My Q6600 Overclock - Voltage & Memory Advice.

[Tomc@T]

Hi,

This is my first real attempt at overclocking, done a little in the past, mainly on my VGA cards but that is relatively easier compared to CPU and Memory.

Basically I am a n00b at overclocking, so if I use any term incorrectly, please put me right as I do want to learn!!!

After reading the many many posts on this website, I made the following changes in the BIOS:

Multiplier = 8x
FSB = 400 which gives me 1600
Vcore = 1.4250V
Memory FSB = 860

The CPU clock speed is now at 3200Mhz and the memory at 860Mhz

My idle temps are ~41C - (the cores are between 43 - 48 each varying temps).

I have ran Prime95 for 30 minutes and everything is okay (I will do an 8 hour test evenutally), see below:

During the tests the cpu core temps climbed upto 70C, but these did fluctuate between 60C - 70C. Once the test finished the temperatures dropped very quickly to the idle temps (Tuniq tower fan is set to 1500rpm).

One thing I did notice was the VCORE voltage kept changing, at idle it is (as per CPU-Z) 1.392 (I set 1.425 in the BIOS), during load it changed:

1.392 -> 1.376 -> 1.368 -> 1.360 -> 1.352 <-> 1.360

Is this voltage change normal? Is it VDrop or VDroop? if not what can be done to stop this drop in voltages?

My next query is about the memory speed and timings, I really am stuck with this, in the screenshot you can see the current settings, what are the "ideal" settings? I have increased the FSB and think they will go further but am also interested in the timing side too.

Thanks in advance for any advice/help.

 

[Cob]

The Geil will probably do 4-4-4-12 at 860mhz and 2.1v. If it doesn't then drop it down to 800mhz and 4-4-4-12.

As for the vdroop, it's quite large, but not uncommonly so for the quads.

 

[Mekrel]

Core2 basically loves pure clock speed, FSB and memory timings will only show their benefits in sensitive synthetic benchmarks such as SuperPI etc.

I would keep the 9 times multiplier and basically push the FSB up right until the max, the only time I would drop the multi is if you experience one of the FSB holes that 680i can have on certain memory dividers.

vDrop, is the difference in voltage from what you set in bios, to what the board actually gives idle in windows. vDroop is difference between idle and load. You can pencil mod the 680i board, Vr-Zone or XtremeSystems will give you this if you search.

With memory, I would stick it on 1:1 synced because as I said earlier - I would just max out FSB on the highest 9 multi. Most memory can do DDR500, 5-5-5-12 with 24/7 safe voltages. So just find out how low you can get the timings for the max FSB you can obtain on the 9 multi when the memory is synced 1:1.

 

[Tomc@T]

Thanks guys, I will do some experimenting.

 

[Tomc@T]

Been playing today!!

I found the pencil mod and I applied it!!! This seemed to sort the vDrop issue, I set 1.425V in the BIOS and in CPU-Z it shows 1.416V ALL THE TIME!!!

Initially I tried 1800 on the FSB and 900 on the memory, this booted up and showed 3.6Ghz, ran Prime but it failed after about 11 minutes, do you think I show up my voltage slightly from 1.425?

I then changed my FSB down to 1775 and that gave me 3.5Ghz, the mem went to 888Mhz.

Ran Prime95 for 30 minutes and it completed okay, temps were slightly higher than yesterdays effort, but I reckon that is because the room is warmer at the end of day (well I am sticking with that thought!!! ).

I have left the memory timings for now, but will revisit them, I would *really* like 3.6Ghz..... any more advice on how to achieve this?

Later this week I will do an 8 hour Prime test, see how that goes.