I plan on trying to over clock my new OEM Q6600 to 3.6 GHz using a Zalman 9500 copper aircooling unit. I have only overclocked once before on a friends system and am not real experienced so I'm not sure if 3.6 GHz is to much. I mean I know there are no sure fire guarantees in life but do you think the Zalman 9500 will be ok? Here is what else I'll be using:

Motherboard: ASUS P5Q Pro P45
RAM: x2 1GB sticks of PC8500 Crucial Ballistix Tracer RAM and x2 1 GB sticks of PC6400 Patriot extreme performance RAM, so 4GB of RAM total (I didn't want to use two different sets of RAM but becuase of reasons that are to long to explain it worked out this way.)

Any advice will be much appreciated

whats your VID?i think the 9500 wouldnt be enough to cool the Q6600 at 3.6Ghz. not even the 9700 can do it under 70C.

The MB should be good enough but you do not mention the case and the PSU. Still, 3.6 seems an aggressive overclock for the Q6600. On a Q6600 G0 stepping, with P45 chipset and adequate PSU you should get a trouble free OC at ~3.0Ghz. Some get more but 3.0 is not bad at all for a quad.

just one more thing Core 2@3.4Ghz+ you will see minimal everyday use.

Sorry I for got to mention I am using an:

Antec Trio 650 PSU
XFX 9600GT Video card

3.0 GHz is all I need you say? Well the reason I wanted 3.6 was because I wanted to set the FSB to 400MHz so I have a 1600 FSB and I could clock my RAM to also pump data at 400 MHz. Because RAM is dual pumped right? if I have 800MHz ram which is really 400 x2, I need to have my CPU FSB at 1600 which is 400 x4. I need them to match right? but perhaps Im foolish in thinking I need everything running at 400 MHz perhaps 3GHz w/ 1333FSB on my CPU and my RAM only running at 667 MHz is all a boy could ever dream of. What do you think?

i understand about the 400FSB importance.

i mean if you OC it above 3.2Ghz you wont see much of a difference in real life use. and you can do 400FSB with 8x multiplier which get you 3.2Ghz and still 800mhz. this way your cooler can handle it.

you sounds like you are very young!maybe you are 16 i guess?(no offence)

The Zalman 9500 will not keep a Q6600 at 3.6 cool enough. I cant run my X3350 at 3.6 when its hot during the summer, and thats with only 1.275V in the BIOS, on my 9500. I am going to get the Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer for my X3350.then I can run 3.6 year round.

The Q6600 will need over 1.3V to get 3.6. IF you want 3.6 ish you will need a better cooler, 3.0 will be fine with the 9500.

1Haplo

Doesn't the Q6600 have a 9x locked multiplier? I thought you couldn't change the multiplier unless you had an $1000 extreme Intel CPU. Is the multiplier unlocked and changeable on the q6600? and lol no I'm not 16 I'm actually 23 but with the comment i made about "all a boy could ever dream of" I see how you might have thought so. anyways... so you change the multiplier on non-extreme chip? becuase my main focus is not so much hitting 3.6 its keeping the 400MHz FSB, I'd be content with 3 or 3.2 as long as i had 1600FSB with my RAM running at 800MHz.

on non extreme edition CPU you can LOWER the multiplier but CANNOT up the multiplier to higher numbers like you can on a Extreme edition CPU.

i know the sweet spot is 8x400FSB@3.2Ghz+DDR2-800 CL4@2.1V, this will put least stress on mobo,cooler,CPU and RAM. since everything is still running "within" spec.

running at 3.6Ghz on the Q6600 you will need about 1.4V vcore AT LEAST! so the 9500 wouldnt handle it im sure. you can experiment yourself.

The multiplier can be changed to 9,8,7,6. fsb is unlimited. you just cant take the multiplier higher.

well my plans now are definitely to lower the multiplier to 8 for 3.2 GHz. you said the sweet spot was "8x400FSB@3.2Ghz+DDR2-800 CL4@2.1V" go ahead and call me noob but whats CL4@2.1V? another question I have is does OCing the CPU affect the video card in any way?

why would i and how can i or anyone call you noob when everyone anyone born as a noob to the world. CL4 means the timing of the ram CL4 i mean 4-4-4-12 and ram voltage at 2.1V or possibly lower if your ram can do it.

When OC you CPU it wont affect the video card in anyway. but i think you will OC your video card one day!

Ahhh yes 4-4-4-12 sounds fine. 2.1v on the ram, I'll keep that in mind. Do you know what voltage to use on my CPU? or is it different for every chip? if it is different for every chip what voltage do you suggest I try first?

(lol I have no doubts I'll be one day wanting to OC my vid card)

The first place to start with your quad is to look at how many volts it uses stock. Then increase the OC on the quad untill stock voltage is no longer stable. Or, you could go straight to 3.2ghz at 1.4v's and test for stability. If stable, lower you voltage untill you find the sweet spot.

i would say try 1.4v at 3.2Ghz but every chip varies and mobo have difference vdrop and vdroop. if the p95 small ffts fails in 12hours then up the vcore 1 more notch until it doesnt fail and pass 24 hours of small ffts.

sounds good thx for your time