Shoutbox

First off Ill show you my "beast" (rig/computer). Im also interested in yours. But this is a guide on how to OC (over clock) a Q6600

CPU: Q6600 (default 2.4ghz, Oc'd to 3.6ghz)
MB: P5K-E/Wi-Fi
RAM: (4GB 800mhz) 4xPC2-6400 1GB Timing: 5-5-5-15(Brand: Generic (Heh, yeah I know)
HDD: 2x Seagate Barracuda 320GB Raid0
VGA: 8800GT (OC'd to 698/1700/999)
Case: Generic (yeah i know)
Cooling: Zalman CNPS 9700LED (Blue), Stock 8800GT Cooler
PSU: CoolerMaster RealPower Pro 650w

Image 1(The cooler), Image 2(All the components), Image 3(8800GT Out side of case), Image 4(Craptastic Case).

If you would like to learn how to safely OC a Q6600 to 3.0GHz with stocker cooler, just ask. Its really easy Its even possible with 667mhz Ram. So its not going to strain your RAM or anything.

And if you would like some buying tips for getting hardware for OCing, ask as well, Im happy to help .

First off, what does Over Clock mean?
As defined by Wiki-Pedia "Over clocking is the process of forcing a computer component to run at a higher clock rate than it was designed for or was designated by the manufacturer, usually practiced by personal computer enthusiasts in order to increase the performance of their computers."

There are multiple factors that can effect OCing. As not all processors will OC the same (even if there the same model, from the same batch). This is because during the manufacturing process they make this big cylinder, and in the middle of this cylinder the silicon is really pure. But as the it goes out, it becomes less pure. The less pure the silicon, the harder it is to OC.

I will also teach Y'all how to OC a 8800GT (Same technique can be use to OC any graphics card)

(In Australian Prices)
Hardware Buying Guide:
CPU:
When buying a CPU, you may want to consider the costs of buying it, you may have to buy a new motherboard as well. Which might not support your RAM or your Graphics card. So you have to buy new ones of them.
Its a good idea to try and "Future proof" yourself.

Q6600(2.4ghz)$250
Q9300(2.5ghz) $332

If your wanting to OC, the Q6600 is your best bet, it OC's very very well. Even though its a 65nm (The smaller the better). But, if your not planning to OC, the Q9300 is your better bet, because it has the advantage of having a faster core speed, and being 45nm. Although it does have a smaller L2 cache.

Ram:
Is far to complicated to make a good guide here, but, if you plan to OC buy OCZ (brand) RAM, its good. If you dont, well save yourself some money and get generic DDR2 800mhz ram. Its very cheap (get 1GB stick for $23, get 4 of them and your set....)

Motherboard:
If your wanting to Overclock get a Asus, if you dont want to OC get the cheapest Gigabyte you can find (GA-P35-DS3L).

Asus P5K-E/Wifi: Probably the best valued OCing motherboard. It has 8 phaze power, Crazy Cooling, Heat Pipe Cooling, PCI-E. Everything you need (And it has WiFi!) Its $190.

Gigabyte DS3L(P35): Cheapest motherboard with PCI-E slot i could find.... $100.

HDD:
500GB is currently the best valued HDD right now (it used to be 320GB, well it still is... but its not worth it). I recommend getting a Seagate HDD, there very reliable and quite.... Wester Digital has been .... known.... for running very hot, being very loud, and screwing up. Better paying that little bit extra for more reliabilty...
And only buy Sata HDD's for any new machine now. They are alot faster. And cheaper...

WD 500GB(sata): $100
Seagate 500GB(sata): $115

WD 500GB(ide): $113
Seagate 500GB(ide): $125

WD 320GB(sata): $88
Seagate 320GB(sata): $89

I would overclock, but there are downsides:

1 - It decreased the life of your CPU
2 - It uses more electricity

Am I right?

CPU: E6750 2.66 GHz
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Timings: 4-4-4-12
MB: ASUS P5K
GPU: OcUK ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB
Case: NZXT Apollo
Cooling: Arctic Cooling AC-FRZ-7P Socket 775 CPU Cooler
PSU: Corsair HX 520W
HDD: Samsung SpinPoint T 320GB SATA-II 8MB Cache

Photos: Image 1 | Image 2

quote:

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Originally posted by mattisdada

CPU: Q6600 (deafult 2.4ghz, Oc'd to 3.6ghz)

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holy shi--

Teach me

there are already threads like this (showing specs)....
no need for yet another one, unless this one goes about how to overclock, the pros, cons, etc (can't remember a thread about that). But simple "show your specs" threads already exist...;

Ok, ill teach ya'll to OC .

