Overclocking the E6600. What parts should I use?

[tehlexinator]

Hey guys.

Gah I don’t know where to start. The last thing I OC’d was a P4.
I am jumping back into the game and have a few questions.


- What would be a good mobo to pair with the E6600?
I would like it to have 2 16X PCIE for SLI (Plan on having 2 8800 GTX’s. So far I only have one. )
I would like to be able to get the CPU to a cool 3.2 GHZ mark. I won’t need to go any faster.
Any recommended voltage settings?

-What type of Ram would I need to buy for this? What timings should I use?
-Should I use a non stock gel/sink/fan?

How long would this rig be able to run at this speed?
I recall the older P4’s would begin to “spaz” if you let them run OC’d for more then a few days.

I think that’s all for now but I am a little hung over at the moment and may have made a few spelling mistakes or some such. I hope I gave you guys enough info to make a good call. Otherwise please post and I will try to comply.

Thanks for the help!

 

[jeff_2087]

Look into the EVGA 680i and Asus P5N32-E SLi Plus. Both are good overclockers and run x16/x16 SLi. If you get the 680i though make sure you get a T1/A1 revision, not TR/AR.

Noone can really recommend a voltage, it varies based on your CPU, but a bit more than stock should be fine. For reference, I'm running my e6600 at 1.35v and it's stable at 3.06GHz.

3.2GHz is about the limit for the stock cooler, I found. So you probably don't need an aftermarket cooler to at least play in that ballpark, but it couldn't hurt. Scythe Ninja is popular, Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 also popular.

For memory, you'll want DDR2-800 RAM. Get stuff from Corsair, G.Skill, Mushkin, Patriot, OCZ, Team Group, Geil. Preferably G.Skill, Mushkin or Corsair but that's just me.

Personally I chose Mushkin HP DDR2-800 because they were a good price, have good timings, use Micron D9s, and the shiny blue heatspreaders match fantastically with my rig's colour scheme. I have them running 3-4-3-9 1T at around 700MHz. They can go faster but I don't have reason to push my machine faster right now.

 

[tehlexinator]

As soon as you said Asus I had a red light go off in my head. Did these guys improve their tech support and hardware in the last few years? I have tried them before and had nothing but problems.
So I am thinking of the EVGA 122-CK-NF68-A1 for the mobo... Unless someone has a better suggestion.

I have never worked with mushkin before, but I have worked with Geil (Crap... 8 sticks, all went bad after 2-5 months) and G.Skill (Good so far, but only tried it with 2-4 sticks) as well as Corsair (good but expensive).
I took your advice and went with mushkin after reading some tech data on the sticks... But I thought that only the "eXtreme Performance" ones are D-9? Am I wrong on this? Does model 996533 ( mushkin 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)) also use this chip?

Also how long is your rig capable of running well? Can I leave it on as a server or does it need to be rebooted every so often?

Once again, thanks for the help.

 

[jeff_2087]

Some site that had a big list of what chips different types of memory use listed the Mushkin HP as using D9s, I haven't taken off my heatspreaders and looked. I cant remember the link though. Asus boards are pretty good quality, although their tech support leaves much to be desired. Still, that seems to be pretty much standard.

The longest I've ever run it was around 3 days and it never experienced any problems. I don't tend to run it longer than that because I usually turn it off when I go to bed unless I'm downloading or encoding.

 

[tehlexinator]

WOW those mushkin guys are great. I contacted their tech support and BAM had an answer. They are not D9's. They are ProMos.

So I am going to go with G.Skill (G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory). Those are D9's. AND there much cheaper... Go figure.

So would you go with Asus over the Evga mobo?
I am also going to go with the ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm as well as some Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound. (Do people still use the thermal grease/compound?)

Oh, one more thing. Any cases that I HAVE to use? Back in the day it was either Lian Li or no go. Any good models that promote good cooling? Currently the "Antec Performance One P180 Silver cold rolled steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case" has me drooling. Looks like it will be a good case to OC in.

Btw thanks for the help!

 

[jeff_2087]

Well that's disappointing. Oh well, they perform pretty good, so I can live with it.

Personally I'd go for the EVGA... after all, that's why I bought one. I was just presenting another option with the Asus.

 

[tehlexinator]

HAH... Thanks. I always like more option but I am completley anti Asus. I don't like them almost as much as I don't like Geil ram.

 

[Newf]

For 680i motherboards there are Asus and Abit which make the boards and have their own BIOS for them.
Then there are the videocard companies that market the "generic" 680i NVidia motherboard (EVGA, BFG, etc) which may be made by ECS and use NVidia's own BIOS design.
Since you are anti Asus, take a look at the Abit IN9. If that's a no-go then any other 680i will do...