Overclocking a Q6600 with stock cooling (safely...)

[Kiwikat]

So, risk of a stock cooling overclock on my system vs possible benefits is important. If it's a stunning real world speed increase within FSX I'll be more likely to try it but if we're talking about 1fps improvement or a wee bit of smoothness then I'd be less inclined to take the chance.

My 600 MHz jump provided quite a bit of difference (don't really have a number for you because I didn't pay attention when I was at stock). You would see even a bigger difference because your stock is 2.4. FSX likes 3 GHz a lot more than 2.4.

[Dimus]

OK, I took the plunge last evening and pushed it from 9x266 to 9x333 through the BIOS. It booted OK and then I run the prime95 torture test on it for about 15 minutes and no errors were detected. I read somewhere that this program is a very good way to test the stability of an overclocked CPU. Feeling very happy I fired up FSX and went straight to my usual flight, take off in Carenado C152 from my real life home base, Tatoi, north of Athens. I took off and did a circle around Athens, an area with lots of autogen buildings, road, sea and air traffic. Previously I was getting about 18 to 25 FPS over there and I kind of avoided it. FRAPS showed 25 to 40 this time. I was happy as a clown!

The dissapointment came when I windowed FSX and run the HWMonitor program to check the core temps. I was scared to see 75C. I switched off FSX and let it cool down. Idle core temp was about 40C. When I was in the BIOS at startup, the BIOS showed 35C.

My next move (which should have been first) was to switch back to stock CPU speed and run the tests again. I was amazed to find out that both idle and load tems were the same. This showed me that my rig probably has an inherent cpu cooling issue that is not affected by OCing. After all I did not change the voltage values.

My next steps will be to check temps at stock speeds with other programs as well and then open up the box to see if there is any issue with the cpu cooler or the general airflow. The rig is not an OEM but was a ready made combo from a respectable local store at a very good price. There are however, as it seems, concessions to quality due to that.

My next questions to you good people:

How much would an increase of fan speed or change of cooler affect my power consumption? As you might have guessed by now, my PSU is also limited (450W) as it came together with the box.

[txnetcop]

Dimus check your PM. My wife has inherited my Q6600 on a Gigabyte X48 DQ-6 board and I run at over 4.0 ghz and it runs very cool, but that won't happen with a 450 watt power supply even with great amperage. I will try to help you bump it a little. I did change her video card to the HIS HD4850 Turbo that wh61 in the forum gave me. Sweeeeeeet!
Ted

[kilo delta]

Also...check to see what stepping your processor is..........G0 is best.

[Dimus]

txnetcop, PM received with thanks!

kilo delta, I confirm it is a G0.

[stansdds]

FSX likes a fast CPU and overclocking most Intel dual and quad cores is a good way to get a cheap performance boost from your computer. I built my Core2Duo with this in mind, so I have an Antec 900 case (fantastic air flow) and a fairly large CPU cooler with it's own 120mm fan. I very safely overclocked my E6850 to 3.6 GHz and saw my FSX fps go from 18 and smooth to 24 and smooth. I'm thinking that FSX needs a dual or quad core running at 4.0 GHz and 4 GB of really fast RAM (more if you have a 64 bit OS) for best performance.

[Daube]

I have a Q6600 2,4GHz, and so far the only overclock I have used is the Asus AI automatic one, which speeds up my CPU to 2,75 GHz.
I would like to try to reach 3GHz, becaue I have a nice Zalman cooler, but some people mentionned the necessary increase of the CPU voltage. What I do not know is "how much" should this voltage be increased ? I really have no idea about the usefull ranges. "How much is too much ?" would be my main concern, I don't want to grill my CPU...

[nio]

FSX likes a fast CPU and overclocking most Intel dual and quad cores is a good way to get a cheap performance boost from your computer. I built my Core2Duo with this in mind, so I have an Antec 900 case (fantastic air flow) and a fairly large CPU cooler with it's own 120mm fan. I very safely overclocked my E6850 to 3.6 GHz and saw my FSX fps go from 18 and smooth to 24 and smooth. I'm thinking that FSX needs a dual or quad core running at 4.0 GHz and 4 GB of really fast RAM (more if you have a 64 bit OS) for best performance.

