What would you consider a safe voltage for a Q6600?

Chuggerboom

Chuggerboom

Chuggerboom

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Ok guys i'm new on here and need a bit of help. I have overclocked my Q6600 to 3.0Ghz but i'm not sure if i should push it higher as it has a high vid of 1.325.

At the moment it's taking 1.39v to get it to run at 3.0Ghz stable. Do you think i should go higher to achieve 3.2Ghz?

Any help would be appreciated. My system is as follows:

Q6600 GO 1.325 vid
Asrock P45 XE
Crucial Ballistix Tracer 4GB
Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 7
Samsung Spinpoint F1 750GB
Corsair HX 620
Zotac 8800GT Amp
2 Asus DVD Burners
Coolermaster Elite Case
Windows 7 Ultimate 64
 
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I am surprised that you need 1.39V( I am assuming it is bios vcore) to run at 3GHz. In my experience the 65nm Core 2 Duo E6600 and Core 2 Quad Q6600 can easily reach 3GHz on stock voltage (VID) may be with 2 or 3 more notch on vcore.
My previous E6600 also had VID of 1.3250v and I managed to run it prime95 stable at 3GHz on that VID value. For 3.2GHz I needed 1.36875v in bios for prime stable (small FFTs stress test) and for Intel Burn test (IBT) it needed 2-3 notches more of vcore to 1.3875v for stability as IBT stresses your cpu more than prime.


My Q6600 G0 has VID of 1.2625v and I can reach 3GHz again on the stock voltage of 1.2625v. For 3.4GHz I need 1.4250v in bios, cpu-z idle shows 1.376v (vdrop effect) and load value goes to 1.312v ( vdroop effect) which is still pretty good for such a high overclock.
Remember it is the cpu-z/Hwmonitor core voltage values that you are interested in as they show the correct voltage your cpu is running at whether idle or load and not the bios voltage.

So for 3.4Ghz you can generally go easily up to 1.45v in bios but your cpu-z will show lower core voltages (actual consumed voltages).:)
 
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Also what is your ram stock speed and while overclocking did you keep your ram value at stock speed or lower. It is widely recommended that when overclocking cpu, you should keep the ram speed either at stock value or undervolt it to prevent it from interfering with cpu overclocking.

Also did you disable C1E and EIST in bios and changed the PCI-Express value to 100MHz?
 
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WingZero30 said:
I am surprised that you need 1.39V( I am assuming it is bios vcore) to run at 3GHz. In my experience the 65nm Core 2 Duo E6600 and Core 2 Quad Q6600 can easily reach 3GHz on stock voltage (VID) may be with 2 or 3 more notch on vcore.
My previous E6600 also had VID of 1.3250v and I managed to run it prime95 stable at 3GHz on that VID value. For 3.2GHz I needed 1.36875v in bios for prime stable (small FFTs stress test) and for Intel Burn test (IBT) it needed 2-3 notches more of vcore to 1.3875v for stability as IBT stresses your cpu more than prime.


My Q6600 G0 has VID of 1.2625v and I can reach 3GHz again on the stock voltage of 1.2625v. For 3.4GHz I need 1.4250v in bios, cpu-z idle shows 1.376v (vdrop effect) and load value goes to 1.312v ( vdroop effect) which is still petty good for such a high overclock.
Remember it is the cpu-z/Hwmonitor core voltage values that you are interested in as they show the correct voltage your cpu is running at whether idle or load and not the bios voltage.

So for 3.4Ghz you can generally go easily up to 1.45v in bios but your cpu-z will show lower core voltages (actual consumed voltages).:)
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Thanks for your reply. I have to set my voltage at 1.39 in bios to get stable at 3.0Ghz otherwise i get blue screens. I understand what you are saying about vdroop though. Although i have set it at 1.39 in bios it is actually lower because of the droop.

Just assume i set the voltage at 1.5 in bios? It would be actually lower than that because of the vdroop. Please correct me if i'm wrong.
 
I think it depends on the mobo. I run my Q6600 G0 at 3.2Ghz (400x8) at 1.525V in the bios, however, the actual voltage according to various programs is 1.395V (down to 1.3500V occasionally due to vdrop/droop). That era of Intel chips are durable as hell though, don't worry about going crazy with it! Do a google around, you will find very little proper results regarding fried Q6600's :) Prior to the Q6600, I ran a E6600 at 3.4Ghz @ 1.375v for nearly 4 years 24/7.
 
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WingZero30 said:
Also what is your ram stock speed and while overclocking did you keep your ram value at stock speed or lower. It is widely recommended that when overclocking cpu, you should keep the ram speed either at stock value or undervolt it to prevent it from interfering with cpu overclocking.

Also did you disable C1E and EIST in bios and changed the PCI-Express value to 100MHz?
Click to expand...

Ram is running at 800Mhz. I disabled EIST and C1E. PCI -Express is 100Mhz.
 
Chuggerboom said:
Thanks for your reply. I have to set my voltage at 1.39 in bios to get stable at 3.0Ghz otherwise i get blue screens. I understand what you are saying about vdroop though. Although i have set it at 1.39 in bios it is actually lower because of the droop.
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Since you have P45 chipset mobo, upping the vcore to 1.39v from 1.325v is strange indeed for 3.0Ghz from 2.4Ghz as P45 chipset is generally regarded as the best lga 775 northbridge chipset and for overclocking purposes. Hmm may be it's to do with your mobo plus each cpu is different.

