Q6600 overclock .. maybe it can do a little bit more?

[daggermeerkat]

Ok .. Mad Scientist advised me to post this here, so hopefully some of you guys who ended up getting 3.6Ghz on this chip can help me out a little bit.

Have done my fair share of overclocking on this .. and here are the results. I have only played with the vcore and fsb .. everything else is either at stock or auto as per the screenshots. My VID is pretty bad @ 1.3V.

First overclock was 350 x 9 [3.15Ghz] .. didn't change anything, not even vcore and it was stable for over 6 hrs Small FFTs, Prime95. Temperatures at Load were 50 celcius.

Second stable overclock was 360 x 9 [3.24Ghz] .. had to change vcore to 1.35V for stability, over 6 hrs Small FFTs again. Temperatures at Load were 55 Celcius

Third stable overclock was 370 x 9 [3.33Ghz] .. vcore @ 1.39V - again stable for over 6 hrs. Temperatures @ Load 58-59 Celcius.

Tried 380 x 9 [3.42Ghz] and gradually pushed voltage upto 1.45V .. but it just refuses to play nice. One thread always dies in the Small FFTs test, while the other three keep on churning.

What's going on? Are there other values I need to change once this starts happening?

FSB Screenshot
Vcore Screenshot

EDIT: Screenshots are for my stable overclock @ 3.33Ghz

 

[Tweakin]

It is what it is...YMMV and not every chip is a firebreather. 3.0 and above is a good OC on this chip.

 

[Scottae]

around that FSB you may need to bump up the NB voltage... and play with the GTL settings in you bios if an option.

 

[bryanW1995]

what is your cpu vtt, mch, ichio, and ich? also, what do you have cpu gtlref set at?

 

[Gillbot]

mine went in at 3.0 on stock volts ~1.3 and I had no issues up until I tried for 4GHZ. After that my whole system fell apart and I gave up. Mine is fairly stable at 3.2-3.4 but since my system is down I can't mess with it anymore.

 

[EvilSponge]

Water cooling for 3.6ghz and above

 

[daggermeerkat]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
what is your cpu vtt, mch, ichio, and ich? also, what do you have cpu gtlref set at?

I didn't change any of those settings at the lower bus speeds or at 380FSB. But I just noticed something. My Bios settings are as per the first screenshot and I got hardware monitor up and running, and the values are different @ my current 3.33Ghz stable overclock.

Here's a screenshot

Is this normal? HW Monitor screenshot is actually under Blend Prime95 Load.

What values should I change these to in the BIOS for 380FSB?

 

[bdubyah]

yeah, my VID is 1.3 as well, and 3.4 is the practical limit for me. took too many notches up in voltage to only go 200mhz. was right around 1.5 and my temps jumped up a good bit because of it, so i'm staying at 3.4

 

[Syzygies]

Originally posted by: daggermeerkat
Corsair 2x2GB XMS2 TWIN2X4096-6400C5DHX 4-4-4-12

I briefly had that memory, and RMA'd it thinking it was bad. This was my first "performance build" and it wasn't just connect-the-dots to plug everything in and have it work. You don't say how you're using this memory, 4-4-4-12 but what tRD, what voltage? I'm now using OCZ memory, but I found those sticks tricky. Or perhaps mine were in fact bad.

There's a note about tRFC over at the OCZ forum that was critical for me to get half my overclocks to work. 4 GB isn't the same game as 2 GB; there's a traffic jam on the MCH as you add memory:

The importance of tRFC and 4/8GB of memory

More generally, suicide runs e.g. 4 Ghz on liquid nitrogen tend to really dumb down the memory hardware. Conversely, one can rough out what the FSB, MCH, memory will support by dumbing down the cpu multiplier. Bringing it back up will increase traffic, but otherwise you know you aren't confusing a board/memory issue with cpu issues. You can do lots of stability tests running a stress test five minutes then rebooting, it sketches out a more liberal outline of what works than a 24 hour stress test, but it lets you learn your hardware's possibilities very quickly. Then go to more conservative settings within the outline of what you sketched, for a 24 hour trial.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: daggermeerkat

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
what is your cpu vtt, mch, ichio, and ich? also, what do you have cpu gtlref set at?

I didn't change any of those settings at the lower bus speeds or at 380FSB. But I just noticed something. My Bios settings are as per the first screenshot and I got hardware monitor up and running, and the values are different @ my current 3.33Ghz stable overclock.

Here's a screenshot

Is this normal? HW Monitor screenshot is actually under Blend Prime95 Load.

What values should I change these to in the BIOS for 380FSB?

you're putting extra stress on the nb (mch) with 4gb ram. try bumping up your mch to 1.37 and vtt to 1.27.

fyi, my 8x450 bios settings for my x3350 are 1.52 mch, 1.31 vtt, 1.09 ich, 1.65 ichio, and 70% gtlref, so you're not killing your mobo with 1.37 mch and 1.27 vtt.

good info on the trfc btw. I can't remember if there's a bios setting for that with the ip35 pro. if not, you can download memset and change it with that.

