whats the best OC for stock cooled q6600?

ExoMale

ExoMale

ExoMale

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someone was about to take a mild gaming computer to the tip, but i said i would have it and turns out its a q6600 build and its running fine so result and this is my 2nd 6600 ever and this time im thinking of overclocking it if the psu will hold out just for the fun of it like, but without spending £12 a upgraded cooler i was going to see what stock could do.

i just dont know how different overclocking a quad is to single and dual core.
 
I used to have a Q9400 that overclocked well, actually really well. Would go up to 3.7 GHz that's over 1 GHz oc. Had a massive Zalman tower cooler on it but the thing would fly. It was so loud after I upgraded the cooler with a Corsair SP fan :)

Q9400 can be picked up second hand for around £20 and you'd probably get not that much less for your 6600. TDP is higher on Q6600 so heat may be an issue if you push it too hard.
 
I still use my Q9550 2.8@4ghz but with those kind of clocks they generate loads of heat. Stock cooler will not take you far. You would need best Air Cooler for some good OC.
 
Thanks for replies, I have no idea what version of q6600 I have, I had a g0 one before which was fine, but I did have a akasa K25 low profile cooler on it so was an improvement over stock.

Is it really worth upgrading to the q9 range? Never had a higher Intel quad to compare, but unlike my last 6600 I actually plan to do some gaming and test this time round, but the computer was free, I saved it from going to the dump and didn't know what to expect, but was built for mild gaming for sure, however if you look at my psu thread I have a xilence 600w psu which came with it, so I don't know how well that will push anything far really especially when I put my 260x in it.


So really don't want to spend much on this, need more ram as 4gb is average though.
 
I only mentioned Q9400 as I had a first hand experience with it. I don't think you would see that much difference in terms of stock speeds between the 2. On the other hand if you overclock Q9400 will emit less heat and from what I read overclock better.

My Q9400 at high overclock would nearly reach 2nd gen i5 performance and considering I bought it second hand for £22 that's rather amazing. And would manage to run Fallout 4 :) with GTX 760 1.5GB and 8GB ram. It was at 720p in lowest details but still it was a £22 chip.

If I were you I'd try to oc with what you've got and check at which point you're reaching temps you're not comfortable with.
 
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I would not overclock with a stock cooler. Stock cooler is designed for stock CPU heat output, and overclocking increases that heat output significantly. Many (probably most of us on this forum) run bigger better coolers even when not overclocking, and with very rare exceptions all overclockers use better than stock coolers.
 
What motherboard is it you have? The xeon x5450 is way better £/performance than any of the core 2 quads and it's 3ghz out the box also if you get e0 stepping it will over really far with minimal extra voltage.
 
For an easy OC you can bump the FSB from 1066 to 1333 MHZ and get an easy 3.0GHz. The stock cooler may be OK with that in normal use.

Did that to a CPU+board bare bones system given to me recently and added an AMD HD7870 bought off Ebay for £50. Then sold it to a lad in Scotland via a forum for £180 base unit only.
 
Stock cooler was a bit naff on them and you won't get much more than about 3.2GHz tops on it before heat is a problem.

Assuming it is the G0 variety then you should get to around 3150MHz +/- 50MHz on the stock cooler without touching voltages and about 3200MHz with a minor voltage bump if the case has good airflow - anything higher and you really want a good after market heatsink. If its the non G0 then probably 2800-3000MHz.

EDIT: The motherboard will make some difference as well - some simply can't deliver the current required to get above 3000MHz stable and others will struggle with the higher FSBs required to go past 3000MHz.

Those CPUs were near bullet proof - I had one running 24x7 for over 2 years at 1.65v with watercooling at either 3.8GHz or 4GHz can't remember what I got it upto now spending many hours under heavy load and last I checked it was still running fine.
 
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If a GO, As suggested bang up the FSB to 1333 those cpus were a beast back in the day. Make sure the air flow is decent in the case and away you go. Add a decent GPU and will be ok for gaming
 
Jumper118 said:
What motherboard is it you have? The xeon x5450 is way better £/performance than any of the core 2 quads and it's 3ghz out the box also if you get e0 stepping it will over really far with minimal extra voltage.
Click to expand...


GA-EP45C-DS3R this board :). i believe it to be a gaming type maybe.


ive never tried a xenon as i always thought they were for servers only, but given this computer cost me the fuel to pick it up, i dont really want to be spending too much on it, its already pretty decent as it is without my 260x fitted yet.


edit: once i sort an OS out for it(it came with 64bit win 7 ultimate, sadly not been activated though) i will get cpu-z installed and see if what it says about it.
 
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