Need a motherboard for q6600 slacr

[larz]

Story goes: I just recently bought an intel q6600 slacr. I have been fooling with the oc parameters for my pentium d 830 and asrock wolfdale 1333-d667 motherboard to get a taste of the oc world before I dive into it with my new cpu. I plan on juicing the core 2 quad as much as i can, wanted to take some lessons with my d 830 before I "jumped in the pool" with my q660. OK, I'm gonna strictly talk about the d 830 now. I have run into some really annoying problems with my asrock wolfdale AMI bios. Its killing me that I cannot get the cpu stable over 3.3ghz. Even 3.345 is to much to be considered stable. And its not a temperature problem. Temp runs at about 55c under full load. High to mid 40's on idle. With the mobo bios, It gives you an "overclock mode" under advanced settings. The cpu frequency and the pcie frequency can be changed only. They can be set to change relatively, or not. Meaning you can have the cpu frequency control the pcie frequency, or you can change the pcie to manual and use your own settings for it. Any other pcie setting ive tried has not run stable at all. I keep getting the blue screen after booting into windows vista 64 bit for a few minutes. My multiplier is 15, and I can not change the multiplier in the bios, but if i put the pcie way down, the multiplier does change in CPU-z. Nothing is stable for this board except beginning with and up to the following settings:

Cpu frequency - 200 FACTORY at 3.0 ghz

pcie frequency - 100

Cpu frequency - 222 OVERCLOCK at 3.300 ghz (10% overclock)

pcie frequency - 105 in think? cant remember exactly, im at work! dangit!

So, I of course tried to put up the Vcore voltage......... No go on this motherboard. Its got "voltage monitoring" at 12, 5, 3.3 volts. I have a 650w power supply with two fans in it. I did find something at the end of the chipset settings for voltage range with level ranges for cpu, and ram of low, medium, and high, and of course auto. I tried the low with different frequencies, as well as the high setting. I think i actually may have hurt the board, because the voltage used to be stable at 2.5v, now it dips under to even 2.0v occasionally. So my first question is, is there a way to change vcore settings for this board without getting into the crazy vid-mod stuff? And is that a real option, or is it just too darn hard to pull off? My second question is, are there any optimal settings I could try to get my cpu up to 3.5 ghz? I am totally new to this, so please help me out if you can. I was also wondering about the ram settings and if that may be my problem. I have 4 gigs of kingston ram installed. The bios also has a core temp setting for fan control. I disabled that to make sure it wont interfere. Also turned it on, just to rule that option out.

All that garbage above leads me to this question: What motherboard should I purchase that overclocks well with the Q6600 slacr? I want a board that gives me FSB, not just the cpu frequency setting! Also, I want a mobo that will let me change the voltage setting! I really believe that is my problem with my current setup. Also, with proper cooling, is it possible to overclock a Q6600 to 4 Ghz? And should I stay with a ddr2 mobo, or upgrade to a ddr3? Thanks in advance for all the help!

 

[o1die]

I recommend the asus p5n-D ($84.99 after rebate at newegg). It uses ddr2 and is sli capable. But don't expect any board to guarantee you a better overclock. You may be limited by the processor, not the board or ram. DDR3 doesn't give enough performance boost to use with any 775 cpu. I use a newer i3, and it's the best overclocker I've ever had, going over 4.0 with a good heatsink. It was only $100 after rebate w/board as a frys combo special. I made the decision to settle for 3.67 with the Intel heatsink. It's not cost effective for me to purchase an expensive heatsink with such an inexpensive combo. Your q6600 normally runs at 2400, so if it is running at 3300, then your actual overclock is 900/2400, which is about 37%. That's not bad.

 

[larz]

Only reason I want a ddr3 board now is because I plan on getting an I7 when they come down (year from now if not). Gonna get the RAM out of the way. Might as well. Gonna practice OC'ing with my q6600, as I did with my pentium d first. Gonna sell my all my old set-ups and get the I7 processor for free if all goes as planned. I just really dont wanna get stuck with a motherboard that will not let me change my vcore settings. Thanks for the reply o1die

 

[larz]

well, guess im not getting any i series processor. gonna wait for the sandy bridge. dude, i think im gonna go home and slap my processor in my board that specifically says it cant support quad cores and see what happens. im bored

 

[jsc]

Gigabyte P35 and P45 boards work great with C2Q's. I have GA-EP35-DS3P and GA-EP45-UD3P boards that run my Q6600 at 3.6 GHz.