 

[daggermeerkat]

Right I will give the voltage increases a shot and then get back on results. Regarding the memory ... memset does show the tRfc set as 42. So I should set this to 54 instead? There is a BIOS option in the pro btw to change this.

 

[bryanW1995]

change it in bios. I'm glad to know it's there, I'll reset it there next time I reboot. I very rarely go to bios anymore, I just use memset and/or uguru. I almost never rebooted with my e6750, hopefully the same will be said of my x3350 and q9450

 

[Gillbot]

I'm not a fan of OCZ ram, My first setup had OCZ and it was a bear to get it running good at DDR400 (Stock) speeds let alone OCing it any.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Gillbot
I'm not a fan of OCZ ram, My first setup had OCZ and it was a bear to get it running good at DDR400 (Stock) speeds let alone OCing it any.

Huh? Years later, you refuse to buy a brand of RAM, because years earlier, you didn't like the IC that was used on the only set you ever owned?

 

[Gillbot]

Or months earlier.....

There is a thread here and at OCZ about it. I didn't have very good luck with it and their support wasn't very friendly at first so yeah, I will rule out their entire brand now.

 

[daggermeerkat]

Originally posted by: Syzygies

Originally posted by: daggermeerkat
Corsair 2x2GB XMS2 TWIN2X4096-6400C5DHX 4-4-4-12

I briefly had that memory, and RMA'd it thinking it was bad. This was my first "performance build" and it wasn't just connect-the-dots to plug everything in and have it work. You don't say how you're using this memory, 4-4-4-12 but what tRD, what voltage? I'm now using OCZ memory, but I found those sticks tricky. Or perhaps mine were in fact bad.

There's a note about tRFC over at the OCZ forum that was critical for me to get half my overclocks to work. 4 GB isn't the same game as 2 GB; there's a traffic jam on the MCH as you add memory:

The importance of tRFC and 4/8GB of memory

More generally, suicide runs e.g. 4 Ghz on liquid nitrogen tend to really dumb down the memory hardware. Conversely, one can rough out what the FSB, MCH, memory will support by dumbing down the cpu multiplier. Bringing it back up will increase traffic, but otherwise you know you aren't confusing a board/memory issue with cpu issues. You can do lots of stability tests running a stress test five minutes then rebooting, it sketches out a more liberal outline of what works than a 24 hour stress test, but it lets you learn your hardware's possibilities very quickly. Then go to more conservative settings within the outline of what you sketched, for a 24 hour trial.

Changed the trfc to 54 and running it at 1.9V .. Memtest+ stable overnight.

 

[Syzygies]

Originally posted by: daggermeerkat
Changed the trfc to 54 and running it at 1.9V .. Memtest+ stable overnight.

Yup, like the Corsair sticks, my OCZ sticks were sold to me as 2.1 V. After changing tFRC I too was stable at 1.9V. (1.8V and 1.85V worked, but wasn't 24/7 stable.) My give-and-take with OCZ on this was in the thread

Re: The importance of tRFC and 4/8GB of memory

I have another two sticks on order, with 8 GB I'll be starting again from scratch. Some say tRFC needs to go still higher...

 

[daggermeerkat]

Originally posted by: Syzygies

Originally posted by: daggermeerkat
Changed the trfc to 54 and running it at 1.9V .. Memtest+ stable overnight.

Yup, like the Corsair sticks, my OCZ sticks were sold to me as 2.1 V. After changing tFRC I too was stable at 1.9V. (1.8V and 1.85V worked, but wasn't 24/7 stable.) My give-and-take with OCZ on this was in the thread

Re: The importance of tRFC and 4/8GB of memory

I have another two sticks on order, with 8 GB I'll be starting again from scratch. Some say tRFC needs to go still higher...

Yeh .. but I was still stable at trFC at 42 initially at the same voltage. And I think the issue with trFC applies to speeds over 800Mhz? Am actually going to try increasing FSB and doing the voltage changes as bryan advised. Shall post back.

 

[Syzygies]

Originally posted by: daggermeerkat
And I think the issue with trFC applies to speeds over 800Mhz?

Why do you think this? Do you have a link? For me, 800 Mhz is what it first helped. Of course my higher memory speeds were at a lower FSB speed.

I always wonder if people have isolated variables when this sort of rule gets repeated, I've stopped believing anything I can't verify by experiment. E.g. in my trials there's no advantage to a 1:1 memory multiplier of 2, but there is a disadvantage to 2.4. This was regressing a bunch of trials.

 

[MadScientist]

You might pick up some useful tips from this thread over on the Abit forum. Link, or as Tweakin stated "It is what it is" and 3.33Ghz is as high as you can go on air cooling.

 

[Tweakin]

Originally posted by: Syzygies

Originally posted by: daggermeerkat
Changed the trfc to 54 and running it at 1.9V .. Memtest+ stable overnight.

