Overclocking a Core2 Quad Q6600

[smileypeters]

Hi there,

I'm new to overclocking and wondered how easy it would be to overclock my Intel Core2 Quad Q6600. (My system spec is in my profile)

How risky is it and what sort of advantages does it offer?

Many thanks

 

[The Howling Wolves]

Read this and decide.

Overclocking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[dskater411]

you did not list full specs in your profile, power supply, cpu heatsink/fan, and case will play a role.
the q6600 is an older quad core and runs pretty hot so you must make sure you have the necessary supporting equipment to do it safely. like the other poster said do some reading on it then google q6600 and overclock.

i have the q6600 as well and run at 3GHz no problems, the farthest most people take it is about 3.4, but that usually involves increasing cpu voltage, and sometimes causes instability, i only increased the frequency and havnt had any issues for 3 yrs now.

 

[The Howling Wolves]

If you look at my specs, I have a q6600 Quad.
I guess overclocking is not my cup of tea. I would probably screw things up for what little I would gain. IMO

 

[Wishmaster]

You should be able to get it to 3.0Ghz fairly easily. Alot will depend on the quality of the RAm too. You may need to try and keep it at 800Mhz or lower. (by underclocking the RAM before OCign the CPU)

But as reccomended, I too would certainly make sure good after market cooling was in place before attempting anything. Q6600s tend to run a bit hot, especially OC'd.

Do all your research before doing anything as well..
Some key things you MUST know before starting:
Min-MAX Voltage & TEMP Range Range of the CPU, RAM, MOBO chipset ETC

I enjoy Ocing personally, and still have a mild OC on my system today.

But, TBH, its really more of a hobby than anything. While there are some gains from it if done properly in some scenarios, overall not a huge ifference, especially in common daily tasks.
And you must keep in mind that youll reduce the lifespan of your hardware by pushing it harder and making it run hotter.

 

[chev65]

You can usually get 3.4-3.8Ghz from the Q6600, althogh that doesn't mean they are easy to overclock. It takes a substantial amout of time, endless hours of testing with a stablity program like Prime Blend, lots of patience and actual overclocking sills which you can't purchase. Not to mention you need to use a good CPU heat sink and improve case flow to keep temps down low as possible. It can be a real PITA no doubt but the rewards are there for the taking.

I can assure that the actual gains from overclocking are fairly substantial despite rumors to the contary, everything from opening web pages and programs to video editing, gaming and pretty much anything that uses substantial amounts of CPU power are noticably faster. The difference on my Q9650 at default 3GHz with memory at the standard 800Mhz overclocked to 4.05GHz with memory at 1200Mhz are very noticable indeed, night and day difference IMO. This only applies if your overclock is completely stable.

No doubt you take your chances with overclocking but the tolerences and limitations are well documented so it's easy to know how far you can safely push it. With your Q6600 65nm chip you can push the Vcore safely to 1.5v and cpu core temps to 72C,lower is better and stablity is the most important thing.

 

[blackroseMD1]

A lot of it depends on the stepping model you have as well. I had a Q6600 Stepping G0 which runs a lot cooler than the other stepping models. I was able to get it up to 3.2 stable, on air. However, as mentioned above, the other components of your computer play a huge part in how far you can OC, especially the RAM. Do some research before you start OCing, as you can severely damage your CPU and RAM if you do it wrong.

 

[sygnus21]

Getting past 3gig on that chip depends on a lot of things, motherboard, RAM, the chip itself, CPU cooler, BIOS.

So to say you can get to 3+ easy is saying you know exactly what the setup is and such setup is "proven" to give such a boost.

I'm not intending to bash or criticize anyone, I mention this because with my Q6600 (B3 Stepping) on an Intel D975XBX2 board with 4gig of Corsair's Dominator PC-8500 (1066MHz) RAM, at 3.0gig and above I would crash or the system was unstable.

While there are those that can get past 3gig, there were those that couldn't without issuse.

Just something to think about.

My two cents.

BTW I have my Q6600 at 2.9gig. Stable. In fact it's been running that way for nearly two years.

 

[chev65]

Correct you are Blackrose, the GO stepping versions are better. Using a good MOBO, Memory and proper use of dividers is another part of the puzzle. Faster memory will give you more options on which dividers you can use. Lots of reading, research and many hours of testing no doubt. Most noobs don't have a chance at getting it right so getting experienced help is important. Reading and asking questions at the forums for which ever motherboard is being used can help with voltage settings and which dividers to use.

 

[smileypeters]

OK that's quite a lot to take in, thanks so much everyone for their words of wisdom.