3.0Ghz is easy. Ill show you guys how to do this.

Remember, read ALL of this FIRST, then while your doing it, do it step by step, do not skip ANYTHING.

This is for Q6600 ONLY(not E6600). Do not try this on ANYTHING else. All Core 2 processors you OC the same, but with diff settings.

Simple: (3.0ghz)
Step 1:
Download CPU-Z

Step 2:
Download Orthos

Step 3:
Check if you have a MSI/VIA/Asus/Gigabyte/DFI Lan Party motherboard. You can do this by going into CPU-Z and clicking the Mainboard tab, and next to "Manufacturer:" is has the company.

If its not any of these, then its going to be either
A) Impossible (as other MB manufacturers to have OCing allowed in the MB)
B) Allot harder

Step 4:
If you do have any of the above MB's manufacture MB's, a Q6600. Then thats all you need! Now we can start to actually OC!

Step 5:
As this is the simple edition, ill show you the easier way, but slightly less performance(and safer) way.

Reboot your computer and enter BIOS

Step 6:
As I own a Asus MB and dont have my friends GIGABYTE one here as a reference, I can only give you the specific where and how's on the Asus board. But its just a different layout on other boards, same thing.

First load default settings, just so we have a clean slate.

Asus:
Go to tab thats second from the left (ill edit this with the proper name, i forgot it right now...).
Select Jumper Free Config and do these settings:

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Top Option: Manual
CPU Ratio Control: Manual
Ratio CMOS Setting: 9
FSB Frequency: 333
Dram Frequency: DDR2-677mhz

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Then go back, and select CPU Configuration:

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CPU Ratio Control: Manual
Ratio: 9
C1E Support: Disabled
Max CPUID Value Limit: Disabled
Vanderpool Technology: Disabled
CPU TM Function: Disabled
Execute Disable Bit: Enabled
PECI: Enabled
Speed Step(Intel): Disabled

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For boards that are NOT Asus just do this:
Deactivate Speed Step and C1E support. Set FSB to 333, then select DRAM Frequency as 677mhz.

Step 7:
You should now have 3.0ghz. Now go into Cpu-Z again and check on the front page (tab CPU) that your Core Speed now = 3000mhz. Its normally NOT exact it will say something like 3005.7mhz. But we say 3000 just for simplicity.

Your done now! If you want to go higher, you will need to increase voltage, which is DANGROUS. Not for you, but for your CPU, you can easily wreck and severely shorten its lifespan. And you will need better then Stock cooler.

Now this is an OPTIONAL step, but it is still RECOMMEND (It is requried when going above and beyond 3.0ghz)

Step 8:
Run two instances of Orthos, now go into Task Manager (Ctrl Alt Del). Select the Processors tab. Now reorder list by Process Name (By clicking Image Name on top of column). Now select and right click Orthos and Select Afinity..... Unclick Core 2 and 3. Now press Ok, and do the same for the second Orthos, but make unselect Core0 and Core1.

What this does is make this dual core only program, work on two cores at the same time. This program will make your computer UNUSABLY SLOW. Quit every application you can.

Now on each one and start it. If it doesnt get any errors in 8 hours. Your computer is now sucsfully OC'd. If it does error, somethings gone wrong with your OCing.

How to OC an 8800GT (The simple way)

1. Download Riva Tuner

1.5. If your using Vista 64 bit. You will need to reset your computer and hold down F8 and then selecting Disable Driver Signing. And then install Riva Tuner. If your using Vista 32 bit, or XP 32/64  bit, you can just install it without having to Disable Driver Signing.

2. Download latest Forceware Drivers and install them. (it is recommend to fully delete old drivers before installing new ones, but this isnt necessary, the nVidia installer should get rid of at least 99% of the old ones)

3. Run RivaTuner, below the line where it says Driver Settings;. It should say ForceWare Detected              Customize; and have a little triangle thing. Click that. Now select the graphic that looks like a graphics card (far left).

4. A dialog should now appear, this is when you can start customising! Now, setting this settings to high will make your system UNSTABLE! 

So, if you want some easy stable settings that you can use with a stock cooler. Use these:

Deselect Link Clocks;. Then, click the slider once on the Core Clock; slider. Now use your left/right arrows to move the slider to 680 mhz,

Do the same thing but with the Shader Clock, but set it to 1680.

