Newbie Overclocking C2D6700/680i Mobo

[PeterZ_KCLE_EDDN]

Hi there,

so I got my new system (see specs below) and done my (some) homework on becoming an OC expert ;-) Can a kind soul give me step by step instruction on how to OC my system?

Some stuff I found suggested not to mess with voltage, then it won't damage the system regardless, however high scores won't be achieved. Some literature suggested voltage would have to be adjusted no matter what?!?!

After reading a lot, I guess I'd rather not mess with voltage. Can this be avoided or is increasing voltage something that's definately needed? I want to be conservative at first as I'm new to OC'ing.

I got the 680i board to finally get in to OC'ing, yet I'd like to take it slow. BTW, I won't make any further upgrades soon, what can be achieved with my cooling/my system in general?

Thanks in advance,
Pete

GIGABYTE Light 3D Galaxy II Liquid Cooling
ENERMAX Galaxy EGA850EWL ATX 850W Power Supply
NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Mobo
Core 2 Duo E6700 1066MHz FSB 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775
CORSAIR XMS2 2GB SDRAM DDR2 800
GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express
SBlaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 7.1
2 x Western Digital Raptor 150GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA Raid0
1 Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s

 

[NotAPimecone]

I'm far from an expert, but I'll tell you what I can, and bump your thread in the process.

With that RAM you can hope to hit at least 400 MHz FSB, which can take your CPU as high as 4.0 GHz. This would not tax your memory at all, so you could probably go a bit further without even having to relax the timings.

I don't know anything about water-cooling, but if what you've got is any good, and properly installed, you should do pretty well. Is this system actually together, or is it just hypothetical at this point (sounds like it's all set up, just making sure)? Having some idea of what your temps (preferably measured by CoreTemp and/or intel's TAT, but go ahead and throw in readings from any other monitoring tool you want too) are currently like under load (say, dual Orthos CPU tests) would be interesting, and might tell us if there's anything amiss with your cooling setup before you really try to get going. Basically, no matter what the overclock, or lack thereof, we don't want to go over 65C, preferably not over 60C, and as far below that as we can.

Quick check: you have read wusy's guide, right? It gives you a good starting point. I don't know about the E6700, but the voltage suggested for the E6400 (1.375V) was way beyond what I needed for the overclock to 333 MHz FSB. I don't even need that much voltage for a stable overclock to 425 MHz FSB (I am perfectly stable at 1.325V - also, I didn't need to raise the FSB and MCH voltages like in the guide). However, even 1.4V wasn't enough for me to hit 440FSB stable, and I was brushing up to 60C, so I backed off. But that's the E6400, on a Gigabyte DS3 board. YMMV.

 

[PeterZ_KCLE_EDDN]

Yes, the system is already together and running fantastic (but there's always room for improvement ;-)

I've checked wusy's guide and quite frankly I'm a bit overwhelmed, too much information for a rookie. I'm trying to figure out if the best way to start is to simply overclock it without adjusting any voltages so I won't damage anything. Once comfortable I could go onto the next step, voltage, ram etc. Am I thinking this through the right way?

Also, with all the info available what are some easy to use (and reliable)winxp tools to monitor temperature etc. I've read not to use any win tools for overclocking but I need some monitoring software.

BTW, my temp currently is 40c (no OC'ing), which I believe is pretty normal for the 680i coupled with a 8800GTX, this thing like to run hot, or at least so I hear.

Any further info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Pete