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5870 with a Q6600

3.2GHz on a Vanilla P5K is actually not bad at all as it only has a 3-Phase VRM which is really not suited to overclocking quads.
My old asus 650i board also only had a 3-Phase VRM setup and my q6600 topped out at 3.1ghz. quite disappointing as the same board took my e6600 to 3.6GHz no issues, with that I quick changed my board out for a p5k premium and with watercooling my q6600 G0 is sitting happy at 4GHz :)

If your quads a G0 stepping and it has a low VID indicated in core temp (less than 1.25v) it probably has a decent bit of oc headroom on a better board along with good cooling.
 
does anyone have a link to an overclocking tutorial etc for a q6600? mine says its running at 2.40 ghz which is obviously rubbish, i cant afford any mistakes as im broke at the moment, im using an arctic cooling freezer pro is this sufficient?
 
A stock Q6600 runs at 2.40ghz so it is right, artic freezer is fine they are good coolers for over clocking, thats a link on you tube but it depends on motherboard but all are the same in principle, thats just a rough guide i don't know if the volts he says to use are to high mind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bljU7116Ea0

The biggest thing for me was putting some sort of cooling on the motherboard heatsink, i always seemed to only hit 3.0 gig but since putting a small fan on it i can hit 3.2 without effort might event try higher.
 
scorchisio said:
does anyone have a link to an overclocking tutorial etc for a q6600? mine says its running at 2.40 ghz which is obviously rubbish, i cant afford any mistakes as im broke at the moment, im using an arctic cooling freezer pro is this sufficient?
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What mainboard do you have?

I have my Q6600 @ 3.5ghz on a Gigabyte P35-DS3R. Gonna attach a small fan to the northbridge and see if I can go higher!
 
scorchisio said:
i have an asus commando republic of gamers mobo
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hhmm I don't have much experience with asus and overclocking, I did my overclocking on gigabyte boards.

The principles are the same though, small incrimental steps, hours of prime testing and temp readings.

Maybe make a post in the overclocking section asking for help with your motherboard might be good.
 
Hey There, I just got a Gigabyte 5870 and I have a Q6600, it is more than powerful enough to fun the card as long as you have it clocked high enough, I've been playing the L4D2 demo with mines clocked at 3.3 and getting between like 150 to 300 fps in second level. When clocked at 2.4 it's still playable but frames drop to around 70 or so.
 
i can live with it i just feel im not getting my moneys worth in a way lol, is there any more modern cpu i could buy that would fit that mobo? I dont fancy overclocking much as i have no experience with it. Batman looked amazing and eve online and all the games like crysis run like a dream so its not too bad
 
Hesky82 said:
3.2GHz on a Vanilla P5K is actually not bad at all as it only has a 3-Phase VRM which is really not suited to overclocking quads.
My old asus 650i board also only had a 3-Phase VRM setup and my q6600 topped out at 3.1ghz. quite disappointing as the same board took my e6600 to 3.6GHz no issues, with that I quick changed my board out for a p5k premium and with watercooling my q6600 G0 is sitting happy at 4GHz :)

If your quads a G0 stepping and it has a low VID indicated in core temp (less than 1.25v) it probably has a decent bit of oc headroom on a better board along with good cooling.
Click to expand...

That's really useful information - thanks :)

I'll check out the VID tonight - any recommendations on a board?

I guess the obvious list to look at is:

P5K Delux / Premium
P5K-E ?? Will this be better?
P5Q Vanilla - will that that the better VRM?
P5Q > Vanilla

Thanks again.
 
Ste said:
That's really useful information - thanks :)

I'll check out the VID tonight - any recommendations on a board?

I guess the obvious list to look at is:

P5K Delux / Premium
P5K-E ?? Will this be better?
P5Q Vanilla - will that that the better VRM?
P5Q > Vanilla

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

The P5Q vanilla (P5QC?), P5Q-Pro & P5Q-E all have an 8-phase power design, so they will be comparable to the older P5k Deluxe, P5K Premium & P5k-E when it comes to overclocking.

The P5Q Premium and Deluxe have a huge 16-phase power design, but really all that is needed to get a decent clock out of a Q6600 is a decent board with a 6-phase power design as a minimum.

The vanilla P5Q is a massive improvement over the vanilla P5K as far as quad overclocking is concerned.

You cant really get the older P35 boards any more, but you maybe able to score a good P5k board 2nd hand for less than a base vanilla Q so that's worth considering :)
 
That's my plan - I'm going to go for an i7 system in the new year so I may buy the 5870, good case and beefy PSU now, and grab a cheap P5K-E+ or P5Q to eek a few more mhz from my chip :)

Thanks for the advice. I rekon I can get 35-40quid for my P5k and only have to spend 75-80 on the replacement, so fairly cheap if I can get 400mhz extra from it!

