*Official Retail G0 Q6600 Overclocking Thread*

[Zayras]

I agree there's no need to jump to i7 for gaming or most applications. The best you're really going to get out of an i7 is better memory performance, but you say you have an X48, so you should be able to get similar performance in most applications/games.

I however do want to make the jump for 1366 because my Q6600 refuses to go above 3.6GHz without going significantly over 1.5Vcore. I'm thinking of hitting 4+GHz on a W3520. I would have maybe gone with a Q9550/9650, but for being "outdated" they are very overpriced.

[flesheatinvirus]

I certainly would agree with the Q6600 being a decent chip for average use even in the future. I still have one myself as well as two Q9550s which overclock very nice on water. I also have i7 920 systems on water for benching but all my main systems including the one I am typing this on is a Q9550 on water at 3850 and is more then enough for any software I am using, they are great chips.

[Sailindawg]

Who here feels the Q6600 still has a good amount of life left in it? when playing games my G15 says processor usage is around 60% and that includes other tasks in the background. Im running a fairly conservative 3.6 GHz overclock with my x48 (no board voltage changes, no VTT changes 1.44V on water) and I dont think I need to bump it up to 3.8-4 Ghz. I see that being done later on once it gets older and I feel its more expendable if it blows up.

What are your thoughts on this?

I've been running a Q6600 for the past year and half and there's nothing I've thrown at it that it can't handle. Outside of stress programs, there's not a game out that I've haven't been able to play at 1900x1200 with all the eye candy enabled. I'm running 9x430 on a 333 strap; my RAM runs at 1722 Mhz. I'm running a SSD for my OS and a pair of RaptorX in RIAD 0. The RAID is about as quick as the SSD in regard to sequential reads / writes. My bottleneck resides in my video cards. Looking at synthetic benchmarks, my system appears a bit lackluster compared to a x58 system. x58 is only about 5%-7% faster than what I have now. I've got a QX9650 waiting in the wings that I'll pop in soon. I hope I can clock the hell out of that chip. x48 is a good chipset, but it was cut short by x58. The C2duo quads are very good relevant chips. Judge for yourself by the longevity of this thread. It's close to 3 years old. I didn't even get that much longevity from my S939 board with a dual core Athlon 4400+!

[Demo]

The Q6600 @ 3.2Ghz or more is still very decent for gaming, despite what gaming benchmarks show between the Q6600 vs i920 the real world difference is not that noticeable.

Btw my computer crashes at 8x425 but not at 8x426, any thoughts ?

[Zayras]

Btw my computer crashes at 8x425 but not at 8x426, any thoughts ?

I read in an article a while ago that motherboards have certain frequencies at which they are completely unstable regardless of voltage. Can't seem to find it now but it was exactly what you mentioned: they couldn't post at a certain frequency but raising it [by one] they were able to get it stable.

I really want to find that article, but can't find it right now if I do I'll post the link.

[alexanderhuzar]

SLACR L744A996 - Still playing around with PLL, VTT and VCore. Hoping for 3.8GHz.

[Zayras]

Nice OC are you on water??

Edit: never mind... just took a look at your sig

[alexanderhuzar]

For me with PLL set to 1.7 it reboots randomly after 30 mins. When set to 1.77 it's stable for days. I haven't yet tried 1.75 or 1.73. It's a work in progress...

[alexanderhuzar]

Nice OC are you on water??

Edit: never mind... just took a look at your sig

Here's my system before everything else in it...
(I had to do a little dremmel work on the waterblock to make it clear the heatsinks)

[alexanderhuzar]

Ok, I know I should really consolidate all my posts, but I have a question to all you:

What voltages are you using for Vcore, PLL, VTT, GTLref?

