How to overclock my q6600?

[amddammad]

I want to oc my q6600 to 3ghz on stock voltage, is it possible?
Motherboard gigabyte GA-EG31M-S2.

 

[Ketchup]

Depends on the chip. I think I got mine there at stock, but it's been a while since I tested. Only way to find out is to try. From what I recall, there were two major steppings on these things. One was a good overclocker, one was not.

 

[sm625]

I have a Zalman 9700 on my Q6600 and it still runs rather hot at 3GHz. But it has no trouble hitting it at stock voltage, or very near stock voltage. If you got a decent cooler you should have no problem. It's the temperatures that are gonna limit you.

 

[amddammad]

So can you guys tell me how to oc my cpu cuz i have never oc before? On cpuz it says stepping B
and revision is G0 and ppl on google saying that G0 can overclock more then original q6600.

 

[Ketchup]

You have a good chip. But... I see two things that may limit you.

1. Are you using the graphics built into the board, or do you have a separate card?

2. What cooler do you have? is it the stock one? This chips run a little hot at stock speed, really hot when overclocked (compared to their dual-core brethren of the era).

 

[amddammad]

You have a good chip. But... I see two things that may limit you.

1. Are you using the graphics built into the board, or do you have a separate card?

2. What cooler do you have? is it the stock one? This chips run a little hot at stock speed, really hot when overclocked (compared to their dual-core brethren of the era).

Hey thx for your help. I have oc my pc by enabling cpu host controle then i raised the frequency to 340 and the multipler is maxed @ 9 and the cpu voltage was normal which was 1.31 but when i ran cinebench 11.5 then temps reached 83. Then when i lowered the voltage to 1.28 the temps went down to 70. I also saw fsb and ram overvoltage, i left them on normal and didnt touch them @ all. The gigabyte energy saver won't work with my oc and asks me to reset my frequency to stock and now my cpu idles @ 2ghz . I have gt 430 and my cooler is Rosewill RCX-Z2 7. So nice guy is there anything else i need to fix or do correctly?

Idle temps-mid 40s
load temps-low 70s

p.s. just saw your nice q6600 oc :thumbsup:

 

[Ketchup]

Couple things I can think of would be those high temps might be making your CPU throttle down to a lower speed.

Other thing would be if you are running windows 7 and using the "balanced" power profile, it throttles down your CPU when idle.

For comparison, my CPU idles in the low 30s and tops out in the 50s, on air.

 

[amddammad]

Couple things I can think of would be those high temps might be making your CPU throttle down to a lower speed.

Other thing would be if you are running windows 7 and using the "balanced" power profile, it throttles down your CPU when idle.

For comparison, my CPU idles in the low 30s and tops out in the 50s, on air.

I was just telling you that now with my oc my cpu idles @ 2ghz instead of 1.6ghz. Also my cpu idling @ 2ghz and with gigabyte energy saver disabled now will that use more electricty? What cooler you got? Too bad for me that i saw cm 212 after i ordered my rosewill cuz newegg didn't have it in there lga 775 section .. Newegg should add cm 212 on lga 775 section.

 

[soccerballtux]

Couple things I can think of would be those high temps might be making your CPU throttle down to a lower speed.

Other thing would be if you are running windows 7 and using the "balanced" power profile, it throttles down your CPU when idle.

For comparison, my CPU idles in the low 30s and tops out in the 50s, on air.

you need a wayyyy bigger cooler for overclocking than that Rosewill you bought.
You will need a 120mm fan cooler but you will definitely be able to hit 3ghz and above if you want. You need to keep the CPU temp below 73C at all times though. 80C is venturing into damaging the chip territory if you had it at a higher voltage. Fortunately your voltage was at stock so I doubt damage was done especially for that short period of time.

 

[soccerballtux]

I was just telling you that now with my oc my cpu idles @ 2ghz instead of 1.6ghz. Also my cpu idling @ 2ghz and with gigabyte energy saver disabled now will that use more electricty? What cooler you got? Too bad for me that i saw cm 212 after i ordered my rosewill cuz newegg didn't have it in there lga 775 section .. Newegg should add cm 212 on lga 775 section.

he's talking about at load. The throttling would occur at load not at idle.

 

[Ketchup]

I was just telling you that now with my oc my cpu idles @ 2ghz instead of 1.6ghz. Also my cpu idling @ 2ghz and with gigabyte energy saver disabled now will that use more electricty? What cooler you got? Too bad for me that i saw cm 212 after i ordered my rosewill cuz newegg didn't have it in there lga 775 section .. Newegg should add cm 212 on lga 775 section.

I have a Thermalright Ultra 120. The fan is 120mm, not sure the model.

 

[sm625]

I was just telling you that now with my oc my cpu idles @ 2ghz instead of 1.6ghz. Also my cpu idling @ 2ghz and with gigabyte energy saver disabled now will that use more electricty? What cooler you got? Too bad for me that i saw cm 212 after i ordered my rosewill cuz newegg didn't have it in there lga 775 section .. Newegg should add cm 212 on lga 775 section.

You idle at 2 GHz because of speedstep. It lowers your multi to 6. So your speed should actually be 340x6 or 2.04GHz. This is good. You want it to work like this. Mine runs the same way. I think my fsb is 345 right now.

 

[amddammad]

You idle at 2 GHz because of speedstep. It lowers your multi to 6. So your speed should actually be 340x6 or 2.04GHz. This is good. You want it to work like this. Mine runs the same way. I think my fsb is 345 right now.

I see. Thanks for the help guys. My memory auto oc itself after i oc my cpu and it was running @ higher speed (arund 500 mhz) and @ 1.9 volt, its pc6400.

