Q6600 @ 3.2Ghz, 9x356 -> 8x400, system bumps voltage?

[Gerr]

I had a Q6600 G0 revision running at 3.2Ghz (9x356) at stock voltage on an Asus P5K-E with a Arctic Freezer 7 Pro that maxed out at 57*. It ran fine and was very stable.

This weekend, I switched it to 8x400, which kept the CPU at the same 3.2Ghz speed. When I tested it for stability, I found it ran hotter, maxed out at 61*. Then I noticed why, my mobo automatically increased the voltage to 1.320V from the 1.264V stock.

I am wondering why it did that and if I should leave it or try it on a lower voltage?

 

[PCTC2]

higher fsb. i've found that the lower multi speeds usually require a little bit more voltage for the NB and proc, but try to get as low as possible.

 

[Rubycon]

Will it go higher than 3200? Try 9x400.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Gerr
I had a Q6600 G0 revision running at 3.2Ghz (9x356) at stock voltage on an Asus P5K-E with a Arctic Freezer 7 Pro that maxed out at 57*. It ran fine and was very stable.

This weekend, I switched it to 8x400, which kept the CPU at the same 3.2Ghz speed. When I tested it for stability, I found it ran hotter, maxed out at 61*. Then I noticed why, my mobo automatically increased the voltage to 1.320V from the 1.264V stock.

I am wondering why it did that and if I should leave it or try it on a lower voltage?

This is a common misconception a lot of people have when they say "I am running at stock voltage". If you do not go into your BIOS and manually change your voltage to the stock VID setting then you can't say you are on stock.

Stock does not mean "well I never touched the BIOS Vcore setting, so I must be running stock voltage as I increase my FSB, right?". Most P35 and X38 motherboards default the Vcore value to "Auto" in the BIOS.

Auto in the bios means "if no one monkeys around with FSB or CPU multipliers then let Vcore = VID"...but if you change FSB or multipliers AND leave the BIOS vcore setting to "Auto" then the BIOS automatically bumps up the Vcore to continue to ensure stability.

This is very much the same thing as how you can leave all your RAM timings set to AUTO in the BIOS but as you chance the FSB the ram timings will be changed automatically by the BIOS. You would never tell people your ram is running "Stock 4-4-4-12" timings at DDR2-1066 just because you bumped the DDR2 up to 1066...most likely the board increased your timings for you to 5-5-5-18 or some such. Same thing with Vcore and AUTO these days.

No two motherboards seem to do this the same way, each mobo manufacturer has implemented their own BIOS algorithm for when and how steeply Vcore gets "auto"matically increased.

 

[Gerr]

At 9x356, my Vcore was the stock 1.264V, but at 8x400, it was bumped to 1.320V, so I presume it's the mobo that did that? I should be able to lower it, keeping it one notch above where it starts to become unstable?

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Gerr
At 9x356, my Vcore was the stock 1.264V, but at 8x400, it was bumped to 1.320V, so I presume it's the mobo that did that? I should be able to lower it, keeping it one notch above where it starts to become unstable?

Yep, that's the thing to do.

 

[SanDiegoPC]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: Gerr
I had a Q6600 G0 revision running at 3.2Ghz (9x356) at stock voltage on an Asus P5K-E with a Arctic Freezer 7 Pro that maxed out at 57*. It ran fine and was very stable.

This weekend, I switched it to 8x400, which kept the CPU at the same 3.2Ghz speed. When I tested it for stability, I found it ran hotter, maxed out at 61*. Then I noticed why, my mobo automatically increased the voltage to 1.320V from the 1.264V stock.

I am wondering why it did that and if I should leave it or try it on a lower voltage?

This is very much the same thing as how you can leave all your RAM timings set to AUTO in the BIOS but as you chance the FSB the ram timings will be changed automatically by the BIOS. You would never tell people your ram is running "Stock 4-4-4-12" timings at DDR2-1066 just because you bumped the DDR2 up to 1066...most likely the board increased your timings for you to 5-5-5-18 or some such. Same thing with Vcore and AUTO these days.

No two motherboards seem to do this the same way, each mobo manufacturer has implemented their own BIOS algorithm for when and how steeply Vcore gets "auto"matically increased.

