# Core 2 Duo - An OC adventure



## Dinnercore (Mar 16, 2019)

Hello there.

I´m starting this thread to document my first half-serious OC voyage. I love hardware from around 2008 and wanted to start with CPUs that are not really relevant anymore and cheap to replace. So I decided to begin with the good old socket 775 dual cores.

Things I will try and gather some statistic data about myself include lapping/grinding the IHS, different cooling methods (air, water, chilled water) and direct die cooling (if possible and suitable). And I want to see what the C2Ds can do in benchmarks and games.
For this I would like to test them at different speeds and gather game performance and benchmark information. Due to the locked multi on most parts the OC will be done by FSB. I may use different chipsets and try to bin for a well performing mainboard + RAM combination.

This involves some time and work, which I have a limited amount to spend each week so updates may take some time but I will get there. I would like to split the data gathered in two charts, one for the different mods and cooling methods affecting temperature and overclock capabilities, plus one for the game/benchmark results.

First 'victims' will be E8500s. They are really cheap and easy to find, I just got 3 for ~3€ each. All 3 are E0-Stepping and I got one for free in C0-Stepping.







Already did some first attempt at creating an even surface. Its not been polished yet, but feels very smooth. I´m using the sandpaper on glas method. Currently still in the phase of trying out different grits, got stuff ranging from 80 - 3000 plus some fine MicroMesh up to 8000.

I want to start with air-cooling, try until the temps get to the limit, run my games/benchmarks and compare the CPU with stock IHS vs. lapped etc. and after I gathered all that information switch to water and do the same. I´m expecting that watercooling will not even be much of an improvement over a good air-cooler on these parts so after that I will try again with some chilled water (hopefully I can get the water to ~0°C or below).

For air-cooling I use my Asus V-60, an average mini-tower cooler. Just what you would have had back in the day.






Quick testfire, probing on how much more heat is generated by these C2Ds with increasing voltage. They are really tame, being 65W parts. Only 55°C load temp @4.18GHz / 1.35V. Stock everything.

Now I know many won´t really see the reason why anyone would do this in 2019, you can google all about lapping and see if or if not it makes a difference, you find tons of results for Core 2 Duo CPUs and what they can and can´t do but I want to experience it myself. Like you can google informations about every country on earth but it is still more fun to actually be there in person.


Feel free to share your own experiences and memories about the classic 'stereo'-setup of CPUs.


----------



## FreedomEclipse (Mar 16, 2019)

Good times, I remember back in the day when i almost ended up with an E7400 because they were so overclockable. I ended up selling that to a friend when it arrived and getting a Q9550s that I had running a 3.9Ghz with an OCZ Vendetta 2 CPU cooler.


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Mar 16, 2019)

Here's my monster C2D oc




look at that 560 fsb, ram was 1:1


----------



## phill (Mar 16, 2019)

I've just gone through a few of these CPUs, I'll see if I can post up a few pics in a bit  

Have you any other motherboards to try the overclocking on at all?


----------



## GoldenX (Mar 16, 2019)

Those were good times for overclocking.


----------



## FreedomEclipse (Mar 16, 2019)

tigger said:


> Here's my monster C2D oc




I wish i backed up a few of my benchmarks from back then. I think i may have some stowed away on photobucket somewhere but that place is cancer now....


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Mar 16, 2019)

The p5b-deluxe was the best imo, could do 560+ fsb


----------



## FreedomEclipse (Mar 16, 2019)

tigger said:


> The p5b-deluxe was the best imo, could do 560+ fsb



I remember Biostar had a board that could hit 600+ FSB (I think they claimed 660) - I had one and it wouldnt even go over 440 or 460. I tried 480 one day and the board never posted again. Tpower I-45 or something.


----------



## agent_x007 (Mar 16, 2019)

tigger said:


> The p5b-deluxe was the best imo, could do 560+ fsb


Deluxe is for those with too much ca$h. Regular one + Vdroop pencil mod + CellShock Micron D9


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Mar 16, 2019)

FreedomEclipse said:


> I wish i backed up a few of my benchmarks from back then. I think i may have some stowed away on photobucket somewhere but that place is cancer now....



I have always saved this as it was close to a record


----------



## FreedomEclipse (Mar 16, 2019)

tigger said:


> I have always saved this as it was close to a record



I braved the cancer and found my pic





Turns out i was closer to 4Ghz. though it wasnt a Q9550s as i had originally thought. It might of been the revisions i was getting confused with. There were like the G1 and the E0 that were available at the time - the E0 being the more overclockable one i think...


::EDIT::

Lemme put up the memory tab too...





OCZ Reaper ram. I think they were 1066??


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 16, 2019)

tigger said:


> Here's my monster C2D oc
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That is really impressive! The FSB is incredible, but you also more than doubled the core clock.



phill said:


> I've just gone through a few of these CPUs, I'll see if I can post up a few pics in a bit
> 
> Have you any other motherboards to try the overclocking on at all?



Oh I have 3 different 775 chipsets around atm, spread across 6 boards. I have some material to choose from and I´m still hunting one of those Gigabyte Extreme boards. Might get lucky and get one, if not I´m looking into some X48 options because I have good DDR3 memory to test.


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Mar 16, 2019)

To answer OP

Mine was a freezer 7 pro, with 1.57vcore. The only reason I could not go higher was the temps, the ram, board and cpu had more in them, i never got top the no post point, it was just getting too hot.



Dinnercore said:


> That is really impressive! The FSB is incredible, but you also more than doubled the core clock.
> 
> 
> 
> Oh I have 3 different 775 chipsets around atm, spread across 6 boards. I have some material to choose from and I´m still hunting one of those Gigabyte Extreme boards. Might get lucky and get one, if not I´m looking into some X48 options because I have good DDR3 memory to test.



Thank you, it was 107% iirc, only thing holding her back was temps. Was a incredible chip and a possible world record in the right hands



agent_x007 said:


> Deluxe is for those with too much ca$h. Regular one + Vdroop pencil mod + CellShock Micron D9



The patriot pc2-7200 i used were mental, 1120+ they would do 1:1 they were these-
https://www.memoryc.com/3718-2gb-pa...mhz-extreme-performance-dual-channel-kit.html


----------



## agent_x007 (Mar 16, 2019)

@tigger Highest I went with DDR2 was 1383MHz (this was over 10Y ago)


----------



## Solaris17 (Mar 16, 2019)

ye boii





best of luck!!! C2D was the most OC fun!


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Mar 16, 2019)

Solaris17 said:


> ye boii
> 
> View attachment 118822
> 
> best of luck!!! C2D was the most OC fun!



Till Intel went an spoilt it boo hoo


----------



## Nuckles56 (Mar 16, 2019)

I love all the old games on the desktop @Solaris17


----------



## MrGenius (Mar 16, 2019)

Now that's a proper lap. Nice job! I think I heard C2Ds are soldered. If so you might want to leave the lids on. Pretty much pointless to delid a soldered CPU. I'd intended to have a 775 OC adventure myself one day. But I've sort of abandoned the idea at this point. But not totally. I actually got to thinking about again a few days ago as a matter of fact. But I talked myself out of it one more time. I've got a Celeron D 360, a Pentium E2180, and a C2D E8600 ready to go if/when I ever get around to it.


----------



## AmioriK (Mar 16, 2019)

Oh, Core 2's. Those were the days. My first ever "serious" gaming desktop has a Core 2 Duo at 2.6 Ghz, I can't remember the model name though. E8200 I think.

Anyway if you're interested this guy on Youtube benches tons of super old CPUs in modern games, Including some pentium Extreme Editions on Netburst (oh dear god), and Legendary Athlon 64


----------



## hat (Mar 17, 2019)

Nice job on the lapping. Almost never see that anymore...


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 17, 2019)

MrGenius said:


> Now that's a proper lap. Nice job! I think I heard C2Ds are soldered. If so you might want to leave the lids on. Pretty much pointless to delid a soldered CPU. I'd intended to have a 775 OC adventure myself one day. But I've sort of abandoned the idea at this point. But not totally. I actually got to thinking about again a few days ago as a matter of fact. But I talked myself out of it one more time. I've got a Celeron D 360, a Pentium E2180, and a C2D E8600 ready to go if/when I ever get around to it.



Thanks, and yes most are soldered. I won´t do the whole 'heating up and praying I don´t fry it' thing for no gains. I think I read tho that the E7200 - E7600 are not soldered, and the E4300 - E4600 are not either. Will see.
As for your own project, just do it when you feel like it. Fun can´t be forced but I can tell you, once the system is all set and running and you get to the fun bit of fiddling around with bios settings until it suddenly all comes together and works really can suck you right in.


----------



## rootuser123 (Mar 17, 2019)

I got given a Gigabyte P45T Extreme by a mate who upgraded, did the LGA 771 mod and overclocked the Xeon X5450 to 4GHz @ 1.45v paired with 4GB HyperX 1600MHz DDR3. Easily, one of my fav platforms after X58. Too bad Oc'ing these days is not as fun as before where you had to do lots of adjustments to get things stable.


----------



## freeagent (Mar 17, 2019)

tigger said:


> The p5b-deluxe was the best imo, could do 560+ fsb



P5B Deluxe was a good board. I had the wifi model. The Rampage Formula was much better, especially with dual cores. I had an e8600 es that I ran between 44-4500mhz and benched at 48-4900mhz. That board/cpu combo was good for 550fsb-575fsb 24/7 no sweat, and I topped out at 600fsb because my ram wouldn't do more than 600mhz (ddr2 1200).


----------



## phill (Mar 17, 2019)

I've a couple 775 boards here still, I'll see if I can grab some pictures out along with the CPUs


----------



## AmioriK (Mar 17, 2019)

Oh I just realised, @agent_x007  is that your YT channel I linked?? "Compatibility Madness"?

I love it. Very interesting to see how the old hardware manages. Nice work^^


----------



## agent_x007 (Mar 17, 2019)

Yes, it is 
Thank you.


----------



## infrared (Mar 17, 2019)

Ahhh this thread brings back some great memories!! I lost the screenshots ages ago but luckily most of it is still on the forum 

All this was done with a Freezer 7 pro, both cooler and cpu were lapped. IIRC this was on a P5Q Deluxe (P45)

4.4GHz entry for 'ultra stable clubhouse'



4.6GHz IntelBurnTest (575mhz fsb)


5GHz SuperPi 1M


----------



## AmioriK (Mar 17, 2019)

infrared said:


> Ahhh this thread brings back some great memories!! I lost the screenshots ages ago but luckily most of it is still on the forum
> 
> All this was done with a Freezer 7 pro, both cooler and cpu were lapped. IIRC this was on a P5Q Deluxe (P45)
> 
> ...


