Taking the Q8400 to the next level

[freddyrock]

I have overclocked my Q8400 to 3.0 GHz (from stock 2.66 GHz).

I ran Prime95 (blend) for 29 hours without errors and 3DMark06 ran fine as well. Temperatures during Prime95 was max. 51 C on any core (according to CoreTemp and SpeedFan).

I was just wondering what the next step would be if was to push my CPU further. That is - what kind of speeds would be the 'max' given my settings and hardware specs below? The purpose of overclocking for me is better gaming performance, so I'm not really in it for the overclocking itself (although I admit it's kind of fun ).

BIOS settings:
Vcore 1.31250V
FSB 1500 MHz
Memory 900MHz (linked)
Multiplier x 8.0

PC specs:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 2.66GHz 4MB 1333MHz @3.0 GHz
ZEROtherm High-end CPU Cooler BTF90
ASUS P5N-D NForce 750i SLI PCI-E
Corsair 2x2GB DDR2 XMS2 PC6400
XFX Geforce GTX 260 896MB GDDR3 PCI-E
ACE Raw Deal +620W
ANTEC Midtower Three Hundred
320GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 SATA-300 16 MB
Windows XP 32-bit SP3

Any suggestions/tips/tricks are much appreciated!

 

[freddyrock]

Update:
(got some tips about running 1:1 FSB-RAM and below is the results I got)


Sadly I'm not making much progress going beyond 3.0 GHz... It seems that running my memory on anything lower than 900 MHz results in my pc not booting properly. (that is when attempting to go above stock 2.66 GHz)

I've tried the 1:1 settings (1600 FSB / 800 MHz memory) but I didn't get it to work. After I 'save and exit' in BIOS the pc doesn't boot and I have to turn it off and on again. Then it goes through POST but gives me a message about the last boot or POST was a failure, and I am prompted to go into BIOS and revert back to default settings or press F1 to continue. The latter lets me boot all the way into Windows but looking in CPU-Z all settings have been changed back to stock values (2.66 GHz etc etc).
On the other hand, if I choose to go into BIOS I see that all settings are still at the o/c values but exiting without saving results in either a proper boot (but still nothing higher than stock values in CPU-Z) OR "nothing" happens... (which forces me to turn the pc off and on again).

Going back to my 3.0 GHz settings (as described in my first post^) works fine and boots and POSTs without error everytime.

Do I need to apply more Vcore voltage or start messing around with my memory voltages/timings to be able to reach higher speeds? (never done that before).
And can someone please explain "sync mode" ?

As always, any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[cubeless]

time to read the guides...

but just for fun:

set the memory divider at 3:2 to take your slow memory out of the mix... you ought to get 1066 memory to oc a low multi chip...

if your cpu temps are reasonable (<70c running occt) then try bumping the cpu v up to 1.375 or 1.4

google on: 750i ftw evga overclock

i get to 450 on my ftw with a q8200 without bumping the mobo voltages, just the cpu...

 

[freddyrock]

cubeless,

Thanks for your answer. I will consider buying faster memory, although I think I should be able to reach beyond 3.0 GHz using my current memory. But maybe I'm wrong..

I already read a bunch of different o/c guides prior to posting, both here and on Tom's Hardware forums. Thanks for the tip though.

 

[Ben90]

The thing is though; you shoulnt be running into ram problems at a 1500fsb; your ram is rated to a 1600fsb @ a 1:1 multiplier... I would check all voltages to make sure everything is what its supposed to be