Is it better to burn out or fade away?

[Andy in Sactown]

Long time lurker, first time poster, so here it goes..

My long time 24/7 desktop rig is finally getting a refresh and with the new parts ordered, it occurred to me that there's a good amount of room for some hobby fun with the outgoing components.

My faithful G0 stepping Q6600 (1.2750v VID) has served me well since 2007. Gaming with the best of them (back when I had time) at a nice 3.6GHz stable 24/7 on air (Silverstone FT-02 positive pressure case, Thermalright Ultra 120 rev. C cooler with high static pressure fans in push-pull) has been great, but it's time for bigger and better things and with a 4770k setup in the mail...

With that in mind.. is it better to burn out or fade away? I don't think anyone would pay anything for it that would be comparable to the fun I can have with it.

The CPU cooler and IHS on the Q6600 have obviously both been lapped, but showing it's age, is bonded with Arctic Silver 5 (the old tried and true) and I never really pushed it past 3.6GHz with favorable results.

Some of the things I have at my disposal to try:

• IC Diamond 24k TIM
• Cool Labratories Liquid Ultra TIM
• 2x Noctura NF-A15 Quiet Fans
• NZXT Technologies KRAKEN X60 Premium 280mm AIO Watercooler
• General disregard for component safety with regard to voltage.

I've never got the chip to POST past 3.8GHz and was never able to get a stable rig at that frequency. Cooling, ironically did not seem to be the limitation. Thermal dissipation has always been quite good, it just seemed like the chip threw up its hands and said, "no way dude".

Is it time to push past 1.5v? Is it time to add some FSB juice? What do any of you suggest? Does anyone remember their old C2Q extreme voltages? All the old posts I find are more in line with the conventional wisdom at the time. Well, it's wisdom be damned time. What are some crazy settings that have worked (albeit not with component longevity in mind)?

For reference, I'm using a eVGA 780i FTW board and 4GB (2x2GB) of 5-5-5-12 RAM @ 1066MHz.

 

[NTMBK]

Some of the things I have at my disposal to try:

• General disregard for component safety with regard to voltage.

The most important ingredient :thumbsup: Clock the nuts off it!

 

[moonbogg]

CPU's die like people. Some of us die slow, boring deaths and we cling to life like scared little kittens. Then the better half of us go out with a bang, like wing suit gliding into the face of en epic cliff! Send that CPU into a cliff!

 

[ChronoReverse]

Q6600 overclocking isn't that exciting unless you have LN or something. Even with a high overclock it'd be slower than Haswell on air (maybe even without an OC).

If you think it'll be fun then knock yourself out though =)

 

[Andy in Sactown]

Q6600 overclocking isn't that exciting unless you have LN or something. Even with a high overclock it'd be slower than Haswell on air (maybe even without an OC).

If you think it'll be fun then knock yourself out though =)

The haswell is in the mail.. this is an enthusiasts thing ..as my text notification tells me my X60 is delivered!

 

[KingFatty]

Burn it, and success is measured by how much smoke you generate...

 

[Gikaseixas]

Since you have the new toy, burn it

 

[buklau]

Push the voltage to 1.65v+ to see if you can hit 4ghz.

 

[Andy in Sactown]

Appreciate all the pyro's collective enthusiasm, but does anyone remember any extreme voltage settings from benching a C2Q back in the day? Or am I just going to have to find them..

Also, the X60 doesn't support socket 775, so that's off the board..

Push the voltage to 1.65v+ to see if you can hit 4ghz.

Holy God. It doesn't just light it's own cigarette at that voltage? 0.o

 

[buklau]

Appreciate all the pyro's collective enthusiasm, but does anyone remember any extreme voltage settings from benching a C2Q back in the day? Or am I just going to have to find them..

Also, the X60 doesn't support socket 775, so that's off the board..

