My Adventure in overclocking

TheThreeDegrees · 30-12-2007 7:53pm

:d

have to say the new zalman is doin a great job.the fan is only at 50% and keeping temps below the 40's on idle.

had an old amd cpu fan and stuck that on the northbridge which is hot hot hot on these mobo's.

Anti · 30-12-2007 9:01pm

get a hr-05 and stick that on there with a 60mm fan.

Not sure why the muppet in this pic put it directly intop of another heatsink though. Must be a german !

TheThreeDegrees · 31-12-2007 6:00pm

LOL!
thats some serious heatsink.

have to report some side effects with this overclock.
The sound was crackling and hissing in game play.
did a little googling and found out that these boards when overclocked can give these issues.
So I reset the bios to default clock and the sound problem is gone.

Must be a voltage thing on the PCI bus?
not sure will have to investigate further.

Chosen · 31-12-2007 6:35pm

Your Q6600 has a VID of 1.225, which is a very good thing (the lower, the better). What it also means, is that it's not all vcore. These babies can do wonders with less than 1.35-1.4v, just make sure you find the sweet spot between vPLL, vFSB, vMCH and ofcource vCore.
vPLL is far more important in Quads than vcore.
Have a look at what my 737 baby can do (VID=1.250):

PogMoThoin · 31-12-2007 6:45pm

TheThreeDegrees wrote: »

LOL!
thats some serious heatsink.

:rolleyes: Its the small heatsink (hr-05) he was showing you, for your northbridge, notice how the gob$hite in the pic stuck it on top of the stock heatsink doing absoutely nothing

TheThreeDegrees · 02-01-2008 8:00pm

The sweet spot!
Well I said at the begining if i achieved a stable oc of 3300MHz i'd be well pleased and hey presto i did just that.
Final settings:
FSB 1470
Unlinked RAM at 800,4,4,4,12.
CPU Voltage 1.325
Mem voltage 2.2
All other voltages on auto.
Leave everthing else default.
I suppose a thorough 9 hours thrashing would be even further justification but not on air.
For me its time to say over and out and onto the next challenge.;)

PogMoThoin · 02-01-2008 9:14pm

You're stopping at only 1.325vcore & your ram at stock speeds :eek: Some of us would loose a testicle 2 have a chip as good as yours

Dissapointed in you :mad: You've let the side down. Maybe anti will ban ya for being a big girls blouse

Anti · 02-01-2008 9:21pm

I should ya know. If he swaps me his q6600 for mine ill let him stay

Also, as l31mr0d has pointed out there is a point where overclockign your ram actually makes it slower. 900-975mhz is thee sweet spot, then 1000-1100 seems ****ty ( well on l31mrods and some other people ram ) And above seems okay

TheThreeDegrees · 02-01-2008 11:33pm

b..b..but..but i'm afraid to push it

PogMoThoin · 02-01-2008 11:41pm

I'm not telling ya leave it there, just push & see how far you can get the chip, I wouldnt worry as long as the chip doesn't go over 75-80'. You'll easily get that chip above 3.6Ghz, ffs i got my b3 to 3.6 (chosen had it @ 3.9 on water) so 3.7-3.8Ghz could be possible for u. You'll not blow anything up with low voltages like that

Better still, gimme the chip & i'll warm it

awhir · 03-01-2008 1:22am

just test it,it doesnt have to be ur 24 hour clock !

L31mr0d · 03-01-2008 11:11am

Chosen wrote: »

vPLL is far more important in Quads than vcore.

pardon my ignorence, but what is PLL? Here are the voltage options I have on my board.

PogMoThoin · 03-01-2008 3:05pm

You don't have this setting, cos you got a $hite mobo (only kidding)

Your mobo adjusts pll voltage automatically & doesn't give an option to adjust it, a new bios could give you the option tho as its probably just hidden from you.
The bios for Asus mobo's have alot more settings for voltage. Here's a pic:

Btw, you'll notice I'm @ stock settings, reseated my cooler few days ago, lettin As5 bed in, flashed 2 new bios, just waitin for my new ram 2 come before i push this baby. I've changed my 3 120mm fans to Yate loons also

L31mr0d · 03-01-2008 4:33pm

PogMoThoin wrote: »

You don't have this setting, cos you got a $hite mobo (only kidding)

no you're right, this mobo is rubbish... for my next upgrade i'll be steering clear of the nvdia chipset. I only really got it for SLI, which i'm probably never going to use, as by the time I get a screen with a larger monitor i'll probably be upgrading to a better graphics card.

Oh and OP... PUSH FURTHER!!! Without hitting a thermal barrier or stability wall its pointless. You aren't going to kill you chip if you overclock safely, you'll get red flags such as BSODs or stress program crashes long before your CPU dies. I'd keep pushing until you fail then drop it back a little. That should be your everyday overclock. As long as you don't exceed ~80'c under load and keep your volts at a max of ~1.5v you should be fine.

