Core 2 Duo - An OC adventure

[mouacyk]

Still bitter my Q6600 did not do 3.6GHz like all of them did. Bitter thread. bitter memories

 

[Dinnercore]

Thats kind of unfair qx9770 already has 1600fsb and its a shame that it cant do more then that. Motherboard limitations ?
Im confused a normal xeon with 1333fsb has more room ??????

Again the xeon has more headroom. To be honest this is the first time i am seeing people talking about xeons being more overclockers then c2 family. Why is that so ??
And that skulltrail board is yummy. I heard it has nforce bridge chips No?

I can only back-up what @agent_x007 said on Xeons vs C2s. I needed very tame voltages on my X5470 for 4.44 GHz:
LINK

This is prime stable and I use it daily on my retro SLI-gaming system.

 

[dorsetknob]

To be honest this is the first time i am seeing people talking about xeons being more overclockers then c2 family. Why is that so ??

Probably Intels Binning process "they binned for quality then"
Nowdays they bin for production Requirments

 

[biffzinker]

Probably Intels Binning process "they binned for quality then"
Nowdays they bin for production Requirments

With the limited 00.14nm capacity it seems anything that can be salvaged is being put up for sale. Pentium G5600F?

Surprised Intel hasn't started selling Celerons without a functioning iGPU.

 

[Sasqui]

x48 rampage

In a former life, I owned two of those bad boys. Best boards ever made, bullet proof.

 

[storm-chaser]

I can only back-up what @agent_x007 said on Xeons vs C2s. I needed very tame voltages on my X5470 for 4.44 GHz:
LINK

This is prime stable and I use it daily on my retro SLI-gaming system.

Nice OC indeed! What's your memory look like with these settings? I.e. speed and timings

 

[Dinnercore]

Nice OC indeed! What's your memory look like with these settings? I.e. speed and timings

Not very impressive tbh, you can check on the CPU-Z link in that post too.

5-5-5-15-26-2 (tCAS-tRC-tRP-tRAS-tCS-tCR) on 1:1 (888MHz). BUT on nForce chipset with quad-SLI and loaded with full 8gb in 4x2. It is one busy chipset

 

[storm-chaser]

So what's next for you, P45 DDR3 board and another EO stepping E8500?

 

[Dinnercore]

So what's next for you, P45 DDR3 board and another EO stepping E8500?

Well I´ve got a small pile of CPUs to choose from now and I don´t feel like giving up on the striker just yet. I enjoy the challenge it´s putting up. But I will no longer try to brute force it with high core voltage, instead I´ve set myself a limit at 1.475V to try and see the best result I can get out of that on the same chip.
My new focus is memory timings and memory settings in general. I´ve got the feeling that the memory timing table the board is using has some major flaws and most of the issues come from that. The more I try the more I get the RAM in check, currently made it run 1700MHz 8-8-8-24 1T with 2x2GB. In the beginning I struggled with 1333 8-8-8, so it feels like I´m going somewhere.

CPUs I might play around with besides the E8500s are:
E8600
E6550
X5270 (771 mod)

Ultimately I will switch for a P45 tho. Using the striker for creating some sort of comparable data chart is impossible. So I currently have a chance to get a Maximus II Formula, might just take some days to arrive. I would like to give that one a go, because I can make the switch back to DDR2. I got some fast G.Skill and OCZ DDR2 memory while with DDR3 I only have these 1600 7-7-7s left.

 

[storm-chaser]

It's a shame Intel didn't release an unlocked (or extreme edition) Wolfdale CPU. That would have made for some stupendous overclocks.

But I guess the x5270 comes close, that 10.5x multiplier is to die for...

 

[agent_x007]

I don't see the point of unlocked multi for it if there are locked models with x10 multi.
x10 x 500MHz = 5GHz.
You won't clock a E8600 at that speed, without die destroyng voltages (ambient temps).

 

[Dinnercore]

For ambient the 10x multi should be plenty on a good overclocking board, but still every bit helps if you have the mainboards FSB as the limiter. Be it due to the board itself or the RAM. It just adds some flexibility. And while 5GHz+ is most likely not sustainable with ambient cooling, I am very curious about the Xeons.
General expectation is that they clock a tiny bit better due to being part binned for the 'professional' market. I´ve already found a bios with Xeon microcode added for the Striker. I hope I can find one for the Maximus II Formula too.

 

[agent_x007]

Try this one on Maximus II Formula : LINK.
Source : LINK

 

[Dinnercore]

Try this one on Maximus II Formula : LINK.
Source : LINK

Oh cool, thank you! I think I got the Striker version from the same guy over on the bios-mods forum. Didn´t check yet if his page had the Maximus II.

EDIT/Update: The Striker corrupted my Windows again and on top of that it seems to get worse. Bios is now starting to show strange hang-ups / loops, I get POST loops and the same errors with a new CPU. This board will move into my collection for good now. I do not have the P45 board yet, so I might play around on a Gigabyte P965 OR will move back to GPU testing until I receive the Maximus II.

 

[delshay]

I just bought a Phanteks PH-TC14CS. I don't think it can beat the Noctua NH-C14S, but I will find out with-in the next 6 days. The heatsink will be lapped & IHS soldered to it's base to match that of Noctua & the Dark Rock TF, which both heatsinks have soldered IHS to it's base.

