Overclocking the Conroe e6600?

With the clock locked, and DDR2 maxing out at 1066mHz, is it even possible to overclock this processor?

Add a reply

What do you mean the clock locked? It's not locked at all.

Have a look at this post

I'm sure there were some E6600's tested there.

Reply to The_Prophecy

Remember the real FSB for the Conroe is 266MHz. And DDR2 800 for example actually runs at 400MHz *2 (effective) so you've got quite a bit of headroom for overclocking. The E6600 seems like a pretty sweet spot for overclocking. It's got the 4MB L2 cache of the top end chips but comes in at just over $300.

Reply to chuck232

Quote :

With the clock locked, and DDR2 maxing out at 1066mHz, is it even possible to overclock this processor?

Yeah, 1066 is more than enough. Also, by all accounts, 3.3-3.4 GHz seems to be a shoe-in.

Reply to 1Tanker

Prophesy: The demo chips are never locked, but the retail ones are. My misunderstanding was that I thought Conroes were DDR2 1066 native.

Now, as far as OC ability, I ran across this: http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/s [...] =2795&p=18
They achieved 4.05 GHz with a tuniq cooler, which are... huge. Even so, that's more than a 50% overclock on stock voltage. I can't wait until someone can confirm that.

In the meantime, I have a few newbie OC questions. If the Conroe runs at a default 266 mHz bus, what DDR2 RAM would that correspond to? What DDR speed would you need to obtain the 4.05 GHz mark?

I am planning to purchase a Conroe, but not until early next year. I want to let the chipsets mature a little, and the prices are supposed to drop when the quad-cores are released.

Will I really be able to get a 4 gHZ Conroe for under $300 in January? I sure hope so.

Reply to oshox

Quote :

Prophesy: The demo chips are never locked, but the retail ones are. My misunderstanding was that I thought Conroes were DDR2 1066 native.

Now, as far as OC ability, I ran across this: http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/s [...] =2795&p=18
They achieved 4.05 GHz with a tuniq cooler, which are... huge. Even so, that's more than a 50% overclock on stock voltage. I can't wait until someone can confirm that.

In the meantime, I have a few newbie OC questions. If the Conroe runs at a default 266 mHz bus, what DDR2 RAM would that correspond to? What DDR speed would you need to obtain the 4.05 GHz mark?

I am planning to purchase a Conroe, but not until early next year. I want to let the chipsets mature a little, and the prices are supposed to drop when the quad-cores are released.

Will I really be able to get a 4 gHZ Conroe for under $300 in January? I sure hope so.

That corresponds to DDR2-533 @ 1:1. To reach 4.05GHz with a E6600 is 9x450=4050MHz. That means you need DDR2-900 for 1:1. to achieve proper memory bandwidth.

Reply to 1Tanker

Quote :

Prophesy: The demo chips are never locked, but the retail ones are. My misunderstanding was that I thought Conroes were DDR2 1066 native.

The multipliers are locked.... but you said the clock, which I interpreted as being the FSB, but that is definitly not locked.

Reply to The_Prophecy

Are the multipliers in the Conroes (excluding the EE) locked or capped? Most of the language I've seen used is "locked", but it strikes me odd if they were completely locked to a multiplier. I could be wrong about this, but I thought in previous Intel processors (and assumed this would be the case here too) the lower end was not locked, partly to allow for underclocking during low usage.

In either case, as was already said, the clock certainly isnt locked. FSB is as variable as ever... Also, the 4GHz overclock of the 6600 mentioned, Im working off memory but if it serves me correctly that was with a boost in CPU voltage, not stock. I could be wrong though, but its something to check if you are really interested.

Reply to Scribs

I apologize, my terminology sucks. The "clock" multiplier on all but the extreme edition can not be adjusted upwards. All of them can be stepped down, though. So say the review sites, anyways.

Reply to oshox

I'm a newbie too, but I'll try to help.

The clock multiplier is that multiply by whatever number that you see - this is locked. That's what multiplies the FSB to reach those very high numbers. The FSB starts off at 266Mhz for the E6600, this can be changed a lot depending on the motherboard. Get a good board which allows you to change the FSB and you can overclock like crazy - I'm getting this one Gigabyte GA 965P DQ6 - which allows 1Mhz incremental increases in the real/original FSB. There will be significantly better boards than this available when Conro has matured.

