Review my overclock - Noob needs help.

[carquote]

I just overclocked my Q6600 on my Evga 780i and Tuniq tower 120 cpu cooler. I decided to shoot for 3.2Ghz 8x400. I set the bios to expert for memory and then selected unlinked and set my Gskill F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ to 800mhz and the bios then automatically changed my voltage from 1.85v to 2.1v and timings from 5-5-5-15 to 5-4-4-12. I am running Prime95 now and so far so good at 1.328v under load and 1.376 idle in cpu-z . This is with the cpu voltage in bios set at 1.40625. Temps are around 54c with the Tuniq tower fan on high. CPU FSB and nforce spp are set to auto and both are at 1.4v. How does this look? Did I do everything correctly? Would I be better off setting the FSB to 1424 for a 9x356 overlock? would I then set the memory to 712mhz? I am also confused about having a 1:1 divider which I read is best. Wouldn't that mean that with a 8x400 and 9x356 overlcock that the memory would be set to 356mhz and 400mhz respectively? I'm sure I'm missing something as that sounds way too slow for ddr2 1000mhz memory to be under clocked to. When I selected linked mode in the bios for a 1600mhz fsb it set my memory to 1400 which sounds way too high for 1000 mhz memory. I am unable to get a lower voltage stable, but I'm concerned this voltage might be a little high, as I plan on using this cpu for a long time. Which of the 3 voltages is the one I should be concerned with? Thanks for looking at this and giving me your input.

 

[Evilonigiri]

It has been shown that in everyday applications and games, running 1:1 is just as good as running any other setting. I like to run it at 1:1 so my ram and fsb speeds can be lower, in your case 356MHz. Lower=cooler=longer life or higher overclock.

 

[carquote]

Thanks Evilonigiri. Do you recommend I stay at 8x400 or would 9x356 be better, and did everything else look ok? Of the bios, cpu-z idle and load voltages, which is the one that I should be concerned with? Does this overclock look like it would be safe and not decrease the life of the cpu?

 

[Evilonigiri]

Thanks Evilonigiri. Do you recommend I stay at 8x400 or would 9x356 be better, and did everything else look ok? Of the bios, cpu-z idle and load voltages, which is the one that I should be concerned with? Does this overclock look like it would be safe and not decrease the life of the cpu?

That's entirely up to you to leave it on 8x400 or 9x356. My suggestion is to put it on 9x356 because it will ease the stress off the motherboard and ram. You may need to do some further ram tweaking though.

Heat and more voltage will decrease the life of the cpu. Just keep your temps down and you can be sure the cpu will last long enough until the next upgrade.

 

[carquote]

I think I'll just set it to 333x9 since that seems to keep the temps a good bit lower than 800x4 and I would like to keep this cpu for around 5 years, passing down as I upgrade. What voltage do you think I should start with for the cpu? And why when I go into the bios of my 780i and select the option for 1:1 divider does it not set the memory to 333mhz?

 

[Evilonigiri]

I think I'll just set it to 333x9 since that seems to keep the temps a good bit lower than 800x4 and I would like to keep this cpu for around 5 years, passing down as I upgrade. What voltage do you think I should start with for the cpu? And why when I go into the bios of my 780i and select the option for 1:1 divider does it not set the memory to 333mhz?

Voltage for 9x333 should be around 1.3V, probably less but it depends from cpu to cpu.

Setting the 1:1 fsb to ram ratio will get you 667MHz ram, if your fsb is 333MHz. You'll have to multiply the 333MHz by 2 because that's how DDR2 works.

 

[carquote]

OK, that clears it up. I guess that makes sense with the "double" in "double data rate" Would that be 1.3v in bios or in cpu-z? Is the difference between the two the vdrop? Do you think the voltage of my ram can be decreased also?

 

[Evilonigiri]

OK, that clears it up. I guess that makes sense with the "Double" in "double Data Rate" Do you think the voltage of my ram can be decreased also?

Certainly. You're going to run it under specs, so naturally the voltage should go down too.

 

[Evilonigiri]

Would that be 1.3v in bios or in cpu-z? Is the difference between the two the vdrop? Do you think the voltage of my ram can be decreased also?

1.3V in the bios. You'll have to spend some time finding the lowest voltage level though.

The difference between the two is due to vdrop and vdroop.

 

[carquote]

I am stable at 333x9 with a high of 49c during prime95 testing at 1.31875V. My bios is set to auto for cpus FSB and is being set to 1.4v and my memory is auto to 2.1V but is improving my timings from 5-5-515 to 5-4-4-10. Should I leave the CPU FSB and memory voltages to these numbers that they are automatically set to? Why are these voltages automatically set so high when I am only running at 1.31875V for the cpu voltage and at 677mhz for the memory?

 

[Evilonigiri]

I am stable at 333x9 with a high of 49c during prime95 testing at 1.31875V. My bios is set to auto for cpus FSB and is being set to 1.4v and my memory is auto to 2.1V but is improving my timings from 5-5-515 to 5-4-4-10. Should I leave the CPU FSB and memory voltages to these numbers that they are automatically set to? Why are these voltages automatically set so high when I am only running at 1.31875V for the cpu voltage and at 677mhz for the memory?

You can set it much lower than 1.4V, I'm sure. The number you're setting in the bios is called the VID, the maximum voltage. After Vdroop and Vdrop is factored in, it's usually lower than the VID. In your case, you have a massive Vdroop and Vdrop.

Set the VID to 1.3v and see if it passes Prime95.

 

[carquote]

I seem to be stable at 1.3v for cpu fsb so far. Should I leave the memory at the auto setting of 2.1v since I'm getting the improved timings as a result? At the default setting of 1.85v I am getting something like 5-7-7-19 timings. I think this ram is designed to run between 2.0v and 2.1v, but since the ram is way underclocked I'm not sure what I should do.