HOWTO: Overclock C2Q (Quads) and C2D (Duals) - A Guide v1.1

[dipspit]

I've been looking for a guide to refer people to for a first time oc. This is excellent, and will certainly save me a great deal of time. Many thanks.

Cheers.

 

[graysky]

Enjoy!

 

[philp]

Awesome post. This will help me out a lot...

 

[brassmunki]

Sweet Post

Kudos on awesome post, I just purchased a Q6600 and this post helps tons. Great job

 

[eye of the hawk]

Funny how quickly i can forget the basics when i go from system to system. Great refresher

 

[nsgnsg]

thx.. this will come in handy soon.... arghhh.. to many softwares to get....

my favorit thing about this sticky is that it has a list of all the needed software and what to disable and enable...

wich will help alot... the rest ill play arround with it myself till i **** up a brand new q6600..


i

 

[zrrbite]

I think there are some errors in your CPU listing.

I.e. E4500: 11x333 = 2.20 GHz . I belive it has an FSB of 800, so it should be 11x200 = 2.2 Ghz.

Great sticky.

Regards,
Martin

 

[Loomy]

From what ive seen with Speedfan 4.33 The temps are right on, Can anyone else varify this?

 

[Craxbax]

Speedfan reads low for me! Yes, even after the offset correction. I like Core Temp better.

 

[RangerXLT8]

The power consumption table is a bit vague... OCEd quad cores comesume way more then 120w, and high FSB\chipsets\Memory all should be factored into the motherboard, it's around 50w for the high end spectrum...... A OCed processor is going to use in excess of 120W, except for mild OCs and single cores... For instance a Pentium D at 4GHz uses like 200+w of power, and a quad core kentsfield OCed uses about 180w.

 

[jintatsu]

nice guide..

 

[dragos.rusu]

ddr800 or ddr1066

Ok so I'm buying these days the followings:
1 x CPU Intel Quad Core 2 Q6600 2.4GHz, box
1 x MB MSI P35 NEO2-FR, Socket 775
1 x Memory Kit Mushkin Dual Pack 2x 1GB, XP2-8500

I have 2 second thoughts about RAM modules:
1) Should I choose:
a) Kit Dual Channel Kingston HyperX 2GB DDR2-1066 (100 euro) OR
b) Memory Kit Mushkin Dual Pack 2x 1GB, XP2-8500 (150 euro)
==> is there any difference..like cost/performance?
[real question is does it worth the money, will my system be faster?]

2) Should I choose DDR-800 or DDR-1066?
A friend of mine linked me to this article where I found out about "quad-pumped" term. I read all post very attentive and I couldn't manage to decide.
In other words, will the extra money spent on DDR-1066 (I'm taking 2GB instead of 4GB DDR-800) result in identical system speed results?
This friend of mine says DDR-1066 is not used for it's 4 x 266Mhz and DDR533 would be just fine for me...that's a scary thought.


If anyone has time to answer this, I'd appreciate.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Kimtsu08]

i vote sticky too... nice tips for everyone...

 

[nydennis]

Spread Spectrum - disable.

My MB (Maximus Formula) doesn't show Spread Spectrum like your bios does. In my bios I have a CPU spread Spectrum and a PCIE Spread Spectrum. Would I be disabling the CPU spread Spectrum or both?

BTW I love this guide as well as this forum. It gave me the confidence to do a minor OC so far.

 

[grungero]

Guyz, i have some question regarding with this stuff. I'm new to overclocking. I want to learn how. So here it goes.

How do i change voltages? When if its?
How do consider this voltage stable? When if its?
How do you know your memory's minimum and maximum voltage?
If you adjust vcore do you also adjust NB vcore, SB vcore or leave them auto?

Sorry for stupid questions, i just want my cpu be safe.

 

[ZL1]

Very nice guide, thanks man !

btw the coretemp link is dead, however this http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/ looks like the coretemp homepage

 

[graysky]

How do i change voltages? When if its?
How do consider this voltage stable? When if its?
How do you know your memory's minimum and maximum voltage?
If you adjust vcore do you also adjust NB vcore, SB vcore or leave them auto?

Sorry for stupid questions, i just want my cpu be safe.

You change them in your BIOS if it allows it.
You know your memory's recommended voltage from the manufacture... there isn't a min/max from them.
Initially, you can set your nb/sb vcore at auto to find the min vcore you wanna use. Then you can try booting at the lowest vcore level for the nb/sb and see if it's stable. Otherwise, you'll have to start at the bottom and work your way up to a stable system. It can be tedious.

 

[graysky]

@zzrbite - thanks, corrected
@ZL1 - thanks, corrected

@nydennis - If that MB has an two different spreadspecturm options, and you wanna enable that feature, I'd say try it enabled in both places.

@dragos.rusu - all depends if you need the faster FSB speeds. For example, DDR-800 will get you up to 400 MHz on the fsb (1600 quad pumped). 1066 will allow for 533 MHz on the FSB. If you see yourself running that high, get the more expensive RAM. My Q6600 runs 9x333 so I'm not even close to maxing out my DDR2-800 sticks.

If you think running a high divider will gain you much, think again. Read this post. I suspect you already bough the RAM though since you asked that question nearly 2 weeks ago

 

[veryhumid]

Just wanted to say thanks for this thread. I have been consulting it a lot.

 

[graysky]

@veryhumid - cool man, enjoy