Do the same thing again, but with the Memory Clock set it to 970.

Then select Apply Settings at Windows Start up;. Then click apply!

Thats it, your set, but I recommend stressing out your GPU a bit just to test if it IS stable. You can use 3Dmark 06, Crysis and if you have Vista, 3Dmark Vantage( Highly recommended).

If you dont mind the noise, you can manually  set the fan to 90-100% by selecting the Fan tab, Selecting Direct Controll; and then moving the sliders.

If you do that, its easily possible to do these settings (you WILL be required to test its stability with these settings): 700(Core Clock)/1701(Shader)/999(Memory) . : Stable - Peak

Just to make post sizes shortrt Im going to span this out for a couple of posts. Sorry if it annoys you, but its for your own benefit .

This is now the advance options for better 3.0ghz performance:

Remember to do each setting from top to bottom, some option will only appear after selecting certain options.

Asus Board:
These are settings for Jumper Free Config

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Write To Read Delta: Auto
Read to Precharge Time: Auto
DRAM Static Read Control: Auto

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CPU Ration Control: Manual
Ratio CMOS Setting: 9

This forces the multiplyer to stay to 9. This is one of the things Speed Step and C1E do... they change this number to 6 when it trys to go above 2.44ghz. For saving power thing.... Anyway its lame, and not needed for a desktop PC. Unless your really wanting to save $1 on your next power bill.....

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FSB Strap To North Bridge: Auto

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FSB Frequency: 333

The most importent thing in OCing. You get how many ghz in totall, but this number, and your multiplyer. Everything else is just here to help these two numbers .

You get your tottall Ghz, by this sum "Multiplyer x FSB = Core Speed". So in this instance, its "9x333=3000mhz, which = 3.0ghz.

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PCIE Frequency: Auto

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Dram Frequency: DDR2-667mhz

After youve done all the options, i want you to go back to FSB and add a few fsb and take a few FSB and watch the DRAM Frequency. (Set it back to 333 after you see this)

You should notice that your DRAM Freqeuncy goes up and down as well with your FSB. The proper explanation of this is long, so in short. Your FSB controlls how fast your RAM and your CPU goes. Although you can change it in block how fast your RAM is.

And you may also ask this "My ram can go at 800mhz, why not set this to 800mhz? Instead of 677". Well you may thing its because "It needs to be cooler" but no its not.

When running at 333 fsb, your RAM wont have to wait for your cpu and vice versa at 667mhz, so this makes a 1:1 ratio of speeds. Which is good, its what we need! But if we up this up to 800mhz, the ram will have to wait for the CPU and make a bottleneck sort of, for gaming having a 1:1 ratio, is far better. But in most cases, if your doing allot of media work, like encoding videos and stuff, having the faster MHz will benefit more then having the 1:1 ratio. Because the RAM is just being used as a temporary storage, rather then writing values and deleting them very quickly.
For most program a 1:1 ratio is better then the 200mhz though.

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Dram Command Rate: Auto
Dram Timing Control: Manual

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CAS: 5
RAS To CAS: 5
RAS Precharge: 5
RAS Active Time: 15This is forcing RAM to go to default timings. Some generic ram will have these higher, this is the reason for setting this, and forcing them to run in divisible portions makes it more effective.

If you know that you have decent “Performance Ram” that has timings LOWER (lower is BETTER in timings). You can make it 4-4-4-12. But only if you KNOW that your ram can handle this. If not, just leave it as 5-5-5-15. It is a universally working number

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RAS to RAS Delay: Auto
Row Refreash Cycle Time: Auto
Write Recovery Time: Auto
Write To Read Delay: Auto
Read To Precharge time: Auto
DRAM Static Read Control: Auto

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Transaction Booster: Disabled
Relax Level: 0
No idea what this acctually does, but it seems to go faster if you disable it and set relax level to 0.....

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Clock Over Charging Mode: Auto

CPU Spread Spectrum: Disabled
PCIE Spread Spectrum: Disabled

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CPU Voltage: Auto

This is a very importent setting later on. But leave it as auto for now, because it will auto detect what Voltage a Q6600 should be at.

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CPU Voltage Reference: Auto
CPU Voltage Damper: Enabled
CPU PLL Voltage: Auto

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DRAM Voltage: Auto

Another very importent option for later on, but right now, it only needs to be on Auto

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FSB Termination Voltage: Auto
North Bridge Voltage: Auto
Northbridge Voltage: Auto
South Bridge Voltage: Auto

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I will edit some of these with an explanation of what they are, how they work and why we have set them to the settings that we have set.


