My Q6600 g0 on an Ubercomputer (3dmark06: better than 100% of all systems tested)

[blackjackel]

I just got my g0 Q6600, I just finished lapping it, the heatsink was already lapped by me a while back... I just ran 3dmark06 and it told me that this computer performs better than 100% of all systems tested, I'm in the top .1% :D

the system is this:

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/wishlist/PublicWishDetail.asp?WishListNumber=3235488

All except for the CPU, which is a g0 Q6600 that I just got from clubit, the cpu listed on there was a temp cpu till I got this one:

BX80562Q6600SLACR
MM#: 891337 <----- lol it says 1337
FPO/BATCH: L721A814
version #: E10342-001 1.35vmax
Pack date 07/31/07

I'm currently running at stock, I have not attempted to overclock anything, I am now going to report stock temperatures and update this post where applicable.



======================CURRENT HIGHEST 3DMARK 06 SCORE============================


18571 3DMARKS

3dmark06 says its better than 100% of all systems tested.

Ranked 1503 out of 2246407 systems tested. So it's not REALLY better than 100%, more like better than 99.9%

LINK: http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=2977147




===================STOCK IDLE TEMPS ===================


IDLE STOCK TEMP (using nvidia monitor program): 35 degrees celcius.... I don't know how to get the individual core temperature yet, but when I figure that out i'll post the results.

IDLE STOCK TEMPS (using Coretemp):
Core #0 44 degrees
Core #1 38 degrees
Core #2 35 degrees
Core #3 33 degrees

===================STOCK LOAD TEMPS=====================

LOAD STOCK TEMP (using nvidia monitor program): 48 degrees celcius... I'm using a combination of orthos and two prime95 instances to load all 4 processors to 100% utilization.

LOAD STOCK TEMPS (using CORETEMP):
core #0: 56 degrees
Core #1: 54 degrees
Core #2: 51 degrees
core #3: 50 degrees


==========CURRENT HIGHEST ACHIEVED STABLE OVERCLOCK (not pushed to the limit) ============

9 x 412.5 = 3712.5 GHZ

FSB 1650

coretemp shows:

core0: 77C
core1: 72C
core2: 72C
core3: 77C

Nvidia monitor shows: 67C

My vcore is around 1.5 although in the bios I have it set at 1.587

I haven't pushed it to its limit yet.... I'm not sure I want to take this to its limit.... I'm already scared of the voltage i'm pumping through this thing and the temps arent looking too great either



================CURRENT 24hour use overclock settings==================

3612ghz

Currently running at 1.575 bios 1.488 cpuz vcore

core0: 72C
core1: 67C
core2: 67C
core3: 72C

nvidia sensor: 66C

[aaronjb]

Link to the ORB listing?

Also, the latest version of Prime95 supports 4 cores. Try "Small FFT" torture test to really push the temps up.

[shirker]

I can't say I'm surprised, quad core + dual 8800 ultras basically owns 3DMark06. Just wait until you overclock the 8800 ultras and that Q6600 to the mid 3GHz range. are you using stock cooling on the Ultras? I wonder how hot those things are running right now

[blackjackel]

Link to the ORB listing?

Also, the latest version of Prime95 supports 4 cores. Try "Small FFT" torture test to really push the temps up.

ORB listing? Don't know what you're talking about :/

Thanks for the prime 95 suggestion but I was running basically 4 different instances of it on all the different processors so it shouldn't make adifference, but I'll try it for convenience :)

[blackjackel]

I can't say I'm surprised, quad core + dual 8800 ultras basically owns 3DMark06. Just wait until you overclock the 8800 ultras and that Q6600 to the mid 3GHz range. are you using stock cooling on the Ultras? I wonder how hot those things are running right now

Yes the ultras are running stock cooling, but I don't think the cooling can get any better, the cooling itself is monstrous and takes up a huge part of the inside of the case....

The ultras run 66 degrees and 67 degrees on idle respectively.... though load temperatures tend to differ by 10 degrees.

[jellysandwich]

what about the hr-03?

[blackjackel]

what about the hr-03?

no clue what you're talking about...


But i'm having problems here... my bios is acting wierd.... for example, at stock it says the cpu frequency should be 4000mhz and it says cpu multiplier is at 15X but under current value the regular values are displayed....

I lowered fSB down to 1000 from 1066 and now it sys 3750mhz at 15X and current value shows 2250mhz.... I really don't understand whats going on...