[edit] Hmmm - VID is 1.275 - still worth bothering? I'd like 3.6 on air (original alu TRUE), seems it may be possible from the database, most seem to be water cooled though. Ho hum!
 
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The way I see it your quad still managed a good clock regardless of its VID on a board that suffers from pretty bad vdroop, thanks to its feeble cpu power stage. Switching to a beefier board will only see clocking gains, but Its hard to say how much of an improvement you will see though :(

A stable 1.4v should see you to 3.6GHz~ with a 1.275vid q6600, something like a P5K-E should easily be able to support any voltage requirement. Problem is more vcore means more heat for your cooling to tame, so your cooling may possibly be your next weakest link after the board is replaced :rolleyes:
 
Hi,

I just picked up a used P5K-E for £38, should be able to sell my P5K for at least 30 I'd have thought so it's probably worth the time it takes to mess around :)

I've got a TRUE which is pretty good, but two cores get 8'c hotter than the other two. I rekon if I lap the heatsink (and possibly IHS) and do a better job with the AS5 I might get somewhere nearer to my target :)

Thanks for all the help!
 
You will easily get 30 quid for your vanilla p5k, its still a p35 board after all :)

Defiantly lap your cooler if its a bit sus though, but always think hard before you lap the IHS of the processor as a lapped cpu tends to be a lot harder to sell on at a decent price.

After all this you should have a nice set-up along with a 5850/70 card :cool:
 
Mikey - good to hear you got the parts you needed. You'll also notice I just popped a Q6600 in my P5Q Pro. I'm also running kingston RAM. I can help with BIOS settings in good time, but at the moment I'm having a problem with high temps on my quad.

It seems to run at about 39 C idle and up to 62 C full load at stock settings (VID 1.2125 IIRC). If I try to overclock and up the voltage a few notches it goes beyond 70 deg C under load! I've tried reseating with AS5 and it's not that great. Funny thing was it was running very cool when it first went in. This is on a Noctua NH-U12F, a bit long in the tooth now, but always did my dual cores proud. I'm going to fit another case fan and see how it goes then, but I'm thinking maybe I should lap at least the heatsink and try another reseat too.

I'll let you know how it goes, then I'm going to try clock it to 3.6GHz.
 
A G0 with a VID of 1.2125v should run extremely cool under decent cooling! you surely have an issue with the cooler or case airflow bud.

This is my treasured 1.2125v VID G0 on my P5K premium...



Stock voltage hardly lifted the fluid temperature in my cpu loop from ambiance and was enough vcore to allow it to get to 3.6GHz stable :)

At stock vcore it runs cooler than my old E6600 at 1.4v :cool:

Once you have the cooling sorted that processor should overclock like crazy on a decent P5Q board if its anything like mine!
The one I have hits a celling at around 4GHz and a bit, with temps not even near to 50c. I really do belive it would manage 4.2GHz on a good P5Q board as they are slighly more stable at higher FSB levels when compared to a decent P5K.
 
Hesky82 said:
snip
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Interesting stuff, thanks. I'm thinking there might still be too much AS5 on the CPU and the case cooling needs improving. Jobs for the weekend I think. Arctic Cooling say put a line across the CPU, but I'm going to try a small blob this time, I think it was too much. I replaced the fans in my P182 with yate loons, with the exception of the roof fan. Temps barely changed with my dual and this setup though. Guess it does make a difference.
 
alexhull24 said:
Mikey - good to hear you got the parts you needed. You'll also notice I just popped a Q6600 in my P5Q Pro. I'm also running kingston RAM. I can help with BIOS settings in good time, but at the moment I'm having a problem with high temps on my quad.

It seems to run at about 39 C idle and up to 62 C full load at stock settings (VID 1.2125 IIRC). If I try to overclock and up the voltage a few notches it goes beyond 70 deg C under load! I've tried reseating with AS5 and it's not that great. Funny thing was it was running very cool when it first went in. This is on a Noctua NH-U12F, a bit long in the tooth now, but always did my dual cores proud. I'm going to fit another case fan and see how it goes then, but I'm thinking maybe I should lap at least the heatsink and try another reseat too.

I'll let you know how it goes, then I'm going to try clock it to 3.6GHz.
Click to expand...


Cheers,

Still waiting for the board to be delivered :( I've sold my Gigabyte board and that has gone.

Still looking at changing to a G0 from a B3, but I think I'll get the board first etc.

Looking forward to getting the system back up and running as it's all boxed in bits at the moment..
 
P5K-E has just arrived, looks like it's an RMA as it's immaculate and the cables havn't been opened. Hope it works!
 
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