How safe is overclocking for 24/7..?

thesnowdog1971 · 5 Sep 2008 at 13:01

I'm a bit new to all this overclocking business, have overclocked my AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ a little and have my PC on 24 hours a day and near enough 7 days a week and have had no problems at all.

But now I've decided to build a new machine with an Antec 1200 case (for the shedload of fans with the thing lol), a Q6600 overclocked to 3.3GHz and an Asus P5Q-E motherboard. I'll also be getting 8Gb of RAM (2 x OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Reaper HPC Enhanced Bandwidth Edition Dual Channel DDR2) and a Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2048MB GDDR5, and won't be overclocking the memory past the 2.2 volts that's covered by the lifetime warranty, and can't see any need to go anywhere near overclocking that whopperdongler graphics card lol

But my question is this: How safe is it to have an overclocked CPU running near enough 24 hours a day, 7 days a week..? I'll only be using the fans included in the 1200 case and a Freezer 7 Pro.

Will I need to call the fire brigade?!!?

Pilky01 · 5 Sep 2008 at 13:07

Depends on what cooling you will have, How many volts. have fast you are clocking it.

thesnowdog1971 · 5 Sep 2008 at 13:13

Am going to overclock the Q6600 to 3.3GHz and will have just the fans that come with the 1200 and a Freezer 7 Pro, as far as the voltage on the Q6600 goes I'm not planning on going over 1.4v - will I be able to get 3.3GHz this way..? I know it differs from chip to chip but a guesstimate would be handy please lol.

Pilky01 · 5 Sep 2008 at 13:19

With the latest batches i doubt you will get 3.3ghz with a freezer 7 and only 1.4v. I need 1.52 volts to get 3.4 with a tuniq tower and temps hit high the 70's

thesnowdog1971 · 5 Sep 2008 at 13:22

Aw bugger

What sort of ooomph do you reckon I'll get for 1.4v..?

Pilky01 · 5 Sep 2008 at 13:32

Depends entirely on the chip, dont expect to much. You might be better of going with the 45nm ones if you have the cash

rjk · 5 Sep 2008 at 16:13

my q6600 runs all day long at 3ghz

it encodes fast enough at that speed

i got it up to 3.4 for benchies and demanding games etc

save both speeds into my motherboards oc profiles

ChrissyT88 · 5 Sep 2008 at 16:26

I've got a recent Q6600 and it does 3.3 Ghz at less than 1.4v... Its all just luck of the draw. I would imagine that you would easily be able to get 3 Ghz out of any Q6600 at less than 1.4v, although i would think about upgrading the cooler if you want to go much higher.

Lee · 5 Sep 2008 at 16:31

I have my Q6600 at 3 GHZ 24x7 stable using a core voltage of 1.168 according to CPU-Z.

I run BOINC and the FAH GPU client 24x7.

Blackhawk47 · 5 Sep 2008 at 18:48

well it should be fine, im not sure though but i guess you could have speedstep turned (amd equiv??) on just to make sure nothing gets too toasty, as i doubt you need all that power 24/7.

other than that, cooling is most important, make sure you have well positioned fans and good airflow. perhaps touch up on cable management if you havent done any yet.

inonefly · 5 Sep 2008 at 18:55

I would also recommend speedstep enabled, less heat/power consumption

sdavlaws · 5 Sep 2008 at 18:58

my Q6600 is running at 3.2GHz with 1.26V ish in the bios i only have to go into the 1.4V region to get 3.6GHz out of it but this only really suitable for benching as its kind of toasty i would not touch the voltage untill you have to.

Mattus · 6 Sep 2008 at 02:47

It should be fine... but shelling out for 8GB of RAM, a 4870 X2 and a nice motherboard and limiting yourself with a Freezer 7 Pro seems a bit silly to me. It'd be a lot better if you could stretch to a Thermalright, Noctua etc. I had a Freezer 7 which couldn't keep my 3Ghz quad under 70c. Switched to the Noctua NH-U12P and now running pretty much silently at 3.2 with load temps of 57/56/54/55.

ConTRo13R · 6 Sep 2008 at 02:50

qwerty321 said:
With the latest batches i doubt you will get 3.3ghz with a freezer 7 and only 1.4v. I need 1.52 volts to get 3.4 with a tuniq tower and temps hit high the 70's

whoa the new one really are bad! i got mine at 3.6 24/7 with a vid of 1.35

toxicredcat · 7 Sep 2008 at 12:37

I have my Q6600 at 3.61Ghz 24/7 with 1.36v using an Antec 900 case and Arctic Freezer 7 Pro. Prime95 and OCCT stable. Temps can hit mid 60's buts thats no biggie. When running F@H on all 4 cores temps don't go over 60°C with 2000rpm fanspeed (can do 2500rpm). I did lap my CPU and HSF so I guess that has help temps a little bit.

snowdog: 3.3Ghz should be fine for a 24/7 clock.

Popov · 7 Sep 2008 at 12:53

I think the major concern would be how much voltage you had to use to achieve a clock speed, obviously lower volts is safer regardless of the speed it's running at.

thesnowdog1971 · 7 Sep 2008 at 13:23

I've now changed my mind about the CPU, as well as the 4870 2048Mb X2 graphics card. What I'm looking at now is this:

Not going to overclock the Q9550 that much I don't think, it'll fly like poo off a shovel as it is. I might try going for 3-3.2 which should be safe enough hopefully. Better make sure I read up on it first though otherwise I might end up burning my flat down lol

Mattus · 8 Sep 2008 at 04:51

Still can't believe you're spending £1,000 on a PC and going for a mediocre cooler to save £20!

thesnowdog1971 · 8 Sep 2008 at 05:25

Am getting a Freezer 7 Pro because there won't be any problem fitting it on. The heatsinks around the CPU look like they'll get in the way if using anything else. Any suggestions for an alternative..?

I've always used AMD chips and stock fans before now so don't know the first thing about building Intel machines lol