 

[Japie073]

Is there any gains to be had with a E7500 and a ASUS P5G41T LX2 Board? Has anyone got experience on OC'ing the older conroe based C2D's ie the E6850? Got it running at 1333 FSB and stock voltages on everything except VCORE at 1.275v anything more and it would bootloop endless.

 

[agent_x007]

Don't bother with anything on 1333MHz FSB when you have G31/G41 chipset on MB and want to OC.

 

[Dinnercore]

It would be much more fun if I could for once just get into overclocking. Again ran into major trouble when testing my GA-965-DQ6 just to see if it still works. Guess what, it doesn´t. No matter what I can´t get a post out of it. No beeps, no display no nothing. Tested all components from RAM to CPU and they work fine, just not with this board. I can see no physical damage, bios has been reset, battey is fresh. Nope.

After this I turned to my 3rd 780i board, which is still untested to this day and I was hoping atleast this thing wouldn´t let me down, but guess what.
First it was stuck at FF, not even cycling any post-codes. I then cleaned it and reset CMOS. Now it got to F6 with long beeps. RAM trouble. I checked the slots and found that slot 1 has a pin broken off inside the socket...
I moved the RAM over to another slot and it finally started up. I got into the windows installation and everything seemed to be just fine BUT it wasn´t. System-Interrupt process was blocking CPU 0 24/7. I one by one disabled all services I could find, checked for devices with an error but couldn´t find anything.
On top of that this thing does not power-off it is constantly restarting the system no matter what. Bios settings did not change that. Only the 4-second press can keep this thing shut-off, even trying a power-off during post results in an instant restart.
Last straw for me was a bios update which I did just now, program told me successful flash and I shut it off, switched PSU off, removed the battery and bridged the clear CMOS jumper for a minute.
I turned it back on with battery back in place and it still did not reset properly. Bios was a bit corrupted and could not see any attached drives but the time was still correct. What the....

This is so frustrating. I just wanted to have some fun and instead I waste hours on hours for nothing. I really really hope the Maximus II Formula shows up in a good and working condition.

To bring this back to topic, did you experience similar troubles on your quest for high clocks? Ever had a piece of hardware that gave you a lot of trouble and a headache for days? I would love to hear the story.

 

[biffzinker]

It would be much more fun if I could for once just get into overclocking. Again ran into major trouble when testing my GA-965-DQ6 just to see if it still works. Guess what, it doesn´t. No matter what I can´t get a post out of it. No beeps, no display no nothing. Tested all components from RAM to CPU and they work fine, just not with this board. I can see no physical damage, bios has been reset, battey is fresh. Nope.

After this I turned to my 3rd 780i board, which is still untested to this day and I was hoping atleast this thing wouldn´t let me down, but guess what.
First it was stuck at FF, not even cycling any post-codes. I then cleaned it and reset CMOS. Now it got to F6 with long beeps. RAM trouble. I checked the slots and found that slot 1 has a pin broken off inside the socket...
I moved the RAM over to another slot and it finally started up. I got into the windows installation and everything seemed to be just fine BUT it wasn´t. System-Interrupt process was blocking CPU 0 24/7. I one by one disabled all services I could find, checked for devices with an error but couldn´t find anything.
On top of that this thing does not power-off it is constantly restarting the system no matter what. Bios settings did not change that. Only the 4-second press can keep this thing shut-off, even trying a power-off during post results in an instant restart.
Last straw for me was a bios update which I did just now, program told me successful flash and I shut it off, switched PSU off, removed the battery and bridged the clear CMOS jumper for a minute.
I turned it back on with battery back in place and it still did not reset properly. Bios was a bit corrupted and could not see any attached drives but the time was still correct. What the....

This is so frustrating. I just wanted to have some fun and instead I waste hours on hours for nothing. I really really hope the Maximus II Formula shows up in a good and working condition.

To bring this back to topic, did you experience similar troubles on your quest for high clocks? Ever had a piece of hardware that gave you a lot of trouble and a headache for days? I would love to hear the story.

Sorry to hear you struck out on getting up and running again. Wasn't it you that had trouble with a corrupted Windows 7?

 

[Dinnercore]

Sorry to hear you struck out on getting up and running again. Wasn't it you that had trouble with a corrupted Windows 7?

Yeah that was me too, but one windows install prior to the current one. The issue was related to the striker board it seemed.

 

[TheMadDutchDude]

I'll have to join in on the fun at some point... I have an X48 REx in my collection and a few E8*00 chips that will clock like monsters.

Perhaps we can get a competition going...? I'm all for it. I will be happy to help set it up.

 

[phill]

I'll have to join in on the fun at some point... I have an X48 REx in my collection and a few E8*00 chips that will clock like monsters.

Perhaps we can get a competition going...? I'm all for it. I will be happy to help set it up.

You can't go cheating and use LN2 mate......

 

[TheMadDutchDude]

Be quiet, Phill!

 

[Bones]

I'll have to join in on the fun at some point... I have an X48 REx in my collection and a few E8*00 chips that will clock like monsters.

Perhaps we can get a competition going...? I'm all for it. I will be happy to help set it up.

Oooooh..... Did someone say "Competition"?
I'd have to say do it with watercooling, not everyone has access to subzero equip and such.
BTW I have a REX myself and a few good E8xxx chips too.

 

[phill]

Be quiet, Phill!

I know what your like but we won't mention the PCIe or what was the other problem we had when I brought over the Rampage the first time??

I have a few 775 boards, I might have to see if I can get one up and running for a bit of a play and mess about If I could find some time, I'll join in