*Official Retail G0 Q6600 Overclocking Thread*

[Pacha]

Yes. I´m thinking about makeing some sort of backplate out of an aluminiumsheet and replace the pushpins with screws, just to be sure. I suppose that the mosfets will be under more load with four cores if I got it right?

Instead of 2x say 1.45 v theres 4x 1.45 v and as i understand it there are the mosfets that disribute these voltiges, right?

I don't know, the cpu is more energy consuming and it's certainly harder to feed it with voltage at a particular value in comparison with a dual core.

But I'd like to have some enlightenments about this from a person who is aware of that thing.

[Pacha]

I've seen on the quad database that apparently all the new L8xx are at 1.325V VID and that oc sucks too.
Other people have confirmation of that? I'll be testing my L804A tomorrow maybe or a bit later.

Anyway I've finished lapping it

[Gen]

you can check out my L804A a few posts up, 3.2ghz at 1.32v is ok imo, maybe i will see what it takes to get up to 3.6ghz.

[Gen]

well.. just tried for 400x9 with 1.46v load and it was not OCCT stable. I don't feel like trying higher with this MB

[Unoid]

dangit GEN you're making me fearful that my l804 is gonna suck! I guess I can always go rev isioned 45nm quad :P

[vws]

I've seen on the quad database that apparently all the new L8xx are at 1.325V VID and that oc sucks too.
Other people have confirmation of that? I'll be testing my L804A tomorrow maybe or a bit later.

Pacha, those are some nice shots of before- and after-lapping. One thing I noticed on your PCB code, it starts with 2L7 instead of 357 like we see here in the U.S. most recently - I have yet seen any L80x with the 2L7 code, which used be shown on those glorious batches of the year 2007 production. So it bodes well for you.

As a data point, I just finished testing a L804A Q6600 which inevitably sucks. The VID is 1.325v and runs quite cool under 3.0GHz. It only needs 1.175v for 2.8GHz OCCT 2hrs stable, T < 47C on all 4 cores with my lapped Big Typhoon. Unfortunately, it requires 1.325v to stabilize 3.2GHz (all cores < 58C), and a whopping 1.425v for 3.4GHz. Didn't want to go even higher as I wasn't inspired at all. The chip was returned back to the store.

Keep us posted with your results!

[Demo]

1.325 bios volts or loaded volts ?

[vws]

Sorry, all the volts in my last post mean BIOS settings. And I enabled the load line calibration.

[fng77]

I've seen on the quad database that apparently all the new L8xx are at 1.325V VID and that oc sucks too.
Other people have confirmation of that? I'll be testing my L804A tomorrow maybe or a bit later.

Anyway I've finished lapping it

wow, that is the best lapping I ever seen. Not a scratch. Nice

[Emerica]

well.. just tried for 400x9 with 1.46v load and it was not OCCT stable. I don't feel like trying higher with this MB

My L804 needs 1.49V to get to 3.6 stable.

[Pacha]

Pacha, those are some nice shots of before- and after-lapping. One thing I noticed on your PCB code, it starts with 2L7 instead of 357 like we see here in the U.S. most recently - I have yet seen any L80x with the 2L7 code, which used be shown on those glorious batches of the year 2007 production. So it bodes well for you.

Ah! Interesting point! I hope this pcb code is the salvation for the new quads, I'll tell you tonight, ambient temps are quite high here at the moment (27&#176;C = 80.6&#176;F) and my board is already pretty hot with the E6600 in it, I'll wait for it to drop before mounting and testing.

[Pacha]

wow, that is the best lapping I ever seen. Not a scratch. Nice

thank you.
using a piece of glass, water and abrasive paper P240 P400 P600 P800 P1000 P1200 P1500 P2000. And so much time...
Indeed I must say I almost found a new technique to finish it, my WBs and E6600's IHS aren't as well done.

[jonny_ftm]

Hello All Q6600 owners!

I have just orderd one myself. I´m very exited about it since my present cpu is a E2160. I have a few questions for you.


1. How much vcore is safe with aircooling (I have a xigmatek 1283) on these?

2. At what temp (core) should I stop pushing it you think?

3. Is it possible to get as high as 4 ghz with these?

4. Do you guys consider my Maximus Extreme to be a good partner for a Q6600?

5. Do you guys have any other tips or recomendations this combo?

6. What is considerd to be a good (low) vid?

Thanks for your time

Just to add some info on what you were answered, on points 1 to 3:
Opposed to B3 old steppings, with G0, you'll ususally be limited by temperature before exceeding vcore intel limits of 1.50v. But, be careful, when you enable loadline calibration on any vdroop compensation, you actually overshoot usually by up to 0.09-0.1v. If we accept a normal envelope set by intel as 5%, and consider 10% to be a safe margin, these 65nm chips wouldn't die so fast up to 1.5v +10% : 1.65v. So, even with vdroop bypass techniques enabled, you'd be safe with a bios setting of 1.55 vcore.

