McFool2

Rig:

• Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 3.0GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80569Q9650
• G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1100 (PC2 8800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-8800CL5D-4GBPI
• GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
• ZALMAN CNPS9700 LED 110mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler
• Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
• Western Digital RE3 WD1002FBYS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
• EVGA 01G-P3-1281-AR GeForce GTX 285 1GB 512-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16
• LIAN LI PC-60BPLUSII Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
• ASUS 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model DRW-2014L1T
• ETASIS ET750 True 750W, Max 850W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply

4 Case fans

• 2 80mm exhaust, top center, rear cpu,
• 2 120mm intake, front bottom, side GPU

Idle Temps 38, 38, 38, 38
Prime95 Temp Max I forgot but its low, maybe 55 tops

Ok in my trials, I've gotten:

It seems I can push the CPU to a fine place, but the ram is supposed to run at 1100mhz, and it tops out at 1138mhz, runs stock at 1066? What ratio is the best? Should I get different ram? Whats the deal with ram timing? I couldn't boot with any changes to timing that Ive made so far. Will I notice a difference between the system @ 4.0Ghz, 890Mhz or 3.2Ghz, 1138Mhz? I don't particularly understand the MCH strap either. How do I determine what I want that to run at, as articles have told me all of them, however stability is hard to come by without changing a ton of options, and then you don't know if you are preventing errors or causing them. Once I get some decent settings I'd like to run a 12 hour or 24 hour prime 95 and a 3dmark06 to compare, but I cant seem to get a better OC than the 2 above. I've never overclocked before this attempt which started about 2 days ago. Thank you kindly.

Suggesting 1:1 DRAM:FSB is best, should I just set to 4.0Ghz/890Mhz and slowly increase FSB, bringing RAM to a better speed @ cost of further CPU overclock?

Assuming Ratio is not as important as Ram speed, should I continue to work on the RAM highpoint (3.2Ghz/1138Mhz) by adjusting various voltages? I think the ratio is 3:2 in this setting, and I've already failed Prime95 within 4 hours beyond this setting with increases to DRAM volts and MCH something only increasing the time before Prime95 Fail.

Is there another perspective I've completely missed?

greenbrucelee

you temps are far too high, you really don't want to go over 60 degrees whilst running on full load. you need to lower you ram frequency going ober the frequncy can damage the ram.

Read the oveclocking threads at the top of the forum but in my opinion you are going to knacker your computer running at what you are. If you are failing prime before 7 hours in then you need to make some changes. There should be no failure at all.

Your second trial seems better than the first but you need to lower tham frequency you should be able to set this in the bios.

Some CPUs will only overclock a little, some will overclock a lot and there can be differences between the same cpus owned by different people.

McFool2

Noted. I felt that 71, 67, 65, 65, were decent MAX temps for prime, being that for the most part it hung around 65 or less per core, until the end of a few tests where it would spike up to that max temp for maybe a minute or two until the test ended. I've read that intel rates the q9650 max at 64.5 and i was like whats a few degrees among friends. In the first trial, my ram is underclocked as far as i can tell, at stock it should be 1100 mhz, its pc2 8800. This was merely a test and the settings to run @ 4.0 stable for 4 hours.

I've thoroughly read a large number or articles, links, and guides, the sticky at the top of the page, etc. I did not feel testing for 7, 8, 12, 24, hours was necessary until i got a nice oc to play with. To test stability of settings when i made adjustments, i felt running for 4 hours without flaw was good enough to consider a setting stable, and worth further playing with.

The second trial was supposed to see how far I could push the Ram, and as i noted, i got it to run stable at those settings @ 1138 Mhz for 4 hours in prime, at which point i ended the test. You mention lowering the ram freq but its only 38 Mhz over what its rated for.

As per various reading, it seems the proper approach is to find stable highpoints for CPU, Ram timing, and then Ram speed all individually, then find a medium of these that runs best based on benchmarks and acceptable temps. You didn't answer any of my questions, regarding ratios, ram timing, MCH Straps, amongst other implied concepts. All I've learned from you is that you think my methods are flawed. You gave me no advice, input, or reason to believe you are correct in your statements. Do the rest of you share greebrucelee's view point? Can anyone answer my questions regarding MCH strap, ratio, and timing? I did manage to get 4-4-4-12 @ 800 mhz on the ram, but other than that had to stay @ 5-5-5-15 beyond that point. More opinions please?

greenbrucelee

Sorry if I wasn't clear in my advice, you may run into issues because your frequency is high. This can damage your ram.

