E6300 overclockers unite!

[aldamon]

Originally posted by: FreedomGUNDAM
any chance DS3 users can post their BIOS settings to help others out?

Here you all go:

Screen 1

Screen 2

Screen 3

Screen 4

Screen 5a

Screen 5b

Results

 

[jgigz]

Do you think you can get successful overclock to 3gh on an asus p5b (not deluxe)? And are youguys hitting 3.0 and 3.1 on stock HSF?

 

[Alphafox78]

wow, thats a high FSB!! Glad im getting a 6600

 

[aldamon]

Originally posted by: Alphafox78
wow, thats a high FSB!! Glad im getting a 6600

From what I've read so far, having the higher FSB and RAM speeds helps close the 0 - 10% clock-per-clock performance difference between the 2MB and 4MB chips:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1628480&postcount=17

 

[Madellga]

Aldamon,

Thanks for the tips. Based on that, I have suceeded now with my DQ6 also.
http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/8299/dq6pluse640032ghzvdim195bli0.jpg

Using the DQ6 bios from this thread:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=109719&highlight

I downloaded the F3E from this link provided there:
http://rapidshare.de/files/27992450/965PDQ6.F3E.html

The memory I'm using is this one, 2GB OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 Platinum Revision 2
http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/m.../ocz_ddr2_pc2_6400_platinum_revision_2

It was 10% more expensive than the cheap 667 available here (which was not on stock).

I'm now able to Prime95 for 8 hours, using the following hardware/setup:

Gigabyte 965-DQ6 bios F3E / C2D E6400 3.2GHZ@1.37V (8x400) / Thermalright SI-128 / 2GB OCZ Platinum DDR2 800 4-4-4 @1.95V / EVGA 7950GX2 / Audigy 2 ZS / 2x250 GB Seagate SATA / Nec DVDRW 3540 / Enermax Liberty 620W / Antec P160

I learned since yesterday that high VDim (2V or higher) does not help - it was crashing soon. After going with just 1.95V, the system is now stable (8 hours on Prime95).

I will start now trying going up the FSB a bit and see if the mainboard/ram can handle it. I will try also lower CPU Overv and lower VDim.

The second huge difference was going from an Artic Freezer 7 to a Thermalright SI-128. Not only the CPU is 10C cooler, but it also helps with the Northbridge and Power regulators cooling. Best thing, very easy to install (NO TOOLS!!) and no need to take that idiot crazy bracket.

My target was 3.2GHz, so I'm pretty happy about it.

My bios settings are just like yours, just the MIT screen is a bit different:
CPU Rate 8x
CPU Host ENABLED
CPU HOST FREQ 400
PCI-E 100
CIA2 DISABLED
DRAM TIMING MANUAL
CAS 4
RAS TO CAS 4
RAS PRE 4
TRAS 15
ACT ACT DEL AUTO
RANK WRITE AUTO
WRITE TO PREC AUTO
REFRESH TO ACT 0
READ to PRE AUTO
MEMORY PERF NORMAL
DIMM OVERV +0.15V
PCI-E OVERV NORMAL
GMCh OVERV NORMAL
FSB OVERV NORMAL
CPU OVERV 1.375V

I will post some screenshots later today.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Originally posted by: Madellga
Aldamon,

Thanks for the tips. Based on that, I have suceeded now with my DQ6 also....

....I will post some screenshots later today.

Nice. Can you feel any speed difference between your new setup and the old Opty one?

 

[Madellga]

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy

Originally posted by: Madellga
Aldamon,

Thanks for the tips. Based on that, I have suceeded now with my DQ6 also....

....I will post some screenshots later today.

Nice. Can you feel any speed difference between your new setup and the old Opty one?

Up to now, I have only set the system and tested for stability. I will now start to play with it.

This is subjective, but I feel that the system is a bit more responsive.

 

[aldamon]

Originally posted by: MadellgaI'm now able to Prime95 for 8 hours, using the following hardware/setup:

Congrats!