Damn haha, 5 Ghz on a C2 that;s impressive. People say Kaby and Coffee are amazing for 5GHz, but back in the day Sandy was doing this too (I did 5.4GHz on my 2600K 4/4 and 5.3 4/8) and even before that, you did it on the Core 2 

Huh. I'm going to run SuperPi 1M on my 2700X, at its PBO single core of 4.2-4.3 and see where it stacks up to that C2 at 5G. 

I only started overclocking anything around 2013-2014. I even had an i7 920 that i literally never overclocked  (I know, it's bad. 2.6Ghz all day all its life lol, so much wasted potential haha).


----------



## trog100 (Mar 17, 2019)

i had one of the first core 2 cpus available in the UK.. pre-order from OCUK.. i remember benching it at 4 g way back when.. 

trog


----------



## AmioriK (Mar 17, 2019)

I tested it.





Well there you have it folks, a 5GHz Core 2 Duo is slightly faster at SuperPi 1M than a 4.2-4.3 GHz 2700X.  I wonder if the calculations are scaling better with raw frequency, as they do not invoke the newer more advanced ISA used by the Zen core. Interesting anyway ^^


----------



## delshay (Mar 17, 2019)

agent_x007 said:


> Deluxe is for those with too much ca$h. Regular one + Vdroop pencil mod + CellShock Micron D9



I have some Corsair DDR2 8888 rev2 & 9136 lying around with a couple of G Skill 9600.


----------



## Mr.Scott (Mar 17, 2019)

775 was never my strong platform. Think I have 1 board left and a bunch of CPU's.


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 17, 2019)

Wow I did not expect so many to participate, that is awesome! Thank you all for sharing your screenshots and stories.

I´ve done some more quick testing and thought about how I want to set up my charts. I think for the thermals/voltage thingy I´ll start with stock settings, then start at 1.35V and go up in 25mV steps. Like 1.35 - 1.375 - 1.4 - 1.425 - 1.45 etc. and make idle + load measurements on the temp. I´d like to use two cinebench R15 runs back to back for that because they take enough time for the CPU to heat up but are not overkill on the heat output like prime95 in small FFTs would be. I´ve seen prime95 cook my NB more than the CPU on the nForce chipsets...

But if you think that´s not appropriate, let me know what you think. I take suggestions 
Same goes for the gaming tests and other benchmarks for the 2nd chart, I´m not sure about what to include. I can´t do everything of course, I sadly can´t do this fulltime. I was thinking about Half-Life 2 as a must, maybe some GTAV as a modern title. Benchmark wise I´d like to include one 3DMark Version, Cinebench and SuperPI.

And I went for the next step 1.375V on my stock E8500:




Single core test was plug and play, but getting it stable for a full CPU test was a bit tricky. It first threw BSOD, I took out my pencil and drew some more LLC on the board 
It then ran the benchmark but stopped with an error at 75%, two times in a row. So I went back to the GTLrefs and played around a bit, because I have no clue what a C2D likes on those but eventually got it do some clean runs.





Temps are starting to rise, 64 °C now. (well knowing intels temp-sensors its more like 64°C-ish)

@AmioriK Yeah I love to do that comparison too, I use the quick and dirty CPU-Z bench to compare mine vs. modern CPUs at stock speed.




Really cool to already be up there competing with modern architecture. My first OC I ever tried was with first gen Ryzen and I was really disappointed. Not just by the concrete frequency wall, but also the whole process was so simple. No real tweaking to do, just raise Vcore and try it. Rinse and repeat.
With 775 stuff you got different chipsets that support DDR2/DDR3, linked vs unlinked FSB, GTLrefs, VTT voltage etc. So much more fun!





I´m still on the 780i chipset currently, because this was on my benchtable for a quick test. I want to see if it really can´t go beyond 500 on the FSB and loaded the poor thing with a full memory config in 4x2GB.
I have some fast DDR2 memory too, but only 2x1GB in 1200 5-5-5. This might work great for the CPU OC but is horrible for benchmarking more modern stuff that expects more RAM.

As soon as I hit the FSB wall on this board I´ll give the 790i Ultra on my Asus Striker II Extreme a shot and if I hit a wall there I´ll try my Gigabyte board and I think by then I´ll rather run out of thermal and voltage headroom.


----------



## Mr.Scott (Mar 17, 2019)

2 x 1 ram is the preferred amount for 2D benching on that platform.


----------



## DR4G00N (Mar 17, 2019)

P45 or X38/48 is the way to go for high FSB, the nForce chipset's are like hitting your head against the wall in comparison. 
P45 also scales FSB well with low NB temps so it's worth running it chilled if possible.



Mr.Scott said:


> 2 x 1 ram is the preferred amount for 2D benching on that platform.


Yes, a good 2x1GB kit of Micron D9's are all you need. if you need more mem just use a DDR3 board.


----------



## Bones (Mar 17, 2019)

You guys are gonna make me breakout the REX again. 
http://valid.x86.fr/8ef7p3

Not even close to a record but 600+ FSB isn't bad either and could do more if I really bothered to.


----------



## freeagent (Mar 17, 2019)

Id love to have a ddr3 board. I have some super talents that would rip with that setup. Also don't have a c2d anymore for my RF. I have a x3360 and its just no fun. About 475fsb is all she's got in my hands. At 4ghz its about as strong as a stock i5 750 iirc.


----------



## agent_x007 (Mar 17, 2019)

Bones said:


> You guys are gonna make me breakout the REX again.
> http://valid.x86.fr/8ef7p3
> 
> Not even close to a record but 600+ FSB isn't bad either and could do more if I really bothered to.


http://valid.x86.fr/ti3p6n 

@freeagent I own X3370 : http://valid.x86.fr/u88av5


----------



## Mr.Scott (Mar 17, 2019)

Only 775 board I have left without some sort of issue.

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5QC/


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Mar 17, 2019)

Dinnercore said:


> Wow I did not expect so many to participate, that is awesome! Thank you all for sharing your screenshots and stories.
> 
> I´ve done some more quick testing and thought about how I want to set up my charts. I think for the thermals/voltage thingy I´ll start with stock settings, then start at 1.35V and go up in 25mV steps. Like 1.35 - 1.375 - 1.4 - 1.425 - 1.45 etc. and make idle + load measurements on the temp. I´d like to use two cinebench R15 runs back to back for that because they take enough time for the CPU to heat up but are not overkill on the heat output like prime95 in small FFTs would be. I´ve seen prime95 cook my NB more than the CPU on the nForce chipsets...
> 
> ...



You should ahve been here at the time, it was a very good time, everyone was posting oc's and trying to beat each other at pii and some other one i cannot remember. Fun times for sure, i remember fondly

I think I win personally  107% and 1.8 to 3.9, i desperately  wanted 4ghz but was on the edge with 1.57v and temps were getting a tad too high.


----------



## Bones (Mar 17, 2019)

Speaking of Super PI this is one I did sometime ago with an E8500 on custom watercooling.
Again not a record but it's decent.
https://hwbot.org/submission/3086519_bones_superpi___32m_core_2_duo_e8500_9min_19sec_234ms


----------



## Komshija (Mar 18, 2019)

The only working C2D I have now is T9900 in Dell laptop. That means Dell's custom BIOS and no overclocking whatsoever. However, it seems that my T9900 is a golden sample which manages to raise multipliers on both cores from 11,5 to 12 - meaning from factory 3,06 GHz to 3,2 GHz.










SuperPi *1M* calculation.




I would like to rise it to 3,33 GHz, but BIOS is locked, there is no FSB option and Set FSB doesn't work. Thanks, Dell.


----------



## dorsetknob (Mar 18, 2019)

have wanted a t7600g (unlocked multiplier) for my Dell XPS1710 laptop


----------



## FlanK3r (Mar 18, 2019)

big disadvantage  Core Duo in legacy tests is frequency. 
You can look 8086K vs Q8200 - both as 4C/4T


----------



## infrared (Mar 18, 2019)

Komshija said:


> I would like to rise it to 3,33 GHz, but BIOS is locked, there is no FSB option and Set FSB doesn't work. Thanks, Dell.


Is it socketed or BGA? If it's socketed maybe you could do the FSB mod. It's been a long long time but I remember you could jump a couple of pins (BSEL mod I think it was called) to trick it into running at 333mhz, but that would mean 3.8ghz which will prob be too far, and the board might not even boot at 333mhz fsb.

edit - there's a guide HERE, but most of the pics are gone unfortunately.


----------



## vega22 (Mar 18, 2019)

Back when intel were great.....ah I miss those days.

Best advice I can give is cool the chipset, lots.

I have a few cpuz links on my hwbot via my sig.


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 18, 2019)

Well I have switched the board now. That 780i EVGA board was no longer stable above 450 FSB. Not even with 2x 1GB RAM, and no VTT/SPP/MCP/GTL voltages would get anything above 450 stable. It ran, it booted but either BSOD or app crashes every time in Cinebench and prime95. SuperPi was fine.
I was hoping for just a little more, I have the same reference board from XFX in a system running a Xeon X5470 with 444 FSB and 4x2GB, thought on a dual core with less memory it might do more.

But I´m not giving up on nForce just yet, I have the boards around so might as well take them out to play once every while. (And I saw that der8auer used the 790i for some of his e8500 OC in very old german forum posts  I have a target now)





I´m giving the Striker II Extreme a go, more Bios settings to play with compared to the 780i and much better chipset cooling. I strapped some fans all around, it runs fine without them on passive cooling (50°C-60°C) but with some fans it drops down to the 30s. Finally a use for my scrap fans  If the board turns out to clock nice, I´ll hook it up to a water loop. 



 



The Asus V60 just barely fits, there is no visible gap left between the VRM heatsink and the cooler, same on the other side and the side where the fusion block is sitting.
Board is running, made some initial testing with the memory and did not get it to the rated speed, not even with slightly higher voltage. This sadly is to be expected from this board.

Another thing I noticed is, that the Vcore measurement is off by a lot. I set it to 1.300V, booted and saw 1.36V in software. But the temps were staying in the mid 40s during Cinebench which told me 1.36V can´t be right. Took out my DMM and measured on the caps around the socket (I hope that is a legit Vcore reading) and got 1.300V...

I wonder where I will end up with this thing, can it beat the 780i? Or is the C0-Stepping holding me back? When I´m done with the nForce stuff I´ll have a go with P45.


----------



## FlanK3r (Mar 18, 2019)

wow, the Striker board!


----------



## rockit00 (Mar 18, 2019)

I've got a couple of MSI retro chipset coolers available if anybody needs one!


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 18, 2019)

rockit00 said:


> I've got a couple of MSI retro chipset coolers available if anybody needs one!



Wow those things scream retro pc. I love them!


----------



## rockit00 (Mar 19, 2019)

Yes they do. Thanks.


