Overclocking V – Dual-Core E6750 at 3.60 GHz
To achieve an overclock of 934 MHz, we had to increase the core voltage by an amount that becomes dangerous for the CPU. In the BIOS, we had to set a voltage tweak of 0.11250 Volts, for a core voltage of 1.46250 V to ensure stable operation across the entire benchmark suite.
At the high FSB speed of 450 MHz, we can set the memory to run at DDR2-900 once more with the help of the 2.00x memory multiplier. At this point, our sample of the E6750 has reached its maximum potential.
If you purchase an E6750 that operates at a lower default core voltage than our sample’s 1.3500 Volts, you will in all likelihood be able to reach the same clock speed increase of 35.3 % using a lower voltage.
| CPU Frequency | 3.60 GHz (+35.3 %) |
| FSB | 450 MHz (1800QDR) |
| Core Voltage | 1.46250 Volt |
| Memory Multiplier | 2.00x |
| Memory Frequency | DDR2-900 (450 MHz) |
| Memory Latency | CL 4.0-4-4-12 |
Core 2 Duo E 6750 at 3.70 GHz
We were even able to overclock our E6750 by 1.04 GHz up to 3.7 GHz. At this speed, the FSB runs at 463 MHz (1852 QDR). Despite the fact that we raised the core voltage to 1.4750, which represents an increase of 0.1349 Volts, we were unable to get the processor to complete our Prime95 stress test successfully.
At this point, we decided to discontinue our overclocking tests, since the risk of damaging our CPU simply became too great for our liking.
We can’t really recommend running a 65 nm processor at a voltage this high anyway, since we can’t rule out the possibility that the core could be damaged beyond repair over the course of time due to electron migration. Simply put, you run the risk that the conducting paths inside the CPU could literally be ablated and thus destroyed by ion migration. The result is that one day, the computer suddenly shuts down and will never start up again with that CPU. We only ran our CPU at these speeds for a short while to determine its performance at these settings. On the other hand, some models may very well run at such high speeds without even needing the slightest core voltage tweak.
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so what you just said, is the newer stuff is better
i dont know why they take 10 pages to show what can be said in 1 page + a few graphs
On top of that Crysis is meant to be very cpu dependant and prefers 4 cores - it's the way things are going
Hmm, if they'd have gone for a different motherboard they could have gotten the q6600 to 3.6 on air.
Dunno if you have a duff chip or mobo. I have a Q6600 and exactly the same cooler and I can do 3.41 GHz at stock voltage on a Gigabyte 965P-DS3P.
"Its stock clock speed is 2.4 GHz, which it operates at using a comparatively low core voltage of 1.3125 Volts – the lowest core voltage available for this chip"
Wrong my Q6600 is 1.26V although it runs slightly higher in practice.
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums [...] s/Quad.jpg
I guess this shows how OC'ing can vary depending on luck. Even hand picking the best S numbers is no guarantee. A bit of luck (unless you have deep pockets) can be key.
Fortunately for myself, my Q6600 is 1.28v core, and hits 3.6GHz with only slight bump.
Indeed electron migration is a significant issue at high Vcore but realistically most of us overclocking are probably running 6-12 month cycles on our hardware (at least from my experience) and the cost of killing a mid range part every year against taking a top end part is still more cost effective.
That's given only one CPU in the past 15 that I've OC'd have failed (possibly luck?) on me and that was due to a faulty voltage regulator on my motherboard
Very nice review/test. Highly informative. I was gonna buy a 6850 or a quad core but now im just gonna grab the low cost msi board and a 6750 and spent my cash elsewhere.
question, you end up recommending the MSI motherboard, but the test system states that you used the gigabyte for the test. Will i be able to get the same clocking abilities with the MSI?