PangingJr

i plan to have a Q6700 on the EX38-DS4 later on as well.

if 3.0GHz is good enough for your daily use, try 333x9 with all the voltage settings to Normal in the BIOS.
and try memory multi 3.0x (DDR2-1000MHz), it worked quite well with the 333 FSB, and it may also work well for you.

5-5-5-15-11-5-10-45-5-4(tRD)-Auto(tRD Phase Adjustment) 2.05V
4-4-4-12-11-5-10-45-5-4-Auto 2.15V
4-4-4-10-8-3-7-30-3-4-Auto 2.2V



i used the boxed Intel cooler and it was in a warm room when running the prime95, so just disregard the CPU's temps.

__________________
E8400 @ 610 FSB
Q9300 @ 500 FSB
4x1GB DDR2-1333 (PC2-10666)

-------------------------------------------------

Don't worry overly much about whether a specific KB article exists for your version of Windows.
Standard practice is to grab whatever's available and apply the principles.
(I grabbed from the web. Written by someone, somewhere on the web)

swimtech

Had a little time to play last evening...

Got it to boot into Windows at 3.6Ghz.
FSB 400Mhz x 9 multi
Memory 1:1, 4-4-4-12 timings, all others auto.
Chipset voltage bumped up 0.1v (running 4x1G in all slots)
CPU volts at 1.525 Bios, 1.49 - CPUz. (CPU VID 1.325, L750xxx batch)
Temps were a bit high, 35C idle.
Wouldn't run OCCT mix though.
This might be a tad tough to get stable - I'll relax the timings on the mem. I can still move the CPU voltage up, but not much...

Also want to see what a stable 3.4 looks like - noted Al Vampyre got his there...

I know I can do 3.2Ghz running cool, memory fast, and stress stable for sure though. That was my expectation when I bought these parts - so that's nice.

I'll fiddle more in the next few days, and get some screens.

Did you get to try that 6700 PangingJr?

Glad now I didn't go for that Q9300, it will need a FSB monster of a mainboard to ramp up.

__________________
It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

PangingJr

i had my friend looking for a good Q6700 but he offered me his Q9300 for free, so i have it installed on EX38-DS4, no overclock on the system, and it's now for my wife's office.
i myself also still having a Q9300 on P35-DS4, and i overclock to 400FSB with memory 2.4x and PL5 for my daily use.
anyway, i think i might keep the asus p5q deluxe with me and get a new wolfdale CPU for my overclocking experiments.

__________________
E8400 @ 610 FSB
Q9300 @ 500 FSB
4x1GB DDR2-1333 (PC2-10666)

-------------------------------------------------

Don't worry overly much about whether a specific KB article exists for your version of Windows.
Standard practice is to grab whatever's available and apply the principles.
(I grabbed from the web. Written by someone, somewhere on the web)

swimtech

The P45 boards look to overclock really well - hopefully it can pump that 9300 to 500mhz. That chip running on a 400-425 Mhz FSB (and 7.5 multi) should be about the equal in performance to what I have (6600 @ 400mhz x 8 multi).

Though for someone using Crossfire on 2 PCIEx8 slots, the graphics hit was about 10% on this or previous gen graphics cards (read an article at Tom's about 4-5 months ago...). I would think the percentage difference would be higher with the latest gen cards.

I know that's not really a concern of yours though.

__________________
It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

swimtech

I had to work a bit for this one...

These screens represent what I think is about the best this system can do without getting into really stressful voltages (Bios set at 1.475) or temperatures (I'm pretty sure the AC Freezer 7 Pro is close to its limit though with these temps and the voltage applied). Got an OCCT stable 3.4Ghz overclock - that stress test is tough...


Shot at 2008-07-02

I'm pretty proud of this one - as I'm sure many of you were the first time you had to work at one and it turned out well. The CPU voltages are obvious, chipset voltage is elevated a tenth of a volt, and memory timings are loose for this (5-5-5-18), but I can probably fine tune those some more. I can also tweak the multi and the FSB some too, but it won't change real world performance much regardless.

Overall though, I think this pretty decent for a 1.325 VID CPU and mixed ram pairs across all four slots!

Also did a 3DMark 06 test. The card is overclocked to 850Mhz core and 1271Mhz memory - same as the previous posted score.


Shot at 2008-07-02

No, really, the processor is NOT at 3.8+ Ghz. The 3DMark program is reading as though the CPU was using a 9 multi - it's really at 8 for this run. Broke 13K - woot for that! - but the 152 point (1.2%) increase for a 200Mhz (6.25%) increase in CPU speed over the 3.2Ghz figure of 12936 should tell something - gaming really is about the video card.

Edit: It was late last night - 1.325 VID Q6600 processor, not 3.125 as originally posted.

__________________
It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

swimtech

Wanted to sum up to this point - just finished the DH Photoshop benchmark, available on This page

I went back to reviews done HERE at DH on the QX9770 and QX9650 processors. These are still available for $1470.00 and $1019.00, and are newer 45nm technology quad core processors. The QX9650 costs more than I paid to build my entire case of parts, even if I had bought the video card (again, thanks to DH and ATI - I'm lovin' it!).

