Core 2 Duo E6600 Overclock QUestions

CPU? Mobo? Air/liquid cooling?

My money is on.....6600. 680i/P5B-DX/DS3. Air.


If so, sounds like you've hit your limit. Only difference between 3.5 safe and 3.6....is a couple points in benchmarks. No real world difference......except system instability  

6600

BFG 680 P26 Bios
TT Big Water 745 with additional 120mm radiator.. so 3 rads in total 4 120mm fans in total... May not be the best, but it has made quite a difference.

Well, I was right on 2 out of 3  

If you keep increasing voltages and you can't OC higher, then the simple answer is you've either hit an FSB wall (unlikely) or that's as best as you can get out of your components. It might or might not be the cooling, but it might also be the RAM and that's as high as it'll go. Generally speaking, it's usually cooling and RAM that hold you back.....FSB on the mobo next, and CPU last. So that's my guess in order:

-volts
-cooling
-RAM
-FSB (unlikely)

Sounds like you might be at the limit. Most 6600's top about about 3.6 +/-, and the BigWater is not exactly a high end cooling system, so you might be topped out. 3.5 or 3.6 sounds right, depending on your RAM. What RAM you got?

that chips should run at 3.2-3.4ghz

what do you think you gain from 3.6ghz? nothing!

run it the in sweet spot 3.37ghz 1500fsb x 9 - lower fsb keeps the nb cool


there is smart oc and there is dumb oc - pushing the chip over 3.4 will most likely lower its life and cause problems

Don't feel bad... I can't get my CPU to run at 3.6GHz either. But I think that might be due to the motherboard...

Oh well, it runs great as is (at stock)

You guys miss the point...

1) RAM can't be because I can run 1600/800 FSB when i set the mult to 8x. So I am being limited by the CPU. It could be the mb and such a high frequency.

The real point is ... If i can do 3.5 with ease... and 1600FSB is possible, why is the CPU limiting me so much when I am doing 3.5 with JUST 1.26v?

A difference of 0.14V should have gained at least 100-200MHz.

I know it doesn't make that much of a difference (except when transcoding a dvd). This is just a test to see how things work and Why.

There is a point where the ratio of performance/volts will rise exponentially but... a wall like that? And I know about the sweet spot... I am just wondering what the situation is.

Perhaps your CPU is limited to a little below 3.6 GHz. Not all CPUs are the same.

Just accept it lol!

Like another stated... you probably won't see that much of a difference if you try and go a little higher.

For that type of detailed information, perhaps you should speak to Intel. We just know that these walls exist, not the inner machinations of how, where, and why. Chips are different, it happens. Walls happen. Sometimes computers make absolutely no sense, it happens. 3.5 works, 3.6 doesn't...it happens.

If you have a burning desire to know WHY it happens, you need to look elsewhere I think, closer to the source.