----------



## Komshija (Mar 20, 2019)

infrared said:


> Is it socketed or BGA? If it's socketed maybe you could do the FSB mod. It's been a long long time but I remember you could jump a couple of pins (BSEL mod I think it was called) to trick it into running at 333mhz, but that would mean 3.8ghz which will prob be too far, and the board might not even boot at 333mhz fsb.
> 
> edit - there's a guide HERE, but most of the pics are gone unfortunately.


It's socketed. I have a general idea how to physically alter or connect CPU pins, but never done it in practice. The farthest I went modifying the CPU was converting LGA771 Xeon CPU to fit LGA775 motherboard. 
If something goes wrong, my back-up laptop (I hardly ever use it, but still...) is gone. Since I fully restored it and invested quite a lot in this laptop, that would be a shame. I was even considering installing Core 2 Extreme QX9300 (same 478-pin socket P CPU), because I saw that someone managed to wire certain pins and installed custom BIOS, but I think he had a different laptop model. Then I found that I'm also missing fine tools for the such job , so I tried with software with no luck... I didn't plan to push it past 3,33 GHz anyway.


----------



## dorsetknob (Mar 20, 2019)

Dinnercore said:


> But I´m not giving up on nForce just yet


Never was a fan (pun because nforce needs it) of nvidia Chipsets.
Known for melting .....>and corrupting data on drives.


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 20, 2019)

dorsetknob said:


> Never was a fan (pun because nforce needs it) of nvidia Chipsets.
> Known for melting .....>and corrupting data on drives.



I can understand that, really that 780i I use in my SLI-rig gets toasty even with multiple fans all over it. Okay the poor thing is busy with an X5470 @4.44GHz + quad SLI but still.

Btw that data corruption was related to raid and velociraptors I think + the latest bios versions should include a fix. I think I´m safe.

The Striker board has it under control tho, as far as I´ve seen by now.







This is with 1.52V on the NB, a good starting point I´d say. Maybe temps will be worse when I reach 1.6 - 1.7V but I have to get there first.
Currently I´m busy probing the thing and playing with all the different voltages and offsets. I have practially little idea of what I´m doing, so I set memory clocks and timings way down to have them dead stable and not interfering first. Then tried to go up on FSB but with the CPU at max. multi at the same time. This was a bad idea because I had to jump the exact same FSB-hole as I had on my 780i and had to jump another one to get it to boot beyond 1800MHz. It managed that, I can get it to post between 1850 and 1950, but every single value is unstable to the point that windows does some freaky stuff. Like suddenly loading with the Windows XP loading bar into BSOD.
It got a little better by raising Vcore higher and higher, but I stopped at 1.45V in bios reading as something like 1.5V actual value. If the CPU could take the frequency it would do it by then. So I´m still on an unstable FSB I think, or my VTT is off?
It doesn´t help that the C0-Stepping wants completly different GTL-offsets compared to my E0-Xeon that I´m used to. Might just switch CPU out for one of my 3 E0 soon. But before that I will now fix the multi to 6x and just try FSB OC by itself.

EDIT: Oh the stuff you encounter when touching windows with unstable settings. I killed my windows partition table without noticing it, thinking my settings suddenly are all no longer booting. Was scratching my head why even stock settings don´t boot anymore until I plugged in a repair stick and found out that windows died on me


----------



## storm-chaser (Mar 22, 2019)

I've had a little fun with these chips... all these benches were done with air cooling (Thermalright Ultra 120 extreme)
And I made all these runs before I learned of the bugged 3:5 mem divider...

E8600




E8400




E7500




Q9650 peak clocks




Q9650 daily driver settings




QX6850 peak clocks


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Mar 22, 2019)

Just wondered if anyone else managed over 100% oc like my e6300?


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 22, 2019)

I´ve been busy too and tried the approach of FSB first, then back a bit and try to go up with the multi again...

Well this does not work at all for me on the Striker board. This board is one tricky beast. It wiggles itself out of stability on every chance it gets. Don´t get me wrong tho, I love it! Sorry that this might delay any useful charts on my first post for now, but I´m gonna be busy this weekend tackling the monster.





I got it up to 500 FSB and NB temps are still under control with air cooling at 1.66V. I had to raise VTT into slightly uncomfortable levels to get any sort of memory stability on this. On top of all that the voltage readings from the boards sensors are all over the place, varying up to 50mV from the actual value. The 1.45Vcore on the screenshot are actually 1.40 set in bios and 1.39ish real voltage...

To keep the mcp on the same temp as before with moar volts I used an old AMD fan:




Found this mad lad catching dust in a box and it was a perfect fit for the gap between GPU and CPU-Cooler. Put some of the noctua rubber thingys on it and just let it sit there.

Oh and after raising FSB the boards LEDs came on, this little 'speedometer' thingy started to burn my eyes so I grabbed a VGA-cable cover to diffuse it a bit.





And then I started to fiddle with my multi... and it all went downhill fast. I went back up in the 0.5x steps and every single step was an instant no post again. Back down on 475 FSB it was the same, but I had to adjust everything to 475 too, since FSB of 475 is unstable at the voltages of 500. So I spend 2 hours going up and down and over and out on all the settings I could find, tried memory timings manual from 8-8-8-24 to 11-11-11-30 1T/2T, AUTO, all of these things with 1300-1800 on the memory and every single time I got the same result:

I get past POST but can´t boot stable. Windows loading screen appeared multiple times, even went into login screen @ 9.5 multi with 500FSB but no luck after that. BSOD and other fun stuff:
EDIT: Oh and yes I used 2x Sticks instead of 4 too.




Now I´m at the point that I think my windows install nr. 2 broke again...
So I have no clue if some settings may have been stable if windows was ok, or if the settings are all wonky or what.

So much to learn... BUT I will get there. Just gotta take my time and maybe fry a CPU.



tigger said:


> Just wondered if anyone else managed over 100% oc like my e6300?


I want to try that but not on the higher clocking skews. That would require LN2 which I can´t get in my country.


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Mar 22, 2019)

Dinnercore said:


> I want to try that but not on the higher clocking skews. That would require LN2 which I can´t get in my country.



That chip really was something special, 560fsb easily, had more but I did not have the cooling for it  It did require 1.57v for that though eek


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 23, 2019)

Update, going back to 2x2 RAM was a stupid move. Threw off all the settings I noted as stable on my way up with the FSB...

Instead back on 4x2. I decided to stick to the rule a wise man with physically unplausible hair once shared: Keep calm and raise Vcore.
At ~1.54 ish V on the CPU and 1.42ish V VTT I managed to get it running.





Core temps settle at ~78°C. Memory speed on auto and still garbage, got to try and get that in line. IF that is possible on an nForce chipset.


----------



## freeagent (Mar 23, 2019)

tigger said:


> Just wondered if anyone else managed over 100% oc like my e6300?



I had an original e6300 Conroe that ran at 3700 and change on a P5B Deeluxe wifi. I wish I still had it because it was the best overclock  ever got out of a cpu. It might have went higher, but I only had 667 ram and it was maxed. I traded it and cash for an e6600. I was hoping for a 4ghz e6600 but didnt get it. The cache was a nice bump though.


----------



## king of swag187 (Mar 23, 2019)

dorsetknob said:


> have wanted a t7600g (unlocked multiplier) for my Dell XPS1710 laptop


could get a C2D X9100 if you wanted, might be BIOS limited or something else though


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Mar 23, 2019)

freeagent said:


> I had an original e6300 Conroe that ran at 3700 and change on a P5B Deeluxe wifi. I wish I still had it because it was the best overclock  ever got out of a cpu. It might have went higher, but I only had 667 ram and it was maxed. I traded it and cash for an e6600. I was hoping for a 4ghz e6600 but didnt get it. The cache was a nice bump though.



Mine was the best, luckily my patriot ram did 1120, 1:1 with the 560 FSB, also was the best clocking CPU I have ever come across. My only problem was the cooler, with a better one, i'm sure I could have cracked 4ghz


----------



## dorsetknob (Mar 23, 2019)

king of swag187 said:


> could get a C2D X9100 if you wanted, might be BIOS limited or something else though


on ebay their £60 this was a £5 nuff said



tigger said:


> Just wondered if anyone else managed over 100% oc like my e6300?


managed to get a P11 300   to 650Mhz    years ago


----------



## Bones (Mar 23, 2019)

Did this a few years ago. 
Not a 100% OC but close and do consider the chip and platform it was done with. 
https://hwbot.org/submission/2658219_bones_cpu_frequency_opteron_165_3514.75_mhz


----------



## storm-chaser (Mar 23, 2019)

Dinnercore said:


> I´ve been busy too and tried the approach of FSB first, then back a bit and try to go up with the multi again...
> 
> To keep the mcp on the same temp as before with moar volts I used an old AMD fan:
> 
> ...


I did the same thing with my Asus P5Q3... just enough room between the GPU and CPU cooler for a small fan:


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Mar 23, 2019)

I can't remember if the P5B-dlx had a fan on the NB to cool it for 560fsb, it might have had a stock one on, but I don' remember putting one on it.


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 23, 2019)

storm-chaser said:


> I did the same thing with my Asus P5Q3... just enough room between the GPU and CPU cooler for a small fan:
> View attachment 119356



Comparing the space situation to my recent PCs I wonder where all the space suddenly comes from. Like these old boards are packed so tight with heatsinks, fans and the high-profile RAM. It seems like a miracle that the coolers fit. While with todays boards there are thin slabs of metal as heatsinks and no fans. Much more space all around, everything from socket to PCIe slots seems to be set apart just a tad bit further so that you have all the room you need. 


I meanwhile got 500FSB on 9,5x to boot, but not stable enough for benchmarks. 





https://valid.x86.fr/6d0rvh 

It would need a few steps more in voltage to get there, and that is critical with my air cooling at ambient temperature (20°C). On second note I got the memory above 1600 too, but timings are still eh. 
All in all, I´m making progress. Btw at this voltage level I saw an idle power draw of 160 W for the whole system, its 100 W on stock voltage.

I hope you all don´t mind if I take my time with the results and charts. I first need to learn what is working and how, then I can start to plan out the frequencies and voltages I want to use for testing. As soon as I get there I can start with the games too. 
Still have not decided if I will just switch over to a P45 board and do it all on this. I think it´s very important to decide on and stick with one single mainboard. Same goes for CPU revision. 
I learned that C0 is not as efficient as E0 and differs in a way that it needs more voltage for the same frequency but puts out less heat with higher voltages. Overall it seems that the average E0 is a slightly better overclocker compared to C0, but a golden sample C0 can still beat most E0s, so the difference is not very obvious.






New material arrived, this is the waterblock I will use for watercooling, and I found some cheap CPUs that I will add to the pile. These Xeons are not a priority, got them out of curiosity for the higher multiplier.


----------



## storm-chaser (Mar 23, 2019)

You have a good deal of voltage being pushed to that CPU. If I recall correctly you shouldn't need above 1.53-1.57 vcore for that clock speed. And maybe I missed it but what are you running for cooling on the E8500?

