680i + q9300 Questions

[Katzie]

So I just ordered a 560 Ti and I am going to assume from everything I read my CPU will be my bottleneck once I put the card in.

nVidia 680i
e6750 2.67GHz Core 2 Duo
1x 8800GTX (Will be replacing that with a new superclocked GTX560 Ti)
OCZ ReaperX Dual Channel 4096MB PC8500 DDR2 1066MHz Memory (2 x 2048MB)
Barracuda 750GB 7200RPM
P190 Case
Antec 1000W PSU

I have a small Dell computer I bought a year after making my rig and it came with a q9300 Quad 2.5GHz. I have read that the Quad 9000 series are not compatible with my motherboard. Is this true? If it is, would it hurt me any if I just used the Dell Motherboard for my rig instead of the 680i? I don't overclock, and I am not going to SLI. I would prolly break something if I tried to overclock... sounds complicated, I'll wait to overclock with SB because thats easy haha. The Dell Mobo has a PCI-E slot so it will fit the Graphics Card I am getting.

If I can't do any of the above, is there any good step by step guides exclusively for the 680i + e6750 + 800MHz Ram? I know thats asking a lot, but me messing with voltages and stuff = bad things will happen.

-Katzie

 

[Katzie]

Yeah I forgot to mention that, I have a 1000W Antec PSU that I got when I RMA'ed my dead Neolink from my P190 case, so i know its overkill but I used to have 2 8800GTX in SLI before the one died.

 

[jsc]

This should be your first stop.
Core2 Overclocking Guide
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/259899-11-core-overclocking-guide

Next stop should be a guide for your particular motherboard. Google is your friend.

680i motherboards with the nVidia BIOS overclock differently from other motherboards.

This is pretty good except for the advice on memory settings:
680i overclocking guide
http://pc.ign.com/articles/747/747606p3.html

You want to adjust your memory clock to twice the FSB freq or half the FSB clock (FSB freq X 4). That will give you a 1:1 FBS:RAM ratio. Try to run your memory Linked. If you cannot, run Unlinked and manually set the memory clock.

The E6750 has a 333 MHz FSB freq. I do not think you will be able to get much more than a 20% overclock. Once you start pushing your FSB freq past about 400 MHz, you need to start watching your MCP temps in addition to your CPU temps.

 

[Katzie]

Thanks for the overclocking info, I have decided that OC will be the best till I get enough money to get the core 1155 componants and just slap that in my existing setup. Reading that article on IGN about OCing made me feel a little bit more relaxed about OCing.

 

[Katzie]

So just going to throw this out there that I am a noob and forgot to actually look up the specs of my memory from my invoice (says its DDR2 800 ram on my system) and the actual memory I am using is OCZ ReaperX Dual Channel 4096MB PC8500 DDR2 1066MHz Memory (2 x 2048MB), which from what I have read I can get my FSB up to 533 instead of 400 now, I just need to set my memory to the correct speed. The weekend is here so I'll have to wait till 7PM when I get home from work to play around with this OC stuff. Well, more like 8PM since I'll stop at Microcenter and pick up a good CPU cooler to replace my stock one.