This is the reason I'm overclocking, and why I planned the component purchases ahead of time so carefully...


Shot at 2008-07-11

If you compare the benchmark times for the processors in the review versus the time I got for my overclocked Q6600, you'll see it beats even the QX9770 as configured in the test system (which is no slouch in itself). Remember, the score I got is for a stable, stress tested overclock - without pushing any components to their absolute limits - suitable for playing games, editing video, anything really. It's been all about value for me...

If I can do it, you could too.

__________________
It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

swimtech

Went back to 3.2 to tweak out a 24/7 setting. I wasn't comfortable running at 3.4 with the voltages and power usage I was getting with those settings, so this is what I've settled on after working some this morning...


Shot at 2008-07-13

Note that the power usage in Everest shows the full load characteristic of the CPU now well below the full rated TDP of 130 watts (it had gone as high as 128 watts in the 3.4Ghz overclock) and that the load CPU voltage is just above my CPU's VID of 1.325 (can we call that the "kick start voltage"?), yet below the rated maximum of 1.350 (from the Intel box the processor came in). The CPU voltage is set at 1.3815 in the bios, and shows at 1.36 at idle in Windows. I did have the Bios set to 1.375 in my previous OCCT stable overclock at this frequency, but I had a blue screen later while playing Civ4 for several hours - bumping the voltage to 1.3815 in the bios fixed that. Full load power usage of the system (less the monitor and speaker system) is 230 watts, 130 at idle. At the 3.4GHZ settings, idle usage was at 140 watts.

The cooling is well within tolerances, maxing out at 56C (RealTemp figures) instead of 63C.

I'm tickled with the report from the DH Photoshop benchmark at this 3.2Ghz frequency too. It did fall from the 3.4Ghz score of 84.4 back to 88.8 - yet is still ahead of the QX9650 (94.6) and close to the QX9770 (85.5) - still got me a $1000+ processor! The percentage decrease in clock speed (5.9%) is greater than the decrease in benchmark time (5%), so it looks like I was able to hold onto a bit more of the performance than I thought I would.

The memory configuration I'm using is holding me back a tad though, I think. I tried to improve the main settings from my previous stable 3.2Ghz overclock to no avail, but I was able to improve the Performance Setting from 9 down to 7 (thanks for that suggestion PangingJr!) - made a nice difference in the memory subsytem performance - and is probably the reason I held onto some of the DH Photoshop benchmark performance. The board is doing a good job of keeping the two disparate sets of memory talking in unison though. Everest latency measurement is at 63.0 or so (it can vary a bit between runs), Read is at 8197MB/s, Write is at 7234MB/s, and Copy is at 7311Mb/s.

Hopefully this discussion and pictures so far can help others find their "sweet spot" too.

__________________
It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

swimtech

No screenies this time, but I did get a "usable" 3.6Ghz overclock last evening.

Bios CPU voltage set to (gulp) 1.525 volts, load CPU volts came down to 1.46 or so. Memory running at 5-5-5-18, Performance Level 7, 1066Mhz (3:4 ratio), Mem bios voltage at 2.2 volts, MCH +0.1 volts, all other settings auto.

I was able to get a nice score on the DH Photoshop Bench HERE.

Also tried to get it stress stable by upping the voltage two more steps, but didn't have the guts to push more CPU juice to it. Core 3 would fail Prime95 (64bit) after about two minutes or so. I may revisit this, but I'll have to look at changing other voltages/skew/PLL before I contemplate going higher than 1.55 volts - that's getting excessive for me - and maybe rigging a little fan on the Northbridge. Surprisingly, my CPU temps on that Prime95 test didn't go above 57C (RealTemp 2.6) in a 23C ambient room - might have a bit more cooling headroom than I thought - but I've noticed Prime95 doesn't seem to stress the CPU/Mem as hard right off the bat as OCCT seems to.

__________________
It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

PangingJr

right now i don't seem to need CPU PLL voltage to help on a high FSB overclock, be careful when using PLL voltage setting, i've seen so many times that overclockers have mentioned about using high PLL voltage can kill a processor faster than using high CPU core voltage, however, i believe every overclocking can get different results depending upon so many factors.

here's my 475x7.5 CMOS setup...



i cannot touch CPU/NB Clock Skew settings at all, the overclock either hang at BIOS or couldn't get into Windows,
however, i sometime able to play with DRAM Clock Skew settings.

CPU GTL voltage ref's settings is just a must for this particular Q9300 and this motherbaord.
for 475 FSB the settings must be .0670 on both, otherwise, no prime95 stable.
couldn't leave it at AUTO, couldn't use any values below or above the .0670.

__________________
E8400 @ 610 FSB
Q9300 @ 500 FSB
4x1GB DDR2-1333 (PC2-10666)

-------------------------------------------------

Don't worry overly much about whether a specific KB article exists for your version of Windows.
Standard practice is to grab whatever's available and apply the principles.
(I grabbed from the web. Written by someone, somewhere on the web)