Overclocking E6600

[sparker366]

Ok. My system specs are in my sig.

I am very new to overclocking. On another forum I belong I asked some one what was the best way to get the E6600 to be a bit faster then the E6700 and not have to touch voltages. I am not into overclocking to the max

So I was instructed to go into the bios and unlink the memory and bump the FSB up in 20mzh increments. I did that till I reached 1280 on the FSB and that gave me a 2.88 overclock. I ran Orthos for 2hrs and never got about 53c for that whole time. So I knew I had a stable overclock.

Now I went into CPU-Z and started poking around and on the memory tab I saw that the memory ratio was 4:5. Now I googled that ratio and found out that it does equate to an 800mhz mem speed. However I was also reading that that maybe not that good a ratio to have.

I am wanting your thoughts on this. I don't want to touch voltages as I don't want to increase the heat as I live in very hot climate in the summer. The timings on the ram are 5-5-5-15-2t and the ram is at 1.85v.

TIA for the help.

[Hazaro]

What RAM do you have?
What multiplier/FSB is your CPU running?
What Mhz are your RAM running?

[sparker366]

If you read my post you will see all your questions were answered other then the multiplier. I stated that the only thing I touched was the FSB which I bumped up to 1280. So the multiplier was left at stock which I think is 9x. Before the overclock the mem was 800mhz and after the overclock the mem is 800mhz. I am only concerned about the ratio of 4:5 which if you do the math that I read about does equate to 800mhz.

Here is the cpu and mem pages from CPU-Z

Mem
http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/5879/memdt0.jpg

CPU
http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/8269/cpukj0.jpg

[Hazaro]

Always good to check, and I probably should of asked for pictures, but you got them to me anyway. I meant what brand/model number your RAM was by the way.

Either way, C2D's run best at a 1:1 ratio of FSB to RAM and pushing your RAM at higher clocks for no reason isn't the most constructive thing you can do.
Lower your RAM to whatever the CPU is running at. (320Mhz in this case)

Your E6600 should be able to do at least 3.2, (Although mine is a dud and won't), and you could easily decease the voltage and be fine.

[Stratcat]

Hi -

Welcome to the forum.

As to your immediate question of you RAM running at 400MHz:

I believe the "800" in your sig after your RAM implies it's PC6400, correct?

If that's the case, then your RAM will handle that frequency fine (it's actually the RAM's spec frequency) as long as you're running at the RAM's correctly spec'd voltage and timings.

Does this answer your question?

If not, I could go deeper into the relationships between FSB, quad pumped, DDR2, memory devider ratios, the way CPU-Z reads and displays, etc.

~ Strat ~

<edit>

Sorry Hazaro. Not trying to step on your post. We posted concurrently.

</edit>

[sparker366]

I stated I don't know jack about overclocking. So right now you are talking over my knowledge level. I am not afraid to admit I don't know jack about this. I just need to know what to do make it better with out burning things up.

I want to leave the cpu speed where it is. I just want to know if the mem ratio is going to give me a bottleneck or performance hit. Is it ok to leave it that way? If its not ok to leave it that way what do I have to do to fix it?

Sorry if I sounded abrupt but everything was there in the post for you except the model number of the ram. The brand is right there in my sig.

[sparker366]

Stratcat thanks for the welcome. I have edited this post 2x's now cause I am over tired and may be sounding like a jerk so I do apologize to all.

I use my rig for video encoding so I want the best performance I can get. I know I should have gotten CAS 4 ram's but at the time I could only swing these.

So if this ratio is not the best to be at what can I do to get it there and not loose any performance. I really don't know anything about overclocking. I had someone who has the same mobo and cpu as me tell me what they did to get their overclock. I told them I didn't want to mess with voltages or memory overclocking or anything other then getting the cpu to be abit faster then the E6700. Thus I stated what I did in the first post.

[Stratcat]

Hi sparker366 -

No need to edit your posts, man....we've all been there!

Like Hazzaro, I prefer to run my RAM 1:1 ratio at the highest speed I can get.

Right now using 1:1 ratio for you would put your RAM at 320 (640 DDR), which is running it below it's max rated speed, but is not necessarily a bad thing. Some ppl believe 1:1 ratio is a more "efficient" ratio than a non 1:1 ratio.

Your current 4:5 ratio does indeed run the RAM at it's full rated speed (800 DDR), however, it's at an "offset" ratio, where some ppl believe you can incur and "overhead" penalty.

There is no hard and fast consensus on this. It can vary with each particuliar configuration. It's a balancing act between ratios and max speed.

So what you are really trying to decide is which ratio is the best performing for your purpose:

Running the RAM at it's full rated speed (DDR 800), but at an "offset" ratio (4:5) - Your current setup

or

Running the RAM at a slower speed (DDR 640), but at a "synchronized" ratio (1:1) - TBD

BTW - Running either ratio will have absolutely no detrimental effect on your hardware, nor requires any changes besides that of changing the memory ratio (I assume you already have done this to get the 4:5 ratio). The only issue (as you stated) is one of performance.

+++

So I recommend you do a benchmark using both ratios to find which performs best.

+++

Use your current ratio and do or run something that will be representative of the machine's intended use. Perhaps some PS layer applied to a large batch of pics, for instance, or encode a video. Anyway, something that will take a long enough period of time so that you can accurately time the event. Run the benchmark a few times and get an average time.

Then try the same benchmark using 1:1 ratio in the same manner.

An 1/2 hour or hour of benchmark testing in this manner will tell you which configuration works best for the actual work you will be performing on this particular machine, eliminating any questions or theory, and give you a hard answer specific to your machine and your intended use, eliminating any doubt.

Make sense?

If you can't think of any app to use as a benchmark, there are some general ones available that we use, but nothing beats some app that you will actually be using in real life.

Good Luck!

~ Strat ~

[sparker366]

I didn't touch the mem ratio in the bios. All I changed was first unlinked the ram and then changed the fsb to 1280 as stated in small steps then running orthos to stress it after each fsb change. When I checked the memory speed after I reached my desired clock it was 800mhz.

I just finished trying to get it to go 1:1 and my system locked up. I take it it must be the limitations of the ram. So I just left it the way it was at 4:5 and will live with it.

Well thanks for the help and I guess that I will leave it as it may. The system does encode a 350mb avi to a 700mb mpeg in 13 mins which is 3x faster then my amd 4200 x2 did. I did score 11k on 3dmarks06 and to me that seems respectable.

[Hazaro]

Helpful as always Stratcat :)
I didn't see your sig sparker, my bad there. (That's the first place I usually look too...)

*That's odd it doesn't work at a 1:1 though

[Stratcat]

Hazzaro - Thx

sparker366 - Anyway you cut it, you've got a nice system, and any performance differences from the choice of memory divider would be relatively minor in comparison to the large step up you've made from your old system.

I do agree with Hazzaro, in that there's really no technical reason the RAM shouldn't run at 1:1, since 1:1 is actually a slower RAM speed than you're currently running, but this isn't really a big deal, since your current devider is set upwards for faster speeds.

Enjoy your new system.

~ Strat ~

[batboy]

If you are happy with your O/C, then run it as is. Nothing wrong with the 4:5 ratio. Now if you plan on overclocking higher, then you will want to set it to 1:1, but for where you are currently at and not wanting to raise voltages, this is perfect.

[sparker366]

Thanks for all the help. I don't plan on going any higher then where I am at now.