I'm using an IP35-Pro from Abit. My setup has the RAM at 2.125 and the CPU set to 3.15V but it insists still, on 5-5-5-18 timing; it won't boot at 4-4-4-12 even though that's what the RAM (corsair) says right on it. The RAM also says 2.1V and the only reason that I have a tiny bit of extra juice to it is because I'm overclocked a bit ... 800x4

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: SanDiegoPC

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: Gerr
I had a Q6600 G0 revision running at 3.2Ghz (9x356) at stock voltage on an Asus P5K-E with a Arctic Freezer 7 Pro that maxed out at 57*. It ran fine and was very stable.

This weekend, I switched it to 8x400, which kept the CPU at the same 3.2Ghz speed. When I tested it for stability, I found it ran hotter, maxed out at 61*. Then I noticed why, my mobo automatically increased the voltage to 1.320V from the 1.264V stock.

I am wondering why it did that and if I should leave it or try it on a lower voltage?

This is very much the same thing as how you can leave all your RAM timings set to AUTO in the BIOS but as you chance the FSB the ram timings will be changed automatically by the BIOS. You would never tell people your ram is running "Stock 4-4-4-12" timings at DDR2-1066 just because you bumped the DDR2 up to 1066...most likely the board increased your timings for you to 5-5-5-18 or some such. Same thing with Vcore and AUTO these days.

No two motherboards seem to do this the same way, each mobo manufacturer has implemented their own BIOS algorithm for when and how steeply Vcore gets "auto"matically increased.

I'm using an IP35-Pro from Abit. My setup has the RAM at 2.125 and the CPU set to 3.15V but it insists still, on 5-5-5-18 timing; it won't boot at 4-4-4-12 even though that's what the RAM (corsair) says right on it. The RAM also says 2.1V and the only reason that I have a tiny bit of extra juice to it is because I'm overclocked a bit ... 800x4

I hope that's a typo and your CPU is actually at 1.35V.

Either way, if your RAM is not running at its specified timings and voltage, give Corsair a call.

 

[diddler1979]

Hello everyone. I'm another one of these people that is new to the whole overclocking scene but am trying to get the most out of my setup as possible. So far this thread has been most useful as it has allowed me to overclock my Q6600 to 3.0Ghz without a problem. What I'm wondering is, what more can I get out of it because this overclock has hardly added anything to the temps of my CPU and motherboard (apart from maybe 2 degrees).

Anyway, I have an ASUS P5N-e with Q6600 and a Thermaltake heatsink and fan.
Using your guides I've change the following details to overclock the Q6600 to 3.0Ghz:

FSB Memory Clock Mode : Unlinked
FSB (QDR) Mhz : 1333
MEM (DDR) Mhz : 667
Vcore Voltage : 1.325
Memory Voltage : 2.085
NB Core Voltage : 1.393
VCore offset Voltage : Auto
LDT Frequency : 3x
And Memory Timings set to 5, 5, 5, 18, 2x

I was amazed with the performance increase I got and as the temps haven't really changed that much I sure I can get it up to 3.2Ghz or maybe even 3.4Ghz running stabily. My cpu is the G0 model by the way.

Can anyone pass in some advice as to what I could change to achieve those speeds?

Thanks so much for all of your help and I hope you can reply to my question.

 

[Mondoman]

Why is your memory voltage so high? Does your RAM require that voltage? (It helps if you list the *model numbers* of all your components so we can understand your system.

 

[diddler1979]

Originally posted by: Mondoman
Why is your memory voltage so high? Does your RAM require that voltage? (It helps if you list the *model numbers* of all your components so we can understand your system.

Thanks for the response Mondoman. I'd love to have an answer for you but all of the settings I came to were really just through trial and error. Should I lower it then?
Sorry I haven't listed all the component details. The memory is nothing special as far as I know. It's DDR2-6400 made by some company called Nanya Technology. Hopefully this picture of my CPU-Z status can shed some light on my setup.
http://i214.photobucket.com/al...0Quad%20Core/CPU-Z.jpg

 

[Idontcare]

I see you have 4 dimm slots populated, sometimes that can require an "extra 0.1V" bump to operate at "stock speed/timings" but in your case I see you are running your ram a 1:1 ratio meaning DDR2-667 and with loose timings.

