I will be overclocking my E6600 soon and want at least 3.0ghz. I do have an aftermarket cooling solution. I have an EVGA 122-CK-NF63-TR 680i mobo (which is built for C2D overclocking), Crucial Ballistix DDR2-1000 ram, and an Antec 550W PSU. I am cooling with air, but have ducted my case & installed high power fans for maximum airflow. I am new to overclocking and never done it, but have done 20+ hours of research (while at work hehe) Make sure I have this right: Increase voltage of the CPU to 1.4v Increase FSB to 333 for 3ghz CPU speed. Increase voltage of ram to 2.2v Change ram timings to 4-4-4-12 My knowledge on how the FSB affects DDR2 ram is a bit hazy. A FSB of 333 should make my ram run at 667mhz, and overclocking the ram faster than the FSB doesn't bring any performance gain, right? If anyone has tried lowering the CPU multiplier to 8x with higher FSB speeds (400-450), is that stable, whats your voltage, and would it run cool (enough) on air. I dont want to try anything over 1.4-1.45v Did I miss anything?
You got it all just about right, good research . But 3.0GHz can be reached with the stock 1.35Vcore. And RAM to 2.2V, is pretty much different for each RAM. My OCZ goes up to 2.1V, when GEIL's can even get 2.3V. But like i said again, you might want to leave it on auto. As it doesn't have to go up alot for that overclock.
Well first off you can unlink the fsb and memory on the 680i chipset boards. It's one nice feature that the Intel chipsets can't do. Secondly, I'm not sure as to how stable running 450mhz on the fsb would be stable on the 680i, from what I understand they just can't clock as high as the 965p chipsets, which are know to do 500+ fsb with ease. The one thing I'll ask and I'm not sure, but I'm curious as to if the fsb strap is taken into effect on Nvidia chipsets, or is it only on Intel chipsets? If it does indeed apply to the Nvidia ones, you may be running into a chipset limitation with clocking your fsb so high on a lower multiplier as it OC's the chipset more. Again I know this runs true on intel based boards, and I'm not certain on the Nvidia. All in all, drop that multi, and crank up the fsb!!! Thats the only true way to find out. :approval:
Overclocking will vary from machine to machine. I will say this though, the new batch of C2Ds are not clocking as high as they were when they were first released. So while some may say that 3Ghz is "easy" it might not be the case. This will depend greatly on the CPU itself, so you will have to test it and see what yours will be capable of. But even having said that, I have never seen a C2D not do 3Ghz, just some of the newer ones will require more voltage. Your 333Mhz FSB for 3Ghz is correct. However your assumption of running your memory at a higher speed than your FSB brings no improvement, is incorrect. If your memory is able to run high enough speeds to overcome the penalty of running asynchronously with your FSB, you will see gains in performance. For instance at stock FSB speeds of 266Mhz PC 4200 533Mhz RAM actually nets you higher benchmarks than PC 5400 667Mhz because the PC 4200 RAM is running 1:1 with your FSB. However, with PC6400 800Mhz RAM, you will see a gain in performance over the PC 4200, even though the PC 4200 is running at the optimal 1:1 ratio, the 800Mhz RAM is fast enough to overcome the penalty of being out of sync. Understand? Yes you can run your CPU on a lower multiplier and achieve higher FSB speeds and keep a 1:1 ratio with your RAM. Tough this then brings the motherboard into the equation as to weather or not it will be able to run the FSB speeds you are looking for. Not all boards are created equal, and the board you have selected is a low end 680i board. Though it should still be able to do 400Mhz or so FSB at about 1.6v MCP (chipset voltage)
dont forget massive vdroop at load,actual volts may be lower at load than settings. 1.6 is really 1.55 and set 1.55 is 1.51 dmm and like said linked a synced keeps me in 1-1 for best proformance out of the 680i chipsets.try to run fastest timings you can at the fsb limit of m/b or cpu 385x9 might be fine 24/7 it is for me,on the same m/b .runs fine for the savings over the 220$ one. you never know that newer e66 might surprize you.
thank you for the helpful posts guys, I really appreciate it! I am now at 3ghz with 1.35v (1.288v load), I've been running Prime95 for 12 hours with max temp at 51c. seems pretty stable. 146 average fps in Fear with everything at max settings. I've never had a system this fast before, I LOVE IT!! Cowie, what is your cpu voltage at for 385 FSB? I think i will try what you did and leave the ram linked with the FSB and lower my timings more. Currently I am running it unlinked with the ram at 1000mhz 4-4-4-12. I will try 3-3-3-9 linked, how do you think that will go? (Worst I can do is have to reset the CMOS, high voltage is what kills, as I understand it) I know my ram has a max voltage of 2.25v, anything more than that will kill it over time. Also, so far I have left the "Advanced Memory Timings" at default, as I don't know what those are. I am guessing I leave those at default? My ram is showing up in cpu-z as PC-6400 instead of 8000, and I KNOW that as far as what i ordered and how its marked it is pc-8000. Either they got me the wrong ram or it just shows up differently in cpu-z. Any insight into this? Phalanx, I wouldn't consider the board I have as low end, I just didn't see the need to have 3 PCI-E slots and 4 Ethernet ports. :O
My E6600 couldn't do 3 GHz at stock, it needed a raise to 1.3875 (1.336 in CPU-Z). I could really only get another 200 MHz out of it with a significant voltage increase, so I leave it at 3 GHz which is all I really wanted. You shouldn't need to raise DDR2 voltage, just get 667/800 and you'll be fine. Some chipsets base their timings off your ratio, rather than your actual speed, which is annoying, so I had to set mine manually to the correct DDR2-667 timings otherwise they ran at the 533 ones which were unstable.
You should run ORTHOS instead of Prime95. It's tests a bit more rigoriously and you also don't need to open 2 instances of it. It does it on it's own
As most of you know, overclocking is addictive I got 3.4ghz stable with 1.41.v, max temp 57c I seem to have 3.5ghz stable with 1.5v, max temp 60c I couldn't get 3.6ghz to run prime95 more than a few minutes w/out crashing, and increasing the voltage any higher got temps to 63-64c. So I think with my currently cooling solution (rosewill rcx-z775-sl), I cannot go any higher than 3.5ghz, assuming 60c is fine. To any of you with an overclocked E660 running at 60c, have you had any trouble? Has it ran for over 1 year and seem to going to last another 2 or so? If I kill this processor my wife will kill me update: disabled the "SmartFan" feature and my cpu fan is now spinning at 100%. 3.5ghz at 1.5v is now maxing at 53c. I think I have to play with it the FSB/vcore more update2: 3.6ghz 1.5375 vcore running at 59c max. I think I have a winner, as long as that seems safe enough to you all. ps. I have my FSB at 400 with the x9 multipler = 3.6ghz. I also have my ram linked and synced with the FSB running at 800mhz 3-3-3-9. I have it in my head that there is a large speed benefit to running the FSB and ram at the same speed.
Orthos is good. It reveals to me that my second core is the limiting factor, runs hotter and always has the error in Orthos. Just glad I made 3.0.