TheThreeDegrees · 03-01-2008 4:55pm

Anti wrote: »

Also, as l31mr0d has pointed out there is a point where overclockign your ram actually makes it slower. 900-975mhz is thee sweet spot, then 1000-1100 seems ****ty ( well on l31mrods and some other people ram ) And above seems okay

I have taken ANTI's advise and set the ram to 900 which is working really nice at the 3300MHz clock.

As for reaching the "wall" well it will just have to wait for my new mobo.;)

TheThreeDegrees · 10-01-2008 2:44pm

Well well well what can I say about the new mobo.Fookin brilliant!

will never touch another asus board again doesnt even matter if they have the intel chipset.

the attention to detail on the Abit IX38 Quad is second to none,and its all of 20 yoyo's dearer than the heap of **** p5n32 sli i had?
SLI is a con in my opinion.

No issues with the install.sound works beautifully.and as for the current overclock,I keyed in the bus clock and bang off she runs.Well recommended.
Its an overclockers dream.

Anti · 10-01-2008 3:05pm

yeah i think thats gonna be my next board too.

TheThreeDegrees · 10-01-2008 7:41pm

real nice Anti.
promise ye you'll not be dissapointed.and the temps are so low.
dont be surprised if water cooling is phased out:)

Anti · 11-01-2008 2:21pm

I think im going ot have to watercool as my TR ultra dosent look like it will fit within the Ix38's maze of heatpipes. But its something i have been planning on for a while now.

TheThreeDegrees · 11-01-2008 3:39pm

my zalman had to be coaxed in between the heatpipes.nothing too dramatic:)

water cooling i would say would be a great help though.
i have to $ave up for it:cool:

my first stress test went well.

Anti · 11-01-2008 10:09pm

well thats me sold. deffo gonna buy this now. No point wasting 600€ on ddr3.

TheThreeDegrees · 16-01-2008 1:00pm

in case anyone has any doubhts on the capabilities of this mobo!

funny enough I now know that reviews have to be taken with a pinch of salt.overclockers did one for this mobo before christmas and yer man said he was hitting "hard walls" at 400 fsb.
I have yet to feel a wall and I am at 423.
The processor has the power saving features enabled hence CPU-Z is showing a lower core speed.

I really want to stress test this setting but I really do think I need better cooling.

awhir · 16-01-2008 3:26pm

TheThreeDegrees wrote: »

in case anyone has any doubhts on the capabilities of this mobo!

funny enough I now know that reviews have to be taken with a pinch of salt.overclockers did one for this mobo before christmas and yer man said he was hitting "hard walls" at 400 fsb.
I have yet to feel a wall and I am at 423.
The processor has the power saving features enabled hence CPU-Z is showing a lower core speed.

I really want to stress test this setting but I really do think I need better cooling.

disable that power throttling,fist see what ur max fsb wall is drop ur multi to 6 and get keep pushin up the fsb

DanielSmith · 17-01-2008 9:48am

great job and nice capture.

TheThreeDegrees · 17-01-2008 6:42pm

awhir wrote: »

disable that power throttling,fist see what ur max fsb wall is drop ur multi to 6 and get keep pushin up the fsb

Not sure what you mean by wall.Is that how high the CPU can go?Or the FSB?

Heres the latest:eek:

TheThreeDegrees · 18-02-2008 12:20pm

seeing as I have an Asus P35 P5K-E for demo well you know I couldnt resist:D

The Bus speed hit 502 but that was pumping lots of volts into the CPU.But it got there nonetheless.Multiplier was lowered to *6.
Could not get the quad over 4.0MHz.:(

The IX38's wall is/was 470 doesnt matter if the multiplier was 9 or 6.But I think this is a relatively new board so future bios's may improve that.

again none of these tests have been stress tested but its kinda cool when you can get a picture of CPU-Z when your overclocking!;)

TheThreeDegrees · 19-02-2008 12:25pm

well took another crack at it this morning.Had the PC virtually out the window:D

No joy getting better results but did manage to get the q6600 into windows at 4.0MHz:cool:

so of the three boards ive overclocked this is my evaluation.

Asus P5N-32 680i:
Heat is a problem with these.Numerous bios flash's to get it to a decent clock.but as it was my first board to OC it was a good learning experience.
always at the jumper resetting the blasted thing.annoying.SOLD.

Asus P5K P35:
Nice bios features.Loads of options.
Again this one you have the start messin with the voltages to get it to OC well.
It did have the highest Bus speed of 502 with the multiplier at 6.Ive read it can do 520!
Nice board and may be a keeper as a spare.Never had to touch the jumpers.

Abit Ix38 QuadGT:
After the 680i this one was a dream to work with.Stable at high speeds and 3300MHz easily obtainable without messin with the voltages.Overclocked my Q6600 the highest of all three.bios options could be improved as the Asus board has far more features for flashing etc.Defo a keeper as I love the look of it and the SPEED!

On to a new adventure now.Watercooling!

My Adventure in overclocking

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