overclocking guide for Q6600

[ShearnY]

can someone please give me an overclocking guide.

i want to overclock my q6600 from 2.4ghz up to 3ghz.

my mobo is: MSI P35 Platinum

just ordered the thermaltake tuniq tower cpu cooler and bought another 2gb of ram.

so want to give overclocking a go :)

[PeterStoba]

http://www.basichardware.com/how_to_overclock.html

[wonderlust]

I have the P35 Neo2-FR which is a stripped down Platinum,

How far do you want to go?

A simple way to start is change the boot strap jumpers to 333.
This will give you 3Ghz. if you have DDR667 then it runs 1:1

If you wish to go a little further, depending on your cooler, you could disable EIST, change the FSB to 400 and drop the multi from 9 to 8 this will give you 3.2Ghz, again if ur running DDR800 it will run at 1:1

You may have to adjust the CPU voltage slightly.

Watch the other voltages as when selecting 400 FSB the bios seems to increase them way above spec, I dropped mine back to deafult and have it stable at 3.2Ghz

[ShearnY]

i have 4gb of ddr 6400 with 555 12 timings. i wanna overclock to 3ghz. might push for 3.2 one day. any advice is welcome :)

[wonderlust]

well for 3Ghz, just change the jumpers to 2-3 amd 2-3.

Thats all it takes.

You may have to raise the voltage by one notch upwards (in the Cell menu).

[Mul.]

I for one wouldn't be keen on going from 2.4GHz straight to 3.0GHz in one go.

It's a slower process but I'd say it's better to set your memory to 1:1 straight away, manually set the 9x multi and the stock voltage of the CPU then overclock in increments of 10MHz, booting into Windows, quickly running a minute of a multithreaded stability test program and then return to BIOS and repeat.
This method allows you to find a point where you need more volts and will also help you find the sweetspot between Clockspeed and Voltages. For example, the method posted above might get you to 3.0GHz totally stable at around 1.325V for example. However, if you overclocked in smaller increments you may have found that 2.9GHz runs stable at just 1.25V. 100MHz difference and a substantial voltage difference which also results in higher temperatures. I know which of the two clockspeeds I'd pick :)

[wonderlust]

I understand where you are coming from, but from what I have read 95% of q6600 G0s will do 3Ghz with out needing to change the voltage from stock,

I know that is depends on the quality of your Motherboard, PSU and Cooling.

The OP's board is certainly a quality one and should do this assuming his PSU is up to the task.

As I stated before the P35 Platinum and the NEo2-FR are the same board and forums like http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=1754798

are full of help in getting the best out of these boards

[Mul.]

Totally agree with what you've said there. But also, you've got to bare in mind that Stock Voltages do vary from CPU to CPU and some of them are around 1.2V. Needless to say, not every Q6600 will do 3.0GHz at voltages like that.
I'm sure your method works fine, I just think the extra time spent on overclocking in increments is worthwhile.

And yeah, the Neo2-Fr basically is a rebadged P35 Platinum minus Firewire. Quite sure if you removed the Neo2-Fr sticker you'll find MSI P35 Platinum written underneath?

[wonderlust]

Not gona remove mine :mrgreen:

The MSI bios doesn't let you drop bellow Intel stock voltage :sad:

[Umar]

Totally agree with what you've said there. But also, you've got to bare in mind that Stock Voltages do vary from CPU to CPU and some of them are around 1.2V. Needless to say, not every Q6600 will do 3.0GHz at voltages like that.
I'm sure your method works fine, I just think the extra time spent on overclocking in increments is worthwhile.

And yeah, the Neo2-Fr basically is a rebadged P35 Platinum minus Firewire. Quite sure if you removed the Neo2-Fr sticker you'll find MSI P35 Platinum written underneath?

Yeah it does. Its covered with a red sticker which says *looks through side panel* p35 neo2 on it :)

[wonderlust]

Anandtech in their review showed it with and with out the sticker,

Both boards carry the same MS7345 identity :mrgreen:

This was one of the major things that made me buy it over the similar Gigabyte/Asus boards, along with the heat pipe chipset cooler

[00mike000]

overclocking is simple all u do is set the voltage to the highest usually 1.7 then you crank up the fsb and bingo

[mac124]

Mike you having a laugh right?

DO NOT set the voltage to the highest setting then up the fsb.

Up the fsb in small ish increments unti it becomes unstable then increase the voltages, if you want to increase the overclock futher, to get the system stable again and continue to increase the fsb.

KEEP AN EYE ON THE TEMPERATURE OF THE CPU AT ALL TIMES TESTING ON 100% LOAD REGULARLY TO SEE IF THE TEMPERATURE STAYS AT SAFE LEVELS.

[Mul.]

I agree. FSB Before Voltage. Increase Voltage only when symptoms of instability are emerging. While Core 2 65nm chips are nigh on indestructable when voltage is concerned, there's no point putting more volts through a chip than required. Clock Speed doesn't kill the chip. Voltage does. 1.7V on a Quad will make it seriously hot and most Air Coolers and even some Watercooling loops will struggle to take that.

Personally, what I do is fire up Coretemp to find out the CPU's Default Voltage (VID). When I start overclocking I go to CPU Voltage and set it to 1 step above what the Default Voltage is to compensate for Vdroop slightly. Then I drop the memory divider and start overclocking. Basically two Voltage rules

1) Manually set the Voltage in BIOS when overclocking. Don't use [AUTO]
2) Don't increase voltage before instability appears. Increase in 1-2 step increments in BIOS.

[wonderlust]

Lol The max CPU voltage on my board is IIRC 2.5V hmm whats that burning.... LOL

[marsey99]

...hmm whats that burning....

on that voltage i think its polar icecaps melting :lol:

tbh i didnt do that with my 4300, it posted>bios and then went to 3ghz without and issue on stock volts.

[wonderlust]

on that voltage i think its polar icecaps melting :lol:

tbh i didnt do that with my 4300, it posted>bios and then went to 3ghz without and issue on stock volts.

exactly what I did with my q6600 too.

[O.G.C.]

I have the P35 Neo2-FR which is a stripped down Platinum,

How far do you want to go?

A simple way to start is change the boot strap jumpers to 333.
This will give you 3Ghz. if you have DDR667 then it runs 1:1

If you wish to go a little further, depending on your cooler, you could disable EIST, change the FSB to 400 and drop the multi from 9 to 8 this will give you 3.2Ghz, again if ur running DDR800 it will run at 1:1

You may have to adjust the CPU voltage slightly.

Watch the other voltages as when selecting 400 FSB the bios seems to increase them way above spec, I dropped mine back to deafult and have it stable at 3.2Ghz


ok i set fsb to 400
whats multi?
and when i disable eist ehat should i put cpu rstio to?

[Monkey]

After overclocking my cpu, (only increased the FSB) to 3ghz the temps havnt changed atall when i look in everest

Is that normal seeing as i havnt increased the voltage?

[alexnifty]

Pretty much I think. It's the volts that give you the real temp increases.

[mac124]

Yup temps only increase very slightly with fsb increase, as Alex said its the volts that bump up the temps.