Thanks for taking the time to run dual-Prime for 8 hours. I think a lot of the overclocks we're seeing out there are BS "stable."

 

[Madellga]

Originally posted by: aldamon

Originally posted by: MadellgaI'm now able to Prime95 for 8 hours, using the following hardware/setup:

Congrats!

Thanks for taking the time to run dual-Prime for 8 hours. I think a lot of the overclocks we're seeing out there are BS "stable."

Thanks ! Prime95 is a must for me. It ensures the computer will run stable no matter what. Of course it takes time, as each change takes hours to test. I normally leave it on overnight - once I have a setup that seems to work.

I agree it is very difficult in the beginning, when you don't know what your machine can do. I did in the first 2 days tons of reboot, just to load 2 sessions of Prime and fail within seconds. But once you find some bondaries, it gets easier.

SuperPi is pratical and faster, but does not mean stable. This might be the reason why my O/C with the A64 and Opt was lower than "expected" - I could boot higher O/C with them and run Windows, but they were not Prime95 stable. Perhaps most people are happy with SuperPi and call it a day.

A new machine takes normally a week for me to set up properly (my 2 last were DFI based). This one took 3 days.

I had an extra run of Prime95 - 9 hours, also stable. I am now running the FSB at 425 with the CPU clocked lower, trying to learn the limit for the motherboard and memory. I will work on the CPU later.

I will keep posting the news....

 

[Madellga]

I can post at 425 and 450 FSB with lower multis, Prime for sometime. But I can't get past 3.2GHz.

It seems 8x400 is the sweet spot for me: tight timings, low Vdim/VCore.

 

[MrX8503]

I agree with the BS stable OC's.

People need to run Double Prime for 8hrs+ for it to be a legit OC.

 

[MaskedAvenger]

DS3
2 gigs of OCZ 6400 Platinum
430 FSB
No change to core voltage, but I am using +.3 DIMM voltage just to be safe.
Using the latest Aug 11 bios (#4).

Running Folding @ Home on both CPU's.

What are other peoples temps @ 100% utilization?
It's about 84 degrees F in my office, and the CPU temp is around 58 degrees C with an open case. I'm using a Scythe Ninja 6+ with their stock 1300rpm fan.

Also, does anyone else get strange fan speed readings from their DS3 when using SpeedFan 4.29?

 

[Kougar]

Aldamon, I owe you a big cold :beer: right now... my success started with your photos! That "100" setting in the Host clock option was throwing me big time.

Current specs:

Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86ghz @ 3.33ghz w/ Zalman CNPS7700-Cu @ 1.356v
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 Motherboard w/ F4e BIOS
2 x 1Gb Corsair DDR2-800 RAM @ 952mhz 5-5-5-15 @ 2v
ATI 7000 PCI Graphics Card @ Molasses
Antec NeoHE 550watt PSU / Antec P180-B Case
MCH Overvoltage @ STOCK
FSB Overvoltage @ STOCK

I can run 486FSB stable, boot into 501FSB with one stable core, and probably go even higher if I change to water cooling and am willing to use 1.4vCore.

When computing RAM Voltages, RAM Overvoltage @ STOCK =s 1.8v, so you would need to set RAM Overvoltage @ "+0.2" to reach 2v. I lucked out completely with my choice of memory here

Masked Avenger, I am also running two F@H clients 24/7 on mine. Screenie: http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/8466/fh815iy6.jpg As ya can see temps are 41-44c, maybe a notch higher if the room gets warm. Room temp is about 72-74F here.

One of the first things I did was disable the BIOS fan control, it's great for silent systems but I put cooling performance higher. If you are using the motherboard's two jumpers and have this enabled, you will see a difference turning it off!

Speedfan 4.29 is giving very wonky info. Both fan speed indicators are completely aburd, as I know my Zalman 7700Cu 120mm fan has a max rotation of 2,000rpm, yet if you look at the screenie... I didn't think to see what the BIOS was saying though, will have to do that.