So, from a newbies perspective (thats me), it basicaly works out like this (I hope):

locked multiplied x front side bus = CPU frequency
9 x 266MHz = 2394 MHz (stock speed)
9 x 333MHz = 2997 Mhz(easily reachable speed with DDR 667, running at 333MHz and CPU to RAM ratio of 1:1)
9 x 400Mhz = 3600 Mhz (likely under basic air cooling with DDR 800, running at 400MHz and CPU to RAM ratio of 1:1)
9 x 450MHz = 4050 Mhz (seriously good air cooling or water cooling required, with DDR 800, the ram would be running at slower frequencies than the CPU, not possibly a terrible thing, but not the ultimate solution either, ratio would be 9:8 I think)

I hope that helps. You may need to change the core voltage to support your new speeds, so consider that as well, including the dangers vs rewards.

Reply to lcandy

All of this information is really helpful, and I thank everyone who has responded. I have a couple more questions/comments to keep this thread alive.

How is the CPU to RAM ratio derived, and how will it effect system performance? Would it make enough of a difference to justify staying at 3.6 gHz?

And, regarding core voltage, the Anandtech screenshot shows the processor running at 1.15v. Is there any way to confirm that the chip Anandtech was playing with was the same as the retail processor? That seems like a very low voltage setting, I can't imagine the default would be much lower.

As far as chipsets go, would there be any advantage to waiting for the nVidia 500 series to make its way to the Intel platform? The 965P seems like an ideal platform for me, if not a little pricey. The new nVidia's have thins like SLI RAM, which would be useful in overlcocking. I'm not interested in having two PCI-E video cards installed, so we can eliminate that from the comparison right away.

Reply to oshox

Well, Im learning as Im reading in this forum, so I'll take a shot...

So if your FSB is 450Mhz, and your RAM is 400Mhz, and you divide both values by 50, you get a ratio of 9:8. If you're running FSB at 400Mhz, and your RAM at 400Mhz, then you get a 1:1 ratio, given that both values are equal.

I have no definite answer on whether is better to go up to 9:8, or stay at 1:1. Tho your RAM would be slightly slower, you would get a 450Mhz CPU speed boost if you go to 9:8. That tells me(in my amateur understanding), that your general system performance may not improve much, as the RAM is still at 400Mhz, but for CPU intensive applications (like video encoding, WinRAR, 3DS Max, etc) the 450Mhz (10%!) gain in CPU speed would kick in bigtime! So I would go 9:8, as you have nothing to lose.

Please correct me if I am wrong, as it'll only help my understanding

Hope this helps

Reply to Darkwhisperer

i am new one to these forums my system is the same as above, but i have x1900's running in crossfire mod, i have booted into windows all the way up to 3.4, but the max i can go is 3.25GHz with total stability with prime 95 running for 24 hour,

jsut wanted to know if that is a decent overclock for crossfire setup, my memory is ocz 800mhz with platinum heatspreaders.
right now i have the memory running at 900. with the front side bus at 9x361. which equals to 1444.

by the way i do believe now that the chips in reviews are cherry picked because i have never gotten what i have read from anandtech or anyother review sites, i cant even boot this thing into windows at 3.0Ghz with bumping the voltage to atleast 1.5. ofcourse my temps are in 30's idle and 40's under load, just watned to know u guys had any inputs about me being able to squeeze another 100 or 200 MHZ out of it.

by the way i alwasy seem to have a hard reset, or if i overclock it to 3.4 it will have just shutoff and than restart.

My sytem specs are as below/

motherboard: asus p5wdh-delux
cpu: e6600 core at 1.54 currently running at 3.25
powersupply is 750watt xcleo quadrail with 18amps on each rail.
and ofcourse the two x1900's which are also watercooled,
my watercooling system is by dangerden and i i have a dual radiator with two fans.

any suggestions would be helpful

Reply to NitinK

I think you have the same problem like me, the motherboard hide or does not have the overclocking feture for core2duo. What motherboard are you using?

Reply to penguinusaf

You might want to try upping your chipset voltage, I hear it helps...

Reply to Doughbuy

I'm running my E6600 FSB to 333 with RAM at 667 (1:1), roughly 3.0GHz overall. Vcore at 1.35V, RAM 1.8V (conservative timings 5-5-5-15). System is running stable. SuperPi 1M 19s vs 32s for my X2 4600 @2.6G. SuperPi 32M 19m v 34m (X2 4600 @2.6G). Ran Prime95 for 5 hours without errors. CPU temps idle quite high around 38-40C (vs room 32-33C, may need a better heatsink), in Prime95 runs up to 50-55C. Running the E6600 (stock HSF) with a P5W DH and 2x1GB Mushkin C4.

One question though, in my AMD system, I turned off Cool N Quiet when overclocking. Should I enable C1E and Speedstep in the Intel system or should I keep it disabled?

