Can i do it?

[wardy22]

hey everyone ill start things off by saying that i am very VERY new to this (went through with my first build a few days ago) and i was wondering about the basics to overclocking, and how much you would recomend overclocking my setup.



i have a q6600 w/ stock cooler (ya i know stock cooler is not recomended thats why im asking here before i do anything)


4 gigs of mushkin ram not posotive on timings, newegg says 5-4-4-12


gigabyte GA-ep45-ud3r




so can i oc this and if sow how should i go about doing it?

 

[Cache]

Can you? Absolutely. Should you? No. Not with a stock cooler on a Q6600. You might eek out a few extra megahertz in there, but the temperature will climb scary fast. Before you should even consider overclocking, read http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/240001-29-howto-overclock-quads-duals-guide

Understand that, and then you'll know whether you can overclock on your current setup with confidence. Overclocking is not about taking blind stabs in the dark hoping that you hit some pre-determined target--that's how spectacular failures happen.

 

[RickZayne]

that guide is very good.

also use google to find out more info on your mobo.

with the stock cool i THINK you can get to 3Ghz

just leave the Memory timings for now as they dont make THAT much difference

 

[kyeana]

just make sure you dont go above safe temps and you can overclock all you want with the stock cooler.

Will it work? Yes.
Will it work as well as an aftermarket cooler? Not even close.

 

[ljvanarnam]

Cooling is half of overclocking, and also helps your computer parts to last longer.

If/when you over clock, if you have plenty of money, I would go invest in some water cooling. The lack of worring about heat, but temperature gauges are not a bad investment either. In case of user error, or cooling parts that arnt good enough. In many cases, this is unneeded. It does make no/little worry about temperature, and will help your parts to last longer.

Low budget would not allow water cooling, but faster/bigger fans that your case can support help. Along with heatsinks. If you have spare PCI slots, then they also make PCI fans, most of them only take a 4pin molex connector. Fans are cheap, CPUs are not.

If you are on a tight budget, then sadly overclocking at all is difficult. One thing is that without a temperature gauge, you would have to constently check if things are getting hot, and you can really never tell the true temperature. I just don't recommend this at all. Possibilities are high for damaging and/or destroying parts.

On an off note, if you just want your computer to run faster there are some things you can do:
- Check and takecare of Spyware and Viruses
- Delete unwanted/unnecessary programs
- Do disk clean up
- Do a defrag
- Have fewer programs start automaticly when the computer starts

 

[V3NOM]

basically you want the heat to not be a bottleneck in your oc. vcore should be the limiting factor. so set your max avcore you're going to get to, assuming heat doesn't limit you. set the vcore to that max and keep inching up the mhz until it fails prime95.

imo the stock cooler should be good for 3ghz but seriously. i highly recommend the xigmatek HDT-S1283 or at the least the arctic cooling freezer 7 pro. if you live in america, look around newegg

good luck

 

[wardy22]

thanks guys, i think i'll keep it the way it is and won oc