Your timings are fine, even if they get called "loose" around here, and so is DDR2-667 speeds, but yeah you should not need that voltage on your DIMMs unless you have something which is defective (mobo or a ram stick). At those speeds you should be just fine with a DDR2 voltage of 1.8V (stock voltage for DDR2).

 

[diddler1979]

Originally posted by: Idontcare
I see you have 4 dimm slots populated, sometimes that can require an "extra 0.1V" bump to operate at "stock speed/timings" but in your case I see you are running your ram a 1:1 ratio meaning DDR2-667 and with loose timings.

Your timings are fine, even if they get called "loose" around here, and so is DDR2-667 speeds, but yeah you should not need that voltage on your DIMMs unless you have something which is defective (mobo or a ram stick). At those speeds you should be just fine with a DDR2 voltage of 1.8V (stock voltage for DDR2).

Thanks for the info Idontcare. I'll try changing it back to 1.8 and see how it runs. When you say the timings are loose, does that mean that there is scope to tighten them up to reek a few more mhz out of the CPU?


Following the change to 3.0Ghz and with the GPU at stock settings my 3DMark06 score shot up to 15768 at 1280x1024 from an original score of mid to high 12,000's.
Playing with the GPU settings got me up towards 15973 but the temps were being pushed to 100 degrees when playing Crysis so I have dropped it back for now. (What kind of temps are too much for a GPU as it never artifacted or anything during gameplay. When I had clocked it too much I got big red artifacts all over the screen at the time and quickly reverted back to old settings).

http://i214.photobucket.com/al.../3DMark06ScoreXP-A.jpg
http://i214.photobucket.com/al.../3DMark06ScoreXP-B.jpg

 

[Idontcare]

It does not ensure higher overclocks, but it better ensures that RAM is not what is limiting your overclock while you are attempting to determine the best overclock for the CPU.

Have you tried taking the FSB up to 367MHz? Score a 3.3GHz clock on that G0? Most will do it with a moderate Vcore bump, certainly no higher than 1.4V setting in the BIOS.

 

[diddler1979]

I get a bit confused here to be honest. When you say change the FSB to 367mhz, where do I do that as all I can see is FSB (QDR) Mhz : 1333 & MEM (DDR) Mhz : 667.

Is 367Mhz a multiple of some value that I need to put into either of those two sections?

Also, should I change the LDT Frequency at all. By default it is 5 but I changed it to 3 on the advice of some other forum.

 

[Idontcare]

Sorry, I meant bus speed of 367MHz, FSB is 4X the bus speed, DDR2 is 2X the bus speed.

At 367 bus speed: FSB = 1468MHz and DDR2 = 734MHz.

 

[diddler1979]

Ah right, thanks mate that makes much more sense to me now.

Is it best to keep the memory timings as they are and unlinked or linked?

I'll give this all a go tonight and report back.

 

[diddler1979]

Well I did a little bit more playing with the settings again tonight. I took your advice and lowered the memory voltage. In fact I reset all back to auto except the VCore voltage, QDR and DDR settings and it booted perfectly well into Windows @ 3.0GHz.

From there I started to change little increments at a time until I ended up with:

Vcore : 1.3375
FSB : Unlinked
QDR : 1380
DDR : 700
Timings : 5,5,5,18
LDT : 5X.

The machine booted up into Windows quite happily @ 3.11GHz and all was looking good.

So I went back into the bios and saved the profile as it appeared to be fine. I carried on trying to up the setup in small increments but try as I might I couldn't get it to work. Nearly every time it would either get just past the login screen on Windows and reboot or to the Desktop and then reboot.

The worst thing was, when I went back and loaded the profile for 3.11GHz it continued to do the same.

I can't work it out. Any ideas?

 

[diddler1979]

By lowering the Vcore voltage a little I can get it into Windows at 3.11GHz and it seems stable for a while. Not long after I run 3DMark though it reboots.

Could this be a sign of not enough voltage going to the NB or CPU maybe?