Q6600 cooling advice.

Dcully

Hi folks ive never been one to overclock, some would call that blasphemy
Anyways ive got a 2 year old Q 6600 thats never been overworked and i wouldnt mind overclocking her more out of interest than anything else.
I have a decent Gigabyte mobo that allows for auto overclocking etc when enabled.
Can anyone recomend some decent cooling please, i dont wish to spend much as its more experimental than anything else but a nice operformance boost is always welcome
Also for a decent cooling fan do i need thermal paste or is it just a click on jobby?

Sasquatch76

You'll get lots of different advice for the actual cooler itself, and a lot of it depends on your budget. The size of your case might also be a restriction, as some air coolers get pretty big!

As for the thermal paste, most coolers will come with some form of paste pre-applied.

Solitaire

Most forms of auto-OCing on mobos are very weak and not even that stable half the time. You'll be looking at a 7-15% increase at best, which is pretty risible. At least you shouldn't need a new cooler...

If you want to really get some horsepower out of that Q6600 you'll need to OC it manually. You can get gains of +50% speed and thus performance off Q6600s, but even 25% (i.e. from 2.4GHz to 3GHz) is respectable and gives you a pretty powerful CPU to play with. The downside is that larger OCs need the CPU to be overvolted to some degree, which the majority of mobos support but in turn makes the CPU use more power and dissipate more heat, so you'll need to check you're not pushing the PSU a tad too far on more ambitious overvolts. You'll almost certainly need a better cooler than stock by 3GHz too.

The best choice on a budget IMHO is the Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus, which is fairly quiet, gives good cooling for high-heat quad-core CPUs and yet remains pretty darn cheap. As its a full-size (120mm) tower cooler narrower cases won't be able to fit one in though! Smaller 92mm tower coolers should fit in the majority of ATX cases but they're not as good at cooling high-heat quads. The Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro and its revisions are among the best in their class, and dirt-cheap to boot. Ignore the moaning about them being inferior to the Hyper 212 etc. - those coolers can't even reach the places a Frrezer 7 can fit :P

Dcully

Thanks guys, my case is an Antec 900 and the PSU is a Seasonic 700 watt.

Solitaire

Methinks some medium- or heavy-duty OCing with a Hyper 212 Plus would be perfectly acceptable if it takes your fancy

54kroc

What Solitaire said about the auto overclocking feature is spot on your much better off doing it yourself and it's more enjoyable too.

For cpu cooling I'm using the Noctua NH-U12P at the moment and I think it's a cracker.
It's cooling performance is outstanding while still being very quiet and the mounting system is about the best I've used.
I have it installed inside an Antec Fusion remote max so it should fit in your case as well.

PogMoThoin

Dcully wrote: »

Thanks guys, my case is an Antec 900 and the PSU is a Seasonic 700 watt.

Purrfect

Which stepping Q6600?
Run cpuz and see stepping on the first tab. This will determine how easy your overclock will be and how much voltage will be needed. Hopefully its a g0 and not toasty b3, take a screenie and post it here

Also what ram You got, this may limit your overclock

You'll need proper thermal compound like arctic silver, Hitide are Irish and will ship straight away with postage only €3

Dcully

Stepping is B below that it says Revision is G0
Ram is 8 GIG Corsair DDR2 1066mhz

PogMoThoin

Should have no problem hitting 3.2Ghz+ with that without breaking a sweat

Solitaire

+1. You can have fun with that rig for a good while longer - many Q6600s can hit 3.6GHz stable with decent cooling

Well, so long as the mobo's OCing options are up to snuff

Serephucus

A G0 chip is the best you'll get in terms of "overclockability". Your best bet is to drop the multiplier by one (brings it to eight, if I remember correctly), and increase the FSB - gradually! - to 400 (1600 effective), giving you an overall speed of 3.2GHz.

Also, disable any settings in your motherboard that relate to thermal stuff, and in particularly Intel SpeedStep. They'll screw with voltages where you don't want to making otherwise fine OCs unstable.