[Peepaw]

ORB listing? Don't know what you're talking about :/

Thanks for the prime 95 suggestion but I was running basically 4 different instances of it on all the different processors so it shouldn't make adifference, but I'll try it for convenience :)

ORB=online results browser. When you run 3dmark and view results online, the you can choose to publish the results. Then you post the link to the results.;)

[shirker]

no clue what you're talking about...he's suggesting a MUCH better heatsink for your 8800 Ultras. As far as air cooling solutions go, a thermalright HR-03 on each 8800 Ultra is about as good as it gets, especially if you put a 90/92mm fan on each. You just spent roughly $4000 on a computer, what's another hundred for GPU cooling... :shrug:

[blackjackel]

ORB=online results browser. When you run 3dmark and view results online, the you can choose to publish the results. Then you post the link to the results.;)

oh thanks, I'll have to post that later as I'm trying to see how far I can push this CPU.... I'm currently stuck trying to figure out the problem in my last post.... apparently changing FSB - Memory ratio from 1:1 to 3:2 to 5:4 does nothing.... it used to work in the other proc I had installed...

[Vagabond102]

Have you updated your BIOS recently? You went from a Cedar Mill to a G0 quad on a 680i MB...

[blackjackel]

Ok problem solved, apparently I had to reset the cpu multiplier becauase it didnt reset that (and I didnt) when I installed the new Q6600.... yet the processor was forcing the multiplier down to 9X....

Anyways, now that thats out of the way, I'm going to see how far this thing can go on stock voltage... right now I set the FSB to 1337 at a ratio of 5:4 just for fun and its posting at 3.00 ghz...

I'm going to prime it for a little bit to see if it's stable then I'm going to up it some more.... once it hits the wall I'll start playing with the voltage, what do you guys think is a safe long-term voltage to use with it? I'm thinking 1.45

[blackjackel]

Its priming stble at 3.0ghz fsb 1337 x9 STOCK vcore.
Crashed at boot at 3.37 fsb 1500 x9 stock vcore...

I'm having bad luck, I can't get it stable at 3.2ghz 1423fsb 3:2 even at 1.475 voltage.... I'm suspecting that the bottleneck is not the cpu... hopefully.

UPDATE: BIG WTF ALERT!!! I set the voltage to 1.52 in bios and its running 3.2 stable on prime... CPU-Z shows voltage to be 1.188v!!! WTF? and if I'm doing 3.2ghz on 1.188v then how high can i go?

[shirker]

whats your memory voltage setting? You'll need to up those slightly to raise your fsb high, or maybe they're undervolted right now

[blackjackel]

whats your memory voltage setting? You'll need to up those slightly to raise your fsb high, or maybe they're undervolted right now

the mem voltage is 2.2v.... the fsb is running at 3:2 1423 which means the ram is actually running at something like 933 ( don't know the exact number ) but seeing as how its rated at 1066 then it should be perfectly fine...

I'm running 3.2ghz at 1.525vcore and my load core temps are:

#0: 65
#1: 62
#2: 65
#4: 63

But CPU-Z reads the vcore at 1.188v... does anyone know of different program that monitors the vcore in realtime?

[ps2cho]

You can always get the multimeter out to get the correct reading.

[MadMan007]

The mobo monitoring software maybe. Those temps seem fairly high although you are using a ton of voltage. Just curious, what's your VID? I'm thinking a remount may be in order, your clock:voltage and temps are kind of older production B3-ish. *waits for Gautam to wade in with a told ya so* :p

[treatmentx]

you can click on my ORB result as an example

[blackjackel]

You can always get the multimeter out to get the correct reading.

how would i test the vcore with a multimeter? would it be through specific motherbord points that I'd have to go look up on some website somewhere?

[blackjackel]

The mobo monitoring software maybe. Those temps seem fairly high although you are using a ton of voltage. Just curious, what's your VID? I'm thinking a remount may be in order, your clock:voltage and temps are kind of older production B3-ish. *waits for Gautam to wade in with a told ya so* :p

coretemp reads the VID as 1.3000v, is there any other way to grab the vid?

[MadMan007]

Coretemp is right I'm sure. I don't know, maybe you got a bit of a bum oc'er? :( I hope not though. That's a lot of volts to get 3.2G imo, seems like you hit that point C2Ds seem to have where the voltage ramps up a lot for the increased speed. Remount! :)

hmm have you made sure there are no other limiting factors? Do you know the Rams capabilities, and have you tweaked the BIOS for stuff that might be holding it back? What mobo are you using anyway..

[blackjackel]

Coretemp is right I'm sure. I don't know, maybe you got a bit of a bum oc'er? :( I hope not though. That's a lot of volts to get 3.2G imo, seems like you hit that point C2Ds seem to have where the voltage ramps up a lot for the increased speed. Remount! :)

I'm starting to think my crashes are NOT CPU based...

I just ran 3dmark stable for over 15 minutes, then I close all 3dmark applications and all cpus drop to 0 utilization, then I'm simply shutting down all the background applications to give 3dmark another go and I get another crash:

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL... the same crash I get everytime...

I don't believe the cpu is causing these crashes anymore... I just restarted without doing any changes in the bios and i got the same crash at the windows startup screen....

