OC help

[xehrc]

Hello all,

I'm a newbie overclocker, and am trying to OC my Q6600 in my quest to play Battlefield 3 as well as possible on my PC.

CPU - Intel Q6600 2.4 GHz w/Zalman CNPS10x Performa

MOBO - Gigabyte EP45 DS3R, BIOS F8

RAM: 1x2GB Kingston DDR2 800MHz DDR2, 1x2GB Kingmax DDR2 800MHz

Graphics: 2x ATI 4850 512MB in Crossfire, OC'd (not fantastically to 625/990 both)


Based on CPU-Z and GPU-Z readings (and many a forum browse), I'm fairly certain my CPU is the bottleneck here. I've been trying to overclock it, but can't even seem to get a 10MHz increase in FSB (keeping CPU Multiplier @ 9x, PCIE frequency 100MHz, DRAM frequiency less or same as stock and voltage its normal 1.325).

And strangely, in BIOS my RAM's stock speed seems to be 667 while in Everest, it reads as 800MHz. Initially I thought my RAM was letting me down, but even with a stock cooler and crap RAM, I should be able to make SOME gains in FSB. Right?

Is there something blindingly obvious I'm doing wrong? I've been following the internet guides and youtube videos, trying to increase FSB by 5-10MHz, keeping PCI 100MHz, not OC'ing my ram). Tried messing with voltage once a tiny bit, but was hesitant.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[xehrc]

Thanks for the lightning quick response j.col, will try memory divider and vcore to 1.4v, though mine's a G0 revision

 

[xehrc]

J.Col, you sir are a legend!

Took out the Kingmax and it worked beautifully! I too hit a wall at 3.0GHz, so brought it down to 8x multi and FSB 380MHz without raising voltage.

Windows is stable so far, going to run Prime95 and leave it overnight, and continue my overclock tomorrow. Might settle at 3.3, but see how far this takes me.

Thanks very much mate, really appreciate it.