How to OC 8800GT Advance Method:

Do the same as you did for the simple method, and find a setting thats stable. Once you have done this, download a program called NiBiTor

Now, this program will modify the BIOS of the graphics card... so its just like OCing a CPU, but a GPU doesnt have a front end for it... so we use this nifty little tool to modify it for us! So its not by the BIOS instead of the software, this does result in a slight speed boost in graphics and in CPU (CPU has to do 1 or 2 less cycles (in other words... you wont notice it).

I do NOT endorse that you use this. You can really screw things up with this. For very advance users only! And if you need help with this program, seek help on a very complete guide/tut about this program. It involves flashing your bios of your GPU, which if that screws up... youl have to buy a new one. GPU BIOS's cant be modified on the fly like a motherboards can.

quote:

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Originally posted by Th3rmal

quote:

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Originally posted by mattisdada

CPU: Q6600 (deafult 2.4ghz, Oc'd to 3.6ghz)

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holy shi--

Teach me

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I shall (eventually)

quote:

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Originally posted by Chris4
I would overclock, but there are downsides:

1 - It decreased the life of your CPU
2 - It uses more electricity

Am I right?

CPU: E6750 2.66 GHz
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Timings: 4-4-4-12
MB: ASUS P5K
GPU: OcUK ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB
Case: NZXT Apollo
Cooling: Arctic Cooling AC-FRZ-7P Socket 775 CPU Cooler
PSU: Corsair HX 520W
HDD: Samsung SpinPoint T 320GB SATA-II 8MB Cache

Photos: Image 1 | Image 2

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Yes your right, but if you do it correctly, it shouldnt signifigently shorten life span. .

And why did you get a non stock cooler if your not going to OC? Quiter?

And your E6750 is quite OCable as well I would give it a go. If your guided you cant screw up your CPU by just modifying the multiplyer and the FSB. You can only screw it by over volting. So this is safe

The Q6600 is designed to be OCable quite well. It can OC to a peak of 3.8 (aparantly, allthough, in theroy its infinte... you just need to cool it enough for it not to melt... )

Here's a great tip for all of you as well. If you can't afford a replacement CPU then don't bother overclocking. If you screw up you will fuck up your CPU and as you know they are not cheap (depending on what you have). This guy can overclock his Q6600 really easy as its a really easy chip to overclock. Just like I could achieve high clocks on my E6600. In the end my E6600 still broke and if you do not know what you are doing I suggest you don't even bother unless you are truly interested.

Edit: Also unless you have the same Ram, CPU etc as him I suggest you don't use the settings he is telling you to.

.... How you break your E6600?

My Q6600 has been the first thing ive ever OC'd. And i just learnt by screwing around and some internet reading....

I never had trouble when overclocking my E6600, it currently sits comfortably at 3GHz; I pushed it higher before, but I wasn't comfortable with the temperature increase.

I just did mine through the Cell Menu in the BIOS. (MSI Motherboard)

I have both a Q6600 and an 8800GT and I'd recommend you stop

Sure you can overclock it, but you'll lose your CPU and GPU life by quite a bit.

Temperatures go insanely higher when you Overclock, have you ever used Speedfan?

I had 39*C idle, 45*C with games running.

Overclocked it was 47*C idle, 55*C with games....which is bad

quote:

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Originally posted by mattisdada
My Q6600 has been the first thing ive ever OC'd. And i just learnt by screwing around and some internet reading....

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Well then I hope you enjoy your first hand experience

Hehe, there is a reason why you buy better coolers sonicsam. And trust me, 55 is NOT that overly high (over 60 is to high for comfort).

Ive got a G0 stepping, so mines cooler then yours at 3.0ghz with stock fan, then yours is with 2.4 on stock .

my 3.6 ghz currently runs at 61c on highest load (stressing out all 4 cores to 100% max, which you cannot do without a burnin program like Orthos). On regular load, mine runs at 58. Only 3c hotter then yours.... and 1.2ghz faster.....


And Dr4gon, im glad to see yours sitting comfortably at 3.0ghz... Crap, i forgot MSI in my MB list... thanks

quote:

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quote:

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Originally posted by mattisdada
My Q6600 has been the first thing ive ever OC'd. And i just learnt by screwing around and some internet reading....

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Well then I hope you enjoy your first hand experience

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Well, ive learnt quite a bit more since when i first learnt it.... ive done proper research on how each and every single component works .