Quote:
Originally Posted by Rathji
I have the same CPU.
I have never really considered over clocking. Any tips or is it really just a straightforward process?
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I actually have the worst batch of Q6600s for overclocking, the B3 revision but I can still do 3.2GHz on stock voltage and 3.6GHz on 1.5V (the maximum intel spec).
The majority of Q6600s will overclock very easily past 3.2GHz, especially if they are G0 revision. Many G0s can go past 3.8GHz. You can tell by running
CPU-Z what revision and stepping your CPU is. Post up what revision you have and I can tell you what voltage and multiplier/FSB you can try out.
Basically it's very simple, the speed of the CPU is the front side bus (FSB) speed multiplied by the CPU multiplier. The default setting on the Q6600 is 266*9 = 2400MHz (2.4GHz). What motherboard do you have? If you have any decent motherboard, you can press DEL or F2 (whatever it says when you turn your computer on) to enter the BIOS and adjust the settings there.
As I said 3.2GHz should be doable on stock voltage. If you can't get that, I'm sure 3.0GHz has to be possible on 99% of Q6600 CPUs at stock voltage so you don't need to worry about it.
For something straight forward, lets do 3.0GHz on the CPU and see if it works for you. Change the FSB from 266 to 333MHz. That will give you 333*9 = 2.99GHz (rounds up to 3.0GHz).
Now the other deal is that when you change the FSB, you also change the speed of the RAM because overclocking the front side bus will overclock the entire system including your ram. The FSB is half the speed your ram runs at. With DDR2, that means double data rate so the ram speed runs at twice the FSB if you are on a 1:1 memory divider. For that reason, you have to use the memory ratio divider or use a lower FSB if you end up with a number that is higher than your ram is rated for. IE: you do 400*9 x 2 for 3.6GHz. That will make your ram run at 800MHz. If you have DDR2-667 ram, your memory is only rated for 667MHz operation so 800MHz is too much. You can either get some DDR2-800 or simply change the ram divider.
The RAM used to be running at 266MHz*2 = 532. If you have DDR2-533 RAM, that will be your maxmium speed anyway...but who has RAM that slow? Even if you have DDR2-667, you can goto 333MHz on the FSB right away since you'll have 333*2 for the ram which = 666MHz.
Basically all you need to do is figure out where the FSB setting is in your motherboard's BIOS and change that setting from AUTO (which is 266) to 333 and you should easily be at 3.0GHz immediately as long as your ram is DDR2-667 or better (which almost everybody will be). Try that setting out and tell me if it works for you or not! 
Most of the time, I will run my own system @ 3.4GHz. That is 378*9. With DDR2 on 1:1, that is 378*2 for the speed of my ram or 758MHz. That is actually slower than stock speed of DDR2-800 (800MHz of course) but stable. I actually have DDR2-1066 ram so I have more room to move with the ram. If I change the memory divider to a different ratio I can bump up the speed of the ram also so I use a ratio of 5:6 which gives me 378/5 * 6 = 453.6 * 2 (DDR2) = 907.2MHz for the ram. I tend to underclock my ram to get lower timings but you can also overclock your ram but that is another discussion.
You can do any multiplier up to 9x so choose whatever works best for you. Remember if you play with the speed of the CPU, you may need to give it a bit more juice. Stock voltage for the Q6600 is 1.3V. If you are going to overclock the ram as well (you shouldn't have to) stock voltage for DDR2 RAM is usually 1.8V. Never exceed 2.2V on the RAM. For my B3 revision to do 3.4GHz, I require 1.363V on the ram which is barely higher than the stock 1.3V of the CPU.
Should my computer run BattleField 3?