As for the P45 board option they do best with the core 2 quads.  For what reason are you interested in moving to the P45 platform?


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 23, 2019)

storm-chaser said:


> You have a good deal of voltage being pushed to that CPU. If I recall correctly you shouldn't need above 1.53-1.57 vcore for that clock speed. And maybe I missed it but what are you running for cooling on the E8500?
> 
> As for the P45 board option they do best with the core 2 quads.  For what reason are you interested in moving to the P45 platform?



I´m running the Asus V60 for air-cooling atm. Like I said before, the voltage might appear a bit higher vs. the actual value, the Strikers sensors are not very accurate. I set 1.58 in Bios and it should equal to about 1.59V real voltage. The reading is always a bit higher, this became clear when temperatures on this board @1.4V were lower than with the same CPU and cooler on another board @1.36V.
And on top of that I think the C0-Stepping CPUs need a little more voltage to maintain the same frequency as an E0-Stepping CPU.

Well the 790i Ultra SLI that I´m on right now is very inaccurate for measurements as a start. Voltages are off and I would have to measure real voltage with a DMM every time. On top of that it is tricky to work with, for example it gets stuck during post after changing anything in bios, I need to reset twice before it finally takes the settings and starts. It can´t restart from windows, it gets stuck during shutoff. No power state setting in Bios could fix this so far.
It has huge FSB holes, one spanning from 380 - 450 FSB. Any value inbetween will not post. No matter the voltage, CPU or memory setting. It does not handle the memory all to well as off now. Once it goes above 400 FSB it automatically reduces timings to try and maintain stability (its a build in 'feature' called P1 and P2) and generally seems to perform poorly with memory.
For very high OC it has a big FSB wall above 520-540 and is tricky to get any more.

I hope that some of those things might be avoided by using a P45 board like the TPower I45 or a Maximus II Formula. Maybe not tho, I´m not experienced with these chipsets. I could even get back to DDR2 RAM, which would help me because I have many different DDR2 RAM sticks around to switch out if I run into trouble with one specific combination of manufacturer.

EDIT: And it killed the partition table again. Windows install Nr.3 coming right up.


----------



## Caring1 (Mar 24, 2019)

storm-chaser said:


> I did the same thing with my Asus P5Q3... just enough room between the GPU and CPU cooler for a small fan:


It's almost like they are designed for a top down cooler, not some hideous tower.


----------



## storm-chaser (Mar 24, 2019)

Caring1 said:


> It's almost like they are designed for a top down cooler, not some hideous tower.


I dont really get your point? but yes the fan I used came from an older top down cooler.


----------



## Caring1 (Mar 24, 2019)

storm-chaser said:


> I dont really get your point? but yes the fan I used came from an older top down cooler.


The open fins on the VRM cooler and Northbridge are begging for airflow which top down coolers give (and also negates the need for extra, small fans on those areas), and tower coolers don't.


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 24, 2019)

Caring1 said:


> The open fins on the VRM cooler and Northbridge are begging for airflow which top down coolers give (and also negates the need for extra, small fans on those areas), and tower coolers don't.


That is why my Asus V60 has the lower 50% of its heatsink fins angled slightly and with a little bend in the middle, to direct airflow directly into those VRM heatsinks. But this of course only covers one side.
My problem with top down stuff is that it usually only supports small fans and a very limited fin area. I prefer one thing doing one job. A fan on the VRM heatsink, one fan on the NB, one fan on the SB and the CPU-Cooler cooling just the CPU. And not having the compromise of less mass and smaller fan on the CPU for some minor airflow around the socket.

I do understand your point tho, and on an open testbench it would be ideal to have something blowing top down, I´m considering to build a mount for my 200mm fans on top of it.

EDIT: Another update, I have to report the first casualty. Turned out that Windows got really shredded this time, had to recover the other drive attached to it too. Upon reinstalling Windows with stock settings after a full CMOS reset it crashed multiple times and now I´m sure the poor CPU had enough. It degraded beyond the point of usability, it could run on higher voltage at stock speeds but I´ll let it rest in peace now. Big F for the champ, doing 4.7GHz one last time @1.6V. 






Things I´m noting now, don´t go above 1.55V with ambient cooling. Don´t push over 1.4V VTT, and maybe stick to E0.
One thing that I just realized after inspecting my other E8500s is, that those parts are now over a decade old. They already have their expected lifetime behind them and were used for more than 10 years under unknown conditions. Many must have been overclocked before during daily usage. I don´t think I´ll get competitive results out of most of them. Looking at their bend pcbs and deep scars on the IHSs. Really makes me wonder what they saw during their life. 
Rest in peace C0. I will remember you :,)


----------



## hat (Mar 24, 2019)

Damn, 4.3GHz on a Q6600? That... can't actually be stable for daily use?


----------



## delshay (Mar 24, 2019)

storm-chaser said:


> I did the same thing with my Asus P5Q3... just enough room between the GPU and CPU cooler for a small fan:
> View attachment 119356



Question, why aren't you using a downdraft cooler? This will cool VRM & Chipset. Downdraft cooler is what I use here on my classic PC, but these type of cooler works best if the side panel has air vents. When I close the side panel here the difference is only around 1-2C because the cooler is pulling in it's own cool air from the side panel, & that's with a air filter fitted to the side panel.


----------



## storm-chaser (Mar 24, 2019)

delshay said:


> Question, why aren't you using a downdraft cooler? This will cool VRM & Chipset. Downdraft cooler is what I use here on my classic PC, but these type of cooler works best if the side panel has air vents. When I close the side panel here the difference is only around 1-2C because the cooler is pulling in it's own cool air from the side panel, & that's with a air filter fitted to the side panel.



I was running the ThermalRight Ultra 120 Extreme scored from one of the members here for the price of shipping, this is a tower cooler that's pretty good even for the quads. Never have I had any problems with the VRMs overheating or anything thing like that. The power phase on the Asus p5q3 is pretty stout. 

I think I would be hard pressed to find a downdraft cooler that performs on par with the Ultra 120 extreme. It could hold temps with my Q9650 @ 4.5Ghz


----------



## Mr.Scott (Mar 24, 2019)

storm-chaser said:


> I think I would be hard pressed to find a downdraft cooler that performs on par with the Ultra 120 extreme.


http://www.scythe-eu.com/en/products/cpu-cooler/susanoo.html

http://www.coolermaster.com/cooling/cpu-air-cooler/geminii/


----------



## storm-chaser (Mar 24, 2019)

Komshija said:


> The only working C2D I have now is T9900 in Dell laptop. That means Dell's custom BIOS and no overclocking whatsoever. However, it seems that my T9900 is a golden sample which manages to raise multipliers on both cores from 11,5 to 12 - meaning from factory 3,06 GHz to 3,2 GHz.
> View attachment 118945



What you are seeing with the T9900 on 12X multi is called IDA mode, or Intel Dynamic Acceleration. I am assuming the custom BIOS you mentioned has set you up to run dual ida mode (because usually its limited to just one core). You can also use throttlestop to force dual IDA mode as well.


----------



## DR4G00N (Mar 24, 2019)

Pulled out my E8600 to mess around with it a bit ago. Very hot chip, 1.45V on water will not even boot windows because of over temp protection kicking in.  
Was running chilled water to keep this chip from cooking itself.






I can get it to idle at 5GHz fairly well but not under load because of temps getting too high and making it unstable.
Need to try it under dry ice again some time.


----------



## storm-chaser (Mar 24, 2019)

Mr.Scott said:


> http://www.scythe-eu.com/en/products/cpu-cooler/susanoo.html
> 
> http://www.coolermaster.com/cooling/cpu-air-cooler/geminii/


Hard-pressed, not impossible 

However, it may be impossible to find stock of those two you mentioned because both coolers are discontinued.


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Mar 24, 2019)

DR4G00N said:


> Pulled out my E8600 to mess around with it a bit ago. Very hot chip, 1.45V on water will not even boot windows because of over temp protection kicking in.
> Was running chilled water to keep this chip from cooking itself.
> 
> View attachment 119399
> ...



The E8600 was my favourite C2D CPU


----------



## storm-chaser (Mar 24, 2019)

hat said:


> Damn, 4.3GHz on a Q6600? That... can't actually be stable for daily use?


I scanned the thread and didn't see a Q6600 at that frequency. Did you mean my Q9650 @ 4.3?


----------



## hat (Mar 24, 2019)

Yeah... why did I think it was Q6600?


----------



## DR4G00N (Mar 24, 2019)

tigger said:


> The E8600 was my favourite C2D CPU


I didn't get into computers until around 2012 so my only experiences with the Core 2 era are from overclocking.  Still they're fun to tinker with.
This chip is from when I got my first 775 bench setup in early 2015 and still chugging along somehow.


----------



## hat (Mar 24, 2019)

I remember wishing I had an E8400 back in the day. Those things were already faster than my Athlon64 x2, and they could hit 4GHz or more, while my chip was stuck below 3GHz. Of course, I could easily get one now, but 10+ years later it's not really for me anymore. I get that people like tinkering with old systems, but I wanted that performance at the time, and even my 2600k smokes any Core 2.


----------



## storm-chaser (Mar 24, 2019)

hat said:


> Yeah... why did I think it was Q6600?



For the record my Q9650 rig is still intact and sitting right next to me. Yes it is stable at across a wide range of benchmarks at 4.3Ghz including Cinebench Extreme, CB R20 and many others. I dropped to 4.275Ghz to solve a hot reboot issue, but even at 4.5Ghz I can pass CB R15...

492/499 CB R15 Run...




CB R15 @ 4.275Ghz (Daily Driver Settings)


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 24, 2019)

storm-chaser said:


> I think I would be hard pressed to find a downdraft cooler that performs on par with the Ultra 120 extreme. It could hold temps with my Q9650 @ 4.5Ghz



BeQuiet has some recent models that might do it, but they are expensive:

https://www.bequiet.com/en/cpucooler/1074
https://www.bequiet.com/en/cpucooler/572

...and maybe they don´t fit any board.



hat said:


> Yeah... why did I think it was Q6600?



Maybe because of this Q6600?



agent_x007 said:


> @tigger Highest I went with DDR2 was 1383MHz (this was over 10Y ago) View attachment 118821


----------



## storm-chaser (Mar 24, 2019)

Dinnercore said:


> BeQuiet has some recent models that might do it, but they are expensive:
> https://www.bequiet.com/en/cpucooler/1074
> https://www.bequiet.com/en/cpucooler/572


If I was bulding an HTPC or something similar, the above coolers would be carefully considered.
My motherboard / VRM / chipset temps are good so there is no need for a top down cooler at this point. 
Better for me to have directed airflow through the case in addition to the small fan on my NB.
And no doubt high performance top down coolers exist in the wild - just not as prevalent as their tower counterparts and generally cost more
Ill take the Thermaltake Ultra 120 Extreme everyday of the week for a mere $10 dollars shipped.