 

[Shmee]

how long have you ran stability tests for? which ones are you using? make sure you test ram stability as well, as you are running DDR 1000 instead of 800. Your ram might do it no problem if it is good stuff, but its not rated for it, so test it to be sure. Make sure you read the sticky on OCing.

Also, your motherboard wont be the best for ocing a quad, but it should be capable for around 3 GHz.

 

[dancinbr]

I am looking to potentially overclock my Q6600. Don't know if I need to yet.

I am trying to find the cpu voltage specs. I have a 4 year old rig ASUS P5k-se. It allows setting all the parameters to my hearts content.

I am trying to squeeze some more life out of it.

I will upgrade to Windows 7 professional sp1.

I will add more DDR2 memory up to 6gig.

I will get a newer graphics card the Nvidia GTX 550.

I think this does a good job at letting me run SKYRIM and also Railworks 3.

I am not sure I will actually have to overclock the cpu at all. We will see.

The games are graphics intense not cpu intense, thus I am hoping that simply putting in a faster not the newest GPU card will help a lot and I get a few more years out of this rig before I finally retire it. I also like to sneak up on a newer machine without drawing attention; if you know what I mean.

Ralph

 

[Shmee]

What resolution do you game at? You may want to get a bit more power from the GPU for skyrim, depending on resolution. As for the OC, you may or not need it, depending on what GPU u need.

 

[dancinbr]

What resolution do you game at? You may want to get a bit more power from the GPU for skyrim, depending on resolution. As for the OC, you may or not need it, depending on what GPU u need.

Good point.

I am sure I will probably have to compromise on the resolution a bit. I don't see this has a big problem.

At least I will have clean graphics.

Thanks for the input.

 

[dancinbr]

What resolution do you game at? You may want to get a bit more power from the GPU for skyrim, depending on resolution. As for the OC, you may or not need it, depending on what GPU u need.

I found a good price, at least I think so, for ath nvidia gtx 550; $139.00

I am not looking to max out my PC. I am simply looking to run SKYRIM with decent graphics. They don't have to be maxed out either. I am stretching the life on my current PC.

A total new PC is a bit off in the future right now. I am retired and on fixed income. Eventually I will squirrel away enough to build all knew again.

My son recently built a new rig for about $2000.00. Really neat. Not ready to do that.

Now, if I could convince him to send a nice present to Dad for Christmas, mmmmmm!!!

Ralph

 

[HybridSquirrel]

sure why not. I run on air with a Zalman, and have it on stock voltage currently oc'2 to 3.0ghz. Temps run on the hotter side (especially in summer) but have not had any problems. Max load temp while gaming can get up to 55-60c, 70c if running benchmarks. I don't recall all the settings I originally ran it at, but all I did was bump up the FSB recently because I am waiting for his chip to take a shit so I can upgrade it finally. I have been running on a ghetto OC 24/7 for about 6 months with NO problems.

disabled speed step, run it at 333 FSB and 9x multiplier...on a Asus p5ql-pro.


check out the skyrim thread, it really benefits from extra CPU power as opposed to GFX power.

 

[dancinbr]

sure why not. I run on air with a Zalman, and have it on stock voltage currently oc'2 to 3.0ghz. Temps run on the hotter side (especially in summer) but have not had any problems. Max load temp while gaming can get up to 55-60c, 70c if running benchmarks. I don't recall all the settings I originally ran it at, but all I did was bump up the FSB recently because I am waiting for his chip to take a shit so I can upgrade it finally. I have been running on a ghetto OC 24/7 for about 6 months with NO problems.

disabled speed step, run it at 333 FSB and 9x multiplier...on a Asus p5ql-pro.


check out the skyrim thread, it really benefits from extra CPU power as opposed to GFX power.

Do you have to do anything with memory settings at all to be compatible with the changes in the cpu speed. I am on a p5k-se.

Thanks,

Ralph

 

[HybridSquirrel]

Do you have to do anything with memory settings at all to be compatible with the changes in the cpu speed. I am on a p5k-se.

Thanks,

Ralph

To be honest, I left the ram alone. Its a pretty shitty and basic overclock but its stable...

 

[tweakboy]

I want to oc my q6600 to 3ghz on stock voltage, is it possible?
Motherboard gigabyte GA-EG31M-S2.

You need to increase the FSB and watch the RAM , make sure its at stock or lower,,,, then X times it with the multiplier.

For 3Ghz Ive heard you can take it there without touching the voltage. Soo try that... report back to us... gl

 

[dancinbr]

You need to increase the FSB and watch the RAM , make sure its at stock or lower,,,, then X times it with the multiplier.

For 3Ghz Ive heard you can take it there without touching the voltage. Soo try that... report back to us... gl

OK, I will look at RAM speeds with CPU-z.

There is a fsb:dram ration reported right now it is 2:3.

The default setting for CPU is 266 with an unlocked multiplier of 9.

I will figure out how to alter it.

Thanks,

Ralph

 

[kalrith]

This should give you everything you need to know (and more): http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=47089

I ran a Q6600 at 3.22 GHz (358 x 9) at stock voltage for 4 years. Then, I had to back down the overclock a little bit since overclock potential seems to wane over time. I set it to 3 GHz (333 x 9) at stock voltage, and it passed Prime95 for 24 hours with no errors. Obviously YMMV, but it's certainly possible to hit 3.22 GHz at stock voltage.

BTW, what's your stepping? Mine was G0, which is a better overlocker than B3 (Source).

 

[tweakboy]

If you have the GO stepping then you can OC to 3Ghz without touching the voltage.

UP the FSB , and watch the RAM frequency and timings and voltage.... gl