Q6600 enough?

[nexere]

Hey i have

Q6600 at 2.6ghz
hd6850
4gb ddr2 ram
2x 2tb hdd

My mboard won't let me overclock to anything over 2.6ghz, it just bluescreens
Can a q6600 really feed a card better than the hd6850 without being a waste and just bottlenecking most of the extra power?

Would i be better off going for an i5 2500k/board etc or just getting an hd6950 or somthing? Unless you guys have any other ideas.

i know most games aren't very hard on the cpu but its only 2.6ghz and games that arn't well mulithreaded are already starting to feel it.

oh and its mostly for gaming at 1080p

 

[adalott]

The Q6600, as excellent as it is, would really be bottlenecking your GPU at the moment, if you are on a low budget, then a Core i3 2100 and a Z68 motherboard (for future upgrades) aren't too expensive. The i3 2100 is no slouch in games either. You would notice a big performance difference. I did when I jumped from my Q8200 to a Core i3 2100. If you can afford a 2500k though, go for it.

 

[spentshells]

What motherboard do you have?
What speed is the RAM ?
Are you using a stock cooler ?
I've never heard of a Q6600 not hitting 3.0
with proper overclocking. Regardless of stepping.

 

[nexere]

Cool thanx, just making sure cos all my friends are saying all that matters is the graphics card.
Would an i3 2100 even be an improvement tho? its only dualcore?
doesn't matter anyway with those mboards costing around £100 spending another 60 for a 2500k doesn't sound too bad
lol and how can u say a Z68 isn't expensive? at £100 thats as much as the i3 itself!!

 

[nexere]

What motherboard do you have?
What speed is the RAM ?
Are you using a stock cooler ?
I've never heard of a Q6600 not hitting 3.0
with proper overclocking. Regardless of stepping.

Its evga nf66 nforce 650i ultra

Im going to have to buy new ddr3 memory
and its not the temps or anything apparently my mboard is realy bad for overclocking i can't even do it from the bios
I use clockgen it instantly crashes when i put it over 2.6ghz and its g0 stepping i think.

 

[spentshells]

Overclock from the motherboard bios.
Clockgen is a no no
hit delete when you boot the PC
Look around in here.
Nvidia chipsets do suck for OC when compared to Intel based options
But if you spend an hour Im sure you could get all the way to 3GHZ or 3.2 if you have some luck.

This guide below is for a 680 chipset it isn't far off from what you are running.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2007/07/25/overclocking_intel_core_2_quad_q6600/1

I would like to advise you tht additional cooling may be required for the CPU

 

[nexere]

yeah i would normally do it from the bios but couldn't find anywhere to change fsb/core speed could only change voltage.
So ended up using clockgen as a last resort as its the only way i could find of overclocking it.
whats so bad about clockgen?

 

[iam2thecrowe]

all 650i boards can overclock FSB through BIOS, you must be looking in the wrong section. A 650i will easily push that chip past 3ghz. you will probably ned to increase vcore to do so, but its common to get them close to 3ghz without additional voltage. http://www.anandtech.com/show/2207/12 heres a review showing overclocking on that board.

 

[warmon6]

yeah i would normally do it from the bios but couldn't find anywhere to change fsb/core speed could only change voltage.
So ended up using clockgen as a last resort as its the only way i could find of overclocking it.
whats so bad about clockgen?

My memory really dated on clockgen but if i can recall correctly, it adjust the fequency of more things than just the cpu/fsb such as PCI-e which doesn't like to be messed with as much.....

Could be wrong......

 

[nexere]

Yeah clockgen has a slider for the pcie-e, left that alone cos i read it bad.

But i worked out how to overclock it,
it shows it quad pumped as as 1066hmz so i probably always mistook it for the memory speed.
its already hitting 70c on prime at only 2.7ghz tho that around the max temp?
(don't want to push it as im giving it to my brother when i get the 2500k)

it says its revision G0 and stepping B, that mean its not G0 stepping?

and thanx for all your help

 

[nexere]

hey, i have a problem, at 1.8ghz (cos of speedstep or whatever its called)
Core Temp says the core temps is 40-48c
and Speedfan says they are 30-38c which 1 should i trust? 40-48 sounds insanely high considering its clocked at 1800mhz and idle.

which app should i trust?

 

[jonnyrb]

Hey i have

Q6600 at 2.6ghz
hd6850
4gb ddr2 ram
2x 2tb hdd

My mboard won't let me overclock to anything over 2.6ghz, it just bluescreens
Can a q6600 really feed a card better than the hd6850 without being a waste and just bottlenecking most of the extra power?

Would i be better off going for an i5 2500k/board etc or just getting an hd6950 or somthing? Unless you guys have any other ideas.

i know most games aren't very hard on the cpu but its only 2.6ghz and games that arn't well mulithreaded are already starting to feel it.

oh and its mostly for gaming at 1080p

@you're doing it wrong.

I got my q6700 to 4.0ghz, albeit not too stable. Even without voltage adjustments you can hit 3.2 relatively easily. If you can muster a way to over clock it to, you would be fine with a 6950 // 570. However with it stock I'd stick to your 6850.

I would look at some forums with your motherboard on "how to" overclock.

Edit: an issue I had was my ram ratio was 2:1 so when I overclocked the fsb to 399 it failed. But this was due to the memory I had. I set the ratio to 1:1 and kept the oc at 399 (3.99ghz) long enough to boot take a screen shot, post it on facebook - then reboot.

 

[jonnyrb]

hey, i have a problem, at 1.8ghz (cos of speedstep or whatever its called)
Core Temp says the core temps is 40-48c
and Speedfan says they are 30-38c which 1 should i trust? 40-48 sounds insanely high considering its clocked at 1800mhz and idle.

which app should i trust?

I use Coretemp, it does me well. Make sure they're both up to date and don't run them at the same time?

Check temps in 1, exit.. then open the other and check temps?

just a guess.

 

[spentshells]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2207/12
iam2thecrowe gave you link follow it and do what it says
forget clockgen it's for babyheads.