Q6600 G0 with a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme, Asus P5N32-E SLI Plus

[CZroe]

I've been told to aim for 3.0-to-3.2GHz to reduce bottlenecking my GTX280 and 9800GT (for PhysX) in my Asus P5N32-E SLI PLUS (limited quad-core upgrade options).

I know the Thermalright U120E is pretty much the best air cooler, but I paired it with the same super-quiet fan it was reviewed with here on Anandtech. If I go for 3.2GHz, should change the fan or is this OC easy enough to obtain without doing that (considering the cooler)?

As it stands, it's all in a loud Antec 900... as if the GTX 280 and PC Power and Cooling TurboCool 1KW weren't loud enough already! Should I just crank up the speed on the A900's fans and leave the same CPU fan mounted?

 

[cubeless]

should be fine just going to 3.2... you shouldn't need to push the voltage up too much, and your 900 should keep the ambient pretty low... as long as you are not in a hut on a desert island...

crank it up and see... or just swap a side fan from the 900 with the fan on the hsf...

 

[nyker96]

I think you can even go a little pass 3,2 with that cooling combo of TRUE/Antec900 case.

 

[MisterDonut]

I've seen q6600's make it to 3.6 just fine, especially with a TRUE. Airflow with the 900 is pretty good, so I don't think you'll have problems hitting 3.2ish. Voltage shouldn't be high at all either. As long as the fan moves a decent amount of air, overclocking will be cake...

 

[Cattykit]

What's the VID of your Q6600 and how much vcore does it need to reach 3.0-3.2ghz?

For 3.2ghz:
My Q6600 - 1.2 VID - 1.30 vCore in BIOS w/o LLC - 1.21 under load
Friend's Q6600 - 1.31 VID - 1.35 vCore in BIOS with LLC on - 1.35 under load.

As you can predict, my q6600 ran a lot cooler than my friend's and only needed very minimal cooling. I used Tuniq Tower and its fan running @ 600rpm idle and 1200rpm under load.

 

[Shmee]

with a TRUE and a good chip, I bet 3.6-3.8 is possible. I got mine to 3.5 on a xigmatek dark knight.

Also, one recomendation of mine is to get 2 high airflow fans, but use the smartfan feature so they only rev up under 100 % load. That will still keep it cool during linx, and the rest of the time its quite.

 

[Bl0cks]

I've got an Antec 900 with Apevia LED fans, a lapped Q6600 VID 1.25 overclocked to 3.0 on stock volts, with a Xigmatech S1283 running passively (no fans on the heatsink). My idle temps are ~40C and temps under load are 65C. You should be fine, it all depends on the VID.

On a side note, doing 3.6ghz passively, my temps were ~55C and under load were ~75.

 

[Markfw]

with a TRUE and a good chip, I bet 3.6-3.8 is possible. I got mine to 3.5 on a xigmatek dark knight.

Also, one recomendation of mine is to get 2 high airflow fans, but use the smartfan feature so they only rev up under 100 % load. That will still keep it cool during linx, and the rest of the time its quite.

I have 3 Q6600's, all with trues (and yes, G0's) and all in Antec 900 cases, and the best of the three did 3.6 for a week, but its down to 3.5 now. The lowest of them is 3.2. I would say 3.2-3.5 is the range based on what I have seen, and my own boxes.

You should not give people unreasonable expectations.

 

[MisterDonut]

I have 3 Q6600's, all with trues (and yes, G0's) and all in Antec 900 cases, and the best of the three did 3.6 for a week, but its down to 3.5 now. The lowest of them is 3.2. I would say 3.2-3.5 is the range based on what I have seen, and my own boxes.

You should not give people unreasonable expectations.

+1. Highest clock i've seen for q6600 was 3.6, and he left it like that

 

[Thor86]

+1, with reasonable vcore/temps, 3.6Ghz is all most G0s will go.

 

[SanDiegoPC]

should be fine just going to 3.2... you shouldn't need to push the voltage up too much, and your 900 should keep the ambient pretty low... as long as you are not in a hut on a desert island...

crank it up and see... or just swap a side fan from the 900 with the fan on the hsf...

Agreed. I've been running a Q6600 at 3.2 for years - since they came out - using stock HSF from intel.

 

[ther00kie16]

Yea, 3.2 should be fine. Later g0s didn't even go much past 3.2.
don't look at the xs guys with 4ghz on air. they are few and far between and all got lucky or cherry picked their way through dozens of chips

 

[LOUISSSSS]

everything depends on your ambient temps, i got my q6600 up to 3.6 before i was temperature limited and my room was 65F. when i OC'd in the winter with windows open my room was 55F and my load temps were under 72. Cooler was Tuniq Tower

If you got a good mount with that true (very little and perfect paste installation) and u have good air flow in your case/room and very low ambient temps u can go way past 3.2ghz.

 

[MrK6]

My Q6600 G0 did 3.6GHz @ 1.375V BIOS (~1.34V load) under a TRUE. The same chip would do 3.8GHz fine under water. It's all cooling dependent, so lap the chip and heatsink and hope for the best .