[Zayras]

1.5 for Vcore (VID of 1.325 ), 1.5 PLL, 1.32 VTT, .78 Ref (I think) @ 3.6GHz

not completely stable yet, but passed an hour of Prime95 so it needs minimal tweaking

Edit: nice job on the block dremel work, looks like a tight fit
One more thing are you running 24/7 @ 3.7GHz with those voltages? I might give it a try I just got some new fans for my NH-D14 and it's having a hard time hitting 60 ^_^

[alexanderhuzar]

1.5 for Vcore (VID of 1.325 ), 1.5 PLL, 1.32 VTT, .78 Ref (I think) @ 3.6GHz

not completely stable yet, but passed an hour of Prime95 so it needs minimal tweaking

Edit: nice job on the block dremel work, looks like a tight fit
One more thing are you running 24/7 @ 3.7GHz with those voltages? I might give it a try I just got some new fans for my NH-D14 and it's having a hard time hitting 60 ^_^

I get random restarts if I set the Vcore to 1.5. It was running on as low as 1.425 volts, but wasn't very stable. I've never had prime95 give me an error with this chip. All it does it random restarts if I get the settings wrong. Right now I'm at the stage where I am lowering each voltage setting to see how low it can go. Lower vCore means lower temps, and it seems that while my chip can handle 85c for hours, when I do an 8+ hour run, I come back home and find my computer has restarted unexpectedly. That's why I keep the vCore the way it is...

[fatguy1992]

@alexanderhuzar

Your PLL is too high, 1.57v should do

Also playing with the MCH (and to a lesser effect CPU) GTL's helps a fair bit imo.

[noroger]

Ok, I know I should really consolidate all my posts, but I have a question to all you:

What voltages are you using for Vcore, PLL, VTT, GTLref?

vcore: 1.53v
pll: 2.00v
vmch: 1.84v
vfsb: 1.5v

cpu gtl 0.63x
nb gtl 0.67x

What's the max vpll people put on a Q6600? and vmch on a P35?

not the lowest voltages i know.Running at 3.8GHz solid. I'm vdroop limited, anyone got a good P5K-E vdroop mod?

[Zayras]

What's the max vpll people put on a Q6600? and vmch on a P35?

http://www.overclock.net/intel-mothe...p45-ud3-4.html

First 3 posts or so cover PLL Voltage, I would be scared of 2V, I'd say bump it down to at least 1.8V, but I'm no expert and it's your chip . For the MCH or NB voltage I would say as long as it's not at extreme temperatures I wouldn't worry too much.

[alexanderhuzar]

http://www.overclock.net/intel-mothe...p45-ud3-4.html

First 3 posts or so cover PLL Voltage, I would be scared of 2V, I'd say bump it down to at least 1.8V, but I'm no expert and it's your chip . For the MCH or NB voltage I would say as long as it's not at extreme temperatures I wouldn't worry too much.

They are talking about 45nm chips. My SLACR is a 65nm...

[Zayras]

True, but even looking up "max Q6600 PLL" on google you get most people saying 1.6-1.8V are the "safe" voltages.

[alexanderhuzar]

True, but even looking up "max Q6600 PLL" on google you get most people saying 1.6-1.8V are the "safe" voltages.

I've lowered my voltages to the following:
1.4325 Vcore
1.57 PLL
1.35 VTT
1.36 MCH (P55 northbridge at 463 MHz, but could go lower).

So far, so good. Passes Intel Burn Test - 10 runs at default settings.

[Zayras]

Nice

[Demo]

I've been playing with the GTL-REF from 61% to 67% anything lower than 67% gives me a random BSOD when I close some programs, the most prominent of them all is Yahoo Messenger.

[ivanpacheco]

Hello everyone. Found this page looking for info to oc a bit more my Q6600.
I'm using stable at 3.6GHz 24/7. The main board is a Gigabyte EP45-UD3P rev 1.1. Started with vcore 1.5 and lowering a notch couple of times.
Seems the CPU is getting used to Now it's working at 1.4875. Have to try a bit more though.

[andressergio]

Hello everyone. Found this page looking for info to oc a bit more my Q6600.
I'm using stable at 3.6GHz 24/7. The main board is a Gigabyte EP45-UD3P rev 1.1. Started with vcore 1.5 and lowering a notch couple of times.
Seems the CPU is getting used Now it's working at 1.4875. Have to try a bit more though.

Glad to have you here Ivan The giga board will up quads like no other board, you just have to find the refs / skews and volts that works for ya...

for my quads always loved for 1,2VTT .785CPU ref and .80MCH, and if you wanna push mem .84MCH

so with skews i use 900/900/0/50

and bump MCH core, 1,4+ if you are using 4GB and OC' mem

Cheers
Sergio

[Gaul]

wow high vcore, but high clock

[Gaul]

4 GH with v1.4

[rockfella]

Good to know people are still having fun with the Q6600!