So my box was built for strictly DAW purposes. I run some pretty CPU heavy audio plug-ins (VST) and recently picked up a Q6600 to help take some of the load off. I planned to overclock it to 3.0G and although I've been able to do so...sort of... my temps seem VERY high (as in dead CPU high)!

I set the CPU to run @ 333 MHz and the lowest VCORE option (around 1.2)

My RAM says its designed to run at 1.9V 5-5-5-12 ...so I set it at that with a corresponding 667 MHz.

It posted fine and CoreTemp showed idle temps at 48-50 degrees

Next, I ran the latest version of Prime 95. Then saw the cores shoot up to 60,70 then 80....I stopped it when it hit 82 (it had run under 1 min)

The "small fft" test shot all cores up to 82 within about 6 seconds and caused a reboot.

I see posts here for load temps at around high 60's-low 70's and idle temps in the 30's. I hear people running Prime 95 for about 30min-an hour. I wouldn’t dare running it for more than a couple mins at this point.

I must be doing something wrong. I've got six friggn fans running on this thing not including the cpu fan.

Im considering "lapping" the CPU but Im not sure I want to take a risk like that yet. My temps seem to be so extreme from most of the specs I see here that I must be missing something. I might go out and get some Artic Silver (Im using some random Radio Shack knock off ATM) but I dont think that will make a 10+ degree difference.

Im actually pretty disappointed with the board (for OC purposes). Looking at Tomshardware.com I could have spent half the price and gotten MUCH better OC specs (according to their Q6600 testing) if I would have gone with an MSI.

Any ideas guys?