OC advice?...

[EATTHERICH]

Ok, I recently built a new system and decided I'd try to overclock it a little. The spec is as follows

- Q6600 G0
- Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme (with Scythe 1600rpm 120mm cooler)
- ASUS P5K Premium
- 4GB OCZ Reaper
- BFG 8800GTX OC2
- Antec Nine Hundred
- OCZ GameXStream 700w PSU
- Vista Ultimate x64

Anyway I upped the FSB in BIOS to 333 and left everything else on AUTO - this gave me a nice 3.0GHz. I ran Prime for a bit and it didn't go that far into the 40's. All 4 cores seem to idle between 25 and 30 and usually hit low 30's (HWmonitor/Speedfan) when playing games like Crysis and COD4. Oh, this gave a 1500 increase in 3dMark 06 too.

Here is a picture of CPUZ showing the 3.0GHz overclock. As the voltage is on AUTO I guess it's pretty high? (although it seems cool enough)

Here is a picture of the temps at idle

My main question is about RAM. I've searched around all over but can't quite get certain on things (well, not certain enough to mess with mine). As I said, everything else is left on AUTO. My RAM is this. Here is a screen of the 'memory tab' in CPUZ - does this look right? This is where I get a bit lost...

Sorry if you've heard all this before but I've done loads of reading up and can't quite get my head round messing with memory speed/voltages and the whole 4-4-4-15 etc (and what affects that) - any advice would be much appreciated. I'm not just diving straight into a new thread without searching, I've spent a while reading. I'm really pleased with the computer as it is now, it's running super fast but I thought I'd just see what you guys thought of the setup and if you'd change anything

Thanks, much appreciated

 

[JLK03F150]

- 800MHz DDR2
- CL 4-4-4-15 (CAS-TRCD-TRP-TRAS)
- Patent-pending Reaper HPC Heatsink
- OCZ Lifetime Warranty
- 2.1 Volts
- 240 Pin DIMM
- OCZ Enhanced Latency Technology
- 2.2V EVP**
**OCZ EVP (Extended Voltage Protection) is a feature that allows performance enthusiasts to use a VDIMM of 2.2V without invalidating their OCZ Lifetime Warranty.

High performance ram needs extra voltage in order to run with their tight specified timings. In order to get the PC to boot at 1.8v default voltage, the performance ram will startup with very loose timings - like you're seeing in cpuz. Those loose settings will allow the PC to run and you can enter BIOS and manually increase the voltage from 1.8v to 2.1v, then manually set the timings to 4-4-4-15.

 

[EATTHERICH]

Ok thanks for that. I'll have a go when I get home from work. Is the fact that it's 5:6 a problem as opposed the 1:1 or is there little difference?

Would you go any further with the CPU (temps seem real good, right?). If so, what FSB/Multi would you suggest?

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it

 

[moto211]

depending on which reapers he got, they might be 5-5-5-18

 

[EATTHERICH]

This is the RAM I've got

 

[JLK03F150]

You're right, with those temperatures you still have plenty of head room. I would set the RAM speed to DDR533, which is 1:1, and keep pushing the q6600 FSB higher. At some point the Prime95 Small FFT will fail. That's when you increase the vcore a tic & try Prime95 again. Go with smaller increases, like 3.0ghz to 3.1ghz at the most.

Oh, and I almost forgot...

to OCForums

 

[EATTHERICH]

Thanks for the welcome

So... next step - 355x9 or 400x8 for 3.2GHz?

 

[JLK03F150]

I know a lot of guys would go 8x400 on many boards (965 chipsets come to mind) because they had a FSB hole between 350-360mhz and 399mhz. As far as I know the P5K doesn't have that problem, so I'd just stay with the 9x355.

 

[EATTHERICH]

Hey - thanks for the reply. I've booted 355x9 no problem, temps seem great and it all seems stable (for some reason I can't find the right version of Prime though - I must have deleted the other) - I need the one where it runs 4 instances for all 4 cores (on Vista 64) so I've not done any proper stress testing yet...

Anyway - here are the pics

Idle...

Load...

Mem...

I guess I'm becoming a bit of a pain in the a55 now but does everything look fine here? If so then I'm gonna leave it as it is and enjoy it!

Thanks!

 

[Charr]

What is the voltage on the RAM? I bet it can do much better than 355 5-5-5-15.

 

[EATTHERICH]

I don't know man, I've just left all the rest at AUTO (naive I know but I didn't know much better)

 

[JLK03F150]

Hey - thanks for the reply. I've booted 355x9 no problem, temps seem great and it all seems stable (for some reason I can't find the right version of Prime though - I must have deleted the other) - I need the one where it runs 4 instances for all 4 cores (on Vista 64) so I've not done any proper stress testing yet...


I guess I'm becoming a bit of a pain in the a55 now but does everything look fine here? If so then I'm gonna leave it as it is and enjoy it!

Thanks!

Is that Prime95 v25.6 you are looking for? No worries about being a pita, we all come here to share & learn. Don't give up at 3195mhz! 3.2ghz is too close, and 3.3ghz isn't that far away. lol

I don't know man, I've just left all the rest at AUTO (naive I know but I didn't know much better)

Once you find your max CPU clock, you will see some more improvement by increasing the RAM voltage and manually setting the timings.

 

[EATTHERICH]

Right ok I'll have a look at the RAM voltages later if I get chance. As for timings... 4-4-4-15 then?

 

[JLK03F150]

Right ok I'll have a look at the RAM voltages later if I get chance. As for timings... 4-4-4-15 then?

Yes, but the timing and vdimm settings need to be changed together. The 4-4-4-15 timings @ 400MHz (or 3xxMHz) are dependant on the extra voltage in order to work without errors.