[treatmentx]

Yea, CPUZ is never giving correct vcore, you gotta use something else. I use PC Probe. What motherboard are you using? You should easily be able to overcome 3.2GHZ, i'm only blocked because I have a retarded motherboard, has a GTL Ref Volt problem that's crapping out.... (the ASUS 680i has this problem... )

anyway, start clocking, you'll easily hit 99%

[MadMan007]

Is it a fresh OS install?

[blackjackel]

Yea, CPUZ is never giving correct vcore, you gotta use something else. I use PC Probe. What motherboard are you using? You should easily be able to overcome 3.2GHZ, i'm only blocked because I have a retarded motherboard, has a GTL Ref Volt problem that's crapping out.... (the ASUS 680i has this problem... )

anyway, start clocking, you'll easily hit 99%

The mobo is in the newegg link, its an evga NF68 A1 880i

and yes, its a fresh OS install.

[MadMan007]

I don't know the details but I do recall 680i isn't very good for quads :( Maybe that was just for an older revision or something. Someone else will have to chime in on that.

[treatmentx]

oh the new revised EVGA has the GTL's fixed

[blackjackel]

oh the new revised EVGA has the GTL's fixed

is mine the new one?

[treatmentx]

yeah, you have the better board, so you should in theory be able to do better. I think the revised ones are the A1 (i'd double check that, but i'm pretty sure). esp since you just got it.

You shouldn't need 1.5v at 3.2GHZ, that sounds absurdly high vcore. You should be able to do 3.2ghz at 1.4v, even that's a little high. I did some over and under clocking (i think if you look around this site, or other site, you'll find similar results). After lowering the volt, your temps should calm down a bit. But the G0's can withstand better heat anyways, nothing to worry about.. just might get better results.

[blackjackel]

Ok this is an unrelated and probably extremely stupid question, but what exactly is quad core? does each core run at 2.4ghz giving you a total of 9.6ghz? or is each core running at 600mhz giving you a total of 2.4ghz?

I now upped all other voltage to its max... the nb, the sb, the FSB voltage... the vcore at 1.5 and i'm running 3dmark to see what I would get, though I think I'm probably going to crash again....

[treatmentx]

=| wait! don't max everything!!

[treatmentx]

I wanted to post that ASAP. I'll give you my settings

vcore-1.3875, 3.3ghz
NB - 1.5
SB - 1.55
CPUVTT - 1.55v
1.2VHT - 1.4v

what are your temps?! be careful!

(and you can't add quad-core up like that, but they are all at 2.4ghz. but you can't just add it to 9.6ghz. If given four tasks, each one is done at 2.4ghz, but if given 1 task, it's done at 2.4ghz and the other 3 cores are doing nothing)

[shirker]

I now upped all other voltage to its max... the nb, the sb, the FSB voltage... the vcore at 1.5 and i'm running 3dmark to see what I would get, though I think I'm probably going to crash again....that's a very good way to fry your motherboard :eek:

[blackjackel]

Not really gona fry anythng, you guys have no clue how much cooling i have on this thing, I have 2 140mm fans blowing stright on the mobo, 3 120mm fans blowing out, 2 120mm fans blowing in... and the room is pretty cold cause I have my windows on...

Besides even if I fried something... I'm using a laptop to talk to you guys while ocing so I'd post on here that I fried it :P

Anywhoo I just ran 3dmark again and I got 16952 and I have scored 100% better than all systems.... WTF? LOL

You rank 3936 out of 2022596... ROFL

Orb result link:
http://service.futuremark.com/orb/resultanalyzer.jsp?projectType=14&XLID=0&UID=10462800

[treatmentx]

lol scared us for a sec there i think.

Post your ORB! I wanna see the break down. And that score sounds more like a SLI setup, nice!

Oh, and pics of your system while you're at it, sounds like a nice set up! What kind of case are you using?

[blackjackel]

lol scared us for a sec there i think.

Post your ORB! I wanna see the break down. And that score sounds more like a SLI setup, nice!

Oh, and pics of your system while you're at it, sounds like a nice set up! What kind of case are you using?

I did post the orb... is there some different link I'm supposed to post? that page was the first page I saw after I hit submit score...

And the case (along with EVERYTHING ELSE USED) is listed in the newegg link, the case is a CM stacker.... yeah its the sweetest setup I've ever seen.... I'm using a 30 inch dell monitor two and I have run every single game that I've got at maximum possible resolution...

[shirker]

upgrade your 8800 ultra cooling to two HR-03s, and it's going to be even sweeter (post overclocking). speaking of which, have you touched the gpu speeds at all?

[treatmentx]

oh i missed that newegg link, good god lol

Yeah, it's a different link. Look for something that starts like this

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=xxxxxxxxx

has a different number at the end. just curious of your game1-4 frames , cpu frames etc.