Here's some more information on my system, let me know if it would be useful to know anything else.

My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H.

My processor is G0 stepping as someone mentioned earlier.

My memory is two 2GB sticks of Corsair XMS2 CM2X2048-6400C5.

I have an Akasa AK-P040FG7 400W power supply.

I have an APLUS CS-CURBIC case with two 180mm fans and one 120mm.

 

[blackroseMD1]

OK that's quite a lot to take in, thanks so much everyone for their words of wisdom.

Here's some more information on my system, let me know if it would be useful to know anything else.

My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H.

My processor is G0 stepping as someone mentioned earlier.

My memory is two 2GB sticks of Corsair XMS2 CM2X2048-6400C5.

I have an Akasa AK-P040FG7 400W power supply.

I have an APLUS CS-CURBIC case with two 180mm fans and one 120mm.

That's a pretty good case with plenty of airflow. The fact that you have a G0 will definitely help as it does run cooler and can be OC'd a little higher. The mobo seems to be decent for overclocking and the fact that it has DualBIOS is great. That has saved my butt a time or two. I would recommend upgrading your PSU though...400W isn't much in this day and age, and the mobo only supports up to 1066 DDR2 after OCing...so you might want to think about looking for a little more solid RAM.

You have the beginnings of a good OC system, but it could use some improvements.

 

[sygnus21]

To me those specs are ok, but the RAM "might" be an issue. See my previous post.

As to the power supply... that could go either way. I lived with my Antec HE 550 watt without any issues... though it's a "550 watt" as opposed to a 400 watt.

You could try some some OC's then go from there. Maybe try 2.6/7 and see what happens.

You WILL want to get an aftermarket CPU cooler as the 6600's get hot, especially overclocked.

Good luck.

 

[smileypeters]

At the moment my temperatures are running as follows:

Sensor Properties:


Sensor Type ITE IT8718F (ISA 290h)


Motherboard Name Gigabyte EG41M / EG43M / EG45M Series


Chassis Intrusion Detected Yes

Temperatures:


Motherboard 40 °C (104 °F)


CPU 35 °C (95 °F)


CPU #1 / Core #1 39 °C (102 °F)


CPU #1 / Core #2 36 °C (97 °F)


CPU #1 / Core #3 34 °C (93 °F)


CPU #1 / Core #4 41 °C (106 °F)


Maxtor 6Y120M0 50 °C (122 °F)


Maxtor 6Y160M0 51 °C (124 °F)


MAXTOR STM3320820AS 47 °C (117 °F)


WDC WD6400AAKS-00A7B0 42 °C (108 °F)

Cooling Fans:


CPU 1642 RPM

Voltage Values:


CPU Core 1.26 V


+3.3 V 3.33 V


+12 V 12.30 V


+5 V Standby 5.21 V


VBAT Battery 3.15 V


DIMM 2.05 V
My motherboard came with a program called Easy Tuneup which claims to help with overclocking. Would you advise trying this or just using the BIOS. What sort of settings should I be using for 2.6/2.7? I really don't have much idea of where to start.

 

[smileypeters]

I've just had a look at the overclock page on Everest and it is showing the CPU speed as 1600, down from 2400. Why would this be the case??

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CPU Properties:


CPU Type QuadCore Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600


CPU Alias Kentsfield


CPU Stepping G0


Engineering Sample No


CPUID CPU Name Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz


CPUID Revision 000006FBh


CPU VID 1.1625 V

CPU Speed:


CPU Clock 1600.0 MHz (original: 2400 MHz)


CPU Multiplier 6x


CPU FSB 266.7 MHz (original: 266 MHz)


Memory Bus 400.0 MHz


DRAM:FSB Ratio 12:8

CPU Cache:


L1 Code Cache 32 KB per core


L1 Data Cache 32 KB per core


L2 Cache 2x 4 MB (On-Die, ECC, ASC, Full-Speed)

Motherboard Properties:


Motherboard ID 09/03/2009-G45-ICH10-7A89PG03C-00


Motherboard Name Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H (2 PCI, 1 PCI-E x1, 1 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR2 DIMM, Audio, Video, Gigabit LAN, IEEE-1394)

Chipset Properties:


Motherboard Chipset Intel Eaglelake G45


Memory Timings 5-5-5-18 (CL-RCD-RP-RAS)


Command Rate (CR) 2T


DIMM1: Corsair XMS2 CM2X2048-6400C5 2 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM (5-5-5-18 @ 400 MHz) (4-4-4-13 @ 270 MHz)


