Help me with my first overclock! (E6600)

[Acejam]

Hey all,

I'm pretty new to this forum. I've been building computers for as long as I can remember, but I've never done any overclocking.

Recently I've been thinking about a new build, with an i7 920 paired with an Asus P6T Deluxe V2. Although then I figured: "If I'm going for a new build soon anyways, why not overclock my current setup and see how it runs?"

....and now I'm here.

I've done some searching here on the forums, and lots of Google searching.

Currently I'm running:

Intel Core2Duo E6600
Asus P5B-E MOBO
Arctic Silver 7 Pro Cooler
6 GB DDR2-800 RAM (Gskill)
XP 32-Bit



I've played with the BIOS a bit, and have entered in my memory timings manually. (running stock auto voltage)

I'm running AUTO voltage for all voltages, and I currently have the FSB set to 361. (x9, so 3249 mhz, 3.25ghz)


My idle temps are around 48C-50C. (The past 3 minutes I've only been typing and they're both at 48C now)

I ran the Intel TAT and set both of my cores to 100% workload. The temps then shot up to around 70C-71C.


My main question is: Are these temps too high?


I just opened up my case again today, and re-seated my Arctic cooler. Previously I was using the "stock" thermal paste that came with the cooler, so today I took the cooler and CPU out, lapped them both, and then applied some Arctic Silver 5. I'm expecting that the temps will drop a bit in a few days, after the thermal paste and lapped CPU have "broken-in". (Though I've been running on stock voltages/speeds for about 2 years now on this setup)

I'm gonna go watch some TV now, and before I leave I'm gonna run Prime95, and see how things turn out. For what it's worth, at stock speeds my idle temps were around 41C earlier. Now that I've lapped the CPU/cooler, and applied Arctic silver, it idles around 35C on stock speeds.

 

[Acejam]

I have now set my Vcore voltage manually. I currently have it set to 1.4 and have an idle core temp of 44-45C.

 

[Acejam]

Quick update:

I changed things around, and am now running 8 x 400, that way I can run a 1:1 ratio, and run my ram at 800mhz.

I'm at 3200mhz right now, with a manual set Vcore of 1.425. All other voltages are set to auto.

Idle temp is around 45-47C. Prime95 pushes things up to about 54-55C. Although the Intel TAT utility pushes things really high, and temps hit about 68-70C.

How do these new numbers sound? (@ 3.2ghz)

 

[Acejam]

Well you shouldnt have to raise your voltage to overclock that processor to 3.2ghz.
You may actually be able to lower it from stock, therefore lowering your temps.
Try coretemp and speedfan and compare those temps with what your getting with P95 and TAT. You will be able to find out which ones are correct.
You really dont want to go over 60c as a rule.
I can overclock my E6300 well over 3ghz with an undervolt. However I'm limited to 3.03ghz because of my 800 ram doesnt like to run over 866mhz.

Does the 60C rule apply to idle or load temps?

Idle was stable at 47-48C all night.

Prime95 barely hits around 58-60C now.

 

[Acejam]

I re-seated my heatsink, and have applied some AS5. I'm using an Arctic Freezer Pro 7.

I also re-formatted my HD, and installed Vista Ultimate x64. (I wanted to take advantage of my 6 GB of RAM, previously used Ubuntu x64 and XP 32-bit)

I'm back at stock voltage and FSB now. My idle temps are about 35-36C. Does this sound right? I also lapped my CPU / heatsink, and it looks like it worked a little, as my temps are about 5-6C cooler now. (compared to my previous stock idle temps)


I'm going to try overclocking again later tonight. What's a good baseline / setup for my to run on this rig?


E6600 2 x 2.4 ghz
Asus P5B-E
2 x 2GB DDR-1066 GSKill RAM
2 x 2GB DDR-800 GSkill RAM

Looks like my memory is limited to 800 mhz. Although I don't think this will affect me too much. I'd be happy with a solid 3.25 ghz overclock, but then again 3.6 would be nice.