What's The Maximum Voltage For Q6600 G0 or B3?

[mr roboto]

I'm trying to overclock my Q6600 G0 to 4.2Ghz or higher. I've got her stable at 4.0025Ghz and the voltage set at 1.600v but have hit a wall when trying to go any higher in respect to FSB speed (1778Mhz). Anywhere above 1.55 and my motherboard's voltage reading turns red. According to Intel the Q6600 was designed to handle anywhere from 1.100v-1.372v (But we all know how much they undercut the specs in accordance to safe opperation). I'd like to know what the maximum voltage other Q6600 owners feel safe at. Not saying you would feel comfortable leaving your processor at 1.5v+ for extended periods,simply for the sake of benchmarking and testing for short amounts of time (an hour or two max). With heat not being a major issue I'd like to take it higher than 1.600v but I'm worried about permanent hardware damage. If any long time overclockers could lend me some advice it would be greatly appreciated.
My system specs are below in my signature. Thanks.


Here's my voltage settings and memory timings.

CPU - 4.0025Ghz at 1.600v
FSB - 1778Mhz at 1.5v Multiplier x9
Mem - 1066Mhz and 5-5-5-15-2T at 2.20v Unlinked
HT - 220Mhz x5 at 1.3
PCI-e - 210Mhz x5 at 1.4

 

[jchunter]

IMO, it is better to maintain voltage within spec for general use and core temperatures under 70 deg C. (you are water cooled, right?) I would not go more than 10% over spec (loaded Vcore) for short bragging tests. (Too much voltage increases the chances of punch through damage.) I think it increases risk to max out voltage and temperature at the same time. However, that is just my opinion, considering how much these processor chips cost and the benefit I would actually get from running it faster... For example, I know that transcoding high definition video files averages only about 60% use of four CPUs but can run for hours. So temps will be well below max and the benefit can be a much faster processing time. Then stability comes into play because the longer it runs, the greater the risk of a crash and the video file will be ruined if the system crashes... All in all, I think it is best to back off several notches, in the interests of stability and computer longevity.

Edit: You will find many crazies with other opinions here http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=56&page=2&order=desc

 

[mr roboto]

Thanks jchunter I think I will try the Extreme Systems forum as there doesn't seem to be as much action here on Tom's.

 

[jonpaul37]

Got mine @ 1.44v running 3.6 every day stable... way i look at it, if it's stable, it's stable.

 

[jsc]

My Q6600 is running at 3.6 GHz (400 X 9) at 1.42 volts. Temps are 61 - 66 C on air.

Intel's absolute max voltage for the Q6600 is 1.5 volts.

 

[jonpaul37]

***CORRECTION***

Just brought my voltage down to 1.37 volts last night and STILL running stable, temps went down to 50*c load from 58*c which means 2 things, i have more headroom for higher OC than i originally thought and i have a golden Q6600 G0 chip that i bought on craigslist for $50.00

 

[r_manic]

Best answer selected by r_manic.

 

[timoty]

My Q6600 is running at 3.6 GHz (400 X 9) at 1.42 volts. Temps are 61 - 66 C on air.

Intel's absolute max voltage for the Q6600 is 1.5 volts.

What board are you running the processor on?