Holy God. It doesn't just light it's own cigarette at that voltage? 0.o

It's a not a burn out if it doesn't light it's own cigarette. ()

Assume you are stable at 3600 400x9, try 445 x 8 = 3560 and change ram to 1:1 ratio, see if you can boot into windows and prime95 stable. If not, then you need to add a little to NB voltage and a little to CPU VTT. Once the system is stabilized, then the next step is to raise the multiplier from 8x to 9x, raise the CPU Vcore all the way to 1.55v, see if you can boot at 445x9 = 4ghz. Add additional 0.025v increment if needed. Try to stay below 1.65v if you can.

 

[Haserath]

4ghz or bust!

 

[ChronoReverse]

Appreciate all the pyro's collective enthusiasm, but does anyone remember any extreme voltage settings from benching a C2Q back in the day? Or am I just going to have to find them..

Also, the X60 doesn't support socket 775, so that's off the board..



Holy God. It doesn't just light it's own cigarette at that voltage? 0.o

If it's 1.5V or below then it's pretty much safe even on (good) air cooling for the Core 2.

I did undervolt my Core 2 Quad Q9450 (something like 1.2V) when I was was overclocking it though.


With that said, you'll almost certainly be limited by your motherboard's max stable FSB and the speed of your RAM.

 

[Hulk]

Don't kill her! She's been good to you!

 

[AtenRa]

Play with it(OC and that) then donate it to some one still using single/dual core Pentium 4

 

[Andy in Sactown]

It's a not a burn out if it doesn't light it's own cigarette. ()

Assume you are stable at 3600 400x9, try 445 x 8 = 3560 and change ram to 1:1 ratio, see if you can boot into windows and prime95 stable. If not, then you need to add a little to NB voltage and a little to CPU VTT. Once the system is stabilized, then the next step is to raise the multiplier from 8x to 9x, raise the CPU Vcore all the way to 1.55v, see if you can boot at 445x9 = 4ghz. Add additional 0.025v increment if needed. Try to stay below 1.65v if you can.

My board is a 780i board, not a 790i; therefore I have DDR2 RAM and it doesn't clock high for.. well, you know. 1066MHz is it's rated speed and it doesn't want to exceed that..

Setting it to "synced" (which is weird, because this board has options for 'Auto', 'Linked' and 'Unlinked'; I usually run linked and select the '3:2' ratio for 3600MHz, but there's an option called 'synced') runs the memory at 900MHz at this core frequency and is allowing for higher core clocks. Check it out... oh, and this is same as before.. didn't even replace the AS5:

4050MHz @ 1.664v on AIR w/ highest core at 73*C after 5 minutes of prime. Validated, but scared to run extended stress tests at this voltage until all my new components are here. I think I'll wait to push it more until I have my contingency plan in hand..

Going to try some IC Diamond 24k TIM and some more clocks/voltage! Should be fun to go out in a blaze [puff] of glory!

 

[Andy in Sactown]

Play with it(OC and that) then donate it to some one still using single/dual core Pentium 4

She's a fantastic chip. Might give some thought to this.. the board (as did all nVidia 680i/780i/790i boards) has a terrible USB chipset that is dying.. other than that it would still be a great economy setup with a USB add in card.

EDIT: The on-board sound is lousy / prone to failure also. I forgot about that initially, since I've always used a Creative X-Fi add-in card. Don't think I've ever used it. Basically if you added sound and usb via PCI-E and didn't need to go SLI, this would still be a great setup. Very capable with an SSD.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Story time

Half a year ago, I was still running a Dell with a Pentium D (90nm) with 1gb of RAM.

Generous people donated parts to me and it helped me out so much (got it upgraded all the way to a E4300, 3.5gb RAM, and a 9800gt)

So I would say that you should donate it in the end. Since it is a Q6600, it will work with a lot of the Dell Dimensions (I had one)

 

[Headfoot]

Congrats on the 4ghz club on that Q6600, nicely done

 

[Centauri]

Story time

Half a year ago, I was still running a Dell with a Pentium D (90nm) with 1gb of RAM.

Generous people donated parts to me and it helped me out so much (got it upgraded all the way to a E4300, 3.5gb RAM, and a 9800gt)

So I would say that you should donate it in the end. Since it is a Q6600, it will work with a lot of the Dell Dimensions (I had one)

Boooooooooring!