Does Speedfan also show wonky voltages for your +12v rail? I'm wondering if that is the program, the motherboard, or just the fact my PSU has not one but three +12v rails... At idle, speedfan shows +12v 0.00, at full load with dual Primes it will read up to 5.00. For just F@H it is about what it says in the screenie. I won't even try to figure out the -12v rail's reading..

Edit: I'll add that the 2mb Allendales are OCing circles around the 4mb Conroes, go figure! Also, once my chip hits 58c one of the two cores will go unstable and instantly kill Prime95... but before that point it is rock stable. It is not the voltages, but the temps that control OCs with the Core 2 Duo, for the CPU itself and the rest of the system.

 

[rflynn74]

this needs a bump

 

[platbr]

OK -- I'm not having this good of luck with an Abit AB9. I'm hitting 2.331 GHz with a FSB of 333 MHz. Still tight timings on my DDR2-667 RAM 3-3-3-15, but I'd like to go faster. I got a boot into windows at 350 FSB, but very unstable. I even bumped voltages to 1.4v CPU and 2.2v RAM, which helped enough to get me to boot, but not much more. So my "rock-solid" specs at this point are a little slower: 333 MHz FSB, 2.331 Ghz processor, running at stock voltages ram & cpu. In any other world it would be killer... but with these awesome overclocks (i.e. 500+ FSB) it seems slow. My SuperPI 1M is 24.6 secs.

I will add that those temps seem high. With the Zalman 9500 I'm running about 28c-32c when idle, and I never exceed 40c or 41c even under full load. 58c is -- I suppose -- well within the range, but it does seem high.

PS -- perhaps if I'd bought a DS3 I'd be hitting higher temps at faster FSB speeds, too!

 

[mrEvil]

Got it running (currently) on a DS3 with the OCZ-6400 RAM and sitting at ~2.6 on air. Not going to push it any further at this time due to the location of the machine. May push it more once I move it to the basement, after it is finished. I'll give the 100% stable at 2.5 since it ran prime for almost 20 hours before I hooked it up to the Internet to update it. Bumped it up to ~2.6 tonight, but have shut it off since there are some nice thunderstorms in the area. No need to even chance the new toy with that around.

All of the voltages were stock, except for the Ram, which I bumped up +0.1 just due to what I have read. I believe that the Ram was running around 892Mhz, but I'll double check that tomorrow or Friday when I get a chance to get back to the machine again.

 

[kmmatney]

Originally posted by: MrX8503
I agree with the BS stable OC's.

People need to run Double Prime for 8hrs+ for it to be a legit OC.

My system was able to run Prime95 8 hours at 2.4 GHz, but I had to lower my overclock to 2.3 GHz for Oblivion to run stable. For me, Oblivion was a much better test than Prime95. It could be a video card related issue, but lowering my FSB so that my cpu was only at 2.3 GHz made Oblivion run rock solid, with nothing else changed. It would crash every 30-90 minutes at 2.4 Ghz. I now use software to overclock, so I don't have to reboot to change speeds.

Anyway, those overclocks look sweet. The Gigabyte board looks to be he best value for non-SLI users. From what I've seen around the web, its best to keep the cpu voltage low as possible, as the cores will overheat faster at higher voltages, unless you have an awesome cooler.

 

[Kougar]

Platbr, are you running a 1:1 memory ratio? That seems to really help OCing no matter what 965P board is used. If you haven't tried it I'd suggest locking it at 1:1 and loosening the RAM a good bit, and seeing if that helps.

Kmmatney, yer definitely right about keeping voltages down, more than a few people are bumping them way up, especially for the MCH or FSB when none is needed. I can reach a 3.6ghz OC now, but I OC safe enough so that I can still expect my machine to be around in three years! Only thing holding it/me back from going furtheris heat. I can't take it and am looking around for watercooling although I absolutely bought the wrong case for it...