DIMM3: Corsair XMS2 CM2X2048-6400C5 2 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM (5-5-5-18 @ 400 MHz) (4-4-4-13 @ 270 MHz)

BIOS Properties:


System BIOS Date 09/03/09


Video BIOS Date 12/01/08


Award BIOS Type Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG


Award BIOS Message EG45M-DS2H F5C N:071209


DMI BIOS Version F5C N:071209

Graphics Processor Properties:


Video Adapter Intel G43/G45 Chipset - Integrated Graphics 0 [A-3]


GPU Code Name Eaglelake-G (Integrated 8086 / 2E22, Rev 03)


GPU Clock 400 MHz

 

[blackroseMD1]

My motherboard came with a program called Easy Tuneup which claims to help with overclocking. Would you advise trying this or just using the BIOS. What sort of settings should I be using for 2.6/2.7? I really don't have much idea of where to start.

I have a Gigabyte motherboard as well, and it came with the Easy Tuneup utility. The thing about the program is, if you have SpeedStep turned on and you set Easy Tuneup to, say, 3.0Ghz, if you start doing something intensive, speedstep can bump it up over that 3Ghz mark, which could be dangerous for your processor.

I always recommend OCing through the BIOS as opposed to software overclocking. You have much more control over everything then.

 

[sygnus21]

I've just had a look at the overclock page on Everest and it is showing the CPU speed as 1600, down from 2400. Why would this be the case??

It basically has to do with the processor's power settings in the BIOS. In a nutshell it's SpeedStep or EIST (Enhanced Intel Speedstep Technology) kicking in.

At low processor usage the CPU throttles back, on high loads the processor will run at full speed. However with EIST/Speedstep disabled, the processor will run at full speed, even without a load.

See this post/thread... http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/87564-wrong-clock-speed-3.html#post756696

Hope this helps

 

[smileypeters]

Oh okay that's cool.

So what settings do I need to implement to get it up to 2.6/2.7 then? And how do I check if it's stable?

 

[sygnus21]

Oh okay that's cool.

So what settings do I need to implement to get it up to 2.6/2.7 then? And how do I check if it's stable?

I have no ideal what your BIOS settings are like. You can go here and ask these guys - GIGABYTE

Since I have a Gigabyte board that's where I went for my overclock tips

Check them out, they're pretty good. You might run into me as well.

Peace

 

[archie123]

may i ask..............and dont take this the wrong way , but why are you overclocking the cpu on that rig? The only improvement you'll see is in benchmarks such as super pi

I think your psu may be an issue if your overclocking too it seems a bit "weak"

you MUST get aftermarket cooling you cannot oc on a stock cooler
disable C1E and EIST before you start
Dont go over 1.45 volts on the cpu voltage
Dont go any higher that 1.35v on the fsb voltage
dont let your cpu run over 71 degrees in any stress test , if ity does you have to back off the clock or the voltage
Never leave any voltage settings in bios at auto
never use any utility to overclock your cpu , use yourself and your bios
3 gig is EASY on a 6600 GO , any higher and you need to start tweaking the voltage
Make sure you keep an eye on your ram speeds as you up the fsb your ram will speed up too , either unlink the ram from the cpu or manually set the dividers so it doesnt run too fast
Use 3 gig as a starting point , boot into windows and use real temp to monitor your temps and cpu/z to monitor your voltage , it will drop when under load you need to keep an eye on this (look up vdroop)
download memtest burn the iso onto a cd and boot with it , let memtest run an hour or so to make sure your ram is stable

boot into windows
run 10 passes of intel burn test on standard settings then run prime 95 for at least 2 hours , any errors you need to up the voltage to your cpu or slacken off your ram timings a little , even if prime runs for 1 hour then craps out it still means your cpu is unstable.

the 6600 is very voltage hungry at high clocks and because its 65nm it runs quite hot , to get mine stable at 3.4 i was running 1.48v in windows 1.5 in bios (i wouldnt recommend those settings)

any overclock/overvoltage is gonna reduce the life of your cpu be aware of this

good luck , and any app ive mentioned in there such as prime 95 can be easily googled

go here for any more advice

Overclock3D :: Technology News & Reviews

 

[sygnus21]

He's over here now.... GIGABYTE

And we've already told him about both the power supply and CPU cooler....twice

As to why he's overclocking that thing... Why do we overclock anything? More speed for less money

may i ask..............and dont take this the wrong way , but why are you overclocking the cpu on that rig? The only improvement you'll see is in benchmarks such as super pi

Maybe, maybe not. I saw improvements in games, not in super pi.... though I must admit I've never used super pi