 

[buklau]

My board is a 780i board, not a 790i; therefore I have DDR2 RAM and it doesn't clock high for.. well, you know. 1066MHz is it's rated speed and it doesn't want to exceed that..

Setting it to "synced" (which is weird, because this board has options for 'Auto', 'Linked' and 'Unlinked'; I usually run linked and select the '3:2' ratio for 3600MHz, but there's an option called 'synced') runs the memory at 900MHz at this core frequency and is allowing for higher core clocks. Check it out... oh, and this is same as before.. didn't even replace the AS5:

4050MHz @ 1.664v on AIR w/ highest core at 73*C after 5 minutes of prime. Validated, but scared to run extended stress tests at this voltage until all my new components are here. I think I'll wait to push it more until I have my contingency plan in hand..

Going to try some IC Diamond 24k TIM and some more clocks/voltage! Should be fun to go out in a blaze [puff] of glory!

When you push your FSB beyond 400mhz FSB with additional NB voltage, make sure you have good cooling, such as adding a 40mm fan on top of the NB heatsink. My previous setup was asus p5k-e with e8500 e0, had difficulty hitting 450mhz FSB stable, installed a thermaltake extreme spirit II orb cooler on the nb, and I was able to push the FSB all the way to 533mhz. I topped out at 4531mhz 533x8.5 1.425v with my ancient thermaltake cl-p0024 + 92mm vantec stealth fan + as5.

 

[Xpage]

OC it then give it the the brazillian dude who wanted to upgrade his (I think P4) on a $100 budget. Or not.

 

[crazzy.heartz]

Story time

Half a year ago, I was still running a Dell with a Pentium D (90nm) with 1gb of RAM.

Generous people donated parts to me and it helped me out so much (got it upgraded all the way to a E4300, 3.5gb RAM, and a 9800gt)

So I would say that you should donate it in the end. Since it is a Q6600, it will work with a lot of the Dell Dimensions (I had one)

OC it then give it the the brazillian dude who wanted to upgrade his (I think P4) on a $100 budget. Or not.

X2

15 min of pleasure for you vs 1-2 years of heartfelt gratitude from someone in need..

Also, It has served you well for 5+ years.. Be a little merciful to this loyal CPU

 

[Andy in Sactown]

When you push your FSB beyond 400mhz FSB with additional NB voltage, make sure you have good cooling, such as adding a 40mm fan on top of the NB heatsink. My previous setup was asus p5k-e with e8500 e0, had difficulty hitting 450mhz FSB stable, installed a thermaltake extreme spirit II orb cooler on the nb, and I was able to push the FSB all the way to 533mhz. I topped out at 4531mhz 533x8.5 1.425v with my ancient thermaltake cl-p0024 + 92mm vantec stealth fan + as5.

First, extremely impressive, Buklau. My complements.

One of the things the eVGA did right on this FTW board is they put a larger than usual (for nVidia chipsets at the time) finned heatsink that has a heatpipe that goes to some finned heatsinks on the board VRMs with a small shrouded fan. It was a good solution for what was considered a good overclocking board at the time (probably better for the VRMs than the North Bridge). That fan does tend to die after awhile, but I put a brand new one in roughly a year ago.

And my Silverstone FT02 case has the center of three 180mm fans blowing directly up at that area, unobstructed.

Does sound like some North Bridge temperature monitoring and tolerance research may be in order to see where I'm at.

 

[MountainKing]

Yo man. How about you send me that chip ? Let me know how much shipping will cost and I'll gladly send you the cost in paypal.

I am running an E6600 from 2006 and the Q6600 will surely be a nice upgrade for me
Consider it!

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Story time

Half a year ago, I was still running a Dell with a Pentium D (90nm) with 1gb of RAM.

Generous people donated parts to me and it helped me out so much (got it upgraded all the way to a E4300, 3.5gb RAM, and a 9800gt)

So I would say that you should donate it in the end. Since it is a Q6600, it will work with a lot of the Dell Dimensions (I had one)

Boooooooooring!

lulz