Also don't have a vented side panel on my case so I'd have to get creative with the sawzall.


----------



## delshay (Mar 25, 2019)

Dinnercore said:


> BeQuiet has some recent models that might do it, but they are expensive:
> 
> https://www.bequiet.com/en/cpucooler/1074
> https://www.bequiet.com/en/cpucooler/572
> ...



I'v tested the Dark Rock TF & it's a poor perfomer. I would look to silverstone NT06-Pro https://silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=368&area=en or the Noctua NH-C14S https://noctua.at/en/products/cpu-cooler-retail/nh-c14s.

Noctua NH-C14S is the best downdraft cooler I have tested in dual (1500rpm) fan configuration & is standard in my classic pc which keeps my CPU below 50c with max voltage/overclock, but that's with LM on the die & soldered IHS.

EDIT: There's also the Phanteks PH-TC14CS www.phanteks.com/PH-TC14CS.html 
I don't own this heatsink, so I don't know how it performs. It only has 5 heatpipe but they are 8mm heatpipe, compared to the normal 6mm we see today in most modern heatsink.


----------



## storm-chaser (Mar 25, 2019)

Don't want to get this thread side-track from its intended purpose but since we are on the subject of downdraft coolers, the Reeven Brontes is one that I used recently in an HTPC build.

It's good to about 110 watt TDP. Best thing going for it is high quality construction, low profile design and quiet operation. 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=1DR-003S-00006


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 25, 2019)

storm-chaser said:


> Don't want to get this thread side-track from its intended purpose but since we are on the subject of downdraft coolers, the Reeven Brontes is one that I used recently in an HTPC build.
> 
> It's good to about 110 watt TDP. Best thing going for it is high quality construction, low profile design and quiet operation.
> 
> https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=1DR-003S-00006



That is an attractive price compared to the noctua or bequiet stuff. Plus the noctua does not seem to support 775 

Back to my C2D-OC progression:

I switched for one of the E0 E8500s. Not lapped, still standard. Had to reinstall windows a 4th time because during stability testing with this one it got messed up again. I´m burning through clean windows installs so fast that I checked my SDD just to make sure it is not the cause.

This new-old one performs very interesting. It produces much less heat and clocks much worse. Best I could do for a cinebench run was 4.34 GHz:





After this it demands tons of voltage and can´t be convinced to run a single cinebench pass without throwing an error. It does not bluescreen or lock-up, just after about 35% CB crashes. No slight bump in Vcore nor VTT could help me. Relaxing memory timings was not helping either and GTL-offsets did nothing at all. Neither positive nor negative ones. NB voltage one more step did not help either and even trying a bump PLL after all this as a last resort did nothing. It crashed when reaching ~ 60°C.

EDIT: A comparison for the heat output on the same voltage




So it seems that ~4.5 GHz is a hard wall for my E8500s so far. This one had a very high VID (1.3V) too, don´t know how much that is telling about overclocking potential.
Lets discuss voltages for a moment, these are my settings to get 4.3GHz stable on this chip:

1.5V CPU (reading 1.56 in software)
1.5V PLL (reading 1.52 in software)
1.34V VTT (any lower and I can´t get it to boot beyond 400FSB, while below 400 even 1.18 is stable! Trying something as low as 1.2 with 400 FSB results in the mainboard bricking completly, with only CMOS reset as the last resort) (1.36 in software)

LLC is enabled and working, none or very little droop.

1.66V RAM (1.71 in software)
1.6V NB (1.63 in software)
1.5V SB (1.5 in software)


Now I don´t know how much my boards sensors are off during load, have to measure that now which is a bit tricky. All points I need to access are on the back of the board. What makes me a bit uneasy is that I found a german forum thread for the Striker II Extreme with a chart that shows the actual voltage should be pretty close to what the software readings are. Could this be right? Did I really need 1.56V for my 4.3 GHz run and how on earth does that only produce 60°C on a mid-range air-cooler?

I do notice that other people seem to be able to run their 45nm C2Ds at lower voltages. For 4.4GHz I see values typically ranging between 1.35V and 1.47V. Same goes for VTT, many seem to stay below 1.3V. I can´t even post at that level.
On the mentioned thread I found one guy testing multiple E8500s back in 2009 and he only had to use 1.43V for 4.4GHz as an average with disabled LLC. When I disable LLC I have trouble to maintain 4GHz. Only big difference I see is that he uses 1.9V on the RAM, which I´m a bit hesitant to try on my 1.6V rated sticks.
Could the voltage regulation and power delivery of a mainboard degrade over time? Maybe I should check the caps on the board.

Speaking of this damn thing, I have to ask if this is common behavior for the platform or if my board is just haunted:
If you change bios settings it has a 50% chance to get stuck during post, you have to reset it and apply the settings again. If you re-apply them the second time it always works. In 20% of the cases it can not do a clean restart from OS. Instead it gets stuck somewhere during post. This happens on rock solid stock/auto settings too and does not seem related to memory OC issues.
Changing settings is like walking a minefield. One single step from 1600 rated FSB to 1605, memory on the same divider results in the board becoming a brick needing a full CMOS reset. Oh but 1610 is fine again on the same voltages.
When finding an unstable setting and trying to get it more stable by reverting the step, e.g. memory timing change causing crashes and setting it back to the old value, trips it up even more resulting in a system that suddenly no longer boots with values that ran benchmarks not even a minute ago just fine.

Maybe it is just me and my inexperience with overclocking, but some of this is made me question my sanity in between the 4th windows install.
It might be time to let go of this board and look into other options.


----------



## DR4G00N (Mar 25, 2019)

Honestly I'd just jump ship to P45 or something. The only reason you'd actually use the nForce boards is if you needed official SLI support.
I got my Maximus II Formula a couple weeks ago and it's just a breeze to use even compared to my other Asus P45 boards.

Pretty sure the OS corruption is because of the nForce also. I can't remember ever corrupting an OS on the Intel boards even when pushing the fsb to 600+.


----------



## delshay (Mar 25, 2019)

Noctua NH-C14S does support socket 775, but not out of the box see here https://noctua.at/en/support/compatibility-lists/socket.


----------



## aQi (Mar 25, 2019)

Interesting thread.
Anyone owes a x48 rampage ?
And a QX9770 ?

Or Intel Skrulltail with 2x QX9775

Heard these pairs OCed alot


----------



## agent_x007 (Mar 25, 2019)

I own Rampage with QX9770.
Core 2 Extreme doesn't OC as high as my Xeon X3370 (on Air/same Vcore).


----------



## storm-chaser (Mar 25, 2019)

Agent_007: whats the max clock speed achieved with your Xeon X3370?


----------



## agent_x007 (Mar 25, 2019)

4,53GHz : https://valid.x86.fr/gyrdmp
No tweaking (simply used 4,4GHz settings that were stable and put more Vcore into it).


----------



## DR4G00N (Mar 25, 2019)

Aqeel Shahzad said:


> Interesting thread.
> Anyone owes a x48 rampage ?
> And a QX9770 ?
> 
> ...


It's all about luck with OC'ing, extreme chips don't really give an advantage over reg C2's or Xeon's (Except on Skulltrail because of FSB limit's). 
My QX9650 is hard pressed to do over 4.05GHz on water at 1.45V whereas one of my X5460's do 4.5GHz @ 1.5V without too much trouble.

I have a skulltrail board but no QX9775's, though that would be nice since it'll only do 405MHz fsb.


----------



## aQi (Mar 25, 2019)

agent_x007 said:


> I own Rampage with QX9770.
> Core 2 Extreme doesn't OC as high as my Xeon X3370 (on Air/same Vcore).


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 ??????



DR4G00N said:


> It's all about luck with OC'ing, extreme chips don't really give an advantage over reg C2's or Xeon's (Except on Skulltrail because of FSB limit's).
> My QX9650 is hard pressed to do over 4.05GHz on water at 1.45V whereas one of my X5460's do 4.5GHz @ 1.5V without too much trouble.
> 
> I have a skulltrail board but no QX9775's, though that would be nice since it'll only do 405MHz fsb.



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?


----------



## agent_x007 (Mar 25, 2019)

@Aqeel Shahzad QX9650/QX9770 OC "headroom" is result of unlocked multiplier.
It doesn't do anything if your CPU and board can take high FSB (and have high enough multi for 4,2-4,6GHz clock), by default. Reason is Frequency scaling with Vcore and Heat (Xeon's use newer stepping, that has better MHz/Vcore scaling).
Sure, I could clock QX9770 to 4,5GHz as well (LINK), BUT beyond ~4,2GHz things started to get toasty because of the increased Vcore. It can't be used to anything other than benchmarking. On the other hand, X3370 did 4,4GHz and was stable at safe Voltages.
If you don't plan on using crappy MB (with limited FSB) OR to have a DICE/LN2 session - don't bother with Core 2 Extreme.
They are REALLY not worth it for 95% of the users.


----------



## mouacyk (Mar 25, 2019)

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


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 25, 2019)

Aqeel Shahzad said:


> 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 (Mar 25, 2019)

Aqeel Shahzad said:


> 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 (Mar 25, 2019)

dorsetknob said:


> 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 (Mar 25, 2019)

Aqeel Shahzad said:


> x48 rampage



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


----------



## storm-chaser (Mar 25, 2019)

Dinnercore said:


> 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
> 
> 
> ...


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


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 25, 2019)

storm-chaser said:


> 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 (Mar 25, 2019)

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


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 26, 2019)

storm-chaser said:


> 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 (Mar 26, 2019)

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 (Mar 26, 2019)

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 (Mar 26, 2019)

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 (Mar 26, 2019)

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


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 26, 2019)

agent_x007 said:


> 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 (Mar 27, 2019)

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 (Mar 27, 2019)

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 (Mar 27, 2019)

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


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 28, 2019)

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 (Mar 28, 2019)

Dinnercore said:


> 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...
> ...


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 (Mar 28, 2019)

biffzinker said:


> 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 (Mar 28, 2019)

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 (Mar 28, 2019)

TheMadDutchDude said:


> 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 (Mar 28, 2019)

Be quiet, Phill!


----------



## Bones (Mar 28, 2019)

TheMadDutchDude said:


> 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 (Mar 28, 2019)

TheMadDutchDude said:


> 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


----------



## storm-chaser (Mar 28, 2019)

Comp would be fun. I've got a few E8*00 chips myself. Limited to air cooling though, Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme.


----------



## Bones (Mar 28, 2019)

I can do that too - With the Susanoo.


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 28, 2019)

Sounds like we got a competition going! I´m in for that, but lets decide on some basic rules. 

First, cooling methods. Very few can and want to go subzero or even sub-ambient. Maybe we should limit this to air and water cooling on ambient temps. And no radiator out the window in siberia at -40°C.