Chuggerboom said:
Just assume i set the voltage at 1.5 in bios? It would be actually lower than that because of the vdroop. Please correct me if i'm wrong.
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Yup. That is correct:)
 
Neolink said:
I think it depends on the mobo. I run my Q6600 G0 at 3.2Ghz (400x8) at 1.525V in the bios, however, the actual voltage according to various programs is 1.395V (down to 1.3500V occasionally due to vdrop/droop). That era of Intel chips are durable as hell though, don't worry about going crazy with it! Do a google around, you will find very little proper results regarding fried Q6600's :)
Click to expand...

Cheers for your reply. I was just a bit wary of going too high in the bios. But what you guys have told me, it is what programs like CPU-Z tell you it is because of the droop. So in affect if i go up to 1.5v in bios it is actually lower in reality.
 
Hmm 1.368v is a nice value when your bios vcore is 1.39v. That means you don't experience high vdroop which is totally opposite in my case.

OP I would suggest leaving the vcore at 1.39v and just upping the clock speed to 3.2GHz and see if you are prime 95 stable (small FFts stress test)
 
WingZero30 said:
Hmm 1.368v is a nice value when your bios vcore is 1.39v. That means you don't experience high vdroop which is totally opposite in my case.

OP I would suggest leaving the vcore at 1.39v and just upping the clock speed to 3.2GHz and see if you are prime 95 stable (small FFts stress test)
Click to expand...

Ok i will try it. Just assume it won't have it will 1.45 in bios be ok for 24/7 use?
 
Chuggerboom said:
Ok i will try it. Just assume it won't have it will 1.45 in bios be ok for 24/7 use?
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Yeah it will be fine for 24/7 usage. But if you do decide to use 1.45v in bios for 3.2GHz , I would still suggest going down from 1.45v one notch at a time while you are stress testing until you find a value at which you get BSOD for 3.2GHz. Then just up the bios vcore by 2-3 notches and then you are set rock solid. Surely this will be time consuming but you may find that 1.45v is like a over volt for 3.2Ghz and is more useful for 3.4Ghz:).
 
WingZero30 said:
Yeah it will be fine for 24/7 usage. But if you do decide to use 1.45v in bios for 3.2GHz , I would still suggest going down from 1.45v one notch at a time while you are stress testing until you find a value at which you get BSOD for 3.2GHz. Then just up the bios vcore by 2-3 notches and then you are set rock solid. Surely this will be time consuming but you may find that 1.45v is like a over volt for 3.2Ghz and is more useful for 3.4Ghz:).
Click to expand...

Just upped it to 3.2Ghz in bios at 1.45v does this seem safe:

 
Yeah seems fine. Just run Prime95 small FFts test for 8 hours and if it passes then you are stable. Keep an eye on the coretemps and make sure they don't go above 70C ideally keeping at around 65c if possible.

Now you do seem to experience bigger vdroop. However as your cpu-z core voltage is still in 1.3xx range, I think it will be fine.
 
WingZero30 said:
Yeah seems fine. Just run Prime95 small FFts test for 8 hours and if it passes then you are stable. Keep an eye on the coretemps and make sure they don't go above 70C ideally keeping at around 65c if possible.

Now you do seem to experience bigger vdroop. However as your cpu-z core voltage is still in 1.3xx range, I think it will be fine.
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Thanks a lot for your help. I will try it at 3.2Ghz. I'm idling at 43 at the moment, is that too high?
 
I see you are using FSB 400MHz x 8(Multiplier) to get 3200MHz =3.2GHz. This will make your pc faster than if you were using FSB 356MHz x 9 (multiplier) = 3204MHz = 3.2GHz.
However you may find that 400MHz will be stressing your system more particularly the northbridge (MCH) or P45 chipset and this may result in you inputting more bios vcore and will generally make your pc hotter.

With fsb of 356MHz,your system will be slightly slower, but it will be cooler, requiring less volts and giving more overclock headroom in the future if you decided to go to 3.4Ghz:).
 
Chuggerboom said:
Thanks a lot for your help. I will try it at 3.2Ghz. I'm idling at 43 at the moment, is that too high?
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Yeah seems a little high. I think this is probably more to do with your FSB at 400MHZ as I mentioned in my previous post. I would suggest fsb of 356MHz and you should notice a drop in your temps. This would also be more stable than using 400MHz:).
 
WingZero30 said:
I see you are using FSB 400MHz x 8(Multiplier) to get 3200MHz =3.2GHz. This will make your pc faster than if you were using FSB 356MHz x 9 (multiplier) = 3204MHz = 3.2GHz.
However you may find that 400MHz will be stressing your system more particularly the northbridge (MCH) or P45 chipset and this may result in you inputting more bios vcore and will generally make your pc hotter.

With fsb of 356MHz,your system will be slightly slower, but it will be cooler, requiring less volts and giving more overclock headroom in the future if you decided to go to 3.4Ghz:).
Click to expand...

Am i best doing 356Mhz x9?
 
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