 

[Gillbot]

+1, with reasonable vcore/temps, 3.6Ghz is all most G0s will go.

No

 

[LOUISSSSS]

+1, with reasonable vcore/temps, 3.6Ghz is all most G0s will go.

no mine made it to 3.9ghz prime stable @ 1.5vcore
low vid ftw

 

[manimal]

Sub 1.4 volts a cheaper hsf should do if your not expecting 3.6. Really for such an old system get the Tuniq for 25 bucks right now at petras and call it a day! Heck I did 3.6 24/7 for 2 years on a tuniq. Granted that took 1.45 V but it still only loaded at 60-65.

Later batches of Q6600s blew. Many early G0s were awesome. I would be more worried about your mosfets on that board when volts get higher. NB temps will skyrocket too. Check petras they had some really cheap mostfet thermalright sinks. 9 bucks cheap. Get the tuniq the mosfet sinks, and a NB cooler for what you would pay for a True + gentle typhoons now..... Check petras right now the deals are good.

 

[Shmee]

I have 3 Q6600's, all with trues (and yes, G0's) and all in Antec 900 cases, and the best of the three did 3.6 for a week, but its down to 3.5 now. The lowest of them is 3.2. I would say 3.2-3.5 is the range based on what I have seen, and my own boxes.

You should not give people unreasonable expectations.

my bad. I should have been a little more specific, saying I bet mine could go farther with a better cooler with more airflow. Out of curiosity, what airflow did you have across the TRUE's and what VID's were your chips? Mine was a better chip than many later G0's I believe, I could do 3.6 with it, but temps were a bit high. That's why I went back to 3.5. BTW, my TRUE is lapped but I use it with my i7.

So, I suppose I should say: If you have a good chip with a low VID, high end air cooling(lapped true or a megahalems with high CFM push pull) and a good overclocking board, > 3.6 is possible, but I think it depends a lot on the airflow as well. I suppose I should have said I might have been able to get 3.8 if I used my TRUE setup on my Q6600 instead of my i7.

 

[Markfw]

my bad. I should have been a little more specific, saying I bet mine could go farther with a better cooler with more airflow. Out of curiosity, what airflow did you have across the TRUE's and what VID's were your chips? Mine was a better chip than many later G0's I believe, I could do 3.6 with it, but temps were a bit high. That's why I went back to 3.5. BTW, my TRUE is lapped but I use it with my i7.

So, I suppose I should say: If you have a good chip with a low VID, high end air cooling(lapped true or a megahalems with high CFM push pull) and a good overclocking board, > 3.6 is possible, but I think it depends a lot on the airflow as well. I suppose I should have said I might have been able to get 3.8 if I used my TRUE setup on my Q6600 instead of my i7.

One of my TRUE's is factory lapped ($100)-All the rest are "ME" lapped, but the results are all the same. no matter the airflow, 3.6 (or 3.5) is the best they can do.

 

[VirtualLarry]

no mine made it to 3.9ghz prime stable @ 1.5vcore
low vid ftw

On Air?

 

[MisterDonut]

I don't think 3.9ghz on air is possible...or at least reasonable

 

[trays]

I almost got the same spec as you and I hit 3.4ghz with my Q6600, I have a high vid 1.325, needs 1.5cpu vcore for it and temps reach max 73c. My antec 900 fans are on medium.

 

[Gillbot]

I almost got the same spec as you and I hit 3.4ghz with my Q6600, I have a high vid 1.325, needs 1.5cpu vcore for it and temps reach max 73c. My antec 900 fans are on medium.

Mine was the same, even under water cooling it maxed at 3.4GHz.

 

[nitromullet]

Wouldn't the P5N32-E SLI Plus be a limiting factor before the TRUE?

 

[CZroe]

I'm looking for a set it and forget it" O/C, so I guess that means aiming for 3.0GHz rather than 3.2. If I'm right, it is one of the first G0 CPUs... a friend who didn't intend to O/C got my brother's old pre-G0 Q6600 that we paid $600 for (a "deal" at the time) and we got his $200 G0 (my brother never checked; the system is now mine and I haven't bothered yet).

Basically, I don't want to go through the effort of installing MOSFET sinks and lapping surfaces on a system I've been satisfied with for years now. What I really want to know is...
A) Is the default Q6600 speed truly a FPS limiting factor for a GTX280-equipped system as I've been told?
B) Is a 3.0/3.2GHz setting going to rectify that?
C) Is it going to be enough to make the 9800GT useful as a physics accelerator?

Thanks for all the insight guys.

Wouldn't the P5N32-E SLI Plus be a limiting factor before the TRUE?

Why/How so? It officially supports a higher FSB and is the cheaper version of the Deluxe except with all solid CAPs and a strange hybrid nVidia chipset (parts intended for both Intel and AMD chipsets) to match/exceed the P5N32-E SLI Deluxe's 680i feature set (though often identified as one, it's not exactly a 650i). Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Deluxe was one of the best SLI boards at the time and this was meant to be pretty much the same thing at a lower price. It's old, yeah, but it that really a concern for hitting that OC? I obviously don't want to build a new system if I can avoid it.