable, truth be told for the majority of apps, I see no difference for my Q6600 at 3 and 3.6, just my opinion.

 

[Denithor]

You might have better success with a Gigabyte EP45-UD3R (or UD3P if you want dual PCIe slots for crossfire) and a Xigmatek S1283 cooler.

P5Q Pro is a solid board, don't get me wrong (I use one myself), but the Gigabyte board has gotten rave reviews from a lot of overclocking sites & forums. And the S1283 is one of the best coolers available (reasonably priced, too, ~$40 at newegg).

EDIT: If you seriously need that kind of speed, you might also consider one of the 45nm quads (Q8200, Q9400, Q9550) instead. Quadcore overclocking comparison.

 

[StinkyPinky]

That's a huge overclock. I never even tried for 3.6 and have interest in doing so. Good luck though.

 

[Ratman6161]

Originally posted by: lanmonkey
I would like an air-cooled Q6600 to run at 3.6gig 1333mhz (9x400 = 3600mhz) with a 1:1 ratio and ddr2-800 ram running at 400mhz .

The board I am looking at is an ASUS P5Q Pro. I am also looking at Geil black dragon 4-4-4-12 ram and a Scythe Zipang cooler.

Is it likely that I will achieve this? Any help woudl be appreciated

Thanks

I briefly got mine to 3.6Ghz just to say I did it. I don't remember what voltage I had to use but I do remember it being way higher than I would feel comfortable leaving it at permanently. So I settled on 3.2Ghz because there it is completely stable without increasing the voltage above spec. And 3.2 is still a 40% overclock so I don't consider that to be too shabby.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I never got a Q6600 to 3.6Ghz without 1.5v or more. Needless to say I didn't leave it.

 

[chizow]

First thing to do would be to check the VID on your Q6600; at some point in early 2008 yields on Q6600 tanked and VIDs of 1.3+ and poor overclocking chips became common. Lower VID typically results in better overclocking chips, and will give you a good idea of how much overhead you have. If your chip is 1.25V or lower VID your chances to hit 3.6GHz+ are much better imo.

After that, chipset and cooling will have a great impact on how far you can go. I couldn't get over 3.1GHz on a couple of 650i boards that were notorious for poor overclocking with Quads and also signfiicant Vdroop. This P5Q-E on the other hand is within 0.01V of my BIOS setting at both idle and load accordign to CPUID HW Monitor. You'll also need a board that can handle FSB ~400MHz, which was another major problem on my 650i boards.

Then you have to deal with heat. After 1.35V or so and 3.4GHz+ the Q6600 gets really hot and will result in a significant temperature delta if you try for 3.6GHz. Without good cooling you can easily hit 80C+ under load (Prime95, Linpack, OCCT etc).

I'd say your chances of hitting 3.6GHz+ are probably better with something like a Q9550 nowadays. Power and heat will be similar, but overall I've read of pretty good success with the E0 9550s. Q9300, 9400, 9450 etc are good OCers too but their lower multipliers require very high FSB, which may limit you depending on board and how many dimms you use.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Don't be disappointed if your Q6600 doesn't hit 3.6 though, I personally see little/no difference between when my Q6600 was clocked at 3.6 and 3ghz flat out for the majority of apps. Anything above 3ghz is a good overclock and you should be happy with it, 3.6 = 50% overclock which is pretty amazing for cpus, especially a quad core.

*Ooo I hit 1k posts *

 

[Stumps]

ummmm...it's bloody hard to do

For me I had water cooling availible to use so I probably had it a bit easier than a lot of others trying for that speed.

my settings on my GA-EP35-DS3P rev2.1 are as follows

FSB : 400mhz
RAM : 2.00 (1:1)
Multiplier : 9 (Stock)
RAM Timings : 5,5,5,15 (I have 4 sticks so I loosened things up a bit for stability)
VCore : 1.425v (Bios and most HW monitoring software pick this up as 1.46v)
NB voltage : +0.05v
Mem voltage : +0.10v (1.9v...again for stability because of 4 sticks of ram)
Loadline Calibration : Enable (seems to stabilise voltages)
PCI-E voltage : +0.05v

I must warn you that even with water cooling at 100% load I still can pass 70C with ease, I can prime95 and orthos for more than 24hrs but the temps are bloody high and I'm looking to replace my Q6600 with an OC'd E8400 or E8500.