[blackjackel]

upgrade your 8800 ultra cooling to two HR-03s, and it's going to be even sweeter (post overclocking). speaking of which, have you touched the gpu speeds at all?

gpu speeds remain untouched, primarily because I want to get the cpu, fsb, and all other stabilities issues fixed before I move on to stabilizing the gfx.... though I've been able to take the gpu oc to 655mhz before stable.

Edit: I was able to lower the vcore to 1.4 and still run 3.2... I haven't gone lower.... but apparently I can't lower any of the max temps I set for everything else.... It just won't be stable...

[shirker]

gpu speeds remain untouched, primarily because I want to get the cpu, fsb, and all other stabilities issues fixed before I move on to stabilizing the gfx.... though I've been able to take the gpu oc to 655mhz before stable.yeah I know, I too would want to get a stable cpu overclock before moving onto anything else. Was just hoping to get a preliminary glimpse at how the 8800 Ultras overclock, and you gave me an answer

[blackjackel]

yeah I know, I too would want to get a stable cpu overclock before moving onto anything else. Was just hoping to get a preliminary glimpse at how the 8800 Ultras overclock, and you gave me an answer

actually the instability at higher clock speeds may have been due to other reasons... but I know for SURE that the gpu's werent stable t 675 at all.... this is primarily because one of my gpus runs much much hotter than the other. I have heard reports of people breaking the 700 barrier with single 8800's...

Oh, and I'm priming stable at 1.4vcore 3.2ghz, the stability issues were with the nb, sb..etc voltage. I'm running the following voltages:

CPU CORE: 1.4v
CPU FSB: 1.5v (max)
Memory 2.2v (stock)
nforce SPP: 1.55v (max)
nForce MCP: 1.7 (.05 below max)
HT nForce SPP <-> MCP: 1.40 ( .15 below max)

[blackjackel]

I'm now priming it at 3.3ghz stable but the voltage is set to 1.575, I believe i've hit the wall with this processor, but we'll have to see about it...

Edit: apparently the crashes are semi random as I have been able to prime for 10 mintues at 1.5v.... I think I can lower this even more...

Edit2: primed for another 10 minutes at 1.45... the crashes are definately not cpu based.... I have to figure out what's crashing me before I can continue to test the max oc of this proc.

[Tyranos]

Send me both of those Ultras and I'll throw a couple water blocks on em, crank my qx back up to 4.3 and own that ORB!

[blackjackel]

Ok, I'm pretty sure that whatever is causing the crashes is related to the Nvidia raid controller as most of the crashes seem to be HD related.... its either the MCP or the SPP...

Edit: I haven't found the problem to my crashes, but I have benched this g0 stable at 1.4vcore at 3.3v... I'm pretty sure I can drop this some more...

edit2: Aside from the random non-cpu crashes, I have managed to bump the vcore down to 1.3625v and still run at 3.3ghz... I'm still running the prime95 tests as I recieved a cpu related error at 1.35 stock voltage.

[treatmentx]

Hmmm... maybe it's not the revised version? I dunno, sounds like it's the same wall I'm hitting with the 680i.

[blackjackel]

apparently it was a bad motherboard... so I RMA'd it...

only to get another bad motherboard :( This one overclocks way better than the original and runs phenomenal until I shut the computer off... it wont turn back on... I have to wait a day or sometimes an hour for it to turn back on...

So I RMA again...

FINALLY! A good motherboard, I'm not priming stable at 3.7ghz

9 x 412.5 = 3712.5

FSB 1650

coretemp shows:

core0: 77C
core1: 72C
core2: 72C
core3: 77C

Nvidia monitor shows: 67C

My vcore is around 1.5 although in the bios I have it set at 1.587

I haven't pushed it to its limit yet.... I'm not sure I want to take this to its limit.... I'm already scared of the voltage i'm pumping through this thing and the temps arent looking too great either

[blackjackel]

I need to find a program that detects vcore voltage.... anyone know of anything good out there?

[GTengineer]

The latest cpuz-1.41 seems to be reading it correctly
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

[blackjackel]

the latest cpuz detects 1.512... is this a dangerous voltage for a g0 6600?

I had to increase the voltage in bios to 1.6 but as I said above cpuz detects 1.512, temps as follows:

core0: 79C
core1: 73C
core2: 73C
core3: 79C

Nvidia monitor: 70C

[GTengineer]

the latest cpuz detects 1.512... is this a dangerous voltage for a g0 6600?

I had to increase the voltage in bios to 1.6 but as I said above cpuz detects 1.512, temps as follows:

core0: 79C
core1: 73C
core2: 73C
core3: 79C

Nvidia monitor: 70C

Is this under Prime stability check? The vcore itself is not too high if you are on water but your temps are pretty high, mine for example is at 1.5V (real), 1.52V (BIOS) but my temps are about 10C lower. I would not feel comfortable running my quad at those temps with 1.51V vcore.