Second, do you all just want to go for a CPU-Z frequency kill shot or compete in benchmark scores? If so we should choose one or at most two easy available and free benchmark tools. 

I could open a chart for the competition in my first post and enter all of our results for a ranking.


----------



## TheMadDutchDude (Mar 28, 2019)

I’ll try to structure some form of competition that we can all compete in if you’d like.

Maybe TPU will like to join in and promote it with some goodies. More than likely not, but it’s always worth a try!

We can definitely keep to air/water and above 0c.


----------



## phill (Mar 28, 2019)

Will we need a new thread??  

@Dinnercore - Could we do a bit of both??  Decide on a few CPUs or tests to run and go from there??  I'm sure there's some big benchers here among us


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 28, 2019)

phill said:


> Will we need a new thread??
> 
> @Dinnercore - Could we do a bit of both??  Decide on a few CPUs or tests to run and go from there??  I'm sure there's some big benchers here among us



Sure we could do both, but that means we need a lot of charts. Like one chart for each benchmark for each CPU. E8500 - Cinebench and E8400 Cinebench and so forth for each CPU.

A new thread for this would be best, we could keep the new thread to just the charts and results and use this one here for talking about the general stuff. That would keep the competition thread nice and clean.

@TheMadDutchDude You suggested the competition, if you want you can open the thread for it. Otherwise if you don´t want to mess with the regular updates for results and the charts I would volunteer to do it. Just have to keep this coordinated and not open 3 seperate threads from different people.


----------



## storm-chaser (Mar 28, 2019)

Will we limit the comp to Core 2 Duo CPUs or can we run quads as well?

One benchmark I find great for measuring system performance is AIDA64.

Perhaps one of the benches up for vote could be the AIDA64 Cache and Memory Benchmark

This way we get a handle on the memory side as well as flat out CPU performance. Just a suggestion...

Question: What do you guys think about dividing up the workload. I.E. one member managing the CPUz scores while another manages the other benchmark. I wouldn't mind creating a chart for the AIDA64 submissions, I already have templets geared for AIA64 results. Just an idea...


----------



## TheMadDutchDude (Mar 28, 2019)

I’ll have to go ahead and sort out a poll. 

I’m down for duals and quads which can be separated or even based on a score/core count basis.


----------



## Mr.Scott (Mar 28, 2019)

I will play. 
Link the thread or comp please.


----------



## TheMadDutchDude (Mar 28, 2019)

You mean using the slave connector of the IDE drive when we used the master end of the cable? Yeah... we did a dumb! Hah! Always a laugh, mate!

I'd like to see you compete, Phill.

I'll crack these two reviews out today/tomorrow (if I can!) and work on a competition structure this weekend.


----------



## phill (Mar 28, 2019)

TheMadDutchDude said:


> You mean using the slave connector of the IDE drive when we used the master end of the cable? Yeah... we did a dumb! Hah! Always a laugh, mate!
> 
> I'd like to see you compete, Phill.
> 
> I'll crack these two reviews out today/tomorrow (if I can!) and work on a competition structure this weekend.



Ah that was it...  Although no matter how hard I tried after, never gave me an issue when I did it after   The luck we have had together mate eh??   If I can get a bit of time mate, I'll see if I can put some numbers to it   Here's hoping I can get some spare time!! 



Dinnercore said:


> Sure we could do both, but that means we need a lot of charts. Like one chart for each benchmark for each CPU. E8500 - Cinebench and E8400 Cinebench and so forth for each CPU.
> 
> A new thread for this would be best, we could keep the new thread to just the charts and results and use this one here for talking about the general stuff. That would keep the competition thread nice and clean.
> 
> @TheMadDutchDude You suggested the competition, if you want you can open the thread for it. Otherwise if you don´t want to mess with the regular updates for results and the charts I would volunteer to do it. Just have to keep this coordinated and not open 3 seperate threads from different people.



I don't think we'd need to go nuts, maybe just if a few could pick a couple and we can stick with those   No need to make it over complicated


----------



## freeagent (Mar 28, 2019)

Id like to get another e8600, such a good cpu with the R3F. I benched it in summer warzs at 4700-4800mhz, it was like 30c in my house. It was gross. Managed to get a validation at 4900mhz lol. Tough as nails. And same with the R3F, probably the only reason why I held onto it all these years.. just wish it was a ddr3 board  My XFX GTX 295 did not make it though, but she was beastly until her final run.

Edit:

Oops I meant RF not R3F.. Though I have one of those too.


----------



## TheMadDutchDude (Mar 29, 2019)

'ite. That settles it! I'm drawing up a competition for you guys this weekend.


----------



## freeagent (Mar 29, 2019)

I have an x3360, might be able to do something with in the 4-4.2 range, its been awhile since that board has been powered up.. maybe 3-4 years. Should be ok though, I hope  I was running it at 4.1, I forgot pl settings for which strap and such, so was stuck there for a bit, and my kids were still a toddler and a baby, so not much time.. Now they like to see all this stuff, my oldest likes his games, youngest likes to see the parts and how it all works together as a system and individually. 

/ramble


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 29, 2019)

TheMadDutchDude said:


> 'ite. That settles it! I'm drawing up a competition for you guys this weekend.



Sounds great! Thank you for the time you plan to put in! 

Can we maybe include SuperPI or one of the other π-Benchmarks? They are my favorites.


----------



## TheMadDutchDude (Mar 29, 2019)

SuperPI is definitely going to be on the list ... but how many digits? 32M is the real test...


----------



## DR4G00N (Mar 29, 2019)

TheMadDutchDude said:


> SuperPI is definitely going to be on the list ... but how many digits? 32M is the real test...


32M is the only choice of course. 

I'm down for a little comp, tested a few C2D's yesterday.


----------



## phill (Mar 29, 2019)

Looks like someone has some cherry picked CPUs there @DR4G00N


----------



## storm-chaser (Mar 29, 2019)

*"I have trained your hands for battle, but very few know how to use the weapons that I have given to you.  For I AM sharpening those weapons so that you might be found worthy in the battle ahead."*

*

*

 Time to sharpen your swords and prepare for battle, fellow countrymen!


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 29, 2019)

Now I feel a bit unprepared... No good working mainboard and only 4 CPUs of which 2 already showed they can´t got above 4.5. Guess I have to make use of impressment.


----------



## DR4G00N (Mar 29, 2019)

phill said:


> Looks like someone has some cherry picked CPUs there @DR4G00N


Just one I pulled from the pile , second best one does 4.75GHz with the same voltage, batches are pretty similar.

Need to play around with it some more to try and get 4.95 - 5.0 going at 1.45V Core.


----------



## vega22 (Mar 29, 2019)

tigger said:


> Just wondered if anyone else managed over 100% oc like my e6300?



111% from my e4300 

Hwbot links in my sig.


----------



## delshay (Mar 30, 2019)

Phanteks PH-TC14CS has arrived & my personal opinion on this cooler is "it's not a real 140mm" downdraft cooler, it's more a 120mm downdraft cooler.
The heatsink is more or less the same size as the Silverstone NT-06 PRO, practically no difference in Length & Width, only thickness is different.
There are grooves on the heatsink which fits 120mm fans perfectly, so I don't know why it is shipped with 140mm fans. I will test with the original 140mm fans & 2x Noctua NF-A12X25 PWM which I have just ordered. The Silverstone fan holder also works perfectly on Phantek cooler with 2x 120mm fans.


----------



## Bones (Mar 31, 2019)

I'm ready.


----------



## M0rafic (Mar 31, 2019)

Komshija said:


> The only working C2D I have now is T9900 in Dell laptop. That means Dell's custom BIOS and no overclocking whatsoever. However, it seems that my T9900 is a golden sample which manages to raise multipliers on both cores from 11,5 to 12 - meaning from factory 3,06 GHz to 3,2 GHz.
> View attachment 118945
> View attachment 118946
> View attachment 118949
> ...



Never mind at least your still rocking a C2D, as am I and there both Dell xps m1330's though only the one I'm typing on is overclocked, via an X9000 and only to 3.2 GHz via throttlestop and under-volting though it does get bloody warm  The first thing I overclocked was one of those wierd and wonderful Abit BP6 Dual Celeron motherboards all the way from 200Mhz to 400MHz it would go higher but not for more than an hour or so.  It was great fun but running 2 CPU's back then meant running (and paying for) Windows 2000 and despite shelling out for 3 graphics cards 1 2d card and a pair of 3DFx Voodoo 2's  there were (had I given the idea any real thought) not may games that would a run on Windows 2000, and if they did it would be 10 years or so before multi-threading even started to catch on with game designers. Still it was fun to build.


----------



## Mac2580 (Mar 31, 2019)

Good luck guys. If it werent for these chips, I would probably be a console gamer. Parents bought me a PC for high school work as well as a PS3 for gaming. E8400 + 8600GT. It didnt take long for me to realise that on PC, there are strategy games, and that shooting is better with a mouse. (In my opinion) I didnt care about frames then, surely it outperformed the PS3 though. I ran LGA775 for 9 years straight. I wish I could join you guys but unfortunately not with this board. Kept it regardless. Personally I know it will BSOD at 341x9, but I look forward to checking what they are really capable of.


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 31, 2019)

Mac2580 said:


> Good luck guys. If it werent for these chips, I would probably be a console gamer. Parents bought me a PC for high school work as well as a PS3 for gaming. E8400 + 8600GT. It didnt take long for me to realise that on PC, there are strategy games, and that shooting is better with a mouse. (In my opinion) I didnt care about frames then, surely it outperformed the PS3 though. I ran LGA775 for 9 years straight. I wish I could join you guys but unfortunately not with this board. Kept it regardless. Personally I know it will BSOD at 341x9, but I look forward to checking what they are really capable of.



Hey don´t worry to much about being competitive! While this is a competition, I think we all agree to do this for fun. Why not join us and push your board to the limit? 

Btw, how long do you all think will we keep the competition open? I will not be able to join on something other then nForce for atleast the next week and a half. After that I could try to push the Maximus II Formula.

I´m in the middle of preparing myself. You should see my desk... Or better you don´t.


----------



## delshay (Mar 31, 2019)

Bones said:


> I'm ready.
> View attachment 119927



That's a monster, I mean a real monster. You may want to experiment with a single Noctua 200mm fan, that's what I would do if I had this heatsink.
It would be interesting to see what it looks like with a single 200mm fan, & i would expect noise level to be much lower.

EDIT Experiment Two: You could also experiment with four fans below, if they can fit underneath, ie 15mm or 10-12mm depth fans. Don't think there's enough space for 25mm depth fans.

EDIT 2: Found another interesting down-draft cooler. Don't think I will be buying this as it's only rated @135w http://www.jonsbo.eu/en/cpu-cooler/cr-301/124/cr-301-black-rgb?c=88#prettyPhoto


----------



## Dinnercore (Mar 31, 2019)

vega22 said:


> 111% from my e4300
> 
> Hwbot links in my sig.