Dcully

Thanks again lads, quick question - should i stick with using the bios for overclocking or are there any software out there up to the task?
Heres my mobo btw http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ClassValue=Motherboard&ProductID=2639&ProductName=GA-P35-DS3P

Solitaire

Not for LGA775 AFAIK. Stick to the BIOS and just use the tried-and-tested methods littered around here and the rest of the Web to reach an acceptable performance level

PogMoThoin

Definitely manually in the bios, overclocking utilities are nothing but bother and just guess an overclock, manually You can find Your setup's natural limits through testing for a safer more stable oc. I've my pc at 3.8Ghz 24/7 without any bother (slightly undervolted actually )

54kroc

Dcully wrote: »

Thanks again lads, quick question - should i stick with using the bios for overclocking or are there any software out there up to the task?

Do it yourself through the bios,you'll get plenty of help on boards.

Serephucus

BIOS. Always the BIOS. Unless of course you have a truely ancient/craptastic board that simply doesn't allow you to overclock.

Dcully

I intend to follow this guide btw lads
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/240001-11-howto-overclock-quads-duals-guide

Just to update i done some messing around just now and upped the FSB to 333mhz and kept the multiplyer @ 9x.
I ran prime 95 to stresstest and using cpu-z and core temp i could see i was getting 3.0ghz but temps were in the yellow 90C plus in core temp with stock cooling.
Needless to say ive since gone back to 2.4ghz until i get decent cooling.

Solitaire

Wow. Are those case fans set to Low or Medium? That's pretty dreadful for 3GHz even with a stock HSF if you're not overvolting like crazy :eek:

Dcully

There set to low.
I just assumed it was the fan on the cpu simply wasnt up to the task,ie stock fan.
I left volting on default.

Solitaire

You should be getting bad temps... just not that bad Not with a 3GHz G0 at stock volts anyway!! :eek:

Dcully

What volts do you suggest?

Also quick question, at which point will the system shut down if things get too hot or will it?

Just bumped up case cooling to max and still seeing 90C at 100% load

Serephucus

Your temps really shouldn't be that bad... what case do you have? Is the heat actually getting out of your case or what? You're going to get bad temps with the stock HSF, but they should be around eighty, max. Ninety is ridiculous. Pick up a Hyper 212 or a TRUE or something.

Dcully

The case is an Antec 900, i do intend getting a hyper 212.

Dcully

Just to update lads, just ran some games while OCed to 3.0ghz and temps stayed below 60C constantly.
Should i still go for extra cooling?
Is 55-60C ok?

Using prime 95 under 100% load things got too hot but for actual gaming im seeing each core only under max of 50- 60% load.

Inquitus

Gaming isnt super CPU intensive like say Video encoding and the like, so it depends on what you are using your comp for.

55-60C is a little on the highside for my liking even under 100% load, but many comps you can buy in the shops get hotter.

If you want to get into OCing a bit more, a top end Heatsink will enable you to unlock the full potential of your CPU and even OC'd and overvolted running Prime95 you shouldn't see temps as high.

Solitaire

Inquitus wrote: »

If you want to get into OCing a bit more, a top end Heatsink will enable you to unlock the full potential of your CPU and even OC'd and overvolted running Prime95 you shouldn't see temps as high.

Personally I think a cheap but decent heatsink (rather than a TRUE or Noctua!) is called for. I don't think we're trying to hit 4GHz@ambient here, but getting past 3GHz and still staying frosty would be darn nice

Dcully

Thanks lads, its puely for gaming.
Id just like to get a wee bit more performance out of this cpu as everyone says its a great cpu to OC.
Im a total noob to OCing tbh so its rather interesting as i go along.
So 55-60 is a little on the high side then?

I was planning on getting a coolermaster hyper 212,just hope i dont screw up the assembing.

Solitaire

Assembling shouldn't be too hard, just a slow, awkward PITA as you have to disassemble the whole rig to fit a heavy full-tower cooler unless you have one of those fancy new cases with a void in the mobo tray to fit backplates!

Dcully

Again thanks solitaire and everyone else for all your help.
Played quite a bit of bad company 2 last night OCed to 3.0 gig, temps never went above 55c in any core.
Ran some prima 95 tests this morning with 100% load on each core and never went above 60c, with stock cooling.
While researching the net i found quite a few folk saying the Q6600 stock cooling is dramatically under rated, i must say based on my personal testing the last 2 days im surprised how well stock cooling is doing.

StopNotWorking

Dcully wrote: »

While researching the net i found quite a few folk saying the Q6600 stock cooling is dramatically under rated.

REALLY depends on how good the airflow is in your case. A lot of people who use the stock cooler use an average case aswell and the two dont go together very well