Reply to octop8

oh yeah -these kids on these other forums are taking the E6600 up and close to 4Ghz range
One question though is 600 W power supply enough for:

E6600
1 SATA and 1IDE HD
1 DVD rw
1 DVD rom
2 GB memory
PCI express 256 MB X1900 GT
Asus P5B mobo

and then gonna try to overclock ? what do ya'll think ? need more power ?

Reply to NoobInACan

I am new to overclocking as all my past systems were notebooks, and I didn't risk oc'ing them... I have read around the topic and wanted to clear something up... I have ordered a pc with E6600 on an ASUS P5N32 SE SLI Deluxe. ASUS website states that the board can run on up to 400 MHZ FSB. I have 2 GB of 800 MHZ DDR2 ram...

Am I correct in thinking that if I set the FSB to 400MHZ, since the multiplier is 9, the clocks will be 3.6 GHZ? Since RAM actually runs at 400 MHZ, that gives a 1:1 ration, which would mean no adjustments have to be made to the ram? Will I need to alter any voltage at all?

I do not refer to any cooling issues, as I have ordered liquid cooling for the CPU, so that should not be a problem. However the chipset itself runs stock cooling. Might increasing the FSB numbers heat up the chipset, the Northbridge specifically?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Reply to mrvredina

Hi,

At 400MHZ FSB, your clock will indeed be 3.6GHz.
As you're overclocking, you may find that you need to up the voltage on your RAM.

Warning: I have never overclocked a PC, so I can only speak from other peoples experiences and guides that I have read.

I suspect that you may have to increase your CPU voltage, and maybe your Northbridge voltage as well.

From what I've read, First and most important rule, Always overclock in small steps... To jump from stock settings to 400Mhz FSB is incredibly dangerous, bcos theres no way for you to know whats causing it to not work.

So baby steps. Increase your FSB by small amounts. You'll reach a point where you lose stability, even tho the CPU is running cool. Then you'll need to up the voltage on either the CPU or Northbridge. First increase the voltage on the CPU. Boot & test. If that dont work, set the CPU voltage back to what it was, and up the Northbridge voltage. Boot & test. If that still dont work. Up both voltages a tiny fraction. If that dont help, then try upping the voltage on your RAM. If all that dont work, then you've either got broken equipment(if the overclock is nowhere near where it should be), or you've reached your overclock limit. This you can usually tell bcos your CPU is running hot.

Once you reach a speed you're happy with, start stress-testing it. Chances are it'll crash & burn. BCos starting up & handling stress are two very different kettles of fish. So you turn your FSB down a bit, and try Stress-testing again. And down & down you go, until you pass the stress-test.

No 2 pieces of equipment perform the same. Especially when it comes to CPU & MB's. Which is why overclocking is an incremental process, with small steps.

How much voltage to increase per step? I dont know.
How many Mhz to increase FSB per step? I dont know.
What apps to use to stress-test? I dont know.
How long to stress-test? I dont know. (At least 8 hours).

Hope this helps... Feel free to shoot & criticise...

Reply to Darkwhisperer

Small steps - that is logical. Have a question: why would I need to up the voltage? any specific guides anyone know for Conroe? or is it all practically the same? Thanks for a quick response.

Reply to mrvredina

Well, you need the energy to perform the work. If you try to do too much without enough energy, your CPU will stall, and ur PC will crash. Stock voltage is meant for stock speed, and a bit more, actually. But you will reach a point where the CPU just doesnt have enough juice for what it wants to do. Then you'll need to up the voltage. Same goes for the Northbridge, & the RAM.

As I mentioned, specific guides arent a good plan bcos hardware differs. If you read the stickies in the Overclocking CPU's forum, you'll learn what overclocking is basically about, and how you go about doing it. It may not be your CPU or your MB, but the gameplan is the same.

However, lots of people have been asking for guides, and a few sites have mentioned the intention to put up guides and suggestions for overclocking C2D's. Check out other sites & forums, they may have exactly what you're looking for.

Reply to Darkwhisperer

Appreciate it

I'd love to give overclocking a shot, but when its the family PC, you're putting your neck on the line. But one day...

Reply to Darkwhisperer

Okay, I have a e6600 on a P5B Deluxe with Corsair XMS2 800 Cas 5 RAM.

I'm using the CNPS9500 for air cooling and have a 430W PSU.

Now I've been trying to overclock this CPU for a while and found I can run it at 361 fsb which equates to 3.25Ghz. Anything after that I have to modify Vcore settings to Overclock.