4 hours of testing may be fine for a test but if your actually going to stay at those settings you need a longer run because there are so many variables to take into account when overclocking.

My main concern with you system was your temperatures, 70 degress is almost at the highest point your cpu can go before it starts to get damaged. If I remember correctly I think it's 72 and because in games temperatures can rise by 20 degrees from what you may have seen before you really want to get below 60 so my advice is obvious you need better cooling, the zalman cpu coolers are good but perhaps some extra case fans would help.

1:1 is the best ratio to get but on some systems this just isn't possible, like I said not all cpus are equal, some may break at the slightest hint of overclocking some may go far.

I am running at a 1:1 ratio, and I did it step by step not all settings have to be changed in the BIOS just the main ones like C1E and FSB and voltages etc

you don't ned to be so hostile I was only trying to stop you damaging your cpu.

Underclocker

Are the two 120mm intake fans undervolted or running full speed? Two full speed 120mm intakes and only two 80mm exhausts gives you significantly more flow into the case than out and a high case pressure which actually increases temperatures. For optimum results you want either balanced or slightly lower.

If temps still stay above 60C with a high overclock you should reapply the thermal paste on the CNPS9700.

Don't be afraid to lax the RAM timings from 5-5-5-15 to achieve higher clocks.

mervin

RAM often runs at less than its rated speed. That is normal. Many motherboards only register DDR2 DIMMS at DDR2 800 or DDR2 1066 speeds. In order to get your RAM to register at it's true speed you have to set the speed manually in the BIOS.

Also, RAM generally loses its ability to overclock as its capacity increaes. Don't ask me why this is, but it's true. 2 gig sets of RAM will almost always overclock better thatn 4 gig sets. You might also consider increasing your RAM voltage slightly with a 4 gig set. In my experience you always need a little more juice to run 4 gigs of RAM and up.

Next question. What BIOS version do you have? I don't generally recommend people upgrade their BIOS unless they're having hardware problems, but in your case it might not hurt.

1:2 or 1:1 would be fine. I believe 1:2 ratio is default? That is how it is on my abit motherboard anyway. If you want to max out your cpu overclock I'd keep it at 1:1 ratio for now. Keep in mind that as your cpu overclocks, your FSB increases with it. It's also important to tell you that a lot of people buy DDR2 1100 and 1200 RAM not because they want to overclock their RAM above those speeds, but because they don't want their RAM to limit their overclock, so they underclock the RAM in order to max out their cpu. By the time a highly overclocked cpu is maxed out the RAM running close to it's prorated speeds. Am I making sense? Sorry if I'm not. I am at work right now and I have limited time.

RAM timings are important, but as your RAM speeds increase you generally have to loosen the timings. I'm a firm believer that you should buy RAM with the lowest latency possible to begin with, and then loosen the timings as necessary as you are overclocking.

Gskill is great RAM. I think you made a great choice.

Higher processor speeds are generally better for overall system performace than higher RAM speeds. However, if you're doing a lot of read / write functions you are going to see a slight performance increase with your RAM running at 1138mhz. However, fact that your cpu is running faster in your first overclock leads me to believe it will probably negate that difference in real world performance.
There are generally only 3 things that will ever need to be increased in order to achieve a respectable overclock. RAM voltage, cpu voltate and your memory controller hub (MCH) voltage. All systems are different, so it's difficult to know what your voltage should be set at.



You are going about this all wrong IMO. You need to stop obsessing about your RAM speeds and first find out the limit of your cpu. You can't overclock a computer and keep it stable without taking things one step at a time. Drop your RAM ratio to 1:1 and set the RAM voltage to whatever Gskill tells you it's supposed to be at. Start overclocking your cpu a little at a time. As your cpu overclocks your RAM will overclock too, but becaue you've got your RAM running at a 1:1 ratio it's going to be underclocked so your RAM is not going to be your limiting factor for now. Keep increasing your cpu speed until you get a prime 95 error. Once that happens you'll probably only need to make adjustments to your cpu or your MCH. Adjust your cpu voltage first and only after getting more system failures should you beging to adjust the MCH voltage. You're going to have to take this is baby steps.

If you are truly interested in figuring out the limit of your RAM you might consider downloading memtest86. This program checks RAM stability, so you think your RAM is what's limiting you at 1138mhz than download memtest 86, burn it to a CD and then run the test to find out.