Could someone hold my hand (q6600 & DS3)

I've previously attempted to overclock an e6300 but never managed to get it to post past stock.

I'd now like to give overclocking my q6600 a bash. What speed should I expect to reach?

A couple of points about the system:

GA-965P-DS3 rev 1.0 with F13 BIOS
q6600 is B3 stepping
Using stock Intel heatsink
2x1GB PC6400
2x512MB PC6400

I decided my CPU temps were a little high, I put this down to poor airflow and a messy build. I bought an Antec 300 case. This reduced temps by almost 10C .

Idle @40
Full load @65

Are these acceptable temps to start from?

Probably a bit high to overclcock it much tbh m8. Stock heatsink isn't much use to overclock, if you have to overclock get a half decent cooler first, you wont get far with the stock cooler & the temps you already have are pretty much what I have after overclocking.

Any recommendations that won't break the bank and is silent?

Luckily, cpu coolers are relatively good value for money considering the benefit they bring to a system. I am using an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro. It cost me around £16 (I see it's more than that now) and keeps my cpu at about 35C idle and 48C peak, less during gaming infact, It also came with the thermal compound readily applied to the base. The noise level is about 32 Db at max, which is not at all bad. There are some quieter ones out there like the ninja scythe but it is around the £30 range - certainly still not a particularly bank-breaking figure.

Also, relating to my cpu fan. At max it is a little bit audable, but at about 55% it becomes silent while cpu temperatures only increase by about 8%, between about 90% and 60% it is a little louder than 100% (different pitch is more noticeable). The top of the heatsink never gets warm, the heat is dissipated very effectively so the lower fan speed just mean the warmth reaches higher up the sink and doesn't persist in the cpu any more than at 100% speed. If you can find a utility to automatically lower the speed to it's silent range then it would be a great fan for a silent build - whilst allowing you to decide upon a greater overclock at the sacrifice of silence if you choose so later. For me, I have annoying loud gpus and an annoying loud switch by my head so I can't notice it at all.

You should have space for a tower cooler like I have mentioned above (judging by your motherboard), but there are some good low profile ones to take a look at on ocuk, it may be cheaper somewhere else
Always remember to google the product name and find some positive reviews to narrow down your search and find the right component for you. And remember that they don't always come with the fan! (AC Freezer 7 Pro does)

I took a look at some reviews for the GA-965P-DS3 and it looks promising.
However, I noticed on the bios update page that the board "Supports Intel Core™ 2 Duo processors with FSB1333 " - what about quads? To get the Q6600 above 2.4 stock you need to up the fsb beyond 1066 (max multiplier is 9), so there may be some minor issues there. But it is common to push beyond the board's fsb when overclocking so I wouldn't worry too much.
Also, there seem to be 3 "revisions" of that motherboard - let alone the bios versions.

Be glad you don't have an Asus P5N-T, then you'd be going nowhere fast

The board should handle a Q6600 just fine, had mine on a ds3 running at 3.4ghz
The Freezer 64 is a good cooler to get you started, but there are better for the money, try looking for the OCZ Vendetta 2, its not too far off the performance of the TRUE 120

Thanks for the info.

I have the first version of the mobo (revision 1 - http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2691). I know it limited my choice on CPU's as it's stopped supporting models after the q6xx's and e6xx's.

I'd like to get a modest overclock (2.6/2.8) done before spending any money just so I get an understanding of what I'm doing. Is that achievable on the stock cooler?

All depends on the VID of your CPU and how good the case air flow is, plus your rooms ambient temps, but I woulds imagine 2.8 - 3.0 is possible with low room temps and good case air flow.

Found a nice review on the OCZ Vendetta 2. Sounds promising, but apparently it can cover dimms one and 2, depending on the motherboard. Very good airflow, particularly considering it is a slower fan speed than the AC 7 (not Freezer '64' ukdtweak, that would be a mistake) and it makes the same amount of noise (in db). I might buy one myself if I do another build soon.

Sorry, quick typing and not thinking makes for silly errors...

I went from the Freezer to the OCZ and it dropped my temps such much that im now able to run my Q6600 @ 3.6. As for fan noise, I can't hear mine over the four case fans

UKDTweak said:

All depends on the VID of your CPU and how good the case air flow is, plus your rooms ambient temps, but I woulds imagine 2.8 - 3.0 is possible with low room temps and good case air flow.