I´m currently trying to find some values of what 65nm can tolerate for a short bench session, those 1.744V seem very high for air cooling. Was that any bench stable at 1.7V+? If so, how did you cool that with ambient air?


----------



## Caring1 (Apr 1, 2019)

delshay said:


> EDIT 2: Found another interesting down-draft cooler. Don't think I will be buying this as it's only rated @135w http://www.jonsbo.eu/en/cpu-cooler/cr-301/124/cr-301-black-rgb?c=88#prettyPhoto


The included fans are a pathetic, 45CFM only.
Upgrade those and that cooler would be more efficient.


----------



## Bones (Apr 1, 2019)

delshay said:


> That's a monster, I mean a real monster. You may want to experiment with a single Noctua 200mm fan, that's what I would do if I had this heatsink.
> It would be interesting to see what it looks like with a single 200mm fan, & i would expect noise level to be much lower.



During development Scythe did a setup of one with a massive fan but it didn't fare so well.
After testing they concluded the 4 fan layout was best and it probrably is, it's _very_ quiet on normal operation yet if you turn up the speed dial those fans can sing too.


----------



## delshay (Apr 1, 2019)

Bones said:


> During development Scythe did a setup of one with a massive fan but it didn't fare so well.
> After testing they concluded the 4 fan layout was best and it probrably is, it's _very_ quiet on normal operation yet if you turn up the speed dial those fans can sing too.



I'v seen a review of that heatsink, it's 1c better than the discontinued Noctua NH-D14.



Caring1 said:


> The included fans are a pathetic, 45CFM only.
> Upgrade those and that cooler would be more efficient.



Ok. I did not check the fans performance, so I will look at it again & consider it on my buy list.


----------



## Dinnercore (Apr 1, 2019)

Bones said:


> During development Scythe did a setup of one with a massive fan but it didn't fare so well.
> After testing they concluded the 4 fan layout was best and it probrably is, it's _very_ quiet on normal operation yet if you turn up the speed dial those fans can sing too.



German press reviews of this thing mentioned that the massive fan had QC issues and was much less reliable with high fault rates. Thats the only reason they choose not to use it. I think you could try a large Noctua or maybe a Silverstone AP-181. But 4x 120s work good so I don´t think there will be much of an improvement other than noise.

I´m ready too (except for the mb):


----------



## Japie073 (Apr 1, 2019)

Seems my G41 hates anything above 350MHz on the FSB. Got my E7500 running at 3.8GHz (345*11)


----------



## Bones (Apr 2, 2019)

Dinnercore said:


> German press reviews of this thing mentioned that the massive fan had QC issues and was much less reliable with high fault rates. Thats the only reason they choose not to use it. I think you could try a large Noctua or maybe a Silverstone AP-181. But 4x 120s work good so I don´t think there will be much of an improvement other than noise.


I believe that was the reason.
If it ever ran into a problem with the fan somehow getting out of balance or just warbly like some do it was a problem - A big one.

Noise doesn't bother me esp since I'm already 25% or so deaf, medically proven years ago and it's probrably worse by now. 

Not 100% sure if I'll actually be "In" it but want to. Lots going on here and never enough time for it all.

Will have to dig out the cooler, give the fans a good cleaning, mount it up and get it all ready. 
That's an older pic of the rig but what it will be once it's setup again.


----------



## M0rafic (Apr 2, 2019)

I know this isn't a proper test, but since I'm sitting watching TV with my old dell m1330 sat on my lap and too close too bits I'd rather not cook, it will have to do. Besides its not as if I can cram a 150mm noctua fan in it to disperse the heat   But a whisker shy of 3.4GHz  isn't too shabby for a 12 year old laptop


----------



## storm-chaser (Apr 2, 2019)

Impressive indeed for an older tech laptop... I saw your post in the laptop overclocking adventures thread. Great work!

Welcome to TPU and hope you can see 4.0Ghz with that X9000. She will get a little hot, best you stick your laptop in the freezer before attempting anything over 3.6Ghz.


----------



## M0rafic (Apr 2, 2019)

I did have a quick go at getting over 3.4GHz and it did go over 3.5, but would only hold it for 10s or thereabouts before dropping down. So I nudged up the voltage to 1.5v and after about 15secs BSOD :-( Which screwed up thottlestop as this particular laptop won't overclock properly if the Disable Turbo box is checked and I can't un-check it nor can I remember how I did so the last time. The problem with the m1330 is that the cpu (hot) sits close to the nVidia GS8400M (very hot) and right between the two is the intel chipset (which gets cooked from both sides.

 It was the original T7500 with the same tdp as the x9000 it now has that killed the first two motherboards. Poor design for something that cost me over 2 grand even after the sizeable discount I got whilst I was doing platinum server support working Dell at the time. Such were the numbers of fried laptops that Dell gave everyone an extra 12 months warranty. Anyhoo, I missed the notification and as I was busy; I just shoved it in a cupboard.  Fast forwar to 2012 so 4 years after my extended warranty ran out I was looking for another laptop and wondered what Dell would charge to fix my m1330 compared to buying something with an i7 in it. So I gave them a call, explained the situation and lo and behold they sent out a guy with a new motherboard and it didn't cost me a penny!  

 So I've become sort of attached to it and its still pretty quick, when compared to your average laptop  Though with 8Gb ram, the x9000 and an ssd it has had a few upgrades. But over the years  it's run vmware, its been an oracle server, it had Adobe CS4 on it for a while, it still dual boots ubuntu runs an apache server and  Postgresql. So you could say that apart from the years it spent in the cupboard, It's earned its keep 

Mike


----------



## vega22 (Apr 2, 2019)

Dinnercore said:


> I´m currently trying to find some values of what 65nm can tolerate for a short bench session, those 1.744V seem very high for air cooling. Was that any bench stable at 1.7V+? If so, how did you cool that with ambient air?



-11c air temps really helped.

I was just after high gigglehurts, suicide shots tbh.


----------



## Dinnercore (Apr 2, 2019)

vega22 said:


> -11c air temps really helped.
> 
> I was just after high gigglehurts, suicide shots tbh.



Ah that explains it  I´m impressed at how tough these 65nm chips are. I had one running at 1.63V with ambient water, it got pretty warm and didn´t help with my clocks as the problem was elsewhere, but it didn´t degrade during a couple test runs either. Still rocking the same voltage / frequency curve after the torture. 

I got another mainboard to try out:




Asus P5Q-E, a classic. Replaced the by now bone dry stock TIMs. 

Got it on my bench and made some early tests to get a feel for it:




As far as I can tell it handles high FSB well, BUT again gives me headaches with the memory. 2nd and 3rd RAM timing table does not seem to suit my OCZ memory. It can only run on this board on the very specific clock-band between DDR2 1060-1130. Anything above OR below fails to post. Doesn´t matter which settings I choose outside of the timings themself. Relaxing the primaries to something like 7-7-7-21 doesn´t do it either. Only when I touch the 2nd and 3rd information myself I can get it to post at speeds from 800-1200 (my kit is rated DDR2 1200 5-5-5 @2.1V, I´m using 2.2V atm) but it never gets stable. BSODs as soon as I get to the login screen.
Likely because I have absolutly no idea what I´m doing on those timings, I´m a total RAM-OC noob. It is a bit disappointing that it does that. On the nForce I could just set primary timings 5-5-5-16 and was good for 1100MHz @2.1V. No chance on the P5Q-E. 

Oh and some more test candidates arrived:




Very kind of the seller to include 3x the tray, I´m not sure why he filled the bottom of one tho. Still, thanks to this I now have some neat trays to organize my CPUs.


----------



## DR4G00N (Apr 2, 2019)

@Dinnercore I have a P5Q-E also it's a decent board just a bit finicky. Highest FSB I did with mine was 640MHz with chilled NB & CPU.  https://valid.x86.fr/x065iy

And yeah, Asus P45 DDR2 board's don't seem to like OCZ memory, I have a couple kit's here and neither work well past DDR2-1100 or so on both my P5Q-E & Maximus II Formula. My good Crucial & Buffalo kit's do DDR2 1300+ C5 @ 2.2V just fine though.

I've attached KET's Modded bios for the P5Q-E with Xeon code's added to it. Makes a nice improvement to the board.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?200109-Modded-ASUS-P5Q-Pro-Deluxe-Premium-BIOS


----------



## vega22 (Apr 2, 2019)

Not all chipsets are made equal 

You want to get a T power or ud3f for the best ddr2 mobo. Maxi extreme will be the easiest way as the ddr3 removes that limitation but none of them are cheap now, if you can even find one for sale.


----------



## Dinnercore (Apr 2, 2019)

DR4G00N said:


> @Dinnercore I have a P5Q-E also it's a decent board just a bit finicky. Highest FSB I did with mine was 640MHz with chilled NB & CPU.  https://valid.x86.fr/x065iy
> 
> And yeah, Asus P45 DDR2 board's don't seem to like OCZ memory, I have a couple kit's here and neither work well past DDR2-1100 or so on both my P5Q-E & Maximus II Formula. My good Crucial & Buffalo kit's do DDR2 1300+ C5 @ 2.2V just fine though.
> 
> ...



Thank you! That is very useful stuff. I already flashed it and will try if that improves the situation a bit. If not, I still have the board ready for Xeons. Might give my G.Skill sticks a try.


EDIT: Well the auto timings still don´t work at all above 800, but it did not get worse and with manual primary timings it does seem to get a bit further now. Will have to confirm with extended testing


----------



## theFOoL (Apr 2, 2019)

THIS Guy


----------



## DR4G00N (Apr 2, 2019)

Some -20c coolant testing with that 4.9GHz E8400.
Seems garbage for SuperPi 32M though, failed even at 4.5GHz 1.5V.


----------



## storm-chaser (Apr 2, 2019)

Looking good dragoon. 5.2Ghz isn't too shabby! I will pull my e8600 out of storage later today. I want to first get results from my Q9650 and then move on to the dual core chips.


----------



## phill (Apr 2, 2019)

storm-chaser said:


> Looking good dragoon. 5.2Ghz isn't too shabby! I will pull my e8600 out of storage later today. I want to first get results from my Q9650 and then move on to the dual core chips.



I' d personally go the other way, just makes those quad cores seem even faster than going fast and then much slower lol  

I'll definitely need to have a look at what CPUs I have or what you guys would like to use for this competition....


----------



## infrared (Apr 2, 2019)

Dinnercore said:


> Ah that explains it  I´m impressed at how tough these 65nm chips are. I had one running at 1.63V with ambient water, it got pretty warm and didn´t help with my clocks as the problem was elsewhere, but it didn´t degrade during a couple test runs either. Still rocking the same voltage / frequency curve after the torture.
> 
> I got another mainboard to try out:
> 
> ...



