My quest to hit 3.8GHz on air with a Q6600

[maverick7]

ok well i thought i might as well share my little adventure... lol

i have the following specs

asus maximus formula
Q6600 thermalright ultra 120 extreme with as5
2gb ddr2 800 ram
700 watt ocz psu
2x 500gb wd hard drives
8800gts 512mb
xp

ok so i my goal was 17k

i started off with a 3GHz oc 9x333 (2.7 vcore) ram at stock 800MHz 4-4-4-12 that got me 14120

i then overclocked my gpu to a 790MHz core clock (670 stock), 1010MHz Memory (stock 972), and 2000MHz shader (stock 1674)

that gpu oc got me to 14561 only.. 🙁

i then went up to a 382 (3438MHz) fsb oc on my cpu and that brought my score up to 15387

and then i went to 3.6GHz with a 1.4 vcore and the same gpu oc. That brought me to 16357

and lastly i tried to get to 3.8GHz, but sadly i hit a wall (and was too tired to try for something in the middle like 3.7) i went up to 1.48 Vcore but i kept getting the bsod. I also lowered my ram timings because its sadly only ddr800 so the ram was overclocked to 875 or 870 i forget.. If i had know before that faster ram= better oc (yes im learning) then i wouldnt have bought bloody ddr2 800!!! lol but yea so 16357 was my final score and i learned quite a bit today ocing however im still constantly worried that the 3GHz oc that i leave on all the time will blow up my pc... somehow

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=4863586



*looking back i think i should have taken some screen shots -_-

 

[cnumartyr]

I leave mine on 3.6 GHz 24/7 for the last 3 months running F@H on a core.

It's fine.

Hint: Use the 8x multiplier til you get the board stable at the higher Bus. Once it is 1 hour Prime95 Blend stable THEN use the 9x for the CPU. After that run Small FFTs. That way you know the board is stable and it eliminates some other things.

You can also OC the RAM to get it right before moving up. Get your RAM stable at 1066 MHz, then use those timings/voltage in 1:1 when you OC the board to 433 MHz FSB. Once that is Blend stable, do it x9 and you get 3.89 GHz!

 

[bildo123]

It's impressive how much the OC on a quad core increase your 3dmark06 score. I get about 11500 points with my E2180 @ 3Ghz and 8800GT. I know the GTS 512 is faster but it obvious the cpu score is the big kicker in comparison.

*edit* But I understand that its a synthetic test, and the extra cores are 'counted in', but does having the C2Q vs C2D provide a real world performance gain?

 

[Silverion77]

bildo, is your 8800GT overclocked. Just wondering cause I got 10163 at 2.8 w/ 8800GT at stock

nvm found it in your hardware

 

[bildo123]

I should update though because I now run it at 700/1980? or something just under 2000 because of the dumb rumor that went around saying if you run the 88GT at 2000 mem for a long period of time it will 'break' the card. But of course I didn't want to risk it, so I set it slightly under 2000.

Whoops I meant 11400 points 😛

 

[Silverion77]

Is that rumor true??

I would like to know because I plan on getting an HR-03GT and overclocking but if there is a limit then that would be bad

 

[cnumartyr]

Is that rumor true??

I would like to know because I plan on getting an HR-03GT and overclocking but if there is a limit then that would be bad

The memory doesn't need to be heavily overclocked. It really doesn't even effect 3D Performance in most situations.

Also- Real world Quad core performance increases only occur when a program supports a quad core. Supreme Commander is one, a few are coming out in '08. The other advantages are in rendering and encoding... and "extreme" multitasking.

 

[Silverion77]

Your back....was there an emergency

Do I keep the Core and shader "linked" and which should I start out with first?

 

[cnumartyr]

Your back....was there an emergency

Do I keep the Core and shader "linked" and which should I start out with first?

No I took a nap..

Nah, had some Building Automation programming to do..


Anyways. Keep them linked til you get artifacts. Then unlink them and move each one up gradually on it's own to see what is crapping out on you. Normally the shaders will crap out first and you can still squeeze more out of the core.

 

[bildo123]

Is that rumor true??

I would like to know because I plan on getting an HR-03GT and overclocking but if there is a limit then that would be bad

LoL thats the kicker, I'm not positive, it was all started with some guy named johnny_guru or something like that. I, personally have not read anything saying 'I ran my board at 2Ghz memory for 3 months and now it broke'. So I cant confirm it.

 

[bildo123]

No I took a nap..

Nah, had some Building Automation programming to do..


Anyways. Keep them linked til you get artifacts. Then unlink them and move each one up gradually on it's own to see what is crapping out on you. Normally the shaders will crap out first and you can still squeeze more out of the core.

If the volt mod for the 88GT is the same as for the GTS 512, I bet if you got a good VGA cooler, and volt modded you could probably almost get 20k! Course for pure bragging rights.

 

[cnumartyr]

If the volt mod for the 88GT is the same as for the GTS 512, I bet if you got a good VGA cooler, and volt modded you could probably almost get 20k! Course for pure bragging rights.

Yea, but I'm lazy and I don't feel like breaking my soldering gun back out of the box.

I'm waiting til I do a WC setup this summer for 2 R700s to go crazy.