My Q6600 is a B3 ES (Engineering Sample) with a VID of 1.25v.

 

[Gillbot]

Getting 3.6GHz on a Q6600 isn't guarunteed.

 

[lanmonkey]

Thanks guys, very interesting read.

I have managed to get a q6600 running stable @ 3.12gig 1333bus and the ram @419mhz. This is on an MSI-NEO2-FR board with all voltages on auto. I can?t remember the exact numbers off the top of my head.

Looks like I should be happy with this!

"RAM Timings : 5,5,5,15 (I have 4 sticks so I loosened things up a bit for stability)"

So I will be better off with 2 sticks for over clocking? Why is this?

 

[LOUISSSSS]

my Q6600 is capable of hitting 3.6ghz (9x400). but i am temperature limited (i always stop the test before the program fails due to high temps above 72C). my VID is 1.2125 and stepping is g0. i'm aware that it has one of the lowest vid's on any q6600. i think i just suck at installing coolers. i have a tuniq tower

i've always been tempted to leave my pc on my window sill to get that fresh cool winter air this season and clock it to 3.6 to stress test fully.

the farthest i've gotten was about an hour of OCCT before the program or I stop testing due to temps...


right now i'm sitting at 3.2 and am perfectly happy. i bet you can't notice the difference anyway..

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: lanmonkey
Thanks guys, very interesting read.

I have managed to get a q6600 running stable @ 3.12gig 1333bus and the ram @419mhz. This is on an MSI-NEO2-FR board with all voltages on auto. I can?t remember the exact numbers off the top of my head.

Looks like I should be happy with this!

"RAM Timings : 5,5,5,15 (I have 4 sticks so I loosened things up a bit for stability)"

So I will be better off with 2 sticks for over clocking? Why is this?

If you're stable and happy with your overclock, there's no need to reduce number of RAM sticks. Some chipsets/boards just have trouble running the higher FSB needed to overclock well with Quads. The only thing I would do is use one of the various software utilities like CPU-Z or CPUID Hardware Monitor to get an idea of what your core voltages are at AUTO. Some boards like to scale these settings higher than necessary, so if that's the case you may want to hard set your CPU voltage to stock or slightly higher than stock. Again, use CoreTemp to get an idea of VID, as that's the factory rated voltage needed to run stock speed.

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
my Q6600 is capable of hitting 3.6ghz (9x400). but i am temperature limited (i always stop the test before the program fails due to high temps above 72C). my VID is 1.2125 and stepping is g0. i'm aware that it has one of the lowest vid's on any q6600. i think i just suck at installing coolers. i have a tuniq tower

i've always been tempted to leave my pc on my window sill to get that fresh cool winter air this season and clock it to 3.6 to stress test fully.

the farthest i've gotten was about an hour of OCCT before the program or I stop testing due to temps...


right now i'm sitting at 3.2 and am perfectly happy. i bet you can't notice the difference anyway..

You'd probably benefit from a better cooler. The Tuniq is a good cooler but it simply can't dissipate heat fast enough beyond certain temps. It just ends up getting saturated by some of these hotter CPUs and the temp delta at the high end is pretty extreme. I dropped load temps at 1.38V and 3.6GHz by 14C switching to a lapped TRUE Black (custom bolt through, inverted X-Clamp and neoprene washer) from 87C to 73C in OCCT/Prime95/Linpack.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
my Q6600 is capable of hitting 3.6ghz (9x400). but i am temperature limited (i always stop the test before the program fails due to high temps above 72C). my VID is 1.2125 and stepping is g0. i'm aware that it has one of the lowest vid's on any q6600. i think i just suck at installing coolers. i have a tuniq tower

i've always been tempted to leave my pc on my window sill to get that fresh cool winter air this season and clock it to 3.6 to stress test fully.

the farthest i've gotten was about an hour of OCCT before the program or I stop testing due to temps...


right now i'm sitting at 3.2 and am perfectly happy. i bet you can't notice the difference anyway..