Click to expand...

According to Core Temp the VID is 1.2875. Any good? I know the B3 won't do as well as the G0 but as I said I'm just looking to archive a modest overclock.

What should I tweek first in the BIOS? - just upping the FSB doesn't give a stable result.

what speed ram are u using? i would have thought u could get 3gig on nr stock volts. try running he ram on a divider to see if that helps if u have not already. failing that try using 2 sticks of ram. it could be having 4 sticks causing u issues.

1.28 is a bit high, but thats not a definative means to judge a cpu's ability to OC, but may need more than stock volts to get a decent OC.
As per the last post, what are ram you using?

I'm just running Prime95 now after a 5mhz FSB increase (to 270). It seems stable but my cores are hot at low 80's after 30 mins. I assume this is too high and I'll need a decent cooler before continuing?

My memory is

2x512mb (http://twitpic.com/jch3z)
2x1024mb (http://twitpic.com/jch70)

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edit: Strangely temps were slightly lower when I upped the FSB to 275. I then got board with the increments and hit 320, it booted put after a couple of seconds of prime95 I was already in the 80's so I rebooted and put it back to stock. I'm going to get another heatsink before I continue this game.

I choose a 320 FSB as I could set the memory multiplier at 3 meaning the memory was running at it's stock speed. Is there much disadvantage if you underclock the RAM in order to hit a required FSB?

Can anyone confirm that the OCZ Vendetta 2 will fit inside an Antec 300 case? I've also read a little about it over hanging some memory slots. Does anyone have this cooler inside a GA-965P-DS3?

I have the same board as you (DS3 rev 1.0) and I recently purchased a Q6700 to replace the old Conroe E6300. I'm using a Zalman S9500A in an Antec p180, so nothing too fancy (though the top/rear exhaust fans are replaced with Akasa Apaches set to PWM). Temps at 3.3ghz are about 45c idle, 60c full load load. I've had the chip up to 3.4ghz prime stable but the voltage needed is extreme (1.5v in the bios), and temps reached about 77c under prime. I think the chip would very probably do better on a new mobo, but of course the whole point of me buying this 65nm quad so late in the game was so I could keep the old board!

Just a note, when I tried to run 400mhz bus with an 8x multiplier for 3.2ghz, I didn't have much success, but 10x320 was easy. I'm unsure of the reason for this, as I ran 7x400 for 2.8 on my old Conroe with the PC6400 memory at 1:1 (shown as 2x in the manual memory multiplier settings). Now with 3.3ghz I'm running at 10x330 with the memory set to 2.5x so it's happily running at 412/825mhz. I expected to actually use the 8x multiplier and keep the memory synced with the bus speed, but in the end I've had more joy with the 10x. I've tried juicing the FSB/MCH to get 400mhz FSB with the new chip but to no avail, but it doesn't seem so important.

Unfortunately the hardware you have is not particularly good for quad overclocking. Revision 1 of that board probably won't reach as high FSBs as the later revisions, and you'll need a fairly high FSB for a decent OC. Overclocked quads get very hot, so the Intel cooler is going to be inadequate, particularly as yours is the hotter B3 stepping. Also, using four sticks of RAM may well limit your overclock somewhat, especially as the sticks don't match.

With that said, you can only try. First step is to get a half-decent cooler like the Tuniq Tower or Prolimatech Megahalems. Cheap coolers tend not to cut it, as these chips get hot when OCed. Then I would take the two 512MB sticks of RAM out, as they're likely to overcomplicate the OC. You can always experiment with them later. Then simply raise FSB and test with Prime or LinX, raising CPU and chipset volts as necessary and keeping an eye on your temps, which shouldn't really go over about 70.

Sorry to repeat myself but I'd quite like a OCZ Vendetta 2, does anyone have one in an Antec 300?

i have a q6600 @ 3.0ghz with the zalman 9500 heatsink, its £13 on overclockers, well worth the money, paid £35 for it 8 months ago. Very quiet on the lowest rpm, and very good air flow on the high rpm's if you choose to overclock beyond 3.0ghz (which i personally havent found a need too).

Yeah, I concur, it seems very cheap now for what it is, considering every old review I checked of it seemed to list it in the $50 ballpark.