So glad I ran into this post.
I just upgraded from a PD 945 to a C2D e6600. I've only really have the right environment for an overclock for less than a year. But since I had an Intel 965 board that was really the only thing holding me back. Even my PD at 3.4ghz was running cool though, usually under 40c idle. Other mobo temps even lower.
So I started to get tempted to want to overclock soon after, just haven't had the bios to do it.
I eventually recently tried clockgen which actually had my pll in the drop down list and I could actually OC my intel board! It worked too. And I could select from the few main frequencies and timings for memory in the bios, but that is about all that had to offer.
I was starting to think I might get away with a good mild overclock to keep me going for a while.
But when I restarted my computer the next day and tried clockgen again, I kept getting some pretty major crashes with it just by opening the program up or having it read clocks. Usually a freeze up and crash, or crazy artifacts and crash (and I know my 7600gt is plenty cool and not the culprit of these artifacts).
Don't know why it worked initially then crash city, but whatever. I still didn't and don't have my C2D installed yet, was just messing around to see what I might be able to do with the intel board while the PD was still in there to see if I could muster a stable OC out of it and avoid buying a new board.
Anyhow, long story short I got pissed after all that. I bought that intel board, and it is generally a solid board, just no OC, right around the time when C2D's were first coming out. Since myself or nobody I knew had one, and there wasn't so much info on them since they were just being released I had no idea they were going to OC as well as they do. Had I known I may have got another board.
Well, I broke down yesterday. This might cause me not being able to eat for a week, but I had to get myself a good mobo! There was a list of good ones here, a handful of them for the C2D. But that list had more expensive boards I wanted to buy, except 1.
The Gigabyte D3 (rev 1.3) was perfect. Great reviews, its highly regarded here, and it happened to be under $100 yesterday (a few $$ less than I paid for the intel board). The board was perfect for me, had everything I needed and the right layout. It looked really cool and most importantly, for an OC'ing board, it sounded pretty stable from what I read, which is important to me.
I don't need a $300 mobo cuz I'm not looking for high overclocks. I'm happy going as high as I can without buying any more stuff.
Can't wait til it gets here, it should be showing up here on Monday (damn I wish newegg allowed deliveries on sat or sun cuz I would of had it today!).
I'm anxious because I still haven't even opened the C2D box yet and I can't wait to crack it open. Definitely no point in throwing it in the intel for a few days, pasting it up, and taking it right back out.
Anyhow, I just wanted to thank everybody here for leading me to the right board for my buck and for all the documentation on it.
That is why I was so happy to see this post.
I am a noob, but only with cpu overclocking (OC graphics all the time). Considering I'm an OC noob plus I'll be tryout out a C2D and this Gigabyte mobo for the first time together, this info is really valuable.
Now the only thing I still feel left in the dark about is the RAM. I noticed in this guide that you don't even mention the whole ratio thing. I was really concerned about that (cuz I knew I probably couldn't get my fsb up to 400 on air cooling to match my 1 gig x2 Mushkin EM DDR2-800 RAM (which of course is 1600mhz, hence why I would need to get the fsb to 400 to get 1:1).
I heard mentioned here to keep the mem timings loose for noobs, or make them loose. I've heard people mention 5-5-5-15, but mine is actually 5-5-5-18 rated at 800mhz.
So am I fine just leaving my RAM at those timings. In fact, I was thinking of going along with this guide but actually dropping the 18 to 15. I heard that is a pretty harmless change to make, and those are still pretty loose timings.
Furthermore, I was thinking if I could push my total fsb to 1333mhz rather than 1600mhz, that that would be a good moderate OC. But the reason I want to get there is because I was thinking of dropping my RAM from 800mhz down to 667mhz with perhaps 4-4-4-12 timings (which I tried with my intel board and everything booted up and windows ran fine, so I guess I can do that).
And if I do that, I got an OC that I am happy with plus better RAM timings (which I assume is good because having the ram at 800mhz wouldn't be doing me any good). Others may want higher, but 1333 would be a great start for a noob OC'er.
Is this a good idea? Or stupid?
If there is even a chance of that causing a problem, no big deal if I have to stick with the ram as it is. I won't worry about it.
I also read something about how the 1:1 ratio thing is kind of dated, was more important in the past than it is currently. Maybe was more important because people had ram rated under their fsb speed and wanted to up it, while these days most people have ram speed high enough or too high.
I heard that, with the C2D's at least, that having the RAM one step ahead (as opposed to a 1:1 ratio) may be just as beneficial as the 1:1, perhaps even give more performance in some cases.
So I'm wondering what other people think about that. Underclock and tighten timings for 1:1 and the benefit of lower timings, or keep the ram as it is if you have ram w/ highe mhz than fsb (one step higher)?
Aside from that, I'll post an update here of how I do using this guide. I can't wait! This makes things much easier and will help me get familiar with the OC'ing and the board itself.
I'll probably have a question or two as I go alone, but I'm sure lots of people here have this board or similar bios that can help out.
Thanks!
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