You'd probably benefit from a better cooler. The Tuniq is a good cooler but it simply can't dissipate heat fast enough beyond certain temps. It just ends up getting saturated by some of these hotter CPUs and the temp delta at the high end is pretty extreme. I dropped load temps at 1.38V and 3.6GHz by 14C switching to a lapped TRUE Black (custom bolt through, inverted X-Clamp and neoprene washer) from 87C to 73C in OCCT/Prime95/Linpack.

what did u have before the tuniq? i just can't justify spending 460 on another cooler that will only give me 5c AT MOST load temp drop over my tuniq. and i dont want to lap anything; i'd rather use it right out of the box.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
what did u have before the tuniq? i just can't justify spending 460 on another cooler that will only give me 5c AT MOST load temp drop over my tuniq. and i dont want to lap anything; i'd rather use it right out of the box.

I was using a lapped Tuniq with lapped IHS on my Q6600 running 3.1GHz for 5-6 months, temps hit about 60C max in Prime95. When I upgraded to my current mobo, the P45 chipset and cleaner voltages allowed me to stably hit 3.6GHz, but also resulted in much higher temps, like 25C higher under load with the Tuniq (85-87C), so I started looking at various temps and results around the web with Q6600s ~3.6GHz. I consistently found people keeping load temps in the low to mid 70s, but they also had better air coolers like the TRUE or even some of the HDT coolers.

I'll say this though, if you don't want to lap anything and only use the mounting/retention brackets stock, you may not see any difference at all compared to the Tuniq. The Tuniq's mounting mechanism allows for much better mounting pressure as you can just keep tightening it. The TRUE's stock screws bottom out however and I found the stock mounting mechanism to be far too loose even with a neoprene washer under the X-clamp (it shifted around with little effort).

In order to drop temps I ended up using 2" 8/40 screws through the back of the mobo with wingnuts to tighten the X-clamp, which I inverted for additional pressure. Mounting it this way, along with lapping the base resulted in the 14-15C temp drop under load, and I'm not talking 10 mins of load, I'm talking 3-4 hours into Prime95 or OCCT where temps will go up another 4-5C higher than what they were for hours. Its still hot for sure, but now my idle temps are lower than they were before (34-38C) and max load is 72-74C under Prime/OCCT/Linpack. Max gaming temps don't break 60C and that's running the more CPU intensive games out there like GTAIV, Mass Effect, WAR, etc where 2 or more cores are hitting 100% utilization.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
my Q6600 is capable of hitting 3.6ghz (9x400). but i am temperature limited (i always stop the test before the program fails due to high temps above 72C). my VID is 1.2125 and stepping is g0. i'm aware that it has one of the lowest vid's on any q6600. i think i just suck at installing coolers. i have a tuniq tower

i've always been tempted to leave my pc on my window sill to get that fresh cool winter air this season and clock it to 3.6 to stress test fully.

the farthest i've gotten was about an hour of OCCT before the program or I stop testing due to temps...


right now i'm sitting at 3.2 and am perfectly happy. i bet you can't notice the difference anyway..

I've got A q6600 and a tuniq. I can run 3.3ghz at stock voltage, same VID as you. 3.5ghz takes 1.25v in bios, and i'm still working on 3.6ghz. seems to need 1.3+v, and temps are insane. occt:linpack hit 90c. not sure what to do at this point.

 

[Shmee]

I seem to be having better luck now, with my Q6600 G0 1.25 VID and my nvidia board, the 780i FTW from evga. Seems it is a decent overclocker afterall. Got my Q6600 to 3.4 GHz, Vcore was 1.3875 i believe. I can try tweaking it more later. Upped the SPP, the MCP, HT, and VTT voltages a bit more. Seems stable enough on my tuniq (not the stock fan, have a higher airflow one) and under small FFT's gets around 72 C after a few minutes, seemed a bit high for me, so I stopped it, but now I am hearing this is around normal. Though this is not a full stability test, at least it can handle more than a few seconds of small FFT's b4 freezing like it did b4.

