Avoiding Disaster (E6600)

[krummster]

Hey People

Totally new to the forum. Looks like a great friendly place. Hope I'm not way off with the etiquette!

I've started reading guides about overclocking and I know there's toooons of information out there so I'm not asking any general advice or howto's about overclocking in general. I am wise enough to RTFM 😉

What I have learned though, is that overclocking is very hardware specific so I'd like to get a little input from the wise sages here on my hardware setup and if there are any known issues, shortcomins, quirks in my hardware setup that I should be aware of before I try overclocking..

My setup is as follows:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
MSI 975X Platinum PowerUp Edition
Corsair XMS2 2GB DDR2 800MHz CL4
Gigabyte NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB GDDR3
Case: Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer Case
Power: Cooler Master eXtreme 600W

Is there anything in there that suggest I should have issues OCing? The Case has four fans, including one 20cm one on top. Should I go for more cooling? I was warned about liquid cooling in this case since the power supply is on the bottom of the case...

Also I heard that this isn't the best MB in the world for overclocking. How severe are my limitations with this set up?

PS: The memory is rated at 800MHZ but it only shows up as 333mhz in CPU-Z instead of 400...is this a MB issue?

Anyway. Hope I'm not out of line with these questions...I know there's information on these individual parts out there but I'd be happiest if I had some professional feedback on my specific setup...thanks people!

-Krummi

 

[apt403]

how high are you looking to go, and are you using the stock hsf?

 

[krummster]

3ghz would be great...anything higher fantastic!

Yeah...I have the stock HSF as of yet...should I be upgrading with my goals in mind?

Thanks for the quick reply man..

 

[apt403]

if you want to get to 3ghz then an aftermarket hsf would be the best way to go, the tunic tower 120 and the scythe infinity are two really good ones.

 

[krummster]

Thanks man!

I'll get right on it...

any other thoughts?

 

[krummster]

I don't seem to be able to find the two coolers you recommended. Isn't easy finding specific hardware as I live in Iceland..

I did find the Arctic Cooling freezer 7 pro...

is that good enough?

 

[Doughbuy]

That's a fairly decent HSF, much better than stock, but isin't a cooling beast like the large tower coolers. That + AS5 will help you lower your temps quite a bit giving you some more OC'ing headroom.

Also, another thing is to try to keep your temps below 60 at load. I like below 60, personal preference, but I don't want to chance a dead proc.

 

[apt403]

what store are you buying from? and remember to get a tube of arctic silver 5 too.


the Arctic Cooling freezer 7 pro is pretty good, but the two i mentioned earlier are still better.

 

[racerboywonder]

I think the AC Freezer 7 Pro is excellent for the price. It may not be the very best air HSF (maybe a few degrees C off...within the margin of error/difference between temp utilities), but when you can get it for $30 (USD), as opposed to $50 or $60+, it really is great value.

 

[Fluke101]

Corsair XMS2 2GB DDR2 800MHz CL4

I have the exact same RAM

PS: The memory is rated at 800MHZ but it only shows up as 333mhz in CPU-Z instead of 400...is this a MB issue?

I found, on my P5W DH, that the default voltage the mobo supplied to the RAM was too low. It was ~ 1.8V or something, and that RAM requires 2.1V (check the Corsair website http://www.corsair.com/corsair/products/specs/TWIN2X2048-6400C4.pdf).

What you need to do, is go into BIOS setup, and manually change the voltage (to 2.1) and the frequency (from DDR2-667MHz to DDR2-800)

 

[krummster]

What you need to do, is go into BIOS setup, and manually change the voltage (to 2.1) and the frequency (from DDR2-667MHz to DDR2-800)

Worked like a charm!

Thanks man...

 

[krummster]

Ok, So I got the Zalman 9500, and following Wusy's guide I'm running stable at 3.15 by upping the V-Core to 1.4 and FSB to 348mhz

Coretemp is rating me at 62-64 degress celcius max load running Prime95. I know it's a little on the high side so I'm wary of pushing it even further...

I'm just wondering if upping the FSB a little more will run me into the danger zone or am I safe as long as I keep the VCore the same?