Also that is some massive vdroop you got there, what board do you have again?

[blackjackel]

yes this is under prime stability check running on all cores...

well I'm not running water, but the abosolute best air...

Ultra 120 Extreme with 2 75cfm 120mm fans running in a push/pull config.

And the board is an EVGA one, forget which but its listed in the newegg link on the original post.

[GTengineer]

Try this vdroop mod for you board which should eliminate nearly all vdroop and will allow you to set vcore lower in the BIOS... nonetheless your temps will not improve much because the CPU still needs the same amount of voltage under load whether the board is vdrooping a lot or not.

I still think you are pushing your cpu temps a bit much and you would probably be better off backing off a little. What is your clock speed again 3.7GHz? You could try just running it at 3.6GHz which at least on my system requires much less juice 1.43V and allows you to run much cooler. 100MHz isnt going to make much difference anyway.

[blackjackel]

Try this vdroop mod for you board which should eliminate nearly all vdroop and will allow you to set vcore lower in the BIOS... nonetheless your temps will not improve much because the CPU still needs the same amount of voltage under load whether the board is vdrooping a lot or not.

I still think you are pushing your cpu temps a bit much and you would probably be better off backing off a little. What is your clock speed again 3.7GHz? You could try just running it at 3.6GHz which at least on my system requires much less juice 1.43V and allows you to run much cooler. 100MHz isnt going to make much difference anyway.

You're right... I wasn't completely comfortable running at those temps... but what vdroop mod are you talking about? You didn't post a link or anything...

I'm now at 3.6 and 1.464v under cpuz... 1.55 bios, but this is just initial, I'm going to keep dropping it till I crash then raise it a little..

[systemhost]

Ermm a bit random... but why would you spend $3500+ and just get a Q6600? Faster cpu's out there.... wel not by that much, but still...

[blackjackel]

Ermm a bit random... but why would you spend $3500+ and just get a Q6600? Faster cpu's out there.... wel not by that much, but still...

Thats exactly right... not by that much... and I'm now running faster than any stock retail quad core processor currently in existence.

Not only are they not that much faster running stock, but they cost exponentially more... I would have had to spend 500 more bucks for just a few more mhz that I've way exceeded now anyways... its just a waste of money.

[crosshairs]

Try this vdroop mod for you board which should eliminate nearly all vdroop and will allow you to set vcore lower in the BIOS... nonetheless your temps will not improve much because the CPU still needs the same amount of voltage under load whether the board is vdrooping a lot or not.

I still think you are pushing your cpu temps a bit much and you would probably be better off backing off a little. What is your clock speed again 3.7GHz? You could try just running it at 3.6GHz which at least on my system requires much less juice 1.43V and allows you to run much cooler. 100MHz isnt going to make much difference anyway.

Link to the mod?

[blackjackel]

anyways, im running 3.6 at 1.513 bios 1.44 cpuz... anything less than this and it crashes.... one of my cores will... its a finicky core :/

Temps as follows:

core0: 63C
core1: 59C
core2: 61C
core3: 62C

nvidia monitor: 54C

I'm MUCH more comfortable with these temperatures... Maybe I should do 3.65ghz and see if thats comfortable?

[GTengineer]

anyways, im running 3.6 at 1.513 bios 1.44 cpuz... anything less than this and it crashes.... one of my cores will... its a finicky core :/

Temps as follows:

core0: 63C
core1: 59C
core2: 61C
core3: 62C

nvidia monitor: 54C

I'm MUCH more comfortable with these temperatures... Maybe I should do 3.65ghz and see if thats comfortable?

those temps look good :beer:

[Maverick0984]

Those temps are a bit high but real world use won't ever reach that temp either.

edit: original temps

[GTengineer]

Link to the mod?

sorry forgot link

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=524283&highlight=680i+vdroop+mod

[blackjackel]

Just ran 3dmark again and I got 18426 marks and I rank number 1654 out of all systems test... if only I knew how to properly submit the results with a linkable page

[blackjackel]

Just ran 3dmark again and I got 18426 marks and I rank number 1654 out of all systems test... if only I knew how to properly submit the results with a linkable page

edit: I think i did it... here's the link:

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=2977024

someone let me know if they see the results correctly and if this is the correct link?

[thideras]

It works :D

[blackjackel]

I upped it by around 110 points by runnign the ram synched at 3:2 (1077 i believe) instead of linked at around 800....

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=2977147

You think I can get it higher by unsynching it and running it over 1077... like 1100 or something? see how far the ram can go?

[treatmentx]

nice, I want to assume, but thought I'd ask, are you on SLI'd Ultras? I remember seeing that a few posts back.

[blackjackel]

Yes I'm on SLI'd ultras...