Anyways, may try for 3.6 if I can later, though kinda doubt it. Right now:

9x378
Vcore: 1.3875
VTT: 1.35
VDIMM: 1.9
nforce SPP (NB): 1.4
nforce MCP (SB): 1.525
HT: 1.3
others are auto. Vdroop is disabled with the board control. Wish me luck, I'll try booting it up and running OCCT linpack.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, I'm going to declare my Q6600 stable at 3.6. It takes 1.3125v in BIOS, which translates to something like 1.33v in CPU-Z. (Yes, mobo overvolts. I have vdroop compensation on.)

Temps get pretty insane, on some OCCT:Linpack 64-bit runs, I get 92C temps (and then the test shuts off because I have that set as the max temp). At other times, the temps don't exceed 74C.

I'm confused by the disparity, but whatever, if it finally passes 1hour, even at the lower temps, I'm happy.

Any lower voltage and I get a BSOD.

I can Prime95 all night, and my temps don't get above 80C.

Still a bit unsure if I want to run 3.6 as my daily driver. 3.5 @ 1.25v runs sooo much cooler. I like the e-peen value of a 3.6Ghz quad, although I guess the newest thing is to have a 4.0Ghz quad, so I guess I'm a bit late to the party now. Oh well. I spent so much money on parts for two 3.6 Q6600 rigs, that I'm not going to buy two Q9650s anytime soon. Although I will buy some before they stop making them, that's for sure.

 

[rarebear]

Here is a U-Tube on getting to 3.8 with a Q9450

This might help you, it did me..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-ksS41TxvI

 

[VirtualLarry]

Here's a video of a 5.5Ghz 45nm quad-core, probably LN2 (-200C)
link

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Well, I'm going to declare my Q6600 stable at 3.6. It takes 1.3125v in BIOS, which translates to something like 1.33v in CPU-Z. (Yes, mobo overvolts. I have vdroop compensation on.)

Temps get pretty insane, on some OCCT:Linpack 64-bit runs, I get 92C temps (and then the test shuts off because I have that set as the max temp). At other times, the temps don't exceed 74C.

I'm confused by the disparity, but whatever, if it finally passes 1hour, even at the lower temps, I'm happy.

Any lower voltage and I get a BSOD.

I can Prime95 all night, and my temps don't get above 80C.

Still a bit unsure if I want to run 3.6 as my daily driver. 3.5 @ 1.25v runs sooo much cooler. I like the e-peen value of a 3.6Ghz quad, although I guess the newest thing is to have a 4.0Ghz quad, so I guess I'm a bit late to the party now. Oh well. I spent so much money on parts for two 3.6 Q6600 rigs, that I'm not going to buy two Q9650s anytime soon. Although I will buy some before they stop making them, that's for sure.

Ya your results look pretty consistent with most others trying to hit 3.6GHz on a Q6600. But ya, that's the big question, are the much higher temps worth the extra 100GHz or so. The temp delta between 1.3+ and 3.5 or so to 3.6 stable is pretty amazing on those Q6600s.....but I'd agree there's just something about 3.6GHz that makes it worth it...the perfect 400MHz FSB sync'd to RAM etc.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: chizow
But ya, that's the big question, are the much higher temps worth the extra 100GHz or so.

100Ghz??? I'll take it!

 

[n7]

Any decent semi-modern OCing board will do 400 FSB stable with a quad unless you have no clue how to get around in the BIOS.

Over 425+ is where things get a lot more challenging, depending on board, etc.

The real question is much voltage you are willing to put into the chip, cooling, & the luck you get.

 

[novasatori]

I have a regular P5Q and run at 3.6 on my Q6600 with a VID of 1.275 vcore is @ 1.425 or so

The problem is the voltage and temps, FSB wasn't really a problem