I don't know how people keep bragging about how they can reach 4Ghz without modding vcore.. that's a load of crap. It's simple, just set the FSB higher and higher step by step until it won't boot. Raise Vcore and proceed.

I think 3.25 is damn fast enough for a e6600 without getting it too hot.

Reply to pixelharmony

Okay, I have a e6600 on a P5B Deluxe with Corsair XMS2 800 Cas 5 RAM.

I'm using the CNPS9500 for air cooling and have a 430W PSU.

Now I've been trying to overclock this CPU for a while and found I can run it at 361 fsb which equates to 3.25Ghz. Anything after that I have to modify Vcore settings to Overclock.

I don't know how people keep bragging about how they can reach 4Ghz without modding vcore.. that's a load of crap. It's simple, just set the FSB higher and higher step by step until it won't boot. Raise Vcore and proceed.

I think 3.25 is damn fast enough for a e6600 without getting it too hot.

Reply to pixelharmony

Quote :

other people are freezing the proc and uping the FSB to get to 4Ghz

like so...
http://turbocrime.co.uk/pics/core2 duo 4005mhz.jpg

Reply to turbocrime

P5W DH + E6400 Stock HSF
I was at 333x8 (2.66) but my temp was low 60's under load

Yesterday i changed to a Zalman 9500 my idle temps didn't change much but my load temps went down to hi 40s low 50.

So i decided it was time to up the FSB again and went for 400*7. and with out a problem i got to 2.8 from stock 2.13 30% overclock 8) temps stayed at mid 50's.

I need DDR2 800 Mhz to stay on the 1:1 Radio, currently have 667 Ram.

I tried overclocking with AMD 4800+ and i was thrilled to go from 2.4 to 2.8 but i had to up all the voltages you can imagine.

Reply to pancito

p5w dh
e6600

if you temps are good and you are having trouble try upping the mch and fsb voltage a little.

to get 4.1ghz I had to set fsb and mch on the maximum the mb will support and this is holding me back now so will have to vmod the board to go higher.

Reply to turbocrime

Ok i tryed a little (really little) overclocking today... from the stock 2.40 to 2.43 (lol xD).

Computer specs like this:

Mobo - Asus P5N32 SLI SE Deluxe
RAM - OCZ DDR2 PC7200 (running at 800mhz stock)
GFX - 7900GT

So i reboot, its workin fine. But it looks like this:

CPU settings section (cant change clocks/multiplyer etc):-

CPU frequency : 2432mhz
FSB : 1081mhz (i cant see the acctual one on my Mobo, or i cant find it)

Overclocking section:-

Target Memory Clock : 811mhz <----(the questionable bit) (cant change)
FSB Clock : 1081mhz <-- can change
Memory Clock : 800mhz <-- can change

any idea what it all means? is it going fine or is something wrong?

and what would a "high" temperature be? (45/46 C last time i checked).

Anyone that can tell me where to go from there, the info would be greatly appreciated =).

Reply to 21121

Quote :

With the clock locked, and DDR2 maxing out at 1066mHz, is it even possible to overclock this processor?

I'm running my E6600 at 3.2GHz, so I suppose its possible.

Reply to sruane

My CPU temps float from 32c to 39c @ load @ 400 bus and X7 multiplier w/ stock cooling.
To get to X8 multiplier I have to increase the CPU voltage a tad and the temps are floating at 36c to 45c @ load. I know it has quite a bit more head room.
As far as games are concerned, from stock to a 415mhz and X7 I gained about 20 frames a second in FEAR. I have found my sweet spot @ 415mhz X7 with stock voltages with my current MB-CPU-RAM combo. Each board will act a differently, for a $115 MB and a $319 CPU I am quite satisfied with the performance.
Not as nice as the old Celeron 300A 440bx overclock, OK I am old.
Budget overclocking I would suggest the e6400 cpu w/ a Gigabyte DS3 or S3 motherboard, and some A-DATA 667 RAM.

Reply to toosober

SUP,i love this proc, it was easy to get passed 3.oGhz. i had to change voltages passed 3.5 and maxed out at 4.0Ghz at 1.57volts. (i know they are high, i have to go stupid overclock with my ram) i dont know why u cant overclock much but i hope ur luck changes, this proc is crazy fast when overclocked right.

P.S
i got 4Ghz with my FSB and ram 1:1, i dont know how to change the ratio to 9:8; i don't recomend doing what i did cuz i almost fried my ram at 2.1V

l8er

Reply to BigCharb

Quote :

SUP,i love this proc, it was easy to get passed 3.oGhz. i had to change voltages passed 3.5 and maxed out at 4.0Ghz at 1.57volts. (i know they are high, i have to go stupid overclock with my ram) i dont know why u cant overclock much but i hope ur luck changes, this proc is crazy fast when overclocked right.