I found some program that reads the internal die temp sensors for "Core" processors, and while the motherboard temp diode reports a 41-45c temp, the internal cores themselves are both hovering exactly 57-60c with dual 24/7 folding. I'm not sure if I wanted to know that... I've read that the latest update to Everest Ultimate can also let you read both internal die temp sensors.

I have tried Gigabytes Easytune software... Infact, I tried the EasyTune software that came with my driver CD and it would error when I attempted to run it. So I downloaded EasyTune4, then EasyTune5, and then some EasyTune5 beta from their website and all three of these would refuse to run!! Since I am on the topic... the only version of @BIOS that allowed me to BIOS flash the DS3 was the one included on the CD, neither version DLed off their website would allow it. I'm still looking for anyone else that has had issues with XpressRecovery2 killing RAID arrays, but considering my track record with Gigabyte software it might just be me? :wine:

 

[platbr]

Originally posted by: Kougar
Platbr, are you running a 1:1 memory ratio? That seems to really help OCing no matter what 965P board is used. If you haven't tried it I'd suggest locking it at 1:1 and loosening the RAM a good bit, and seeing if that helps.

Great idea -- I think you're onto something here. My timings are like 3:3:3:15 and the current bios doesn't seem to have an adjustment to loosen them. But good news -- Abit has released a new bios today which supposedly allows you to loosen the timings. I'm running at 1:1 (always have been). I tried 4:5 and 2:3 when I was running at 266 MHz FSB, but ever since starting to overclock I've left it at 1:1.

 

[Kougar]

3-3-3-15 with Value Select RAM? That'd be your problem right there. And you have already OCed beyond your RAM's 667mhz specs, infact I would say those timings may not even be correct.

 

[dasmokedog]

Well I am at 500MHz FSB @ 3.5GHz stable for 2 days now.

Check out my results (Page is aboout 1meg in size)
http://smokedog.org/500MHz/oc.html

 

[dasmokedog]

Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86GHz 2Meg L2 Cache
------------------------------------------------------
CPU-Z:
3499.98MHz http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc?id=112855

SuperPI:
1M: 00m 16.593s Checksum: 5EC49D70
http://www.rigshowcase.com/img/3463TEjR/6133.jpg
8M: 03m 10.812s Checksum: A1A08EA2
http://www.rigshowcase.com/img/3463TEjR/6134.jpg

Sandra:
Dhrystone: 32268 MIPS -->AMD FX2-62(20225 MIPS)
Whetstone: 22206 MFLOPS -->AMD FX2-62(17084 MFLOPS)
http://www.rigshowcase.com/img/3463TEjR/6129.jpg

Integer x8 iSSE4: 193522 it/s -->AMD FX2-62(52653 it/s)
Floating-Point x4 iSSE2: 104339 it/s -->AMD FX2-62(56980 it/s)
http://www.rigshowcase.com/img/3463TEjR/6130.jpg

RAM Bandwidth Int Buff'd iSSE2: 7982 MB/s
RAM Bandwidth Float Buff'd iSSE2: 7961 MB/s
http://www.rigshowcase.com/img/3463TEjR/6132.jpg

Check out the Cache test!!
http://www.rigshowcase.com/img/3463TEjR/6131.jpg

BIOS Settings:
http://www.rigshowcase.com/img/3463TEjR/6135.jpg
http://www.rigshowcase.com/img/3463TEjR/6136.jpg
http://www.rigshowcase.com/img/3463TEjR/6137.jpg

Gutz:
http://www.rigshowcase.com/img/3463TEjR/6138.jpg
http://www.rigshowcase.com/img/3463TEjR/6139.jpg
http://www.rigshowcase.com/img/3463TEjR/6140.jpg
http://www.rigshowcase.com/img/3463TEjR/6141.jpg
http://www.rigshowcase.com/img/3463TEjR/6142.jpg
http://www.rigshowcase.com/img/3463TEjR/6143.jpg