Q6600 Setup - Anticipate problems?

allydm · 4 Feb 2008 at 03:51

Hi all.

I'm thinking of purchasing these parts:

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz - OEM
Asus P5N-D nForce 750i SLi
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz SLI-Ready Edition Dual Channel DDR2

Coolermaster CM-690 Dominator - Black

Akasa AK FC-06BK Fan Controller Junior
Arctic Cooling Arctic Fan 12025PWM 120mm
Arctic Cooling Arctic Fan 12025PWM 120mm
Tuniq Tower 120-LFB CPU Cooler

Obviously those arn't all the parts, just the ones I belived to be important to this thread.

Basically, I wanted to know if I should anticipate any problems when overclocking the Q6600? Is the cooling with the CPU fan and Case/Fans enough to allow me to overclock the Q6600 to 3ghz safely, with very respectable temperatures?

Also, any feedback on my choice of components is welcome. Although if you want to suggest other MB's (which I welcome), please keep in mind that I'm having a dual GeForce 8800 GT 256MB setup, so require SLI.

Looking forward to your help / feedback

k3v1n · 4 Feb 2008 at 03:59

If your worried about temperatures then maybe investing in the Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme may be the way to go.

PCZ · 4 Feb 2008 at 05:10

allydm

You might be kicking yourself further down the road because you didn't go for a 780i chipset.
Reason i say this is that inevitably you will want to upgrade the VC's.

The 750i will serve you well with the GTs but there is only one 16x slot on the 750i based MB's and faster cards won't be happy running in an 8x slot.

If at all possible look at getting a 780i based MB.
There a bit dearer and harder to source at the moment though.
The Voltage Regulators will be be beefier as well, more suited to running Quads.

The tuniq 120 will be fine at 3 ghz
I use them with quads running up to 3.6ghz crunching numbers 24/7

The thermalite is a bit better but it might require lapping, they have a rep for not being flat.

WJA96 · 4 Feb 2008 at 05:26

You don't need the fan controller with those PWM fans - they will work properly off the motherboard headers, assuming you have enough motherboard headers.

The SLi RAM only works in SLi mode with the automatic (up to 15%) overclocking, so that feature's never going to be used.

There is very little information available about overclocking quads on these boards. have you consiered going for a known-quantity P35 board and either a dual 3850 card or an X38 board and a pair of ATI cards in Crossfire?

allydm · 4 Feb 2008 at 15:05

Thanks for all your replies

k3v1n - That has much better reviews than the one that I originally found, and for the few extra £££ I'll deffinatly switch to that - thanks!

PCZ - I'd love to get a 780i board, but the only problem is that they're way over my price range. I was only hoping to spend £130 - £150 on a MB. I imagine i'll be keeping my 8800GT's for a good few years, so I'm not too worried about the 780i as I will have gotten my money out of my 750 by the time the switchover comes

WJA96 - So if I took out one of the 8800GT SLi cards, the memory wouldn't work properly? Sorry I didn't quite understand:

The SLi RAM only works in SLi mode with the automatic (up to 15%) overclocking

I had looked at the P35 boards, but i'd prefer to use Nivdea's 8800GT's, rather than ATi's 3850. I've only ever had problems with ATi, and i've looked at benchmark tests, in CustomPC and TomsHardware and the 8800GT always noticably outperforms the 3850.

PikKOn · 4 Feb 2008 at 15:32

Surely if the Thermalright has a bumpy surface the retailer would take it back and replace it? I was personally going for a Thermalright from OcUK but I thought they would swap it if this was the case, i.e. a bumpy surface was found?

Thermalright is indeed very good but I am curious on how well the Scythe FULL Copper contends with it?

Mike2098 · 9 Apr 2008 at 20:27

Same board and Q6600

I will be getting this board and Pro Q6600 2.40GHz "Guaranteed to run at 3.00GHZ" on Sat I have 4GB of Crorsair 6400 c4, with a Ninja Synth cooler in an ANTEC P-180B case, WD Raptor X 150GB 10000RPM SATA 16MB and have also ordered XFX GeForce 8800 GTX Extreme 768MB GDDR3.

to replace E6600 @ 3G and Nvidia 7950 X2 1Gb

I will let you know what temps are like using the Ninja with and without Fan

Update decided to get the Asus P5N-T Deluxe nForce 780i instead and ordered Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-8500C5 TwinX

spb251272 · 9 Apr 2008 at 22:02

Have you already bought the graphics cards, because if not, don't get the 256mb versions - get the 512's. Even better, just get a p35/x38 motherboard and get a 9800gx2. The nvidia motherboards aren't as good at overclocking the quads as the intel motherboards, which is why I switched from a 680i to a p5k premium when i bought my q6600.

ShaoliN.uK · 21 Apr 2008 at 11:01

PCZ said:
allydm

You might be kicking yourself further down the road because you didn't go for a 780i chipset.
Reason i say this is that inevitably you will want to upgrade the VC's.

The 750i will serve you well with the GTs but there is only one 16x slot on the 750i based MB's and faster cards won't be happy running in an 8x slot.

If at all possible look at getting a 780i based MB.
There a bit dearer and harder to source at the moment though.
The Voltage Regulators will be be beefier as well, more suited to running Quads.

The tuniq 120 will be fine at 3 ghz
I use them with quads running up to 3.6ghz crunching numbers 24/7

The thermalite is a bit better but it might require lapping, they have a rep for not being flat.

Asus P5N-D 750i = - 2 x PCIe 2.0 x16

stannous · 21 Apr 2008 at 22:02

Hi,this board is good for 3Ghz with a q6600,but get much above 3.3 and the CPU power circuitry really starts to struggle,i've now got a couple of singing capacitors to prove it.