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q6600 OC

PorkPieCat

PorkPieCat

PorkPieCat

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Joined
4 Apr 2012
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956
hi all, how well can a 5 year old q6600 be expected to overclock with a noctua nh-d14? is it worth buying the noctua at all? i read that oc shouldn't do anything bad if done right, but would like to make sure ^^

thanks very much
 
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What stepping is it? Is it a G0 SLACR?

If so then expect anywhere from 3.2-3.7GHz depending on the airflow through your case, your ambient temperature, your motherboard's overclockability, and how good a a chip you have.

Mine sat all day long air-cooled at 3.7GHz, but I appreciate that not all will.
 
I'd say 99% won't ;) 3.4-3.6Ghz is likely a more achievable goal. That cooler should handle it well, though saying that! I've seen the Q6600 bring some coolers that were clocking 2600ks with no problem to their knees.. darn hot chip.
 
thanks for replies! can't really tell what stepping it is yet. it's a hand-me-down that hasn't arrived in my hands yet. will it make a difference?

i was going to head for 3.6 anyway, nothing too drastic i hope :p

also my mobo is a GA-P43T-ES3G (rev. 1.3). supposedly it overclocks ok. (hope so anyway!)
 
paradigm said:
What stepping is it? Is it a G0 SLACR?

If so then expect anywhere from 3.2-3.7GHz depending on the airflow through your case, your ambient temperature, your motherboard's overclockability, and how good a a chip you have.

Mine sat all day long air-cooled at 3.7GHz, but I appreciate that not all will.
Click to expand...

Justintime said:
I'd say 99% won't ;) 3.4-3.6Ghz is likely a more achievable goal. That cooler should handle it well, though saying that! I've seen the Q6600 bring some coolers that were clocking 2600ks with no problem to their knees.. darn hot chip.
Click to expand...

I would actually say it is more like 3.2-3.4Ghz with 3.2Ghz being the average overclock. Anything above that is bonus really.

Many Q6600s between 3.4-3.6Ghz may well be Prime95 stable, but running IBT on custom and ensuring high GFlops will crash these overclocks.
 
My (2nd hand) G0 Q6600 does 3GHz (333*9) at stock volts. That's on a Gigabyte G41 motherboard which apparently are bad at overclocking?
 
WingZero30 said:
I would actually say it is more like 3.2-3.4Ghz with 3.2Ghz being the average overclock. Anything above that is bonus really.

Many Q6600s between 3.4-3.6Ghz may well be Prime95 stable, but running IBT on custom and ensuring high GFlops will crash these overclocks.
Click to expand...

Meant more likely achievable, when compared to 3.6Ghz. Definetly 3.2-3.4Ghz is more the norm. The IBT fails are more cooling related though and the oc might be considered still 'technically' stable as nothing will ever get it that hot. Had a few golden chips do 3.8Ghz over the yrs and passed prime/IBT with no problems but the number is definetly countable on one hand.

ed79 said:
My (2nd hand) G0 Q6600 does 3GHz (333*9) at stock volts. That's on a Gigabyte G41 motherboard which apparently are bad at overclocking?
Click to expand...

No idea as i never used budget boards to clock them, but the few G41 i played with topped out at around 340MHz, did 333 just fine and most Q6600 would do 3GHz at or below stock vid all day. Just did the odd E4500 or E5xxx on them though, no quads.
 
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Mine will do 4.0GHz but with very scary volts :( 3.4-3.6Ghz seems to be the sweet spot with these chips regarding temps and volts.
 
4.0 :O. don't have the cojones to try that. seems like a touch and go kind of thing. well i'll see what i can get. fingers crossed for 3.6 still, even though the board is kind of budget...
 
PorkPieCat said:
thanks for replies! can't really tell what stepping it is yet. it's a hand-me-down that hasn't arrived in my hands yet. will it make a difference?

i was going to head for 3.6 anyway, nothing too drastic i hope :p

also my mobo is a GA-P43T-ES3G (rev. 1.3). supposedly it overclocks ok. (hope so anyway!)
Click to expand...

The cpu will either have Slacr (G0) or Sl9um (B3) stamped on it.
The G0 ones do overclock higher and use less voltage and produce less heat.
Saying that i have had a B3 at 3.3ghz before but on a P45 mobo with the NH-D14.

Max voltage is 1.5v and max temp is around 80.C

here is a thread, with settings for 3.2ghz with a Q6600 and your mobo.
http://forums.tweaktown.com/overclocking/39841-oc-help-q6600-ga-p43-es3g-mobo.html
 
Mine (G0 stepping) is happy at 3.5 but with hefty water cooling and 1.44v. I could probably get the volts down but have never had to worry about it given that I can cool it at those volts anyway.

It is a really great chip, but for me the newer motherboards offer enough new features to change.
 
that thread's also gonna come in really handy, thanks a lot j.col!

lol yeah director, my tentative plan is to change with the ivybridge release anyway. either an ivybridge or hopefully a reduced 2500k
 
I've run a 20 pass IBT on high, 4 different 3DMark runs (can post compare links if you like!), and played some Trackmania 2 (maniaplanet).

I'm pretty sure its stable ;)
 
I just bumped mine to 3GHz on stock volts with a P31 motherboard last week for the hell of it. I figured it was time to actually do something with it after finally sorting out the air flow in my case. That was simple, but I don't trust my motherboard with much further.
 
Ive got mine at 3.2ghz with arctic 7 pro, but it hits 75c underload. The vcore is low (under 1.3) idk if this is normal for a g0 vid1.225 chip?
 
Oh, my VID is 1.325, 55c under load.

Edit: Tuniq Tower 120 mind you, with a Xilence Red Wing at full inside it.
 
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