I'm getting video crashes when stressing all cores with prime95 at 3.6ghz.... I have beem steadily upping the vcore and it seemes to make it more stable, i'm onw at 1.575 (bios) 1.488 cpuz, and the highest temps are 74 for two cores.


Now I'm trying to figure out how far my ram can go, but I can't for the life of me find some posts about people who have my ram and have overclocked it.... I don't know the maximum voltage and I don't have anytihng to compare it with.... I'm assuming it can do 1100, and I think I can take the voltage up to about 2.4 but I'm not quite sure.... I need to find a readme on D9 chips, I think mines are D9.... But searching google and this forum havent yeilded anything so far :/

[treatmentx]

omg. Aren't you on the EVGA 680i A1 board? I remember this from a while back. You should do the pencil vdroop mod. You don't need to be at 1.575 for 3.6ghz!! Scary. I'm at 1.44v doing 3.6ghz, I suspect it's the vdroop holding you back. I'd look into that...

BUT... it could also be that you have 4GB of RAM (based on your ORB anyway). 4 sticks of ram stresses the NB and does some wacky stuff.

[blackjackel]

yes I'm on the evga A1 but I don't believe a vdroop mod is going to help me much... why would it help? All it is is the difference between bios voltage and actual voltage output... its a gap... why would closing the gap help stability?

[JamesXP]

Because you know the actually voltage to your chips is correct.

[treatmentx]

Because on load, your vcore is dropped/decreased, and becomes unstable. So what happens is you increase your voltage in your bios.

With a vdroop fixed, you can stay at 1.4375v for example, not requiring you to go to 1.55+v just to be stable.

The 680i's have a weird strapping issue that creates a FSB wall, clock from 1550FSB and up, people usually recommend to start at 1600FSB, then move up from that.

[blackjackel]

Yeah, I've decided to do this mod... I just have to get my ohm sensor here.... and I'll stick in the MX2 paste that I bought and post up the results.

Can I get a full 100ohms with a #2 pencil or will I need to go out and buy some sort of kit to get the full 100 ohms?

Currently running at 1.575 bios 1.488 cpuz...

core0: 72C
core1: 67C
core2: 67C
core3: 72C

nvidia sensor: 66C

[GTengineer]

Yeah, I've decided to do this mod... I just have to get my ohm sensor here.... and I'll stick in the MX2 paste that I bought and post up the results.

Can I get a full 100ohms with a #2 pencil or will I need to go out and buy some sort of kit to get the full 100 ohms?

I would try doing it with a soft lead No 2 pencil (2B) first and see what the results are before you go in commando doing a more difficult mod :D

[blackjackel]

what is that vcore mod though? is it just to increase the max vcore?

Do I need to do both these mods for the correct vdroop fix?

[blackjackel]

what is that vcore mod though? is it just to increase the max vcore?

Do I need to do both these mods for the correct vdroop fix?

I'm going to be doing this mod soon and I'm going to need the answer :/ otherwise ill just do the vdroop mod..

[blackjackel]

I'm holding out on modding this mobo because there's not enough info for the mod.... I don't know if it wants me to ADD 100 ohms or if it should be 100ohms total? And what about this vcore mod, dosen't say exactly what that does... as soon as I figure our the answers to these questions I'll do the mod...

[blackjackel]

Ok, apparently I'm supposed to add 100 ohms, I did the mod and am now getting 1.5 volts in the bios sense when I set it at 1.5

There's one problem, the motherboard seems to up the voltage when the cpu's are being stressed... so it's a reverse droop...

Right now I have it set at 1.487 in bios and its showing up as 1.488 in cpuz running stock but as soon as I stress the cores, the voltage upps to 1.496, a difference of .008

[xtatdsm]

Ok, apparently I'm supposed to add 100 ohms, I did the mod and am now getting 1.5 volts in the bios sense when I set it at 1.5

There's one problem, the motherboard seems to up the voltage when the cpu's are being stressed... so it's a reverse droop...

Right now I have it set at 1.487 in bios and its showing up as 1.488 in cpuz running stock but as soon as I stress the cores, the voltage upps to 1.496, a difference of .008

now this is just awesome, getting that extra voltage when needed the most rather than dumbing aditional heat at idle. I wish all new motherboards will come with a similar feature.

[blackjackel]

That is not at all hard to do on ANY setup. Intel has speedstep and AMD has CNQ... you can use these sytems to regulate CPU clocks and voltages.

A simple program can set up how speedstep and CNQ work... its called crystalcpuid and it can be downloaded here:
http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalCPUID/index-e.html

Setting it up can be tricky but you can tell it to up your voltage when you need it.

[treatmentx]

You just use a #2 pencil, choose one of the resistor, and just draw over it.

I have it set as 1.45v in bios, it's 1.45v on load, 1.44v on idle. Love this mod.