About the temp, I'd monitor with coretemp. Personally, I feel anything higher than 69°C with Prime95 small FFT is too hot. But, 69°C in Prime95 small FFT won't exceed 60°C in most usual daily tasks, even video encoding

As of 4GHz, forget it on air for 24/7 unless you are at constant 10°C ambiant. On water, only few selected and valued chips will do it, so forget it too. 3.6GHz is sweet spot, 3.8 GHz on many low vid L7xx batches and 3.9GHz on some L7xx batches with quality motherboards (P35 for full stability)

My chip can do 3.9GHz stable P95 small FFT at 1.47v. For memory bandwidth issues, I opted for 3.84GHz

I also heard that some people had problems with mosfets overheating when oc:ing quadcores. Is that some thing to worry about with stock Asus cooling, with the standard bad contact between mosfet - heatsink.

My thermalpad looks something like this, without the brown (so far)

This is only when you exceed 1.50v to 1.55v on the vcore for a quadcore on high quality PWM motherboards. On lower end models, it will be a problem as you exceed 1.45v, sometimes before

[Gen]

My L804 needs 1.49V to get to 3.6 stable.

ah thanks, as i suspected 1.46v was just enough for SPI 1m (with 4 threads) stability but failed OCCT almost instantly. When/If the 680i MB dies i will probably replace the board and run it 1.5v or so i'm assuming mine will require that as well. 1.5v on 4phase power is just too much.

@jonny

even with 1.376v load on my P5K-E i will not use load line calibration (needs 1.4v bios), even without it enabled (1.456v bios) sometimes i get a reported 1.6v overshoot when exiting OCCT (whether it's accurate or not). vdroop is a safety feature and i would reccommend not using vdroop/LLC for 24/7 as well.

[fng77]

Just to add some info on what you were answered, on points 1 to 3:
Opposed to B3 old steppings, with G0, you'll ususally be limited by temperature before exceeding vcore intel limits of 1.50v. But, be careful, when you enable loadline calibration on any vdroop compensation, you actually overshoot usually by up to 0.09-0.1v. If we accept a normal envelope set by intel as 5%, and consider 10% to be a safe margin, these 65nm chips wouldn't die so fast up to 1.5v +10% : 1.65v. So, even with vdroop bypass techniques enabled, you'd be safe with a bios setting of 1.55 vcore.

About the temp, I'd monitor with coretemp. Personally, I feel anything higher than 69°C with Prime95 small FFT is too hot. But, 69°C in Prime95 small FFT won't exceed 60°C in most usual daily tasks, even video encoding

As of 4GHz, forget it on air for 24/7 unless you are at constant 10°C ambiant. On water, only few selected and valued chips will do it, so forget it too. 3.6GHz is sweet spot, 3.8 GHz on many low vid L7xx batches and 3.9GHz on some L7xx batches with quality motherboards (P35 for full stability)

My chip can do 3.9GHz stable P95 small FFT at 1.47v. For memory bandwidth issues, I opted for 3.84GHz



This is only when you exceed 1.50v to 1.55v on the vcore for a quadcore on high quality PWM motherboards. On lower end models, it will be a problem as you exceed 1.45v, sometimes before

Perfect! Thanks for the update, jonny_ftm. You got a sweet q6600 there

[865pe]

VİD 1.2125

http://

[jeeka]

Hey guys,
I am looking for a store who is known to carry low VID q6600's. I know it's a crap shoot and not all stores are willing to take the time to show this stat, but is there anyone out there who will let me hand pick one (online) based on VID? My buddy just got a newer batch q6600 as well and it had a 1.325v VID. Mine is 1.275v. 865pe's VID is something that I would like to jump on (VİD 1.2125 seems really low)...

Thanks!

[Talonman]

The problem is, the VID voltage is not on the package. you really don't know until you install it and fire it up.

The best Q6600's are the one that start with L7. You need to find a store that still has them.

My lapped Q6600 GO (L726B397) with a default vcore of 1.224v's, only requires 1.392v's to make 3.6GHz stable.

[jeeka]

The problem is, the VID voltage is not on the package. you really don't know until you install it and fire it up.

The best Q6600's are the one that start with L7. You need to find a store that still has them.

Excactly what I was talkin' about. The stat is not shown until you actually put it into a system and fire up Core Temp, etc.

