New to this (Hi)

[SamC]

Hi everyone, just wanted to get a couple of opinions from you guys really but i'll explain why i came around to the idea of overclocking first;
I was very happy with my nearly new system and thought everything was fine until i started running benchmark software like 3dmark 06 and prime.... ok so my score in 3dmark 06 was 1946 which personaly i thought was sh*ty and framerate never really went above 13fps in all of the tests! I now realize that the reason for this was my substandard gfx card (512mb 7600 GT) So im fixing this by putting an OCuk 8800 GTS in today, so hopefully this will ramp my score up a lot i mean ive seen peoples machines at the same spec as mine with the 8800 running the tests at around 56fps so thats what im hoping will happen. The other thing is my cpu temp, i was running prime yesterday and the cpu was hitting 66 degrees! OMG i thought and stopped running prime straight away. So ive got a new cooler on the way and hoping that if i fit it correctly then this will have some major impact on the temps. So now for my questions.

1- Does having intel's speedstep turned on effect my performance at all ( i nkow that when my systems idle it takes myclock down to 1600 when loaded it goes up to 2400 as it should, so should i have it off?

2- What kinda temps should i be aiming for with my cpu?

system specs

e6600 @ standard speed for now
Asus p5b mobo
3.0gb geil ddr2 800mhz stuff
sata 500gb hd
Ocuk geforce 8800 gts 320mb
Enermax 535w psu

 

[ots3go]

1. speedstep will just keep the CPU cool when it's not doing anything

2. with the stock cooler 66oC full load should be fine.


(can you claim people outside GD? ¬_¬)

 

[PoliticallyCorrect]

i moved from a 7600gt to a 8800gts, it's a nice difference.

didn't know there was a 512mb 7600gt and also my 7600gt did 4200 points in 3d mark 06...

 

[SamC]

:O why the hell was my score so low??? do you think i have somthing set up wrong

oh and my gfx card and cooler just arrived and they r serioulsy BIG

 

[SamC]

hooray ok so ive got the noctua nh-u12f cooler in, it was a bit of a bitch to install taking out my motherboard and all but well worth it, im getting a nice temp of 51 degrees at full load with prime95. And my new 8800 has seriously boosted my gfx performance from 1946ish to 8960 in 3dmark 06.
Framerates have gone through the roof getting about 55-60 fps in the benchmarks, so im really happy right now. My pc weighs a lot more i think that cooler is huge! So time to start overclocking now, im hoping to eventually get a nice clock of around 3.5 wit a nice temp.
I'm ok with increasing the fsb and getting slightly higher clock speeds but i think i now need to start playing with the voltages to get more....wish me luck.