B3 stepping from Newegg..

[bigbeef2604]

I ordered the Q6600 from newegg on Sat and it looks like I got a B3 stepping processor. Damn.. I really want to build this and get it going, but I figured I'd surely get a GO stepping from newegg. Should've gone with ClubIT. What would you do in my situation?
To confirm,
product code ends in SL9UM (this means B3 stepping, correct?)
Thanks for any help - i'm bummed

 

[akhilles]

Yep, SLA** = the s***

If you haven't opened it, will the egg charge you for "restocking fee"?

B3 up to 3.4ghz. G0 up to 3.6. On air. Not much difference. Overclocking isn't guaranteed. It's luck of the draw.

 

[bigbeef2604]

yeah.. i dont really have much choice though since I'm building the computer as a demo for a computer club that I'm part of. Oh well I'm probably only going to overclock to 3.0 anyway. Is it very easy to get 3.0 even out of a B3 stepping Q6600? What's the highest I can go without messing w/ upping the voltage?
Thanks a lot for any responses.

 

[Jim_L9]

I got my G0 to 3.0 easily and I reduced my vcore.

 

[BustedSony]

yeah.. i dont really have much choice though since I'm building the computer as a demo for a computer club that I'm part of. Oh well I'm probably only going to overclock to 3.0 anyway. Is it very easy to get 3.0 even out of a B3 stepping Q6600? What's the highest I can go without messing w/ upping the voltage?
Thanks a lot for any responses.

There's very little difference between B3 and G0. The late B3's had reached a certain level of performance and the G0 was simply an adjustment in listed specs, such as wattage dissipation and T-juntion, to match that performance; plus some bug fixes were incorporated (and a few new ones introduced.)

It's truly luck of the draw, my own B3 overclocks better than my G0. 3.46 versus just 3.28 for the G0. These are hard limits, not hold-backs due to temperature. Batch number is important too, the batch number of L723A981 for my G0 is not very common, and apparently the few around don't overclock well.

 

[killz86]

I got my G0 stepping from newegg and i orderd on Sept 28th friday and when my stuff came wesenday. it was G0 stepping. but i got lucky i guess

 

[akhilles]

BustedSony, when an overclocker realizes overclocking is luck of the draw, he/she has spent too much time on overclocking. lol. I started out in the Barton 2500+ era.

bigbeef2604, quad actually uses less voltage to o/c than dual, as strange as it sounds. I'd say 1.5v is the upper limit on air. 1.35v-ish for 3.4ghz. Depends on your other factors like mobo & ram. If everything is hawt, then you can get to 3.0 hands down.

 

[BustedSony]

BustedSony, when an overclocker realizes overclocking is luck of the draw, he/she has spent too much time on overclocking. lol. I started out in the Barton 2500+ era.

bigbeef2604, quad actually uses less voltage to o/c than dual, as strange as it sounds. I'd say 1.5v is the upper limit on air. 1.35v-ish for 3.4ghz. Depends on your other factors like mobo & ram. If everything is hawt, then you can get to 3.0 hands down.

Oh I'm in no way an "overclocker" in terms of using a character label. I run Folding@Home, so I like the system to be fast but stable, and do a lot of video rendering where time saved is money - but it's interesting that the B3 clocked better than the G0. The B3 had a vid of 1.218, whereas the G0 had a vid of 1.313, so there's a hint of overclocking head room, the voltage suggested for default speeds. It's more likely a dedicated Overclocker that would be frustrated by all this, not a User like myself.

I have heard of Q6600's that only go to 2.8 Ghz, but yes, 3.00 Ghz shouldn't even require upping any voltages much, if at all, and air-cooling is just fine.