My current q6600 is a L721A814...I musta' got lucky , pack date of 7/31/07

[jonny_ftm]

Excactly what I was talkin' about. The stat is not shown until you actually put it into a system and fire up Core Temp, etc.

My current q6600 is a L721A814...I musta' got lucky , pack date of 7/31/07

Hi

Nice OC too you have, as I noticed you have a quiet similar board, I wanted to know how much did you have to put on the NB to overclock so agressively your 4 sticks of RAM, as I'm thinking to upgrade to 4GHz but I fear my overclock will drop

[jeeka]

I have it set to 1.4-1.55v depending on...my mood, really
I have never had issues with the vNB with 2 or 4 sticks.

I also went a step further and removed the Chipset Heatsinks, cleaned the factory crappy putty off, and put Arctic Silver Ceramique on the NB, SB and Mosfets that are covered. I also did the same thing to the Heatsink that is above he CPU at the top of the motherboard, plus I have a 120mm fan blowing down on the RAM and NB. The NB is not even warm to the touch.

That might explain why I have virtually no NB issues with heat.

*my q6600 is lapped as well, along with my "Leaning Tower of Pisa" Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme

[jonny_ftm]

I have it set to 1.4-1.55v depending on...my mood, really
I have never had issues with the vNB with 2 or 4 sticks.

Great, nice to hear if I ever decide to go with 4Gb RAM

I also went a step further and removed the Chipset Heatsinks, cleaned the factory crappy putty off, and put Arctic Silver Ceramique on the NB, SB and Mosfets that are covered. I also did the same thing to the Heatsink that is above he CPU at the top of the motherboard, plus I have a 120mm fan blowing down on the RAM and NB. The NB is not even warm to the touch.

The mosfets are better with the thermal pad, as the default heatsink can cause loose contact. If you kept the pad, adding a second thermal interface material (AS5) with the pad is not a good idea, in my opinion as you add interfaces, while pads assume a better contact than paste but are less conductive than a compound.

As of the heatsink above the CPU, it is for the other 4 mosfets.

That might explain why I have virtually no NB issues with heat.

I'm also sure that people taking care to cooling the motherboard and reseating the default heatsinks will have better performances by far. For stock radiators, you also have a very good overclock on a Q6600 + 4Gb Ram on air, as I removed them all and replaced with thermal righ heatsinks

[Talonman]

With my EK waterblock on my NB, and MX2 used as my TIM, Everest reports that I have 1.65v going to the NB core, and never cross 30C at 3.8GHz loaded.

Idle reports 23C on the NB.

[jeeka]

...The mosfets are better with the thermal pad, as the default heatsink can cause loose contact. If you kept the pad, adding a second thermal interface material (AS5) with the pad is not a good idea, in my opinion as you add interfaces, while pads assume a better contact than paste but are less conductive than a compound.

As of the heatsink above the CPU, it is for the other 4 mosfets.
...

not sure I follow you. I took off the thermal pads on all heatsinks and added the nonconductive Arctic Silver Ceramique, not added to the thermal pads. The Arctic Silver Ceramique makes great contact with the mosfets as I test fitted them, and the footprint "smear" was great.

Correct me if I am misunderstanding you.
Thanks!

[jonny_ftm]

not sure I follow you. I took off the thermal pads on all heatsinks and added the nonconductive Arctic Silver Ceramique, not added to the thermal pads. The Arctic Silver Ceramique makes great contact with the mosfets as I test fitted them, and the footprint "smear" was great.

Correct me if I am misunderstanding you.
Thanks!

Humm.. so you removed the thermal pads
The mosfets heatsinks are covering 4 PWM each. This will cause in all cases a loose contact sometimes on some mosfets, despite the tightening of the push-pins. This is due to 4 things:

- The PWM surfaces are never even at a same level. Making that will need very expensive manufacturing process and is useless because of the bending of PCB. This first issue is the most important and impossible to correct, unless you lap evenly all mosfets with a glass
- The mb PCB is not hard, it bends, always... less than 1mm, but it bends
- Fixing of the heatsink is made by two push-pins on the extremities only, so impossible to solder to middle of the heatsink when the PCB bends
- Finally, ASUS heatsinks are really light aluminium without any surface polishing or special care.

It's not without a reason that all reliable third party manufactures of optional mosfets cooling kits recommand thermal pads for cooling mosfets.
This is also the case on VGA cards when cooling memory chips: you need either separate heatsinks per module, or the use of a thermal pad for many modules under the same heatsink because of the always uneven surface between two chips

Hope you understand better now what I meant