Just what the heck is E6600's stock voltage?!

[DJ Mike]

I've come across a most strange situation.

I have an Asus P5W DH mobo, with a Core 2 Duo E6600 processor - for HSF I have a Scythe Ninja.

Now, I'm sure I haven't fitted the Ninja as well as I could (which I'll be refitting soon with AS5 paste) - so I'm not going nuts on overclocking right now, to keep temperatures down - thus I've opted to overclock to a 300FSB which gives 2.7Ghz (300x9).

Up until now I'd been running the CPU with the BIOS VCore setting to "Auto" - which comes out as 1.325V in CPU-Z for the most part.

Then I started seeing various screenshots of E6600 in CPU-Z with a much lower VCore (as little as 1.18V) - so I decided to undervolt the processor to the lowest possible setting, which in the P5W's BIOS is 1.225V.

To my astonishment it seems to work absolutely fine! I've got 2xCPU Burn running as I write this - CPU core temperature is much lower (by at least 6-7C!!) - and since Intel rates the max Voltage on this CPU as 1.35V I'd far sooner keep as clear of it as possible.

Which begs the question of just what the heck is Conroe's optimum voltage for default FSB, or even with minor overclocking as I've done - or why does the P5W DH default to such a high voltage?

I'll admit I'm rather new to the overclocking world - I've built PCs before but I've tended to stay clear of OCing - but now with the fact that I can undervolt my (albeit minorly) overclocked CPU and still have stable operation, I'm rather curious now

Any thoughts?

 

[phile]

I performed the same experiment, and my E6600/P5W DH is dual prime stable at 1.225v and stock FSB. My CPU temp reading from the mobo diode dropped by 6C, while both my cores dropped a good 10C. On the other end of the spectrum, I needed 1.35v to get the E6600/P5W DH dual prime stable at 333 FSB (3 GHz).

-phil

 

[Baked]

CPU-Z is not a dependable source for Vcore reading, it fluctuates too much. Get SpeedFan and try again.

 

[DJ Mike]

CPU-Z reports the exact same kind of fluctuations as the VCore reading built into the BIOS, so I fail to see where CPU-Z is going wrong when it simply looks at the same reading. I haven't found SpeedFan to be at all reliable both at reporting and even working properly.

 

[Baked]

It appears you know the answers to your own questions already, why bother asking.

 

[DJ Mike]

My questions were regarding the core voltages people are setting for this processor, since I'm curious that the Asus BIOS seems to set quite a high default voltage. Regardless of whether CPU-Z, SpeedFan or any other program is reporting the voltage, the default voltage the Asus board sets is very close to Intel's recommended maximum, and I just wanted to see who else might be seeing the same thing with their setups.

Your comments are entirely unhelpful, and frankly if you don't have anything useful to add, why bother responding?