Nice, that's basically the same board I had, mine was the deluxe but there's very little difference. From what I remember two important settings (that are a pita to set via trial/error) are clock skews and GTL reference settings, the board does an okay job of setting these on auto, but you do gain a lot by getting them dialed in correctly. You'll have to spend some time googling if you want ballpark settings though, I can't remember what settings worked best, there's probably tons of pages on here discussing them.

Also, try setting 2T timings and using a different memory divider, 1:1 gets great bandwidth and latency if you can push the fsb high enough. Maybe go back to auto sub-timings to test these changes, then tweak afterwards.

Good luck, it's a bit of a finicky board but should reward you for doing the fine tuning.


----------



## Dinnercore (Apr 2, 2019)

Again a big thank you for @DR4G00N the modded bios did help with memory stability.

I can now get 1060 running at the advertised timings of the kit. Which was impossible before.




But to get any further on the FSB I need to change the division to something like 1:1 as @infrared suggested. This however is still impossible with this kit and board :/
I went back two steps in FSB for maximum stability and switched over to DDR2 860 (1:1) but it now fails to boot every single time. CPU is stable at the clock / voltage, FSB did not change just the different ratio kills it. Timings seem to stay the same on all 3 informations. It´s the same for both 333 strap and 400 BUT the 333 strap on 1:1 fails to post while the 400 one does atleast attempt a boot. 
Very strange. I have to go for faster clocks or else it dies. I guess this board/memory combo has a real need for speed. It does better on 1:1 ratio when FSB is getting up to 500+ again because then my DDR2 speeds are back over 1000...
Maybe clock skews are the magic juice that I need. 

Oh and on that screenshot, I got one if those rare Intel locked-temperature CPUs it seems. It stays at 37°C no matter what, so I guess 2.1V benching it is. Will take this thing with me during winter, the 37°C will keep my hands warm. 
(note this is a joke, I don´t mean it serious and I know these sensors can get stuck).


----------



## DR4G00N (Apr 2, 2019)

What you need is a kit of memory that aren't OCZ. Use a 2x2GB kit if that's all you have.

Different straps can affect stability, so 333 1:1 can be rock solid but 400 1:1 doesn't post. The FSB you boot with can also affect the maximum fsb oc.


----------



## storm-chaser (Apr 2, 2019)

What about the competition? Any movement on that front?


----------



## Dinnercore (Apr 3, 2019)

storm-chaser said:


> What about the competition? Any movement on that front?



I guess you found the thread by now 
For everyone else looking for the competition, maybe wanting to join our celebration of the C2D-era:

CLICK ME - The thread all about it.
(Thank you @TheMadDutchDude !)





DR4G00N said:


> What you need is a kit of memory that aren't OCZ. Use a 2x2GB kit if that's all you have.
> 
> Different straps can affect stability, so 333 1:1 can be rock solid but 400 1:1 doesn't post. The FSB you boot with can also affect the maximum fsb oc.



I reject your reality and substitute my own! I used my G.Skill 5-5-5-15 1200 2x2GB kit and had exactly the same issue. At this point I started reading up about clock skews and found a setting to run 1:1 stable! Switched back to the OCZ, because I like torture and they 'just work' now. Setting the correct clock skews can get you far it seems.


----------



## phill (Apr 3, 2019)

Didn't even get chance to look for the competition yet!  Thanks for the link @Dinnercore


----------



## DR4G00N (Apr 3, 2019)

Dinnercore said:


> I reject your reality and substitute my own! I used my G.Skill 5-5-5-15 1200 2x2GB kit and had exactly the same issue. At this point I started reading up about clock skews and found a setting to run 1:1 stable! Switched back to the OCZ, because I like torture and they 'just work' now. Setting the correct clock skews can get you far it seems.


Interesting, I usually just leave the skews alone since I've never seen an improvement over auto settings. I might try adjusting them for my OCZ kit's to see what happens.


----------



## Dinnercore (Apr 4, 2019)

DR4G00N said:


> Interesting, I usually just leave the skews alone since I've never seen an improvement over auto settings. I might try adjusting them for my OCZ kit's to see what happens.



Try it! After some more testing I have to say tho that the skews were only another small step in the right direction. I still had trouble with 1:1 above DDR2 900, always RAM related. Next thing I did was test the Pull-Ins that the mbios claimed to fix and they helped me to boot with a setting that was impossible before. I used Phase 3 Pull-In on both channels and currently it´s running. 

I think with enough tweaking here and there you can get the OCZ stuff to work. Its still a pain that I would not recommend to anyone.


----------



## Dinnercore (Apr 6, 2019)

I switched over to Kingston RAM from the mainboards QVL and that is much more easy to handle. 







Did some testing and with the OCZ before I still struggled to get a clean pass at 450-460 FSB, now I can ignore skews and pull-ins and get higher without any effort. What a miracle, as soon as you do something right it works.
This OCZ memory held me back, now I can finally start to push higher. Using water cooling at 20°C ambient and 21°C water temperature. I hope to get close to the magic 5 GHz with one of my E8400s but I´m not sure if I can get there on ambient. 
The more I do this, the more I get a feel for this platform. Like telling what setting needs to be adjusted judging from the error/crash or freeze the system is showing. This is so much fun!


----------



## Dinnercore (Apr 12, 2019)

Another update from me, I did continue to play around with that E8400 and found out it does not like high frequency.





I had to feed it more voltage and hit kind of a wall at 4.5 GHz:






32M was still not stable with 1.48V so I called it a day and did not bother any longer with this chip. It was still very useful for me, as it gave me an opportunity to fine tune GTLs and skews around the edge of stability.
The P5Q-E does very well and higher FSB was no problem with a lower multiplier on the CPU. And I finally found some DDR2 sticks that work with this board at 5-5-5-15 for 533MHz+.

I turned back to my E8500s and tested the first lapped one:




I did not bother to sand it until it´s full copper, instead I worked out the nasty pits and decided that should be enough.

This thing is happy with much less voltage and I can see the benefits of lapping it just from the idle temps as they are 1-2°C above ambient. On my non-lapped CPUs the idle is always higher and uneven between both cores.






1.35V for 4.5GHz seems okay to me. Since we got the competition coming I´m going to save the final results with this guy for the competition


----------



## Dinnercore (Apr 21, 2019)

I did focus on testing my 775 CPUs for the competition and neglected this thread a bit. However the results and data I gain during the OC-competition will come in very useful for this thread too. 

As an update I´ll tell you how my Xeon experiment went. The three X5270s I got show some interesting things about Xeons and how they overclock compared to the regular 45nm 775 CPUs.
I would recommend them if you look for consistently reaching a certain frequency like 4.8GHz - 5GHz. However the other half of the story is that I can NOT recommend them for breaking any record speeds, at least not with anything less then LN2. 
The X5270s I have all share the same VID. I guess being special binned server parts most other X5270s will be very similar to my batch. This is what makes them special, the incredible consistancy. While on an E8500 you can get one that struggles with 4.2GHz at 1.46V and find one that boots 5GHz on the same voltage. With the X5270 you can always expect to hit 4.8-5GHz on ~1.46V. Nothing less but also nothing more (as far as I experienced with my 3 samples so far). 

The other big thing about them is heat. Being a lower than average VID they seem to get hot fast. For these C2Ds I found that higher VID chips are always better for ambient cooling if they can scale with the voltage you feed them. My 1.325V VID E8500 hits 45°C during the 5GHz validation on 1.448V. All of the 1.265VID Xeons hit 54°C+ on the same voltage. Cooler and thermal paste were the same, water temp was the same for all of them at 20°C and all CPUs have been lapped by me. As for the VID and heat correlation I also have an E8400 at 1.1875VID that I can not run above 1.38V on water before it goes into 72°C+ core temps.
The higher heat is also reflected in a higher power consumption. My sample size is still very small but from these results I prefer to use the E8500s. One out of the three E8500s was really bad, one outperformed the Xeons with less heat and power. Much more interesting for me and at the current price of 5x E8500s = 1x X5270 I would recommend sticking to regular 775 chips and hope for a golden sample. The Xeons are really boring for OC, if you know one you know probably 80%-90% of them. 

X5270 @ 5019MHz https://valid.x86.fr/j4x426 Hitting the single-thread performance of an i7-7700. 

I would love to feed it more voltage, but I´m temp limited. Getting around 65°C on the cores for this one, any higher voltage and I get more instability due to the heat:


----------



## Dinnercore (Apr 29, 2019)

Got something to ask, if there is anyone with experience on these parts who might want to share wisdom. I have no idea what I´m doing tbh and went for highest possible FSB frequencies. 

I can get 555FSB on my P45 P5Q-E stable paired with an E8300. VTT 1.34V, NB 1.32V. Does SuperPI 32m just fine like that. I tested my RAM up to 590MHz and did not run into the limit there yet.
So I wanted to try and get the board up there too for the 1:1 590MHz FSB. 

The issue I met is that it does 'boot' into windows. I can log in but it does not load any device drivers e.g. GPU is not detected right and does not even show up in device manager. It runs benchmarks in that state and seems stable enough but why can´t it get the GPU going too? 



 

I see in device manager that some Intel 4 Series Chipset Processor to I/O Controller could not be started. That sounds like NB issue to me, but NB voltage increase does not help it to get a single MHz higher than 555. I can run this strange half working state up to 590MHz, but this resolution due to missing GPU support is horrible.





 I did encounter this once before and could fix it with higher VTT, but in this case I tried between 1.2V VTT and 1.5V VTT without any gain. Adjusting and testing different GTLs along with every step. 

So, does anyone know if I hit a CPU based FSB wall or if it is the limit of my board/chipset? I know no one can point to a setting to fix this and I´m still probing it with a stick to go further, but it would help me a ton if anyone with experience in this field knows if this is CPU bound or mainboard. The other CPUs I tested hit their limits earlier and needed more VTT sooner so I expect that those hit a CPU sided FSB wall.


----------



## delshay (May 19, 2019)

I was playing around with the fan placement on my NH-C14S  yesterday & I can confirm I have found 1c improvement, but could be worth up-to 2c improvement with dual fan. Test was conducted in a open test with a single fan place on the top pushing though the radiator.

When placing the fan on the cooler ensure that the fan overhangs at equal gaps over both heatpipe ends. There should be tiny gaps at both ends so that cool air is pushed to the outmost radiator fins on the outside, so that small amount of air flows across both ends of the heatpipe.

I also conducted/completed my final test of the PH-TC14CS downdraft cooler with it's soldered/ integrated IHS, poor performance even with two fans when compared to the NH-C14S.


----------



## 27MaD (May 19, 2019)

I feel so goddamn bad when i see all those high frequencies while when i had an E7600 paired with the "mistake" GA-945GCM-S2C all i was able to do was 3.7GHz at 1.40V anyway that board taught me what the word "chipset" means and that what i wanted was a G31 , G41 , X38 , X48 or whatever can hit +4GHz.


----------

