Help with overclock of Q6600 please

[mighty_moll]

Recently installed 4 gig of OCZ Reaper DDR3 1800Mhz RAM and im getting low readings in CPU-Z for its frquency / bandwidth. only 533 Mhz shown there with a max of 610 Mhz at the bottom.

With the Q6600 overclocked 50% to around 3.6 Ghz i was getting good stable performance (in all tests) using air cooling. I'm just letting my bios (asus PK5C) automatically manage the voltages. Wheh i up the FSB and find a matching memory value (1800) the system is unstable and fails to start with an overclocked failure message on boot.

Im new to this and would love to get the most from CPU and memory combined - especially as i also just fitted an XFX extreme edition ATI Radeon 4890 1024 MB GDDR5. Any help and advice greatly appreciated from all! :worship:

 

[mayhem]

Just because your ram can run at 1800 doesn't mean the whole system can.

If using reaper then you might need to set the timing's i think you will be 5.5.5.15 2T and set it to 2.2v. It will need cooling though.

And don't try going above 3.6 Ghz on air alone your not going get much higher unless you use water cooling.

Check you temps on air at 3.6 Ghz i bet there getting pretty high.

All so screen shots please. To many ppl say im running at "blah blah" with no screen shot, were just working off your word and this is no good with out backing it up with pics to help us help you.

Use CPUID HWMonitorPro so we can see your whole system.

Depending on you CPU you cannot realy go higher than 4 ghz + a few % and achieve that on a air cooler alone will be quite a feet. even 3.6 Ghz on air is fantastic if you can run it for 8 hrs or more stable.

here a pic of my settings but on water cooling

because its warm in my home today i cannot over clock any further else the system will be unstable.

also a side not thee is not much benefit from 3.6 Ghz to 4ghz+ on a q6600 you'll notice only a small change in speed if at all any. Dont forget you using a quad core CPU that 4 x cpu on 1 die. Unless your using a game or program that will utilises all 4 cores then your not going to see a vast improvement.

 

[mighty_moll]

Ok thankyou. I've installed CPIID hardware monitor and the screenshot can be seen here.

What does TRIAL mean on some of the readings?

You were right about stability as a 3rd run of 3D mark crashed the syetem even though i was smashin SFIV just. i'm now at a FSB of 355 and set the multiplier to 9 - giving me 3.2 Ghz on the CPU. DRAM is now at 426 Mhz and has a ratio of 5:6 at 6:6:6:18 (2T).

Still says my RAM max bandwidth is 533 Mhz.

To be honest i dont really want to get more than 3.2 Ghz out of it (installing the new GFX card has notched temps up quite a bit on both the system and all 4 cores) - but i would like to utilize more of the RAM bandwidth if that is possible. Is this where i now need to take the BIOS off automatically controlling my voltages and get serious? Or have simply no chance of getting more from the RAM?

 

[tinytomlogan]

Do not run ddr3 at 2.2v

ddr2 is 2.2 ddr3 is 1.9!

 

[Freak]

trial is because u have to pay for the pro stuff

Does ur board support more than 1066?

 

[mayhem]

ops sorry op didn't see you were running DDR 3.. My fault.

 

[mighty_moll]

The specs say it can run at 1333 DDR3

 

[mayhem]

yeh but sont forget you NB and CPU might now allow for it with just cooling the cpu on air alone.

You might need to adjust the NB and the ram i dont know with ddr 3 as i haven't any.

 

[Ghaz]

As far as I am aware (correct me if I am wrong) but RAM frequencies don't matter too much. Also, I think 533MHz is x2 due to dual channel, giving 1066. This isn't too much below your rated specs, and you won't notice it with the overclock. If you are too worried, upping the FSB should increase it. Also note that leaving the motherboard to handle voltages can affect stability.

 

[mayhem]

As far as I am aware (correct me if I am wrong) but RAM frequencies don't matter too much.

When considering Speed against performance yeh the frequencies do matter as will the timings. it all so depends on if you going for reliability over speed.

Take for instance if you doing a bench run for say some thing like a fast PI score. You may over clock your chip to some thing that would make a grown man cry but you pi score might not be that good because of your ram timing and the frequencies. By tightening down the timing's and having good frequencies could change that into a winning formula for a good PI score.

The same goes for benching for 3d scores. The tight timing's may become unstable for long periods of hammering the GPU and you may have to loosen back to achieve a verifiable score.

There is alot more to over clocking than just hammering the FSB and V-Core up that's the easy bit. finding the right balance is the hard bit and the time consuming bit.

 

[mighty_moll]

Yep you're right there. I think i have alot of reading up and practicing to do guys but thanks for help.

 

[Ghaz]

When considering Speed against performance yeh the frequencies do matter as will the timings. it all so depends on if you going for reliability over speed.

Take for instance if you doing a bench run for say some thing like a fast PI score. You may over clock your chip to some thing that would make a grown man cry but you pi score might not be that good because of your ram timing and the frequencies. By tightening down the timing's and having good frequencies could change that into a winning formula for a good PI score.

The same goes for benching for 3d scores. The tight timing's may become unstable for long periods of hammering the GPU and you may have to loosen back to achieve a verifiable score.

There is alot more to over clocking than just hammering the FSB and V-Core up that's the easy bit. finding the right balance is the hard bit and the time consuming bit.

I have never worried about timings too much I generally keep my ram as close to stock as possible.

 

[mayhem]

normal over clocking for run of the mill game playing and work is fine but when benching this is when you need to consider what you put in your system and what you can achieve. There is a old saying that a straw can brake a horses back ...

Well the saying is true when it comes to benching a simple error or slow component can bring down the whole system.

 

[Ghaz]

normal over clocking for run of the mill game playing and work is fine but when benching this is when you need to consider what you put in your system and what you can achieve. There is a old saying that a straw can brake a horses back ...

Well the saying is true when it comes to benching a simple error or slow component can bring down the whole system.

Makes sense. Well I only bench to see how my system performs. I might do some real benching when I can afford it after Uni .