Vcore mod is to allow greater voltages, not needed, unless you're going phase or something extravagant. And with that mod, you will need a sensor to properly do it.

[blackjackel]

Yeah, I'm loving this mod too... I'm now running at 3.65ghz at 1.488 and the temp are as follows:

core0: 69
core1: 68
core2: 67
core3: 67

I have one big problem though, I decided I wanted to find a program that can draw a graph of the temperature and possibly keep a record of the average temperature recorded, just to see if there are fluctuations and to see if I can push the cores higher than 3.65.... So I downloaded speedfan....

The problem is that the speedfan temperatures are way lower than the temperatures of coretemp, which is what I have been using to report multi core temps so far... Speedfan reads the temps as:

Core0: 54
core1: 51
core2: 52
core3: 52

I'm going to look around these forums for why this is happening.....

[DualSnakeyes]

Hate to spoil your day but top score these days are around 22k if not higher already

And saw a guy push his QX6850 to 4.1Ghz and scored around 5800(ish) cpu score LOL

So if you have 3 PCI-e slots get your hands on a Physic card and you will break 20k easily

Nice score though but OC tems Are too hot to my liking

What are your RAm timings and MHz?

[blackjackel]

I found out that speedfan temps are incorrect on my specific board... also found a plugin for motherboard monitor that allows you to read the correct quad core temps off my board... it has a nice little average temp feature that I'm going to find quite handy :D

Yeah, the sore isn't uber impressive, but its pretty damn good considering its ranked in the top 1.5k... I havent tried to overclock the ram at all, the ram is running at stock speeds... I want to find the lowest stable vcore and temps to run this processor before I mess with that...

You say you don't like the temps... What would you consider to be good temps to be running?

[PearlJammzz]

I like to keep mine below 50c if I can, with a quad that's kind of hard w/o water (specially in a case w/ SLI'd Ultras..) but I think if you can get it to stay below 60c, yer good :).

[jason4207]

I think your temps are fine. Upper 60's/lower 70's for 24/7 setups is OK, and most quads on here @ 3.6GHz are running that hot (me included). Cooler is always better, but these chips are good up to at least 80*. 90* may even be OK, but you won't see me running my chip that hot. I'm assuming this is under P95 load. You'll never get this hot under normal usage anyway.

BTW, CoreTemp is off by 15*. It calculates based on an 85* Tjunction-max, but these quads have a 100* Tjunction-max (the temperature when your CPU begins to throttle). There may be a setting in SpeedFan to account for this, but I've never used SpeedFan.

[blackjackel]

thanks for the input, yeah I thought the upper 60's was fine... but I loaded up motherboard monitor with the quadcore mod and to my surprise the average temperature was measured as 71 degrees... with some spikes up to 74 degrees...

Upper 60's is fine for me, but lower 70's and sometimes mid 70's isn't cool with me.... So I took the core back down to 3.6 and lowered the voltage one slot, 1.81 instead of 1.88 and now the temps look like they're in the mid 60's and sometimes upper 60's, which is fine with me.

What annoys me is that now I have to find the lowest stable vcore all over again :/

[jason4207]

I'd trust CoreTemp the most, but MBM may be fine...I just haven't tried it yet w/ these Core based CPUs yet. Mid 70's is not horrible, but is it really worth that extra 50MHz? It looks like you came to the same conclusion I did as we are both at 3.6GHz. For air cooling I think this is about the sweet spot for these quads. Even w/ water cooling the amount of voltage needed to get higher just doesn't seem worth it for a 24/7 set-up.

One question, and forgive me if I haven't read the entire thread...1.88v-->1.81v? That seems like an awfully high voltage to send the CPU. Am I missing something?

[Vagabond102]

thanks for the input, yeah I thought the upper 60's was fine... but I loaded up motherboard monitor with the quadcore mod and to my surprise the average temperature was measured as 71 degrees... with some spikes up to 74 degrees...

Upper 60's is fine for me, but lower 70's and sometimes mid 70's isn't cool with me.... So I took the core back down to 3.6 and lowered the voltage one slot, 1.81 instead of 1.88 and now the temps look like they're in the mid 60's and sometimes upper 60's, which is fine with me.

What annoys me is that now I have to find the lowest stable vcore all over again :/

Er, a bit high yes?

[blackjackel]

Crap, that was a mistake on my part... I meant 1.481 instead of 1.488... I even tend to say it wrong when my brother is here... I'm not great with numbers...


By the way, I THINK that the quadcore motherboard monitor mod takes temps from the coretemp sourcecode or something, it is called the coretemp mod....
The temp readings I get from it and coretemp are identical to the degree and to the second... so its safe to assume that its a great alternative.

If you haven't tried motherboard monitor, I HIGHLY recommend it for any overclocker... the developer stopped developing for it a few years back but to date its still the best motherboard temperature monitor to date... you just gotta bring it back to life with those mods...