Stansdds

I have the same processor and my rig details are below.I did not build it myself, unlike you

Did you happen to note down the steps you took to safely overclock from my stock 3.0 to 3.6Ghz.if you did, I would most grateful if you could share them with me.

best

nio

[harleyman]

Ok men...I just got this info from txnetcop....... He says



Hey someone on the forum was asking how much voltage the q6600 will take for a really good OC here is the answer: 1.45 but start with 1.4 make sure the CPU fan is on high and they will be able to maintain 55C when playing FSX



He was busy and had to leave or else he would have posted.....

He is the master OCer....:woot:

[Daube]

Thanks a lot Harleyman and Txnetcop. I guess I'll give it a go tonight.

[stansdds]

Stansdds

I have the same processor and my rig details are below.I did not build it myself, unlike you

Did you happen to note down the steps you took to safely overclock from my stock 3.0 to 3.6Ghz.if you did, I would most grateful if you could share them with me.

best

nio

Steps? I was supposed to take steps? I use the racer's rule of thumb; torque it down until you strip the threads, then back it off 1/2 turn. :faint:

My computer:
Antec 900 case
Antec TruePower Trio 650 watt PSU
Gigabyte GA-EP35C -DS3R motherboard
Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 RAM Twin2X matched memory pair (total 2 GB)
E6850 GO stepping CPU
Xigmatec HDT-S1283 CPU cooler with fan
Zotac Nvidia 8800GT 512MB factory overclocked video
Two Western Digital 320GB SATA 3.0 harddrives

I used HWMonitor to track temperatures and Orthos to stress the CPU and RAM. I did not overclock the RAM frequency as it probably would not be worth the effort and my motherboard has a reputation for burning out the voltage circuits when the RAM is overclocked. The only thing I did with the RAM was to over volt it slightly, which actually brought the voltage up to Corsair's recommendation, and manually set the timings and speed to 400MHz x 2. Go slowly and work up. You will find the best CPU core voltage when your computer boots and runs in a stable fashion. If the CPU is under volted, the computer will not boot properly or if it does boot, it will crash during a stress test or while FSX is running.

I overclocked through the BIOS as I don't trust most overclocking programs.

My core temps are peaking at 61C which is very safe and only 10C above the peak load temperature before over clocking. My case fans are set as follows.
2 front fans, medium speed intake
1 rear fan, low exhaust
1 top fan, low exhaust
The CPU cooler is orientated to blow air through the cooler and up towards the top fan.

CPU clock ratio 9x
CPU frequency 3.60 GHz (400x9)
CPU host frequency 400
System memory multiplier 2.00
Memory frequency 800 MHz
Timings manual:
CAS latency 4
DRAM RAS-CAS 4
DRAM RAS Precharge 4
Precharge delay tRAS 13
DDR2/3 overvolt +0.3v
CPU volt 1.41250v

The over volting in my BIOS seems high, but my motherboard simply does not supply the voltage that the BIOS calls for, the motherboard voltage regulators under volt my RAM and CPU. The above settings give me 2.08 to 2.13v RAM and 1.33 to 1.38v CPU.

This is very stable on my system and I did move up in steps, knowing that most people can easily run the E6850 at 3.6 GHz, but 4.0 on air is very difficult to achieve. I'm not willing to push any further since doing so will result in either overclocking the RAM frequency or having to under clock it in order to keep it stable. To me, coupling a really fast CPU with under clocked RAM seems counter productive, so I think I have struck the best balance for my system.

[nio]

Stansdds

Many thanks for your quick response and the method used.

I am sorting out some other FSX related issues presently on which Harleyman has been giving me tremendous assistance but, when I have worked these through, I will give this a go.

Thanks once again.it is much appreciated

best

nio

[harleyman]

How is that going Nio?

[nio]

Harleyman

I have not had the time really to work through all we discussed.

I did disable the creative sound card but this alone did not solve the issue.

I see m to be running into more problems. My load times are criminally long. Movement within the main interface is slowwwwwwwwwww. Click on the change aircraft button and waitttttttttttttt before anything happens .Click on fly and waitttttttttttttttttttttt.Then wait to load:faint:

I am a bit stumped as to why all this is happening. I am now seriously considering a reinstall.I must have done something wrong somewhere.The problems are only in FSX .Everything else IL2 and OFF run sweet as a nut.

I really appreciate all the help you have so far given.

best


nio

[stansdds]

Just a shot in the dark, but I found that my computer ran FSX very slowly and often crashed if I set the video card for anything greater than 4x multi-sampled AA.