Q6600 Overclocking (1066 or 800 RAM)

stuoke

Distinguished
Jul 13, 2007
17
0
18,510
So far I have read that you can overclock a Q6600 to 3.6GHZ on air. In my system I dont want to deal with liquid so I wanna stick with air cooling. So basically I was wondering would I be able to hit that speed with DDR2 800 without overclocking the ram or should I go with 1066? Also, I was wondering if I would get better performance if I bought 1066 and underclocked it to run at tighter timings? I plan on getting 4x1GB sticks. Price is not a large consideration here either.
 
3.6 on air I think that's a bit optimistic. 3.2 is about average not to say some didn't get 3.6. Hell many folks with E6600 don't hit 3.6. Rather than waste your money on better ram put it into the cpu. In terms of real world performance the best ram only makes 5% difference over value 667. When I was OC'ing my E6600 I backed my ram way down the difference in performance was insignifigant in application testing. Yes it made difference but not enough that you would noticed without benchmarking tools.
 
Yeah, 3.6 is good for an E6600, but the Q6600s run waaaaay hotter, would be surprised if you got anywhere near that tbh.

As regards putting the money you'd spend on better RAM into the CPU, I don't think it would make much difference, as the next CPU up is an 'extreme', which cost an absolute fortune. Unless you could put that money into a GFX card upgrade if you game, wouldn't be too bad spending it on the PC8500 considering how cheap it is at the moment. As bydesign says though, will only give a small performance increase, so perhaps you should just save the money :)
 
well i am running Q6600 @ 3.4 on air cooling with 800 RAM...

I let the timings auto and running it 1:1 which results in stable system..

btw.. dont get 4X1GB ram.. instead go with 2X2GB
2 reasons for that :

1- easier to overclock ram with less modules
2- you still got 2 slots to upgrade your system to 8GB

Specs:

Q6600 @ 3.4 Ghz (cooler scythe ninja plus rev.B)
Board : Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6
Ram : 2xGB OZC 2GB8004GK
PSU : Enermax Infinity 720W
 
Damn 3.4 on Air....

I got my q6600 just over 3 and it was running at 69 degrees under load. You must have an ultra flat heatsink/processor or mine suck!
 



wanting to get a 3.6ghz on a quad without watercooling ?
you will have to try 5-10 cpu to get one that fits what you want... then, be sure you have a rock stable motherboard... 800mhz ram is sufficient with 9x400 = 3600. you won't get to 3.6ghz using another multi with air cooling... even some vapochilled cpu didn't get to 3.5ghz so...

personnally, i would get the lowest featured board with a P35/ICH9R watercool to the chipset, video card and maybe ram with ocz flex units...
and a vapochill for the cpu. might be the black pearl edition...

with a low power draw video card, i should be fine with the PSU supplied with the antec SONATA III while watercooling and vapochill aren't powered by it.

i expect
 
This is really making my decision hard here. I am thinking I might go with the Ultra 120 Thermo electric cooler. It looks like the best air cooler out there and almost comparable to water cooling.
 


I am having a tough time keeping my E6600 @3.6GHz cool, and you think you can air cool "four cores" on air at 3.6GHz.
 


Wassup,
Great Info , whats the exact model number of your memory modules from OCZ ?!
peace
 
in all the benches I have seen with games.. 90% of it is CPU and GPU very little has to do with ram and FSB ect is this about right? in all the expertise out there ?
 
Yup, ram speed doesn't account for much performance. In gaming terms it would be gfx, cpu, (as you mentioned, they are the major two) hdd, ram in that order.
 
The stepping on your Q6600 will play into this. If it is a G-stepping, you will likely get a really good OC, FSB 400 or better even on air. If it is the older stepping (B I think it is) then it may not run so well. If you get a G, I'd suggest the PC1066 memory as you can likely stretch it out a bit more with the G.
 


What cooler and vCore? G0 stepping? Any screenshots?
 


I would love to see some screen shots as well, that sounds to good to be....
 


Posters that lie through their teeth aren't to be believed in the future. Your credibility is toasted!
 
3.6ghz on air here (G0 and AC Freezer 7 Pro)

These are idle temps, load temps are around 50-53C


idle3600vv2.jpg
 
The thermalright 120 extreme is the best air cooler around. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/thermalright-ultra120ex.html
I have it baby brother the ultima-90 as I didn't like the size. I have my Q6600 at 3.6 with 1.425v and it runs idle 36c and prime load 70c using the ultima-90 with an old arctic freezer 7 pro fan attached. A panaflo would be better but noisier. Any P35 MB is good for overclocking the Q6600 - I got the P5K premium and like it but it gets some bad press about certain model of SATA compatability. Just make sure the Q6600 you buy is a GO SLACR one and not a B3. I would also recommend Ballistix 8500C5 - they have micron d9 chips and are as cheap as chips -lol! Get them from Misco if you are in the UK http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=281078&CatId=784
Here is a link for a good overclocking the Q6600 thread http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=152603 Q6600 temperatures quide http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/221745-11-core-temperature-guide