P.S
i got 4Ghz with my FSB and ram 1:1, i dont know how to change the ratio to 9:8; i don't recomend doing what i did cuz i almost fried my ram at 2.1V

l8er

Are you sure that is stable? You ought to run Memtest and Prime.

Reply to ProSlayer

Quote :

Are you sure that is stable? You ought to run Memtest and Prime.

LOL, stable...it crashed 30 seconds into running cpu-z. i know if i get better ram i will be able to run at 4Ghz without a problem, but ti'll then i'm happy with 3.2.

Thanx l8er

Reply to BigCharb

As most of you already know, 4GHz isn't stable. About all most people will be able to achieve while stable is 3.2 on air and 3.6 with water. Above 4GHz stable will require active liquid cooling.

Mine has run at 454 X 9 or 4085MHz non stable, but enough to run basic benchmarks like superpi. I'm currently running at 500 X 7 or 3.5GHz using chill water cooling @ about 17C full load. MB is gigabyte P965-DQ6.

Reply to Vinas

Hi,
well guys so far i got my E6600 running completly stable at 3.4ghz with 8gig of patriot ram at 1007mhz. I did the 3dmark vantage to realy stress out the cpu and no problem whatsoever. idle temp is 30c and load is 40c. cooling is provided by zalman 9700.

Reply to urdaddy

hey folks!

built new system. here are specs:

e6600
artic freezer pro 7
2x1gb Corsair Dominator 800mhz
Asus P5Q Pro
nzxt lexa case

currently overclocked at the following settings:

Processor: 3.6ghz
FSB: 400
RAM: 1066 (533 per dimm) timings: 5-5-5-15.

everything is completely stable.

any suggestions as to what I can do to increase speed? I've seen 3.8 - 4.0 ghz, but no one has posted their settings, even for a reference.

voltages are set to AUTO by the bios.

Message quoted 2 times

Reply to Anonymous

Anonymous wrote :

hey folks!

built new system. here are specs:

e6600
artic freezer pro 7
2x1gb Corsair Dominator 800mhz
Asus P5Q Pro
nzxt lexa case

currently overclocked at the following settings:

Processor: 3.6ghz
FSB: 400
RAM: 1066 (533 per dimm) timings: 5-5-5-15.

everything is completely stable.

any suggestions as to what I can do to increase speed? I've seen 3.8 - 4.0 ghz, but no one has posted their settings, even for a reference.

voltages are set to AUTO by the bios.

just curious, what os are you using?
and that perormance seems nice, i wouldnt go any further, unless you want to push your system to the limits and change all the voltages and stuff

Reply to Wahjahka

I'm currently using 64bit Vista.

I want to change voltages etc to get more performance, and I'm looking for rough settings or guidance if possible as I'm fairly new to overclocking (done 2 stable systems so far) but never tweaked the voltages.....

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to Anonymous

Anonymous wrote :

I'm currently using 64bit Vista.

I want to change voltages etc to get more performance, and I'm looking for rough settings or guidance if possible as I'm fairly new to overclocking (done 2 stable systems so far) but never tweaked the voltages.....

if your going to try to increase the speed (o/c more) try it without doing anything will the voltages, run prime95, if it appears to be stable then your fine, if its not stable try lowering the speed a little and tweaking the voltages

Reply to Wahjahka

Anonymous wrote :

hey folks!

built new system. here are specs:

e6600
artic freezer pro 7
2x1gb Corsair Dominator 800mhz
Asus P5Q Pro
nzxt lexa case

currently overclocked at the following settings:

Processor: 3.6ghz
FSB: 400
RAM: 1066 (533 per dimm) timings: 5-5-5-15.

everything is completely stable.

any suggestions as to what I can do to increase speed? I've seen 3.8 - 4.0 ghz, but no one has posted their settings, even for a reference.

voltages are set to AUTO by the bios.

Hey,

I have an E660 also with an Artic Freezer Pro 7.

It appears that you're running 400 x 9. Is everything still stable? What are you getting for temps?

When I run your settings, I get about 52 C idle, and 61ish under load. I'm unsure if these are safe or not though.

Perhaps I'll throw some Artic silver thermal paste on, as I do have a tube lying around...

Reply to Acejam

I KNOW ITS AN OLD THREAD BUT I NEED TO KNOW HOW TO OC MY E6600!
mobo: biostar p4m890

Reply to shovenose

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