You say you're running the same proc at 3.6? What kind of temps are you getting? And at what voltage are you running?

[jason4207]

I'm at 3.6, but I'm on the Xeon x3210 CPU. It's virtually the same CPU as the Q6600, but it only goes up to 8x instead of 9x multi. I've got 1.5125v set in the BIOS, but CPU-Z 1.41 shows 1.488v. Temps are 71-71-67-67 under P95 load.

Edit: You got any links to those MBM mods?

[blackjackel]

I'm at 3.6, but I'm on the Xeon x3210 CPU. It's virtually the same CPU as the Q6600, but it only goes up to 8x instead of 9x multi. I've got 1.5125v set in the BIOS, but CPU-Z 1.41 shows 1.488v. Temps are 71-71-67-67 under P95 load.

Edit: You got any links to those MBM mods?

http://www.thetechrepository.com/showthread.php?t=74

[jason4207]

Thanks! I just set it up. The one thing that I like about it is that I can see the MB temp as well.

[hUMANbEATbOX]

ORB listing? Don't know what you're talking about :/

no clue what you're talking about...

A little friendly tip, totally unrelated to the thread at hand. If you ever see a term you don't understand or are unfamiliar with, just copy/paste it into google. Usually works pretty good for me. Actually, in Firefox, you just highlight the text and drag it to the google search in the upper right corner. :) Sometimes you have to add a couple of words for context (ie, "ORB Futuremark" or "ORB 3dMark").

[Scott9027]

A nicer way of saying Google it. I like the extra effort though...:)

@OP: Have you tried cranking the FSB without changing voltage well past whatever wall you're hitting? I don't have time to read through the whole thread right now, so I'll come back later, but I know some people on XS were getting good clocks on 680i by just jumping over the FSB wall so to speak. I'm not sure if that makes sense to you, but it's worth a shot in my opinion.

[treatmentx]

Yea, he passed the FSB hole already, told him earlier. Good looking out =)

Yea, 1.8v would've almost surely fried somethin lol.

And don't let people's 3dmark numbers get to you, people like to say I have this number and you have this number blah blah blah. In the end only a few frames was actually gained in a video game for you to really notice.

There are people who use phase, pelts and liquid nitrogen? I mean come on, the common gamer isn't going to be buying liquid nitrogen just to frag some people.

In my opinion, if you're above 65% of the computers benchmarked on 3dmark06, you're fine. Gaming companies won't abandon you just because you don't have 8gtx's sli'd with liquid nitrogen'd extreme quad cores.

You're doing good, keep it goin! =)

[blackjackel]

A little friendly tip, totally unrelated to the thread at hand. If you ever see a term you don't understand or are unfamiliar with, just copy/paste it into google. Usually works pretty good for me. Actually, in Firefox, you just highlight the text and drag it to the google search in the upper right corner. :) Sometimes you have to add a couple of words for context (ie, "ORB Futuremark" or "ORB 3dMark").

Yeah, I did a google search before I posted that, I typed "orb listing" and got a bunch of futuremark unrelated pages... I thought that the whole orb thing didn't have to do with futuremark, I thought it was for some different program, which is why I asked.


Thanks! I just set it up. The one thing that I like about it is that I can see the MB temp as well.

There are a TON more features in that program... you can set temps to be on an on screen display that will show regardless of what game you're playing while you're playing it, alarms, voltage and fan controls, emergency shutdown controls.... it's the varitable swiss army knife of the temp sensor world...

Yea, he passed the FSB hole already, told him earlier. Good looking out =)

Yea, 1.8v would've almost surely fried somethin lol.

And don't let people's 3dmark numbers get to you, people like to say I have this number and you have this number blah blah blah. In the end only a few frames was actually gained in a video game for you to really notice.

There are people who use phase, pelts and liquid nitrogen? I mean come on, the common gamer isn't going to be buying liquid nitrogen just to frag some people.

In my opinion, if you're above 65% of the computers benchmarked on 3dmark06, you're fine. Gaming companies won't abandon you just because you don't have 8gtx's sli'd with liquid nitrogen'd extreme quad cores.

You're doing good, keep it goin! =)

Yeah I'm way past that hole... and I'm not letting anyone get to me... I love this computer and am very proud that I built it.... and I'm not going to try to put anyone down in the proverbial "my sexual organ is bigger than yours" style. And besides, I haven't even begun overclocking the ram and the videocards yet, I have yet to squeeze a few hundred points out of this baby ;) Too bad its not mine... it's my brother's rig that I built, I'm still stuck with the specs below in my sig.... but I'll be upgrading to a quad core with at least a GTS sometime soon.

I want to thank you a zillion for telling me about that vdroop mod... although the core itself can't really run any faster, you certainly helped me lower the max voltage and temperatures by a significant amount.