Overclocking q6600 help

That temp is not to bad actually really good with stock cooling...IMHO, you might want to get an aftermarket cooler....The question really is...are you happy with your OC? 3.0 GHz is quite fast...Get that 460 if you got the funds....3.0GHz shouldn't bottleneck you too bad if at all....Your limiting factors will be your RAM speed and RAM density, and which HDD your using if your gaming

I don't see why you have to underclock your memory. I had the same setup up until about 3-months ago, and I had my Q6600 clocked at 3GHz, and my ram at 800MHz. It should work fine at those settings. My CPU voltage was set at 1.2875, with temps ranging from 31C idle to 46C full load, using Prime95. It was an awesome computer, but had to upgrade due to to much rendering tasks for work.

^ When OCing with the ref clock you also effect the memory clock... in your last rig you may have had mem modules that could take some extra clock speed...his may not be able to maintain stability at anything above 800 making him have to underclock his RAM to get it stable

BTW...My Old G.Skill DDR2 800 RAM would go 940MHz... yet my DDR3 1600 MHz RAM will only go 1600 MHz as all 1600 mem is just 1333 ram OCed so if I use my ref. clock to OC instead of my multi. then I have to run them at 1333 then OC them up to no more than 1600..

Q6600 at 3 will not bottle neck a 460 at a larger resolution.
14x9 maybe.

Hey BradK just a question why are you running an old 8800GT card on a Sandy Rig? Thats a little out dated for that rig isn't it....

Thank you

I've heard about 1:1 and 5:6 rules...
should I keep the DDR2 underclocked to 667, go to stock 800 clock or go overclocking the DDR2?

Overclocking RAM in a Core2 system adds little, if anything to real world performance. And it may contribute to instability, one of the things that you absolutely do not need when overclocking.

Here's a couple of threads where we discuss that:
Overclocking RAM:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/251715-29-ratio-myth

I have 4 OC'd Core2 systems:
GA-EP45-UD3P | Q9550 OC'd to 3.6 GHz (425 MHz X 8.5) C3 stepping  
GA-EP45-UD3L | Q6600 OC'd to 3.6 GHz (400 MHz X 9)
GA-EP35-DS3P | E7500 OC'd to 4.1 GHz (373 MHz X 11)
GA-G41M-ES2L | E6500 OC'd to 3.85 GHz (350 MHz X 11) - limited by G41 FSB speed

All are running at 1:1. All are 24 hour Prime95 stable.

The stock cooler for the 65 nm Core2 CPU's looks like the one that came with the 45 nm CPU's, but it is twice as thick. As such, it is a pretty good stock cooler.

These:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
are very popular because they are great coolers for the money. A 212+ should get you to 3.5 - 3.6 GHz depending on your CPU.

Don't exceed core voltage of 1.50 volts or load temps of 70 C as measured by a program such as CoreSpeed.

Yeah, it's way outdated, but it plays my COD's at high settings and at full 1920 X 1080 resolution, so I haven't had the need to really upgrade the card yet. The only games I play are the COD series (not black ops yet), and it seems to work great for those games. I plan to upgrade in the near future though - probably go with a 560ti or something... What would you recommend?