Yup, like the Corsair sticks, my OCZ sticks were sold to me as 2.1 V. After changing tFRC I too was stable at 1.9V. (1.8V and 1.85V worked, but wasn't 24/7 stable.) My give-and-take with OCZ on this was in the thread

Re: The importance of tRFC and 4/8GB of memory

I have another two sticks on order, with 8 GB I'll be starting again from scratch. Some say tRFC needs to go still higher...

8GB is a killer to OC with...I used to be stable with 2 bumps of vcore to 3.45GHz and now I can't even reach 3.2. Serious problems in my camp.

 

[daggermeerkat]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995

you're putting extra stress on the nb (mch) with 4gb ram. try bumping up your mch to 1.37 and vtt to 1.27.

fyi, my 8x450 bios settings for my x3350 are 1.52 mch, 1.31 vtt, 1.09 ich, 1.65 ichio, and 70% gtlref, so you're not killing your mobo with 1.37 mch and 1.27 vtt.

good info on the trfc btw. I can't remember if there's a bios setting for that with the ip35 pro. if not, you can download memset and change it with that.

Ok .. did change these settings and at the same time set memory timings to SPD while keeping trfc to 54. Wasn't prime-stable with vdimm at 1.9V .. but is currently 2hrs+ prime stable with vdimm at 2.0V and vcore at 1.44V. Temperatures are at 63 load.

Might be able to push it higher but I think I have reached the feasible limits of overclocking on this motherboard on air? The temperatures and voltages definately seem to be pointing to this.

Just out of curiosity .. how much does a "decent" watercooling kit cost on average?

 

[daggermeerkat]

Right, I think I might have to go about getting better airflow in my case since I see drops of about 4-5 celcius when I remove the side panel. Thinking about replacing the side panel with this Akasa Side Panel and this Scythe Bay Drive

Does anybody have any of these?

 

[bryanW1995]

what are all of your voltage settings right now? also, what is your vcore in bios/in windows at idle/in windows at load? Are you using coretemp, realtemp, or speedfan for your temps; ie, what is your delta to tjunction?

 

[Syzygies]

Originally posted by: daggermeerkat
and this Scythe Bay Drive

By coincidence, I ordered the Scythe Kama Bay, then saw my intended use for it over at SPCR, in my case:

Extreme Gamer 22DBA PC by EndPCNoise

I also ordered 2 x Coolingworks Mini-CoolShroud for 120mm Fans, and I plan to get a length of 5" diameter acrylic pipe cut at Tap Plastics. The idea is to rig fans at each end of a smooth, round wind tunnel, to draw air in from the front of my P182, pass over my OCZ Reaper memory, then on through my push-pull TRUE cooler and out the rear case fan. A five fan straight shot. I'd noticed that at full load my cores run 5 C cooler with the case open, so it was time to try this. With lapping, I will have given air every possible chance.

Originally posted by: daggermeerkat
Just out of curiosity .. how much does a "decent" watercooling kit cost on average?

I'm also very interested in switching to water, and aigomorla gave me some great advice:

How many people are actually running Q66/700s at or above 3.6ghz?

Originally posted by: aigomorla
MCR320 + DDC-3.2 + XSPC Top + D-tek Fusion + 15 feet of 7/16ID" Masterkleer + 3 yates + swiftech radmount if you lack moding skills. does not = 500. More like somewhere near 290-320.

And yes this would stomp air.

Elsewhere he strongly advises against air cooling above 1.4 V. Surely, he's drunk the WC Kool-Aid, but this strikes me as good advice. I've seen too many reviews of mediocre water cooling rigs that a push-pull TRUE can trounce, one wants to get the WC rig right the first time. Thus my exchange with aigomorla, my dream shopping cart was $500. After studying his astute advice, (see Martin's Liquid Lab for supporting data), my revised cart I'm sleeping on is:

Swiftech MCR320-QP Quiet Power 3X120mm - Black
x2 DTek High Flow 1/4 BSPP to 1/2. ID Barb
Swiftech MCB-120 "Radbox" Radiator/Fan Housing
A.C.Ryan RadGrillz Stripes 3x120 Aluminium Black ACR-RG35296
x3 Scythe SFF21F 63 CFM S-FLEX 120mm Quiet Fans
Dtek FuZion Extreme Performance CPU Block, x2 Hi Flow Dtek 1/2 ID fittings
Fuzion Dtek Nozzle Kit
Swiftech MCRES-MICRO Reservoir - Retail w/Revised Mounting Kit (w/ fittings)
Laing DDC-3.2 (18W)/Swiftech MCP355 Inline 12V DC Pump
XSPC - Laing DDC Top
Petra'sTech "Gel-Stuff" Vibration Absorption Block
Tygon R3603 7/16in. ID 5/8in. OD Laboratory Tubing # AAC00033
Swiftech Coolsleeves 625 - Horizon UV Blue
Breeze Miniature Hose Clamps 7/16 in. to 25/32 in.
Petra'sTech "PT_Nuke" Concentrated Biocide (10mL)

which is no-compromise, still mildly indulgent, and $350 if one buys most items at SideWinder.