How far could I OC my Q6600 with this setup and stock cooling?

So I have an Intel Q6600 at the stock 2.4 ghz right now. Here is my setup:

P5Q Pro
Radeon HD 4870
Mushkin 2x2GB DDR 800
Corsair 750W PSU
Xion Dazl case

The main problems I can see with it is the fact that the 4870 is going to produce a lot of heat in the case, and I just have the stock heatsink with the CPU. Also, the case isn't really like a high end awesome case. It has an 80 mm front fan in front of the HDDs, a side 80mm fan, and a rear 80mm fan.

So what do you guys think about how far I can take the CPU? Would 3.0-3.2 ghz be doable and safe?

stock cooling = probably high if you want to overclock. everyone runs Q6600 but when they are overclocked they run hot. Old 65nm tech, quad core = bad. i dont care what people say i have yet to see a Q6600 overclocked to 3+ gighz that stays under 65 on load on air.

EDIT: as far as theoretical overclock with stock cooling - who knows. but, if I owned a quad core i would water cool the hell out of it but im a low temperature whore.

my E8500 overclocked to 3.8 runs at 50 on load with 72 degrees ambient with all fans including the zalman heatsink turned to the lowest settings. <3 my dual core.

My Q6600 Go edition with the P5Q-pro board was able to hit 3.2 on stock cooler as the Voltage was @stock also, which only added 2 degrees to the overall temps, (Idle 32,32,29,29).

now running @3.5 @1.325v with the Freezer 7 pro (Idle 33,33,30,30) when @ load the CPU never goes above 68c.

best bet is to get a freezer pro or similar style to get up to 3.2 - 3.5, any thing above that, an ultra 120 would benifit u.

the Q6600 is able to hit 4ghz although i will recomend some amazing water cooling to go above 3.8.

I have a Q6600 @ 3.2 ghz and its idling at 25*C , and load it goes to ~40 degrees.
That is with a high VID of 1.3 V

Offcourse this isn't stock cooling. It's with a Cooler Master Hyper Z600, with a scythe ultra kaze 2000RPM attached to it, and Thermaltake 1500 RPM casefan.

What your saying is untrue, It all depends on your setup, airflow, and room temperature. I've seen a lot of people oc'ing their Q6600 and keeping it below 50*C .

lol!

Q6600 @3.2Ghz on Asus P5k with zalman and load temps <60c........
System was stable at 3Ghz with stock cooler.......system is stable at 3.6Ghz with but runs a little hot for me - this thing needs to last me a few years.

lawls. stable OC Q6600 at 3 ghz with stock cooler?

also your Q6600 running at 3.2 temp less than 60 celcius i call bull. i need proof of this because this is some kind of god send.

I would not go over 3.0 MHz with the stock cooler, around 3.2 - 3.3 GHz with something like an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro. Anything over that, you need a GOOD HSF.

My Q6600 has a VID of 1.2625 volts. It will run at 3.0 GHz at stock voltages. It's running at 3.6 GHz with a TRUE - SFlex HSF, vcore set to 1.425 volts drooping to 1.40 volts in an Antec 900 case. With Prime95 small fft running core temps are 65C - 61C - 61C - 65C.

Prehaps, not great; but certainly, not bad.

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums [...] retemp.jpg

Any more questions?

At 100% full load, after 7 minutes, my core temps ranged from 57-62 C. The overall CPU temp was sitting at 42-43 C.

Is that too high to think about OCing it?

My Q6600 seems to stay in low 50s testing with Prime95 at 9 x 360 and just over 1.2v. That's in a P5Q Pro, same as the original poster. I'm going by the temperatures reported by coretemp, which are the same as CPU-IDs hwmonitor.

However I have an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro with fan control on the "standard" profile. Changing the fan profile to "turbo" drops the temperatures, but I find that too noisy so I'd rather slow down a little if I need to cool down more, or consider a better heatsink with a big slow fan.

I've been stepping the FSB up a little at a time, and going from 350 to 360 I had to put Vcore up a couple of notches. I'm guessing that going any faster will mean more volts and the temperatures will start to shoot up.

Tony S